News Events

Would you feel nervous if an oil rich Arab country wanted to buy controlling stakes in your most strategic assets? Countries such as Dubai with trillions of dollars of spare cash are buying up stakes in Western assets and firms, so that when the oil runs out the cash will keep rolling in from foreign investments. When they succeed billions of dividends flow out of your country each year. The loss of funds must have a big impact on your balance of payments.

America recently blocked Dubai interest in New York ports, the concern being politics, not really security issues.

What controls if any is the European Union contemplating introducing?

Dubai is now bidding for New Zealand's Auckland airport through which 95 percent of our international traffic goes. We shudder to think that NZ is becoming a nation of employees. We already have one of the highest levels of foreign ownership there is.

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has declared a 'national emergency' on Northern Territory Aboriginal land.

Ramant sexual child abuse, fuelled by alcohol, drugs, petrol sniffing, pornography and lack of education has crippled Aboriginal communities.

There will be a six month ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol.

Reforms include welfare payments for essentials like food, providing children attend school.

Townships will be cleaned up through work-for-the dole schemes.

Health, housing, education and co-ordination between government departments will be improved. Better education will include Aboriginal language development.

A Commissioner for children and young people will be appointed.

Giving communities more power to make decisions about their own future is being considered.

Howard's interventionist clampdown follows decades of inadequate policies to lift Aborigines out of extreme poverty, violence and low life expectancy.

There should be no more groups of beggars with whipped-dog expressions loitering around pubs in the Northern Territory, for six months at least!

It is time that the jury system is replaced by more reliable judicial proceedings. When half the jurors are smokers and crave a cigarette, and most do not get fully reimbursed for loss of wages during a trial, a culture of resentment towards the victim develops.

Few if any take notes during court sessions, due in part to illiteracy. Instead they rely on oral memory, even while daydreaming during boring court sessions. From my own experiences as a juror it appears that jurors are not accountable to anyone. They just need to hand in their cell phones temporarily and desist from talking about the case, outside the court house.

Their aim is to get a consensus as quickly as possible, even if it means bullying other jurors and then to get the hell out of there!

The jury in the Louise Nicholas rape trial at the NZ Auckland High court has found assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards and former officers Bob Schollum and Brad Shipton not guilty on all 20 charges of rape, sexual violation and indecent assault dating back two decades.

Back in 1993 Louise Nicholas finally got up enough courage to formally complain about the serial raping and one incident of violation with a police baton, that she had been forced to endure as an 18 years old. She was neither socially mature nor physically capable of being able to deal with the three predatory police officers.

Louise was first raped by a policeman when aged 13, but the case was ‘white-washed’ and the policeman never convicted. When multiple raping by three policemen started for her at the age of 18 she hadn’t felt confident enough to tell her parents, thinking that her father would have killed one or more of the rapists and ended up in jail for life.

“Rickards told the court that sex with Louise Nicholas was consensual, that it was a fun and jovial time and it happened on two occasions in the evening.” He has lied of course because he wants to avoid punishment.

"But the behaviour of Rickards and the other two officers was outrageous, audacious and cruel. Louise described herself as "playdough" in the hands of the three accused, and said how she couldn't just tell them to go to hell."

It is well known that most rapists in jury trials get acquitted. The message that women will get from this trial is, forget about being a rape victim because justice will be perverted to make you look like the perpetrator. After all, you are a woman; you asked for it!

However there is some hope for justice to be done because the police are defending their decision to charge Clint Rickards.

Trade Me, a New Zealand home grown auction site started 7 years ago, recently sold to an Australian company Fairfax for $700 million. "The $700 million sale of Trade Me this month shocked the industry and elevated 30-year-old founder Sam Morgan to the country's richest person in the technology sector".

I belong to auction sites eBay and Zillion but think I'll leave Zillion to the stamp collectors and limit myself to Trade Me because that's where the passionate buyers are. There is a huge variety of special, cheap, bargains and rare products that entice over 1 million buyers daily.

Sometimes I have half a dozen auctions all closing within a few minutes of one another. Watching the bidding becoming frantic gives me a tremendous surge of adrenalin.

After mother-in-law's house was sold in January this year, we decided to retrieve our own home. Sidling between piles of furniture in the lounge was difficult, though a fascinating playground for Chiquita the cat, who would pop out unexpectedly to pounce on a passing foot. Three other rooms were stuffed full of boxes too.

In three months I've used Trade Me to sell off all mother-in-laws furniture, and now I'm into the boxes. The lounge is usable again but it will be a while before I manage to empty two other rooms.
I'm staggered at what some bidders will pay for kitchen utensils, collectables and so called antiques.

The weirdest thing for auction appeared on zillion.co.nz: A "rotting goat's head", made of resin, stretched out on parchment, for $130: "On the less rotted side the eyeball protrudes and looks about to pop out. A horn sticks out from the head and nasty pointed teeth erupt from the mouth."

PCs Vulnerable to Spyware, Viruses

By Brian Krebs
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, December 30, 2005;

A previously unknown flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system is leaving computer users vulnerable to spyware, viruses and other programs that could overtake their machines and has sent the company scrambling to come up with a fix.

Microsoft said in a statement yesterday that it is investigating the vulnerability and plans to issue a software patch to fix the problem. The company could not say how soon that patch would be available.

Mike Reavey, operations manager for Microsoft's Security Response Center, called the flaw "a very serious issue."

Security researchers revealed the flaw on Tuesday and posted instructions online that showed how would-be attackers could exploit the flaw. Within hours, computer virus and spyware authors were using the flaw to distribute malicious programs that could allow them to take over and remotely control afflicted computers.

Unlike with previously revealed vulnerabilities, computers can be infected simply by visiting one of the Web sites or viewing an infected image in an e-mail through the preview pane in older versions of Microsoft Outlook, even if users did not click on anything or open any files. Operating system versions ranging from the current Windows XP to Windows 98 are affected.

An estimated 90 percent of personal computers run on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Microsoft has found itself under attack on several instances and has been forced to issue a number of patches to keep computers running Windows safe. Mac and Linux computer users are not at risk with this attack, even if their computers run Microsoft programs such as Office or the Internet Explorer Web browser.

Reavey encouraged users to update their anti-virus software, ensure all Windows security patches are installed, avoid visiting unfamiliar Web sites, and refrain from clicking on links that arrive via e-mail or instant message.

"The problem with this attack is that it is so hard to defend against for the average user," said Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer for the SANS Internet Storm Center in Bethesda.

At first, the vulnerability was exploited by just a few dozen Web sites. Programming code embedded in these pages would install a program that warned victims their machines were infested with spyware, then prompted them to pay $40 to remove the supposed pests.

Since then, however, hundreds of sites have begun using the flaw to install a broad range of malicious software. SANS has received several reports of attackers blasting out spam e-mails containing links that lead to malicious sites exploiting the new flaw, Ullrich said.

Dean Turner, a senior manager at anti-virus firm Symantec Corp. of Cupertino, Calif., said the company has seen the vulnerability exploited to install software that intercepts personal and financial information when users of infected computers enter the data at certain banking or e-commerce sites.

Eric Sites, vice president of research and development for anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software, said he has spotted spyware being downloaded to a user's machine by online banner advertisements.

"Pretty much all of the spyware guys who normally use other techniques for pushing this stuff down to your machine are now picking this exploit up," Sites said.
Because the vulnerability exists within a faulty Windows component, security experts warn that Windows users who eschew Internet Explorer in favor of alternative Web browsers, such as older versions of Firefox and Opera, can still get their PCs infected if they agree to download a file from a site taking advantage of the flaw.

Richard M. Smith, a Boston security and privacy consultant, said he was particularly worried that the vulnerability could soon be used to power a fast-spreading e-mail worm.

"We could see the mother of all worms here," Smith said. "My big fear is we're going to wake up in the next week or two and have people warning users not to read their e-mail because something is going around that's extremely virulent."

Brian Krebs is a washingtonpost.com reporter.