Posts by John Holley
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Brilliant news Russell - well deserved! :)
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Soldiers get court-martialled for not following orders. From boot camp, they have it pounded into them that they have to follow orders, no matter what they think about them personally.
Yes, soldiers and officers do get court martialled for not following orders, but that does not include, as A S mentions, illegal orders.
Additionally, it needs to be remembered the that ROE the soldiers are operating under are orders and cannot be overridden/altered normally, by anyone but the person who issued them - normally someone like, in NZ's case, the CDF e.g. not someone in theatre.
The only officer likely to be able to alter ROE in theatre, if just for short periods of time, would be the force commander.
Ignoring ROE is a serious crime - but not necessarily a war crime. Often it comes down to word plays between the lawyers. :( In the wikileaks case, as the wounded reporter was crawling on the ground, it could be argued that he was trying to effect an escape so was not "hors de combat". Others would argue differently.
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Hi Ben, it's from Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, article 41.
The Geneva Conventions relate to, in general,
the treatment and protection of civilians, combatants who are “hors de combat” (sick, wounded, shipwrecked and prisoners of war) and those otherwise exempt from treatment as combatants.
The Hague conventions are the main source for dealing with the conduct of hostilities.
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Having studied and been trained in the Laws of Armed Conflict, there is little room to defend some of the acts. (The rules of engagement a force operates under normally apply constraints to what is allowed under LOAC)
I sat there quite sickened watching the video, the poor target identification and, deliberately targeting the wounded who were "hors de combat"
A combatant is hors de combat (out of combat) if that person:
a. is in the power of an adverse party;
b. clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or
c. has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and is therefore incapable of self defence,provided that in any of these cases the individual abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.
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You're right, Sacha; drafts are covered by the OIA/LGOIMA. You just have to ask for them. Getting drafts can be uesful sometimes, especially when you suspect a major position has suddenly changed in the middle of the policy development process.
Not quite James. When you put in a request the guidance from the ombudsmen is to say if you don't want drafts :)
From the Ombudsmen:
If you don’t want to receive certain types of information (for example, internal emails or draft versions of documents) make that clear in your request.
People also forget, that with respect to LGOIMA, any request for information from a council - whether a phone call, email or letter, is a LGOIMA request. You don't have to say "I am making a LGOIMA request", though doing so makes it clear to the receiver that the request needs to be dealt with properly.
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The first thing to mention is that in NZ only greenpeace and amnesty employ their own fundraisers - everyone else (save the children, red cross) is run by companies which normally take the first year or so of donations.
Absolutely not true Jeremy! I worked for the RNZFB and they absolutely have their own fund raisers, as do quite a few other charities.
What I do know is that, again from when I was at the RNZFB, the cost of fundraising was about 20% of funds raised. The target was to keep it below that. (This is all reported in their accounts). If more than 30 cents of what you donate in every dollar go to admin/fundraising costs you should look carefully at the charity. As an aside, groups like Rotary , often have admin/fundraising costs of 50-70% of funds raised.
The question to ask a charity is what is their fundraising ratio? (especially long established charities -it's harder for new charities.)
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Gack....fast fat fingers....
I guess the "20 year" anniversary depends on what you define as the "Internet". For those of us who have being using it for longer, at least in the UUCP/JANET variants, the 20th was long ago. :)
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I guess the "20 year" anniversary depends on what you define as the "Internet". For those of us who have being using it for longer, at least in the UUCP/JANET variants we the 20th was long ago. :)
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Firstly, I work for the ARC - and I know my job will go - I always expected it to.
I fully support the concept of significant positive change in Auckland Governance - I just feel what we have been given a "negative" change in Governance. Power in Auckland will be held by only a handful of people who, if a FPP electoral system is used, could well have a "mandate for change" with around 35% of the vote.
What really worries me though is a significant item buried away on page 31 of the Government's response on the transition period.
Here the Government has chosen to ignore the recommendation for a 4 year transition and, with no real rationale as to why, gone for a 18 month transition. This is exactly what the Royal Commission (6MB) warned against given the experiences of places like Toronto that rushed their mergers and are still sorting out the mess ten years on. As the RC notes on the recent Victorian mergers which occurred over a similar period of time:
33.19 Amalgamation of councils in Victoria was achieved by disbanding existing councils and appointing commissioners (three for each new council) and interim chief executives to establish and run the new council. This occurred over an 18-month period and, as one commentator told the Commission, provided an unprecedented opportunity to change business practices, and rationalise and update systems and infrastructure, without officer or political interference. The Commission has concluded that this approach, and the effective suspension of local democracy, would not be acceptable in Auckland. It notes, however, the importance of using the opportunity provided by a reorganisation to transform working practices and systems, and of ensuring the Establishment Board has adequate powers to achieve this.
The only way such a short transition period can work is if the new super city is based on, probably, Auckland City's systems (for good and for bad). One has to wonder who lobbied for this change?
So we will miss a grand opportunity to cherry pick the best systems from across all eight councils and deliver leading practise in council services and processes.
The devil is in the detail here and the trouble is for most of us we will become aware of many of the problems such a rush merger will cause when they are unavoidable.
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One of the key things for FTTx etc. is being innovative and not doing fibre like we always have e.g. trenching, requiring skilled technicians to splice everywhere.
In the USA there are some innovative approaches to doing this that allows the rollout to be conducted by unskilled workers, requiring minimal spicing and no trenches.
Read what James Hettrick did in Loma Linda, CA. He gave this presentation at ALGIM last year.