Security

THE reported beheading of British aid worker David Haines by so-called Islamic State terrorists was, as British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “an act of pure evil’’. After months of murderous atrocities in northern Iraq and Syria, including the beheadings of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, a broad coalition of Western and Arab nations will take on an …

By Charles Finny On 3 September 1939 a Labour Government in New Zealand declared war on Germany in support of the UK and others following Adolph Hitler’s decision to invade Poland. Until the war ended in 1945 New Zealand made enormous sacrifices and as we all know, and as happened in World War I a disproportionately large number of New …

By Brierley Penn “Information is power,” said Alan Bersin, US Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Officer in his address to the US-NZ Partnership Forum this morning. But the traditional messages that we have taken from this, that power derives from hiding and preserving information, must change in the context of international security. In a …

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had the Prime Minister’s staff burning the midnight oil at a humid hotel on the Colombian coast to recalibrate the Chilean part of his four country Latin American swing to accommodate the wish of Chilean President Sebastian Pinera to attend Chavez’s state funeral. The state funeral is due to take place in Caracas …

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully and Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman say New Zealand will continue to make a small but proportionate military commitment to the international mission in Afghanistan from May 2013, and remains committed to international efforts to improve the security and prosperity of Afghanistan. “The current NATO/ISAF mission is not scheduled to end until December 2014. As previously …

The man who blew the whistle on American Bernie Madoff, and two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigators of massive U.S. insider trading activities, are heading to New Zealand. They will be attending two inaugural events being hosted by the New Zealand Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in February 2013 – one of those, open to the business community. Simon McArley, …

PricewaterhouseCoopers have released the released the results from their 2013 survey on the Global State of Information Security. Information security is a real challenge to businesses operating in the contemporary technological environment where staying ahead of the game is more challenging than ever. Hear from more than 9,000 executives worldwide – including 180 from New Zealand, as they discuss threats to …

The Kalashnikov rifle needs no introduction. In this documentary we’ll show you its origins, how it’s made and tested, who uses it, and much more. You’ll be taken to the Izhmash manufacturing plant where the rifles are assembled, see elite soldiers from Russia’s Interior Ministry train with the world-renowned weapon, and hear American war veterans recall their experiences with the …

Retired Four-Star US General Jack Keane  weighs in as Israel and  Hamas pickup the piece in the Gaza. “We haven’t seen the last of Hamas’ rockets …it is tenuous at best. it is not a major victory ….but at the end of her reign as SOS this is a plus for Hillary Clinton.”

Efforts to end a week-old convulsion of Israeli-Palestinian violence drew in the world’s top diplomats with President Obama dispatching his secretary of state to the region on an emergency mission and the U.N. chief appealing from Cairo for an immediate cease-fire. Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers have staked tough, hard-to-bridge positions, and the gaps keep alive the threat of …