There is opportunity within the Maritime Crimes Act 1999 to release Mr Bethune. But while the New Zealand legal system is capable of dealing with this issue, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has conceded jurisdiction to Japan, effectively doing nothing for the plight of Peter Bethune.

This comes at an interesting time, the Government having just recently announced its support for a return to commercial whaling.

The Green Party has pushed for the return of Bethune, Green Party MP Gareth Hughes stating: “Our Government’s silence is disturbing. That it was silent on the ramming of the Ady Gil, and that it is silent on the plight of Pete Bethune illustrates a pervasive soft touch towards Japan’s whaling industry.”

A full background on the Maritime Crimes Act 1999 as it relates to this issue can be found here.

Registrations for this conference have now closed, but you can still access the conference live in two ways (details below).

Why this conference?
A seismic shift of national thinking is urgently needed on violent crime in New Zealand. To date the issue has been dominated by punitive policies that largely do not work. Years of popularist “solutions” have given us longer sentences, overflowing prisons but no reduction in violence. We have been looking in the wrong place, while New Zealand becomes increasingly unsafe.

Who is involved?
This historic meeting is hosted by the University of Otago, Wellington School of Medicine. It brings together two main streams of people; those who are concerned about law and order, and those who are concerned about public health. The bridge is the damage being caused by the excessive commercialisation
of alcohol. The lack of sufficient regulations controlling the supply and sale of alcohol maximizes heavy drinking.

The conference will be available online if you have broadband. Just go to http://www.r2.co.nz/20100323/ and follow the instructions. This webcast will run from 8:30am on Tuesday the 23^rd of March 2010, and an edited version will be available up on the website a week after the conference.

Those outside Wellington can also view the conference live at one of 12 public meetings where the speakers and discussion will be screened live on a big screen, along with refreshments. This is available in the following places:

Northland
North Shore
Central Auckland
Otara
Tauranga
Motueka
Nelson
Blenheim
Christchurch
West Coast (delayed coverage – week after)
Timaru
Dunedin

with other venues TBC.

Contact Fergus Wheeler for venue details and contacts – coordinator@alcoholaction.co.nz

A blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05 is a standard definition of intoxication. So allowing people to drive their cars with a BAC of 0.08 is essentially legally endorsing intoxicated driving. There is overwhelming evidence now that a reduction will save lives and many serious injuries. By reducing the BAC level from 0.08 to 0.05 New Zealand will join many other countries which already have a BAC limit of 0.05 (incl. Australia, Argentina, Italy, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland).

New Zealanders have a very important opportunity right now to make progress on reducing drunken driving. You can help make this happen.

Write an email to the Prime Minister, with a copy to Steven Joyce and your local National MP, telling them you strongly support reducing the BAC limit from 0.08 to 0.05.

John.Key@parliament.govt.nz
Steven.Joyce@parliament.govt.nz
Your.Member@parliament.govt.nz

You don’t have to say anything more, but if you want to, all the better. The New Zealand Drug Foundation’s website will be putting up further background information – http://www.nzdf.org.nz/

This is a rare opportunity to achieve concrete changes to our alcohol laws so let’s take it.

Some Letters to the Editor on this topic over the next week or so would also be very useful.

I think Tumeke puts it best: “YES!”

We will be publishing a booklet about their story and ploughshares actions in a few weeks time. Subscribe here to receive a copy.

:)

Peace Movement Aotearoa press release (pdf)

Just because it’s common, doesn’t make it acceptable – especially in an organization that is intended to exist to proclaim and live out an alternative social reality. In my New Testament Jesus can’t be found asking for a speaking fee, nor piling up wealth and treasures for himself – in fact the opposite is true in his practice and his teaching, and that’s what he asks us to do when he says ‘follow me’.

So it seems that we now have a clearer understanding of the difference between a cult or a sect and a church, right? Destiny is many things, but it is not a church.

And while that may be right, it doesn’t mean we can take the moral high ground too quickly though. In the Anglican Church Bishops may not receive $1 million salaries (although the running of the episcopate is by no means substantial, more money is probably wasted in overseas jaunts and such like), but the injustice of resource distribution creates huge inequalities. Some of those inequalities are most obvious in Tikanga Maori – but pouring more money in isn’t necessarily the solution that will work.

Without a vision the people perish – and from what I understand the biggest single thing absent in this church is a vision to which leadership are universally committed, and the strength not to succumb to ensuring one’s own personal survival at the expense of others.

Our church’s witness is forever constrained by the petty politics of self-agrandizement and self-protection in so many of those in whom responsibility and trust have been placed. Just because others do it doesn’t make it right, and we should be ashamed of what we have become.

We might do well to remove the log from our own eye before the speck from our neighbour’s.

“That’s still very significant,” Natalia Shakhova, a researcher at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, told IPS. “Before, it was assumed that this region had zero emissions.”

Although only a seemingly small addition to current methane outputs, this could have a significant effect on acceleration of climate change. Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas, trapping about 20 times the heat of carbon dioxide. The world’s oceans contain tonnes of methane trapped in permafrost on the sea floor, which, if released, could see a devastating rise in global methane emissions.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50565

10 March 2010

Update: a statement from the Social Justice Commissioner of the Anglican Church will be presented at today’s media conference in Katherine Mansfield Park.

Media conference: Understanding the Waihopai Ploughshares

The Waihopai Ploughshares trial is being held at Wellington District Court this week.

On Wednesday 10th March, at 6pm at the Ploughshares shrine in Katherine Mansfield Park, other members of Ploughshares international network will speak to the New Zealand media for the first time.

Many people will be unaware what the Ploughshares movement is about. Ciaron O’Reilly, Bryan Law and Jim Dowling, members of other Ploughshares actions in the United States, Ireland and Australia will join a panel to answer questions from the media.

“It is a privilege to stand in solidarity with these men who have taken a considered and faithful action to protect the human rights of the poor and oppressed,” said Jim Dowling, who along with Bryan Law, was a member of the Pine Gap Four in Australia who won their case on appeal when the three judges agreed with the defendants submission that there was a miscarriage of justice at the original trial because they were not able to bring evidence before the jury about the function of the Pine Gap facility. “It is particularly appropriate given the Lenten season, a time when people of faith remember Jesus’ own trial before Pilate.”

The Waihopai Ploughshares entered the Waihopai spy base in Blenheim in the early hours of Wednesday 30 April 2008. They entered New Zealand’s most secure facility using only a pair of pliers and gumboots. They then used sickles to disarm one of two domes covering satellite dishes used to gather intelligence at the behest of the United States and United Kingdom. This daring action was to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in gathering intelligence for the so-called ‘War on Terror’, the tens of millions spent by taxpayers each year on a facility that the Prime Minister has little knowledge of or control over.

Ciaron O’Reilly was part of the Pitstop Ploughshares action in Ireland causing over NZ$4m in damage that was successfully defended in the courts. The trial judge agreed with the defence on the applicability of the statutory lawful excuse defence.

These men and others present provide an authoritative insight into the international context of Ploughshares actions and the implications of a successful defence for accountability to and awareness of human rights.

“The actions of the Waihopai Ploughshares need to be understood in relation to an international movement for disarmament and peace,” said Graham Bidois Cameron, spokesperson for the Waihopai Ploughshares. “Adrian, Sam and Father Peter are part of rich history of activism in support of those without a voice.”

Lunchtime picket / vigil details (remainder of this week)

Thursday, 11 March, from 1 to 2pm, at the Australian High Commission, 72 – 76 Hobson Street.

Friday, 12 March, from 1pm to 2pm, at the Canadian High Commission, 125 The Terrace.

And both days outside the District Court from 10am to 5pm. If you are able to come along and help with the vigil outside the court, please note that the vigil is sometimes on the corner of Ballance Street and Lambton Quay – if you cannot see anyone with Ploughshares placards outside or opposite the court, please look for the vigillers on that corner.

Also, the trial may continue over into next week, so anyone able to join in the vigil outside the Wellington District Court (43 – 49 Ballance Street) next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (from 10am to 5pm) would be much appreciated.

The Anglican Church has committed itself to pursuing non-violence and building peace at the highest level, and the practice of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience has a strong history in this country and beyond – from protests at Waitangi, resistance of American nuclear submarines entering NZ, opposing the Springbok tour for example. Anglican involvement in these actions has been significant.

I realise that many in the church will feel uncomfortable with the actions of the ploughshares, and those in leadership may believe they cannot take sides. Clearly, we have much work in the church to be done and the witness of the ploughshares to us and the world is an important one, upholding biblical teaching (e.g. Romans 13).

I hope the trial serves to allow the both the reasons behind the actions of Ploughshares and the work of the spy base at Waihopai to be better understood and appreciated by everyone, for to do so would be to the benefit not only of this country, but those whom are persecuted and killed out of our gaze.

“The harnessing of solar energy is expanding on every front as concerns about climate change and energy security escalate, as government incentives for harnessing solar energy expand, and as these costs decline while those of fossil fuels rise. One solar technology that is really beginning to take off is the use of solar thermal collectors to convert sunlight into heat that can be used to warm both water and space.

China, for example, is now home to 27 million rooftop solar water heaters. With nearly 4,000 Chinese companies manufacturing these devices, this relatively simple low-cost technology has leapfrogged into villages that do not yet have electricity. For as little as $200, villagers can have a rooftop solar collector installed and take their first hot shower. This technology is sweeping China like wildfire, already approaching market saturation in some communities. Beijing plans to boost the current 114 million square meters of rooftop solar collectors for heating water to 300 million by 2020.

…

In Europe, where energy costs are relatively high, rooftop solar water heaters are also spreading fast. In Austria, 15 percent of all households now rely on them for hot water. And, as in China, in some Austrian villages nearly all homes have rooftop collectors. Germany is also forging ahead. Janet Sawin of the Worldwatch Institute notes that some 2 million Germans are now living in homes where water and space are both heated by rooftop solar systems.

…

We now have the data to make some global projections. With China setting a goal of 300 million square meters of solar water heating capacity by 2020, and ESTIF’s goal of 500 million square meters for Europe by 2020, a U.S. installation of 300 million square meters by 2020 is certainly within reach given the recently adopted tax incentives. Japan, which now has 7 million square meters of rooftop solar collectors heating water but which imports virtually all its fossil fuels, could easily reach 80 million square meters by 2020.

If China and the European Union achieve their goals and Japan and the United States reach the projected adoptions, they will have a combined total of 1,180 million square meters of water and space heating capacity by 2020. With appropriate assumptions for developing countries other than China, the global total in 2020 could exceed 1.5 billion square meters. This would give the world a solar thermal capacity by 2020 of 1,100 thermal gigawatts, the equivalent of 690 coal-fired power plants. This would account for more than half of the Earth Policy Institute’s renewable energy heating goal for 2020, part of a massive effort to stabilize our rapidly changing climate by slashing global net carbon emissions 80 percent within the next decade.

…

Read the full release here