JC: What Is the New World Order?

If you research for a definitive answer to this question, you will likely be disappointed. There are many ideas and theories but no one specific narrative that combines them into one coherent statement. Hence we have talk of various countries (superpowers) wanting to build a new world order. This leads to an assumption that the world could be divided into blocks. Should that happen, it’s possible more conflict than cooperation could occur. The new world order concept has also been described as a conspiracy theory...

Dr Jake Scott: The Bear Looks East

Russia’s economic realignment leaves Europe in the cold.

As the eyes of the world watch negotiations over Kiev’s future, and the “special military operation” that was intended to last ten days nears the end of its fourth year, Russia is carefully deepening its economic ties outside of the West’s sphere of influence.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 4/10/24

Casey Costello (at long last) shows the information which she regarded as superior to the advice which Treasury gave her

Point of Order waited patiently for it to be posted on the Beehive website.

But no. Associate Health Minister Casey Costello has released her “independent advice” on heated tobacco products, but – at time of writing – she has not yet posted it on the official government website.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Brussels sprouting same old stale economic plans

It was an ambitious plan to make the European Union the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy within a decade. It aimed to boost innovation, productivity and economic growth across the bloc.

The EU’s strategy set bold targets for employment rates, research and development spending. It talked about the adoption of digital technologies. EU leaders hailed it as a transformative vision for Europe’s future.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 26/3/24

The PM baulks at cyber grilling but Collins is not so shy – and McCully is given a job by the Minister he mentored

China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department.

Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning Report – he would not even confirm that ministerial statements were in the offing.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Shift to the right threatens existence of European Union

The European Parliament elections in June 2024 will be more than an ordinary political contest. They will be a battle for the soul of Europe in a time of war, economic upheaval and democratic turbulence.

The election outcome will shape the EU institutions and agenda for the next five years. It will also determine the future of the European project itself.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 20/3/24

Penny Simmonds is winning the headlines – thanks to an announcement (bungled) that she did not make

Penny Simmonds is the minister winning the big headlines this morning.

But they were headlines of the sort best avoided by a politician, such as:

Point of Order: Ukraine - borders in the mind can loom larger than those on the ground

An optimist, watching Ukraine’s soldiers chewing their way through Russian defences, can hope that a catastrophe for the Russian army is not far away. A realist might say that it’s far from inevitable.

But we can draw some conclusions even before the fighting stops.

First, Ukraine (the country) has won. It has stopped an existential threat and improbably unified its citizenry.

Point of Order: What will the new New Europe look like?

When so many changes happen at once, it’s hard to pick out the significant ones, let alone untangle the causation.

But Poland’s goal of becoming the strongest military power in Europe might be up there. The government plans to double the army in size and is pushing defence spending up to 4% of a rapidly-growing GDP. This also predates Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Point of Order: The good thing about artificial intelligence is what it might do for human intelligence

As the man who seized Boris’s crown, Britain’s PM Rishi Sunak has his work cut out.

But his latest brainwave – making the UK a global centre for regulation of the new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) – is unlikely to help.

While recent times suggest that more detailed prescription is not the way to fruitful innovation, the confidence of politicians, bureaucrats and general experts has not diminished.

Geoffrey Miller: Can Jacinda Ardern’s starpower save New Zealand’s free trade deal with the EU?

Jacinda Ardern will need to deploy every aspect of her starpower if she is to have any hope of rescuing New Zealand’s faltering free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU).

The Prime Minister has branded each of her four foreign trips so far this year as ‘trade missions’ – and the labelling will certainly ring true on her visit to Brussels this week.

On Thursday, Ardern will hold direct talks with Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. The former German defence minister has become a familiar face on New Zealand television screens over the past few months, thanks to her repeated announcements on the EU’s support for Ukraine.

Denis Hall: The real reason for the Ukraine war.

I've been watching News all day for days - because this situation fascinates me - and I'm not talking about the deadbeats in New Zealand's so called "news". They do not count for anything. I deal with them with the remote. Click – gone!

The most informative News Org I have to say - and it makes me squirm to say it - is Al Jazeera. and I have also been watching Fox and RT (Russia Today) and the wackos at the BBC - and some of the others that I have on my TV. I have also been interested in History all my life - and I never did get indoctrinated in any 'University' 'political science class' - and this below is what I think about all this.

Get on Google Earth first - and see where the Ukraine actually is in relation to the European Union and Russia. (And TRY to remember - that Russia and China are joined at the hip by tradition - landmass - politics - and the future.)

God forbid I would be on Russia's side in this - but in terms of stupid I find it difficult to be on NATO's side.

Bob Edlin: The not-so-secret plan for EU domination

With all the focus on Brexit turmoil, it’s easy to miss recent changes in the EU. Unfortunate, because they are important. 

The appointment of former German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, as president of the European Commission was rightly seen as a signal of Germany’s predominance in Europe but her political programme is even more significant. 

This can be found in the aptly-titled manifesto “A Union that strives for more“. And it surely does – in enough detail for liberal nightmares.

Matt Ridley: The European Union Rejected Genome Edited Crops

The European Court of Justice has just delivered a scientifically absurd ruling, in defiance of advice from its advocate general, but egged on by Jean-Claude Juncker’s allies. It will ensure that more pesticides are used in Britain, our farmers will be less competitive and researchers will leave for North America. Thanks a bunch, your honours.

By saying that genome-edited crops must be treated to expensive and uncertain regulation, it has pandered to the views of a handful of misguided extremists, who no longer have popular support in this country.

Matt Ridley: Free movement of genius was crucial to Europe’s prosperity

The Italian referendum and close-shave Austrian election are symptoms of a continent that may be teetering on the brink of political disintegration. It’s just possible that an empire may be collapsing before our eyes, as the Habsburg and Ottoman empires did before it, in or around the same neighbourhood.

With the rise of nationalist parties in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Britain, the possibility that the Brussels union has fomented, rather than suppressed, nationalism can no longer be dismissed.

Matt Ridley: A bright global future for Britain

I was just too young to vote in the 1975 referendum. I would have voted “Yes” to the European Community and I think I would have been right to do so. It had contributed to European peace by blurring French and German economic sovereignty. It was a free trade area in a world of high tariff barriers, albeit within a protectionist wall that excluded other countries and continents. It helped to halt Britain’s disastrous obsession with central planning.

Two decades later, the European project stopped being about economic growth (to this day it still has no trade deals with America, China, Japan, Brazil, India, Canada, Australia and Indonesia) and embarked on the drive for monetary and political union, embodied in the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon.

Matt Ridley: Why Europe cannot grow digital giants

The EU is falling behind and it's not bad luck, it's bad policy

Last week I visited an island and stood among a crowd of puffins. If I turned my head I could see the lighthouse. If I looked up, the arctic terns were above my head. Yet I never left a gallery in Gateshead. How come? I was wearing a virtual-reality mask.

I have tried this “Oculus” technology once before, when visiting Facebook in California (which owns Oculus) and it is truly extraordinary to have an all-round, up-and-down view of the world depending on how you turn your head. All it involves is a special (Samsung) smartphone jammed into a pair of goggles.

Matt Ridley: Leaving the European Union would be a leap into the light

For me, in the end, it’s all about innovation. The European Union is bad at doing it, good at discouraging it, repeatedly sides with those who have vested interests in resisting it, and holds Britain back from achieving it.

This may not be a fashionable reason for voting to leave. Pollsters tell us that safety is the first wish of most voters, not exciting change, and it’s clear that both sides are playing to that rule book: one side arguing for us to take control by leaving, the other saying we are more secure if we stay in. But if history teaches us anything it is that enterprise is the father of peace, that innovation brings not just economic but ethical improvements: it demonstrably makes us kinder and safer as well as richer. There is no security in stagnation.

Matt Ridley from the UK: The EU versus the UN - who makes the rules?

In today’s speech on the European Union, previewed in this morning’s Times, Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, will make a surprising and telling point.

It is that many of the rules handed down to British businesses and consumers by Brussels have often (and increasingly) been in turn handed down to it by higher powers. This means, he argues, that we would have more influence outside the EU than within it. We could rejoin some top tables.

One example is the set of rules about food safety: additives, labelling, pesticide residues and so on. The food rules that Britain has to implement under the EU’s single market are now made by an organisation that sounds like either a Vatican secret society or a Linnean name for a tapeworm: Codex Alimentarius. Boringly, it’s actually a standard-setting commission, based in Rome.

Peter Saunders from the UK: Free movement of labour bad for Britain's youth

More than a quarter of British people who voted in the recent elections to the European Parliament voted for the UK Independence Party (UKIP). I was one of them. UKIP wants Britain to leave the EU. It also supports immigration controls in place of the free movement of labour required by EU membership.

A left-wing friend challenged me on this. Wasn't I being inconsistent, arguing in favour of free   markets yet voting for a party that wants to shut down Europe's free market in labour? My answer was that free movement of labour worked well when EU countries were at roughly comparable levels of prosperity (which was the case when the European Economic Community was first set up). But today, the EU encompasses poor countries as well as rich ones. Romania's average wage levels are about one-fifth those in Britain.