White House-to-White House Pretenders replace Log Cabin -to- White House

With the inauguration of President Donald Trump three still active United States presidential dynasties make their transition into exile.

Temporary exile, as these Pretenders see it.

In Napoleonic terms the monarchical familial trio are by-passing a remote St Helena and heading to a more lightly guarded in-shore Elba from which they can make their escape when the call comes, as they ardently believe it will.

First among these is the Bush dynasty which has already supplied two republican monarchs, George 1 and then George 11. But which failed to install Jeb 1

Second is the Clinton one which bestowed upon the United States a co-monarchy similar to that of the reign in Britain of William and Mary.

But which so agonisingly failed last year to re-install itself with Hillary now in prime regal Pretender position.

Third, and the most promising of the dynasties-in-waiting is the newest one, the Obama line.

The intervention in the final stages of the anti -Trump campaign by Michelle Obama, and the First Lady’s subsequent mainstream participation in the sorrowful aftermath leaves few in doubt that the Obamas are in dynastic mode as far as the presidency is concerned.

These dynasties do not intend to sit out the next four years which they regard anyway as an interregnum or at best, a regency.

They know that if you intend to end up in the White House, it make sense to start at the White House.

Gathering a war chest will not be a problem.

All those court jesters, fire-eaters, tumblers, strolling player, song-and dance contributors (see illustration) at the Obama White House final curtain call party by their mere appearance pledged their allegiance for another round of fund raising.

The log cabin to White House journey has in applied terms now been replaced by one from The White House back to the White House.

The Clintons have devoted their adult lives to campaigning and they have no intention of stopping now.

The kingmakers of the Democratic Party will look though with much greater favour on a Michelle candidacy in 2020 than on a Hillary one.

This will be an action-replay of the way in which they looked so much more favourably on the original candidacy of Barack Obama than they did on Hillary’s in the primaries of all those years ago.

All this is curious enough. But not as mystifying as the American refusal to comprehend the way in which their republic is so demonstrably changing its course back to the era of feudal family inheritance.

For the Tudors, Plantagenets, and Stuarts read now Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas.

Now though post inauguration these feudal families disperse to their separate fiefdoms to rally their forces for the next round.

The Bushes to the South.

The Obamas back to the crucible of Democratic politics Chicago, but keeping visible a shop window residence in Washington.

The Clintons the Liege Lords of New York back to the Big Apple there to polish the fervour of their vassals and villeins.

From these strong holds they will collect their tithes raise their private armies for the next battle, the one to evict the usurper Trump.

For these Pretenders in place of halberdiers, pike men and archers will be the new model armies.

Swearing oaths of fealty as did the yeomen of yore these will be tweeting technicians, trackers, pollsters, fixers......

| From the MSCNewsWire reporters desk  | Monday 16 January 2017  |

Winners and losers in tradeoff

Exactly how a liberal government’s attempt to appease its Green Party MPs led to a declaration of war, however figurative, from the prime minister of Israel is the strangest tale yet in New Zealand’s almost two centuries of farm politics.

Exactly how this state of affairs led to a covert New Zealand taxpayer funded stock handling depot in the middle of a Middle East desert only contributes to a tale which ranks alongside anything from Arabian Nights.

The way in which it made strange bedfellows of meat packing, slaughter house, freezing works proprietors and the Greens is just another chapter in this astonishing saga of shifting and unlikely alliances.

The saga begins with New Zealand’s centrist National government giving approval to the export of live sheep to the Middle East.

Farmers, and farm export consolidators were delighted. Live sheep exports allows them to obtain a premium price for their sheep, instead of having to take the schedule price of the licensed export processing meat companies.

The meat export processors, meanwhile, who derive much of their profit from the animal by- products ranging from medicinals to pet foods via rendering were and remain singularly hostile to live sheep exports. A big chunk of their potential income sails away with the sheep.

They keep quiet about this point of view for fear of antagonising farmers.

Middle East interests, who have substantial investments in the live trade both here and overseas, appear to have been in no doubt that after years of stop-go the live trade would resume.

The Greens now launched their most successful political lobby since the anti-nuclear era. The government backed down on live sheep exports.

The mysterious New Zealand taxpayer funded depot is one by-product of this. It is designed to appease now the would be live sheep importers.

They were and still are only partially appeased.

The anti Israel New Zealand sponsored resolution at United Nations was thrown in as another sop to the Middle East importers by now threatening a Gulf-wide boycott of anything at all from New Zealand .

This byzantine power play engulfing as it does politicians, diplomats and traders from the Gulf to United Nations via the South Pacific has also enraged farmers especially in the Hawkes Bay where much of the trade in its glory days was once centred.

The centrepiece of this was the drafting, notably at Maraekakaho, where the inspecting agents acting on behalf of the Middle East importers would assess the suitability or otherwise of the stock for export.

The fury of the Middle East importers at the broken promise is understandable given the timing of the live sheep shipments with the annual haj or pilgrimage to Mecca (pictured)

All this has simmered Omerta-style under the surface of public and even the farm-politics debate for quite some time.

Another unacknowledged and unmentioned element to this is that for the farmers, live sheep exports allow them to command a premium price for the stock – and to get paid.

The reason why the few established meat exporting processors have such a command on procurement is that they are big enough in terms of resources to ensure that they actually get paid at the other end.

In the meantime, the Middle East will fill its live sheep shipments from South America, notably Uruguay.

Live sheep exports gave farmers premium price plus guarantee of payment.

It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

So in this modern riddle of the sands, who are the winners?

Who are the losers?

The winners:-•   The Greens•   The meat processors, freezing works.•   Uruguay•   President Obama

The losers:-*   Farmers*   NZ Taxpayers*   State of Israel

The Lesson:-The episode which began with live sheep and then made the transit of a lame duck US President Barack Obama still has a long way to go. But what is the lesson so far. Here we must touch down on Greece, classical epoch, in order to heed Aristotle who declared .......

A friend to all is a friend to none

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Wednesday 11 January 2017  |

In the latest in our Five Questions For.....series we interrogate the West’s most seasoned operational intelligence officer on Russia......

Major General Peter Williams (pictured) is often considered the most experienced military specialist on Russia and its intentions. He was a member of the allied Cross Mission to the old USSR and this saw him for many years operationally involved in intelligence gathering within the Iron Curtain. At the conclusion of the Cold War he led the NATO mission to the new Russian Federation. Five questions now follow for General Williams:-

What will be the nature of the US-Russia rapprochement under Donald Trump?We are going to have to wait and see just how much free rein Trump finds himself to have. Clearly his personal outlook on the world, including on Russia, is coloured by his own lengthy career as a businessman. He is not a career politician or a Washington insider, but he and his new yet-to-be-confirmed by Congress Secretary of State will find themselves the recipients of advice from the departments of the US government, members of Congress and the US media, much of which will run counter to Trump's instincts and initial aspirations. It will all be about Trump getting better informed about the details of the many challenges to US interests posed by Russia and then coming up with a new, personal synthesis of the existing situation.In a nutshell, it's too early to say how Trump as President will react to the challenges and opportunities presented by the Kremlin, but he will stamp his own character on whatever redefined approach --possibly rapprochement, but not necessarily so-- emerges as 2017 progresses. And then there is the reality of 'events, events, events' - the unforeseeable developments that British prime minister Harold Macmillan once identified as the biggest challenge that would face any politician.

Will the trade embargo quickly dissolve?Almost certainly not. Congress seems much less likely to be in a forgiving and conciliatory mood where Russia is concerned than Trump may currently appear to be. Dismantling trade embargoes is not a simple procedure, not least where they are coordinated on a multinational basis.

Your opinion of the Russian espionage/hacking operations within the US?We will never get a clear explanation about what may have been the precise scale and details of the alleged Russian espionage/hacking operations in the US, but there is no reason, given the track record over many decades of Soviet and Russian disinformation and disruption operations, not to believe that the Kremlin has been seeking to take advantage of the perceived weaknesses of the Obama presidency, particularly during its dying months.

Others such as China, North Korea, and certain other allies will have been doing the same at the same time. The US, along with the West in general including far-off New Zealand, is a pretty soft target for disinformation and disruption operations. Whether any Russian hacking actually managed to affect the outcome of the US Presidential and Congressional election process we'll almost certainly never know for sure.

Where and why did Western-Russian relations go wrong during the Obama years?It is perhaps more accurate to describe what failed to happen, rather than what actually went wrong. Obama and Hillary Clinton sought to re-set the US-Russia relationship, but in truth the rupture went back to 2007 when Putin re-evaluated the relationship and decided that it had not been in Russia's national interests to allow the West to get too close to Russia.By 2007 NATO enlargement had brought the Alliance right up to the borders of the Russian Federation and now the threat of Ukrainian and Georgian membership of NATO was identified as a step too far into the cordon sanitaire that the Kremlin felt must separate the West physically from Russia. The EU had also been expanding to the east in a similar manner, taking into its fold nations that Russia had long viewed as Russian client states.

The 2008 Georgian war put paid to NATO's expansion - even if Russia's military campaign had been tactically and operationally less than flawless, the strategic result was clear: Russia had stopped NATO enlargement in its tracks. The final straw was the EU's active encouragement of the Euromaidan overthrow of the democratically elected albeit utterly corrupt Ukrainian president. The seizure and annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin-supported insurrection in Eastern Ukraine put paid to any chance of rapprochement between Russia and the West in all its forms, not least NATO and the EU.

Taking a world view, where do you see Western-Russian relations in five years?Whatever the situation will be in 2022, it is sure to be different from the situation today where Western-Russian relations are concerned. It is much too early to be able to predict whether Trump will actually launch a process that might deliver a substantive rapprochement with Russia. If he does so, such a rapprochement will not be without its risks, one of which must be a danger of fracturing the current common hard line that the West has been holding against Russia.

In the last year or so, sensing a vacuum in Western leadership, Russian strategy in Syria has wrong-footed the West. Russian military power has enjoyed a significant victory, which will both strengthen the position of the hawks in the Kremlin and will give a boost to Russia's state-controlled armaments sector, which can expect increased export sales as a result of the technology demonstration that the Syrian intervention has provided.

Finally, although I am by nature one of life's cautious optimists and I believe that rapprochement with Russia could be portrayed as a sensible act of realpolitik, it is hard to see just how Trump can deliver the re-set of the US-Russia relationship without which any wider Western-Russian rapprochement seems doomed to fail. If The Donald can pull off this deal, he will have confounded his sceptical enemies and will have earned the adulation of his new-found supporters.

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  | Friday 6 January 2017  |

Le Parisien Determined to Identify What Voters Believe in place of what elites believe they believe.

Paris’ leading daily newspaper, the tabloid Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France has outlawed from its pages all poll-based predictions on the pending presidential election.

The centrist popular daily blames unquestioning reliance on polls, known in France as “soundings” to have led to the embarrassing set of circumstances in which Alain Juppe was unanimously predicted to become the successful candidate of the right-of-centre Republican Party.

In the event, and as MSC Newswire’s European correspondent had predicted, (see our story below) the successful candidate was Francois Fillon who now becomes the favourite to win the pending presidential (i.e. general) election.

In the same forecast, MSC Newswire had also predicted that current president Francois Hollande would not be the Socialist Party candidate in the election. In the event, and several days after our prediction, Mr Hollande stood down.

Meanwhile, according to Le Parisien, the elimination of polls, soundings, and other tendentious content will be replaced by plain and simple reporting.

The objective being to report what people are in fact thinking in place of the former practice of reporting on what a narrow elite believe, or want to believe, everyday people are thinking.

According to our European correspondent, Alain Juppe’s “Happy Identity” slogan was only finding approval among the media.

Similarly Mr Juppe’s involvement with a funds scandal, which had caused him to live in Canada, was taken seriously by voters, if not the media.

Also, the idea of a Clintonesque co-presidency (see front page), while attractive to the media, nonetheless dismayed the public at large, as it did voters in the United States presidential election.

|  From the MSCNewswire reporters' desk  |  Thursday January 5 2017  |

The End of the Politically Correct

Our foreign correspondent forecast the Trump victory, and now previews the fall of France’s Francois Hollande ....

| Napier, MSCNewsWire, Nov 24, 2016 | - The predicted fall of France’s president Francois Hollande in next year’s election will bring to a close the initial era of political correctness. He is scheduled to become the third big-economy leader victim within less than a year of the accelerating electoral power of the non-political class.

Mr Hollande is known as the King of Consensus. His determination prior to any decision to canvass every opinion and nuance in his own Socialist Party and also in the string of other French leftward parties conveyed an impression of dithering in the face of islamic insurgency.

Instead of being seen to be heading a tough reaction Mr Hollande’s nature lead him to be more at home leading candle lit marches, vigils and uttering trite panaceas in the face of the emergency. It was left to his prime minister Manuel Valls to express the public mood about the threat throughout France of rampant religious extremism.

Worse still, Mr Hollande was viewed as being over-preoccupied by the star studded Paris climate conference with its breathtaking ritual insights into the blindingly obvious instead of with the much more visible and immediate terrorist threat

The most visible manifestation of Mr Hollande’s pending loss of the presidency is the number of his own hand-picked cabinet members who are deserting the sinking ship. The “frondeurs” as the rebels are known are setting themselves up, they are still in their 30s and 40s, for the 2022 election.

There is though in the anticipated disappearance of Mr Hollande a signal point of difference with those other landmark scupperings of the political classes, Brexit and Trump. The difference is that this time everyone is expecting it.

The winner of the French Republican Party primaries is now looked to as the winner of the presidency. This is looking, in fact, increasingly like former premier Francois Fillon.Mr Hollande’s political career has been an inch-by-inch bureaucratic progression characterised by a reverse Clinton-effect process.

His life-mate Segolene Royale (pictured above with Hollande) with whom he has four children was the glamorous one. Her attempt to crack the French version of the glass ceiling was more spectacular than anything attempted by Hillary.

In the event she lost to Sarkozy.

It was now that that the blander Francois entered the lists and in doing so streamlined his approach by parting from Segolene.  The go-it-alone Francois now beat the unpopular Nicolas Sarkozy and the ElyseesPalace was his and his Socialist Party’s.

Four and a half years later he looks like a president who knows he can’t win. He is unlikely to hand over to the rather more decisive figure of his prime minister Manuel Valls.

No major economy leader, not even President Obama, personifies so closely as does Francois Hollande the twin pillars of diversity and multiculturalism which in France’s case are supercharged by the Revolutionary code of the Rights of Man.

Few doubt his sincerity of purpose. It is just that as with the other casualties of this new wave politics, the Clintons, he found himself reading from an out-of-date script.

Reformation in US, UK, and France Suddenly Transforms United Nations Hegemony

 The old established order, the one founded in traditionally-accepted geopolitical foreign policies began to dissolve at the same time as New Zealand took its seat as a temporary member for the first time of the United Nations Security Council.

The old order was based on policies that would continue and in the United States especially would do so on a dynastic basis. In the other two western alliance members of the permanent Security Council, United Kingdom and France this too was the order of the day.

For New Zealand its willingness to follow the great power party line now that it was a guest at High Table seemed a natural thing to do.

In this special holiday-read article we now examine events of 30 years ago that in so many ways echo delayed action events in the Security Council now and especially so in regard to the way in which New Zealand’s willingness to follow Senior School policies can leave it hanging out to dry.......................

The peak of New Zealand’s world stage role in more recent times and in a sensational sense occurred in 1985 in two incidents in two vastly separated locations.

The first of these dual episodes was Prime Minister David Lange’s appearance in March 1 at the Oxford Union debate on nuclear weapons.

The second came a few months later in Auckland with the blowing up of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior. This then became compounded with the capture of the two French agents responsible for the harbour sabotage.

The very public and compounding challenge to France, a permanent member of the Security Council, one of the five great powers that won World War 2, engendered a crusading atmosphere among the New Zealand political class.

This compounded with the national craving centred on punching above “our” weight engendered such a shared feeling of empowerment that David Lange’s Labour government carried through its sweeping globalist policies that now placed New Zealand in the very front rank of economic deregulation.

Now though and at the height of international acclaim trouble manifested itself in Oceania in the form of Lieutenant General Vernon Walters (pictured with President Nixon) in Fiji on “holiday.”

General Walters at this time, 1987, was United States ambassador to United Nations.

Prior to that he had served as deputy director of the CIA.

Two military coups in succession soon followed this soldierly vacation dalliance with the result that Fiji became a republic.

That same year 1987 General Walters was inducted into the US Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Sabre rattling followed with the result that military intervention from New Zealand now seemed possible if not likely.

In the event, the intervention came via Australia which now instructed New Zealand not to intervene.

Another problem was that the burden of this message was delivered on a personal basis with Australian foreign office officials making high profile visits to New Zealand.

At this time the Cold War was still in progress.

This reliance on face-to-face exchanges indicated too the state of New Zealand’s military grade longer haul communications.

These were deemed to be unreliable through the activities of deep penetration agents known to have been active in the 1960s if not the 1970s, and therefore likely to have left legacies well into the 1980s.

After the world stage nuclear moral triumphs the Australian intervention over Fiji was a comedown.

Many believe now that New Zealand amplified this by its continuing coolness if not hostility and indeed, utter inability to accept the new republican regime in Fiji .

This regime in the event soon found firm friends in the form of Russia and China. These countries are the other two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council

It was now though that there was born the concept of New Zealand taking a seat on the United Nations Security Council, as one of the numerous temporary members.

As the years slipped by this became a determined goal and eventually a realisable one.

Australia had been a temporary-tier member of the Security Council on numerous occasions.

Luck now played its part as New Zealand’s debut began to take solid form. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the resulting trade sanctions of which New Zealand was and remains very much part of occurred too late in the piece to interfere in the membership process.

The China – New Zealand Free Trade Agreement was a roaring success, so no veto from there.

Britain was a natural supporter.

The United States was appreciative of New Zealand’s help with its Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

France the other permanent Security Council member had long since buried the hatchet with New Zealand and indeed had taken over Britain’s imperial investment role in things like utilities, construction materials, electronics, financial services, urban transport and via Pernod Ricard, wine.

The permanent members, the great powers, were thus in 2014 in alignment and so New Zealand’s second tier membership went ahead..

Now and given the lead time between membership approval and admission there has taken place amid the three western power permanent members a paradigm shift akin to a reformation, and which can substantially be traced to the breakup of the state system in the Middle East.

The first indication of this shift was Britain’s announced departure from the EU and the ensuing resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron.

The second was the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

The third western permanent member of the Security Council to undergo this shift became France.

This was predicted by MSC Newswire (The End of the Politically Correct—November 24 2016)

President Francois Hollande now announced that he would not be offering himself for re-election in 2017.

As they start packing their bags for the return home the New Zealand delegation to the second tier, the impermanent one, of United Nations, and with the standing ovation accorded to their sponsored resolution, the one on Israel, still ringing in their ears, one or two veterans may cast their minds back, well, 30 years.

They will remember that time in Fiji when the United States seemed to be so present, yet so removed when the Fiji coups took place.

They will remember too just how stern and unfriendly the Australians suddenly became.

From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk - Wednesday 4 January 2017

More reading:  The End of the Politically Correct—November 24 2016

Donald Trump Ends Watergate Era by Exiling Power of the Press How National Press Club/MSC Newswire predicted Trump win 

View the orginal release and subsequent predictions here

From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk

UN Mission became Impossible

The United Nation’s Security Council seat was viewed as the best showcase for New Zealand’s noble intentions. But within a few days of its tour of duty ending New Zealand found itself the fall-guy in two bitter feuds—the eternal Israel-Arab one and now the grudge one between the outgoing and incoming Presidents of the United States.

How did the tiny agrarian South Pacific nation with its international do-good mission find itself caught in these two bitter sets of cross-fires?

New Zealand’s presence on the United Nations Security Council was the culmination of a decades-long diplomatic strategy designed to underpin the nation’s ability to bring to bear common sense and good deeds where and when on the globe these were required.

Instead and at the 11th hour the nation’s participation in the Security Council drew forth hitherto unknown vituperation from the prime minister of a democracy, Israel-- the “act of war” comment.

Then, and more woundingly still, New Zealand found itself being distanced by the one democracy whose approval it values and in fact needs most of all – Australia.

The purpose of diplomacy is to avoid confrontation. We now examine the background to New Zealand’s increasingly curious role on the United Nations Security Council..................

The portents all looked favourable. The two year term would fit neatly into the conclusion of president Obama’s last term.

The President liked the scheme, and in practical terms even more significantly, so did his State Department, so recently led by Hillary Clinton.

New Zealand had put its shoulder to the wheel of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. In return Auckland would be chosen as the place to sign the mighty trade treaty itself.

So what could possibly go wrong? In a couple of words, the unanticipated.

The US media has always been close to the New Zealand Embassy. The Washington media was forecasting a seamless transition between the Obama one and an incoming Hillary Clinton one.

There were some lingering doubts about the likelihood of a third consecutive Democrat administration. A few cynics wondered about two Democrat pc presidents in a row.

Still, even if a Republican candidate did win the election, the transition was hardly likely to be disruptive. A distinct possibility in such an instance was the restoration of the Bush dynasty in the form of Jeb..

Again there would be no end of term friction, disruptions. Especially of the type to involve the Security Council. The Bushes and the Clinton - Obamas had long made up anyway.

The completion of New Zealand’s two year temporary term would take place at the very end of the year within just a few weeks of the end also of the final presidential term of Mr Obama.

Back home in New Zealand this happily coincided with the most suitably receptive time for institutional news, and what better news than about New Zealand’s distinguished stint at the top table of the United Nations?.

Few among the general public are aware of the distinction between the major-power permanent members of the Security Council and the countries which serve short tours of duty as temporary members.

Countries such as currently Angola, Malaysia, Senegal, Uruguay, the Ukraine, and of course New Zealand.

So in 2017, there was scheduled to be a nice start at the very beginning of an election year with smiling New Zealand diplomats and politicians being congratulated, and congratulating each other for all the good work they had been doing around the world and while at the highest level of United Nations, on the Security Council, no less.

The good news would have capped a long and in many ways remarkable association between New Zealand and United Nations.

Sir Leslie Munro, a founder of the National Party was president of the United Nations General Assembly, and also served three times as president of the Security Council itself.

Terence O’Brien, still an urbane presence on the Wellington diplomatic scene had similarly occupied high office.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark by this time was a familiar presence heading one of the United Nations key agencies and for a while even mentioned as secretary general, a post not wishing to leave such matter to chance, that she vigorously campaigned for.

And yet....and yet....

In Wellington and Washington New Zealand diplomats started to feel the chill as it became daily more evident that the transition between Mr Obama and the unanticipated Mr Trump was going to be anything but friendly.

They hunkered down when president-elect Donald Trump coolly announced that on taking office he would immediately trash the Trans Pacific trade deal signed in Auckland in 2016.

They held their tongues resisting the New Zealand impulse to speak up for the underdog when the incoming president spoke of his immigration plans.

In diplomacy though it is the unexpected that determines the outcome of even the most delicately thought-through plan of action.

The problem when it came was from President Obama. Not his replacement, Donald Trump.

The outgoing President Obama was by now showing signs of uncharacteristic ill-grace as his replacement was making it clear that he intended to sweep aside the cherished Obama legacy.

Mr Obama by now had had enough.

He emptied a bag of nails out of the back window of the presidential limousine in the form of the resolution calling for the end of Israeli urbanisation of its occupied territories.

This Mr Obama knew would get under the skin of a resolutely pro-Israel Donald Trump.

He was right.

New Zealand was now chosen as one of the Security Council nations to support it.

Which New Zealand did, incurring the instant incandescent wrath of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the longer term it is safe to assume that it probably also jaundiced the view of an initially glad-handing to New Zealand Mr Trump himself

Australia the world’s 12th largest industrial nation now pointed out that this was not New Zealand’s fight. It would not be shoulder-to-shoulder with its trans Tasman cousin on the resolution.

Could the resolution have been filibustered, dragged over into 2017? By which time the New Zealand Security Council team would have been safely out of the Security Council and thus out of the cross-fire.

It couldn’t. The Obama people, sensing the ire of their departing chief, called in their Atlantic IOUs and ramrodded it through.

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Saturday 31 December 2016  |

|  MSCNewsWire - Wednesday 28 December 2016  |  The absence in New Zealand of an effective political Jewish lobby was largely responsible for the South Seas nation being summoned to co-sponsor at the United Nations the resolution calling for the halt to building within Israel’s occupied territories.

Two sponsoring nations were islamic – Malaysia and Senegal.

The third, Venezuela, was a founding member of OPEC.

The political lobby vacuum meant that New Zealand could be the western, and better still, English speaking nation to sponsor the resolution –and do so without there being any danger of formal internal political repercussions.

The resolution gives all the appearance of having been engineered on an Atlantic axis between Britain and the United States.

It was then fronted by nations which were either islamic (Senegal and Malaysia) part of the Arab oil economy anyway (Venezuela) or were likely to encounter absolutely no internal political repercussions (New Zealand.)

It is also understood on this Atlantic axis that New Zealand has to step warily in regard to Arab nations.

New Zealand informed trade officials that it would be shipping live sheep to the region.

The government then had to deliver a complete about-face.

The current National government, under pressure from the Greens, had to revoke the live sheep export licences

This was not taken lying down. The New Zealand government was informed that among the Gulf states its exports would be boycotted.

New Zealand has still only partially soothed feelings in the region by establishing an extensive stock handling and processing depot in the region.

The freeze in diplomatic relations between Israel and New Zealand called by a livid Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu will take time to thaw.

In spite of a delicately arranged surface cordiality between the two tiny nations, recent decades have been characterised by an increasingly embedded suspicion at the New Zealand end of its small country counterpart Israel.

This chill can only become frostier if and when United States president elect Donald Trump follows through on his policy promise to approve the transfer of Israel’s capital from its current site at Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

So there will be relief in Wellington that New Zealand’s two year term on the Security Council finishes at the end of this year.

This means that the Pacific nation which in terms of population and socially-inclined political outlooks seemed once upon a time to be so compatible with Israel can sidestep becoming directly crunched in another great power game which offers so little in the way of tangible benefits.

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Wednesday 28 December 2016  |

L’Affaire Tapie now engulfing Francis Fillon campaign

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde’s exit from the Paris court room with only the charge of “negligence” attached to her has served only to intensify the anger in France over the porosity between their country’s judiciary and it politicians, writes our European correspondent.

The gathering storm is of interest to New Zealand because of a widespread impression that former prime minister John Key is in line to succeed her as chief of the International Monetary Fund, an economic stabilising agency that had its origins in Bretton Woods.

The possibility initially arose when Mr Key was still serving as prime minister and Miss Lagarde’s five year tenure came up for renewal amid the re-convening of a high level investigation into what is known as the Tapie Affair.

In the event Miss Lagarde toughed it out and signed on at the IMF for another five years.

This seemed to close off the opportunity for Mr Key.

But with the presidential election looming in France the burner keeps getting turned up on the Tapie Affair.

The reason is that the episode was ignited during the tenure of the previous president Nicolas Sarkozy whose minister of finance was Miss Lagarde.

It was she who signed off on the pivot of the whole affair which was to submit the Tapie Affair to special external arbitration rather than run it through the standard judicial process.

The recent Paris trial revealed that her advisers had recommended that Miss Lagarde do exactly this—turn the matter over to the standard judicial process.

In the event the finance minister, Miss Lagarde, handed the matter over to an ad-hoc collection of arbitrators.

The upshot of this was that the external arbitrators now proceeded to award to the sometime politician-impresario-speculator Bernard Tapie considerably in excess of half a billion dollars of taxpayer money.

This was in compensation for a Barnard Tapie business deal that went wrong.

This was the famed Adidas deal.

It remains a deal for which most French taxpayers still cannot work out how in the first place they became involved in, let alone how they became liable for it.

In France the affair is often described as an “arnaque par l’etat contre l’etat,” a swindle by the state against the state.

An extraordinary insight during the recently-completed proceedings into the French politico-judicial relationship was that a big slice of this half billion dollar compensation was awarded directly to the Tapie family and tax free.

This it turned out was because of the stress that the Tapie family were considered to have endured during the family’s efforts to claim the compensation.

Even by Latin standards of the spoils system, this was considered a bit much

The unspoken inference hovering over the affair was to the effect that the appointed independent arbitrators in arriving at their generous compensation had somehow and personally been accessed during their deliberations.

By forces favourable to the litigant.

Back now to Mr Key.

He is the logical replacement to Miss Lagarde for a number of reasons.

There cannot be a third IMF managing director from France because the last two have figured so prominently in court proceedings.

There was Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was Miss Lagarde’s predecessor. He figured in a New York courtroom. Then, just days ago, and in Paris now, there was Miss Lagarde herself.

The tradition has always been that the head of the World Bank comes from the United States and that the International Monetary Fund chief comes from Europe.

The World Bank swerved away from this. It was felt that that the IMF would follow.

When it looked as if Miss Lagarde might have to stand down there was mooted an idea to recruit someone to fill the IMF role from a developing nation.

The problem is that developing nations are highly suspicious of the IMF and its motives. So a candidate from an emerging economy, should they be made available, is likely to be regarded as part of a wider conspiracy perpetrated by the United States.

Even so, it is the United States that has in effect the casting vote on the appointment of the IMF managing director.

President Obama is something of a soul brother with Mr Key and if public indignation were to mount to boiling point in France there is still time for Mr Key’s name to go forward.

The reason the Tapie Affair will stay on the burner is that front-runner to become the next president of France is Francis Fillon.

He was prime minister during the previous Sarkozy presidency.

It was during Mr Fillon’s watch as prime minister that the Tapie deal was so surprisingly routed through arbitration instead of the judicial process.

The endless Tapie Affair is now lapping around his presidential campaign.

More recently still there are signs that a president Donald Trump might be favourable to the appointment of the New Zealander to head what he regards as a chaotic and even dangerous agency, the IMF.

Mr Key (pictured above with Chrstine Lagarde) is said in Europe to be grateful to be out of the political epicentre to a large extent because of the way in which in the Westminster sphere such as New Zealand, a prime minister assumes a show business status in which every aspect of their life, private and public, becomes part of the national entertainment.

Curiously under the republican modus operandi in France this is forbidden by statute and the way in which media can cover the lives of elected official is drastically curtailed.

The belief therefore is that if Mr Key with his solid Wall Street and international political careers was to be called, that he would serve.

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters desk  | saturday 24 december 2016  |

Immersive Construction with guest writer Alison Crady

Immersive reality technology has exploded throughout 2016, with more creative uses invented every day. Many huge corporations are placing massive investments in its development. According to ABI Research predictions, immersive reality will balloon into a $100-billion-dollar industry by 2020.

The exciting technology can be broken down into three distinct categories: Mixed Reality (MR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR). The Microsoft’s HoloLens is a great, recent example of mixed reality, which is a split combination of reality and the virtual world. Augmented reality uses “markers” to add pieces of virtual information within the known world. And then there’s virtual reality which fully immerses users into an alternate world.

Whether you’re creating safer training scenarios, developing project blueprints, working out technical issues or showing off a completed project, immersive technologies will take construction to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. Though immersive devices are still very early in commercial development stages, experts and industry leaders are grasping on. Because when you can change the way you see the world, you can change the world you see.

HOLOLENSES HEADSET MASTER MIXED REALITY

Perhaps one of the most exciting, user-friendly pieces talked about this year has just been released. Microsoft has been working all year to produce the HoloLens headset, which noticeably resembles a StarTrek device. This wireless headset hit the market just in time for 2016 Christmas gifts. Though with a $3,000 price tag, only a privileged few will find one wrapped beneath the tree.

The headset resembles two rings of a 3D solar system, which unfold in concentric circles. The first, inner circle rests around your head and uses a bicycle-helmet-style ratcheting dial to tighten it securely. The front sticks to your forehead, and the back rests below the backside of your skull.

Users interact with their environment by making specific changes with their index finger. Journalists with early-release experiences noted some user inconvenience due to the precise index finger movement and overall headset discomfort. But at the end of the day, it lets you add the virtual world to your current reality, completely transforming the world you see. Comfortable or not, that’s pretty amazing.

DEVELOPERS PRODUCE AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES

Using “markers” AR glasses allow users to note ultra-specific adjustments in real time and space. Participants add pieces of virtual information to the known environment. Google glass has already begun providing AR glasses for military uses. But the goal is to branch out into enterprise customers within the year.

DAQRI, a California-based company, has a mission to create the most powerful AR platform humanly possible. They made a huge push forward with their smart helmet, which has great construction project application. It can accurately be described as a visionary tool for the 21st century worker.

Using AR glasses, field workers can find enhanced solutions. Entire repair manuals can be displayed before their eyes during technical difficulties. DAQRI’s smart helmet greatly improve efficiency with an enhanced degree of situational awareness. The glasses could easily be used in construction helmets, opening up the next level of project possibilities.

BETA-TESTING FOR VIRTUAL REALITY EXPANDS AND EXCITES

Completely surrounding and all-encompassing environments are possible with VR. Single-users can don a device which allows them to move within a virtual scene. Using kinesthesia and proprioception, the device can track the direction of motion distinct from the direction of eye gaze. While the range of view will vary according the device, participants will be able to turn around, look up and down and see a complete environment, known as virtual reality.

Several construction companies, such as PCL Construction Services and Sellen Construction, have begun beta-testing VR uses onsite using a new product from a Seattle startup called Context VR. It’s a mobile app that contractors can use for as-built records, remote walk-throughs, progress reports, estimating, safety training and facility management. By simply uploading engineering drawings or floor plans as PDF, app users can “walk through” the space, taking photos from a 360-degree camera.

This startup is just one example of the many ways VR can transcend the construction industry. Using VR can help construction workers discover new ways to envision projects. They can allow potential buyers and investors to explore first-hand the new environment without needing to be present in the exact location.

The Cave Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) is another great virtual reality technique with direct application for construction. Firms such as the Boston-based Suffolk Construction have begun using this technique for immersive experiences through mid-construction project sites. This ability has greatly cut down on time and costs due to a reduced number of changes requested mid-project.

THE RAPIDLY EMERGING STARTREK DREAM WORLD

If you grew up watching futuristic series such as the Star Wars or Star Trek phenomenon, then the emerging immersive technology will seem familiar. We are entering a whole new phase of possibilities with our technological advances.

At this point, it’s more about the price range and its wide-spread availability. Companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft are constantly exploring new ways to fully utilize immersive reality. Emerging headsets, interactive hand controllers and movement sensors will revolutionize the entire construction process.

Developing construction firms should take note. Not only could safety be significantly improved through enhanced off-site training scenarios, but also the production and display of commercial projects can significantly improve. Designers, contractors and architects will be able to make better decisions, earlier on. While there’s a high ticket price, VR, AR, and MR are here to stay.

| An MSCNewsWire Guest Post by Alison Crady from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |  Friday 23 December 2016  |