Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Free Man | Sep 14, 2007 11:24

It's clear enough that the SIS had legitimate cause for concern, on the basis of the information it held, when Ahmed Zaoui arrived five years ago. Those were fevered times. But by the time the Refugee Status Appeals Authority had published its comprehensive finding, the game was surely up, or should have been.

But some people have taken a power of convincing. Wikinerds may be interested in the "slow edit war" that unfolded on the Talk page of the Zaoui article on Wikipedia. One particular editor posted the SIS's summary in full in the article, but kept reverting out material from the RSAA's finding on the basis that it was "opinion". I think it would be fair to say now that the RSAA was a lot closer to the mark than the SIS has been.

But it's scary bigots-a-go-go over at Kiwiblog. Check this out for a comment:

New Zealand will regret this decision be letting this parasite into our country. We will regret this decision if he turns out to belong too sleepy cell who could be prepared to commit Terrorist Acts against our country or one of our allies. From my understanding he has Intellectually Handicap Child which will be leech on our Welfare System.

Wow.

Back on the human planet, Amnesty has a useful FAQ that covers all the main points about Zaoui's case, including the nature of his convictions in France and Belgium, which do seem to fall short of the standards we would expect from other democracies.

In the Belgian case, where a lower court and an independent tribunal acquitted him on charges of associating with the GIA (the militant group that splintered off from Zaoui's FIS party after the FIS government was overthrown by the Algerian army, and subsequently killed both civilians and moderate FIS leaders), the impression persists that the authorities just wanted to convict him of something, even if it was vague and attracted only a suspended sentence.

Herald correspondent Catherine Field, as she has throughout, channelled the case to the contrary, but nothing in it really steers away from the conclusion of the RSAA that the evidence it had examined "does not provide evidence that [Zaoui] has committed, directed or participated in any act of violence or terrorism that would require his being excluded under Article 1F from the protection of the Refugee Convention."

It's ironic that Zaoui is now claimed by the Herald to have provided information on a former fellow FIS member, Anwar Haddam, which was of interest to the CIA. AS far as I know, Haddam actually lives in the US, having gone through a remarkably similar process to Zaoui. Ironically, until he was imprisoned in 1996, he seemed to be regarded as the acceptable face of the deposed government, as noted in this interview he gave to Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson shortly before his arrest.

Haddam walked out of jail after four years, when the US Board of Immigration Appeals found that the case against him (based on secret evidence) had not been proven and that he was entitled to political asylum. The SIS was facing a similar judicial showdown with its Inspector General Paul Neazor and, in all probability, decided it would be better to quit now and save some face.

Haddam comes across as a religious conservative and thus clearly not to my personal taste. But if Zaoui is secretly harbouring extreme Islamist beliefs, he has done a magnificent job of hiding the fact. In the course of many opportunities for a slip, he has never given the impression of being anything other than he says he is: a moderate Muslim academic and a former member of a democratically elected government. He has moved calmly enough amongst pissed-up musicians and exotically dressed women on the odd night out.

In an interesting interview with Simon Pound on 9bFM this morning, Deborah Manning flatly denied most of the claims made by the Herald this morning -- including the one, dating from 2004, that Zaoui had given information on his former colleagues to French intelligence. If the Herald believes what it has obtained from its European sources to be true, it should of course say -- but consciously leaving out the rebuttal from his lawyer seems bloody reckless.

As No Right Turn notes, Manning also commented on the SIS' statement that Zaoui had "offered new information that he had not previously disclosed" about former FIS colleagues. Her account was that the SIS had never previously asked about those people.

But hey, if a few people saving face is the price of Zaoui finally attaining the refugee status he was granted four years ago, then so be it. It has been a torrid time. And if Zaoui and his supporters are delighted that he is a free man, you can also safely bet that SIS' director Warren Tucker is deeply glad to have this one off the books too.

I don't expect that Zaoui will have much trouble finding work here now that he is able, and I expect him to make quite a contribution to New Zealand. I hope his family can join him as swiftly as possible.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I loved John Hodgman's explanation of the White House's "keys to success" on the Daily Show this week.

And, finally, huge big up to Auckland-based Massive Software for its role in this -- Hanson Robotics' new robot, Zeno, which will be officially launched today at Wired magazine's NextFest in Los Angeles. Massive, as you may know, provided the crowd AI in the Lord of the Rings. Remarkably, the same software has now been incorporated in the robotics application, giving Zeno a "brain". Cool.

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Go Webstock | Sep 13, 2007 11:15

Webstock 08 is official, and the lineup looks very interesting, and perhaps wider-ranging than the last one. The great thing about Webstock is that it brings an infusion of ideas without it ever seeming like an invasion of overseas experts.

I'm particularly pleased that Tom Coates (ex-BBC, notoriously so, and now with Yahoo's ideas incubator) will be there. For a flavour of Tom, try this spot-on post about Andrew 'Cult of the Amateur' Keen.

I'll be speaking about something again -- guess I'd better start on those slides -- and I'm described on the site as "Hard-hitting and authoritative, yet gentle and cuddly," which is quite funny. But can I be both at the same time?

Further to this week's story on government cyber-hacking, reader James pointed me to a Register story that, as is the way of El Reg, pokes a few holes in the evil Asian hacker stories being peddled by The Times and others.

The Fundy Post has been debating the definition of art with various local wingnut blogs and their audiences. Actually, one should not call PC a wingnut, even if he has some odd friends.

Speaking of which, big nasty socialist meanies have been having fun with Redbaiter in a Kiwiblog thread about (ostensibly) the party pills legislation.

From the comments in this thread at One Good Move, a link to this useful build-your-own-God website. The philosophers will even assess your designer God for internal consistency, and if that's not the humanities reaching out I don't know what is.

And, as mentioned in today's edition of Some Foreign Field, I went along to the New Zealand Music Awards finalists announcement last night. The Mint Chicks featured heavily, along with OpShop and Evermore, but perhaps the most notable element of this year's awards is the return of Vodafone as naming sponsor, after a nervous year off. The interesting thing is that Vodafone first came to the awards simply because it was a good brand fit, but comes back as an industry stakeholder -- and the country's biggest retailer of music singles. The shape of things to come, one would think.

PS: A link burgled from Tom Coates. As he explains it: "Martin Klimas gets porcelain figures in total darkness and then drops them on the ground. The sound of them touching the floor triggers a light allowing a nearby camera to capture their 'moment of transformation'." The captured images are extraordinary.

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Bad Skillz | Sep 11, 2007 09:07

The Dominion Post's story about the hacking of New Zealand government computer systems -- resulting, it appears, in actual theft of sensitive information -- is a good scoop.

It comes as the French are complaining about Chinese attacks on their government systems, and The Guardian's Richard Norton-Taylor reports yet more organised poking around at Whitehall and the Pentagon, and The Times reports on an apparent Chinese government plan to achieve "electronic dominance" over its rivals. In May, Foreign Policy magazine's blog highlighted a Pentagon report claiming a shift in Chinese government strategy towards a "first-strike capability" in cyber-war.

It's likely the all major powers are doing something of the kind -- here's a 2003 story about the Pentagon "drawing up guidelines for cyber attacks against countries such as Iraq," which seems a bit farcical in retrospect -- and have been for some time. Also, that the boundaries between official activity and "patriotic hacking" are fuzzy. But clearly, the Chinese aren't standing on ceremony.

Riverbend has reappeared, with her first post since April, relating her family's escape from Baghdad to Syria.

Talking Points Memo compares the numbers on Iraqi civilian deaths presented by General Petraeus yesterday with those compiled by Associated Press and Iraq Body Count. They don't match, and government won't explain its methodology.

Yesterday's casualty news from Iraq Today.

On a lighter note, No Right Turn reports: "I see that the blogosphere is now redundant. We don't need to throw rotten fruit at each other; instead there is now a site which will do it for us. And it can even replace comments." That really is rather good.

A motif of the age: a villain in Marvel's Fantastic Four series, made of pure living sound, is brought back from the dead with the aid of BitTorrent. That should so totally be in the next movie. Perhaps after this anti-piracy parody has screened.

My friend Paul came over on Friday for lamb shanks, wine, talk and the Warriors game (the first three were all most pleasing; the last, not so much). He used the Maxx Journey Planner to work out how best to get from Three Lamps to somewhere near Pt Chev by bus. Hence …

His quickest option took 14 mins for a fare of $3.20 - and the next quickest option took 43mins for a fare of $0.00. Yes, that's right, it was the walk, you fat lazy bastard option. I should point out that Paul has indeed walked from Three Lamps to our place in the past, but the map makes me giggle.
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PS: Congratulations to Paul Brown winner of the $2000 Microsoft prize pack and tickets to Home Show. There were a lot of entries.

PPS: Could Ihug customers on the Public Address mailing list let me know if they're still getting our emails? There seems to be a problem.

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The Soap Opera | Sep 10, 2007 10:06

It's nice to see Bill Ralston back in the workforce, although I wonder when his respective editors at The Listener and the Herald on Sunday realised he'd be starting new columns for each of them on the same day.

Ralston kicked off for the HoS with a lengthy piece headed What's Eating TVNZ?, which the paper spun off into a news story - also quoting the man who hired Ralston as TVNZ news chief, Ian Fraser -- under the headline PM blamed for turmoil at TVNZ, which summarises Ralston's column thus:

Ralston says TVNZ has been treated as a "political football", and that Clark's "aversion to paying presenters large salaries has cost the company tens of millions of dollars and has been a major factor in bringing the place almost to its knees".

In 2004, Clark commented directly on TVNZ pay negotiations, saying the broadcaster had made a "spectacular mistake" increasing Judy Bailey's pay to a reported $800,000. Clark had earlier commented on Holmes' salary.

Ralston says Clark's opinions heavily influenced contract negotiations which led to Bailey leaving. This created an environment of instability which contributed to Holmes moving to Prime, and a well-publicised scuffle over Wood's pay and her later resignation.

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Yes, those people again. Ralston writes in his column:

Now, I know you all want to know the inside gossip on Judy Bailey, Paul Holmes and Susan Wood and I'll get to that …

No. No, we don't actually, and that's the problem. Some of us would rather move on from the employment negotiations of a bunch of highly-paid baby-boomers. We're actually quite glad the TVNZ soap opera is on hiatus.

So Ralston's contention is that the bad PR from a series of unhappy employment contract negotiations, in which politicians had too much to say -- Holmes, Bailey, Wood -- is what fatally damaged the news operation's public image and led to the slump in ratings.

I'm not so sure. The big reversal in the news battle with TV3 came in 2005: Claire Trevett's Herald story from February 2006 charts a ratings annus horribilis. What happened? Some of it was business as usual: TV3 had been steadily picking up Auckland news viewers, and the 18-49 demographic, for some time.

Bailey didn't depart until December 2005, but let's give Ralston his point that public disquiet over her $800,000 salary and the surrounding kerfuffle with the TVNZ board damaged viewer perceptions somewhat. And that, by presenting Paul Holmes with a one-year contract and precipitating Holmes' departure, TVNZ opened a gap for Campbell Live, which had the unexpected effect of helping TV3's 6pm news ratings.

Yet Holmes' poor showing on Prime demonstrated that the audience was loyal to the 7pm slot on One, not to Holmes himself. And it's very hard to say that Susan Wood's departure had any negative impact, with the Sainsbury-fronted Close Up not only objectively better, but rating quite well (In June last year, One News looked to have clawed back some ground, while recent figures find Close Up down on a year ago with its target audience, but clawing back ground over the past five months). But, Ralston notes of Wood's controversy:

This fiasco damaged poor Susan's reputation, hit Close Up's audience and, I think, was a big part in her sad decision to quit a year later, exhausted and discouraged.

Yes, and I'm sure that Maia is really sad about Jay being offed by the Shortland Street serial killer and everything - but can we just move on now?

"Why am I raking up the past?" Ralston asks rhetorically.

Um, because you don't have much new to say?

Because I see the same thing happening again. The Government is keen on Freeview and consequently TVNZ is sinking huge bucks into digital TV with little hope of ever getting much of a financial return. To do this it's getting deeper and deeper into debt with the Government, becoming far too reliant on government cash, rather than its advertising revenue. This means it's now much less independent and has to be more responsive to what the politicians want.

It's also cutting costs to try to fund the expensive digital strategy. This has led to big job losses and rock-bottom morale, propelling many surviving staff into the more tranquil waters of TV3 because they don't want to stay with TVNZ anymore.

We're in for years yet of Freeview-bashing, but let's be clear what we're talking about here. Staying put on analogue television was not an option: quite soon it will be quite difficult to maintain the old gear, let alone buy it new. TVNZ has been tapped by our government and given $80 million (effectively, having its last dividend handed back) to do the same job the BBC did in Britain, albeit with vastly greater resources: be the anchor tenant for a free-to-air digital TV network.

All developed nations are making decisions about how they manage the digital migration. In Britain, Freeview seems to have worked quite well. It has more viewers than Sky and overall 80% of free-to-air television is now watched on a digital platform. They can seriously look at switching off analogue transmission, and freeing up a lot of spectrum, as soon at 2010. In Australia, a regulation-heavy strategy has left them stuck on 30% uptake. So the Freeview model seems a reasonable bet.

Meanwhile, TV news viewership is at its lowest in seven years. People are getting more of their news, as it happens, via the internet. (At the Great Blend in Auckland I asked for a show of hands on who watched broadcast TV news more than three times a week. From a crowd of 300, not many hands went up.) In the most recent Nielsen Media Research survey results, the internet activity to show, by far, the most growth, was watching video clips. And you can take those trends and double them for the advertiser-friendly 18-39 demographic.

Internet news service is something TVNZ current does quite poorly, despite having plenty of good content. But I hope those responsible are treating it as something more than the annoying distraction that Ralston seems to see it as.

Ralston also regards the present management as just another bunch of dupes who'll lose their heads when they fail to meet the board's performance targets, or when the government changes. I think he's missing a few things. The development and launch of tvnzondemand and the creation of TVNZ 6 and 7 have been pretty efficient. The wholesale loss of staff from Breakfast to TV3's forthcoming Sunrise has been fairly bizarre, but it would be wise to wait and see whether TV3 can actually turn a dollar out of a shared break TV audience, which was small enough anyway, before declaring a disaster.

The comparison with the Fraser era is telling: that was marked by some awful recruitment decisions -- which did far more damage than the flaps over star salaries -- and a damaging bout of feuding with major independent producers. Given TVNZ's long history of scorched earth and policy reversal under successive management regimes, the shift under Ellis has actually been fairly civilised. The likes of John Barnett -- whose company has done incredibly well for TVNZ -- are welcome back in the building, and seem comfortable being there. The endless discussion over rights issues continues, but it appears to be businesslike, rather than bitter, in tone.

But oddly enough, I agree with Ralston and Fraser's key points: TVNZ can't have the Ministry of Culture and Heritage sitting on its shoulder forever. There are legitimate expectations of a public broadcaster in fulfilling public policy goals. Freeview, as noted above, is one example. But sooner rather than later, a clear, independent role for TVNZ must be established. That doesn't necessarily mean a split or a sale of part of the business: the present management's demarcation of "public value" and "commercial value" in its activities represents a reasonable way of managing its duties. But whatever solution emerges will come from solid thinking about TVNZ's future; not from a repeat season of the soap opera.

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