Kate Hawkesby: Why isn't there any urgency in distributing the relief funds?

So despite more money being announced yesterday for cyclone recovery, there’s still money floating around that hasn’t even been allocated or spent yet.

Months on from Cyclone Gabrielle, more than 30 million dollars in donations is still unspent. How’s that possible? What is it they’re waiting for? It was reported that, “So far, only 5 million of the 24 million donated to the Red Cross Disaster Fund has been allocated, while none of the 11.7 million raised in a March Lotto draw has been dispersed… as 79 cents of every donated dollar remains unspent, earning interest of 150 thousand dollars, the Red Cross is defending the time taken, saying it's allowed for crucial planning and trials.”

Ron Smith: Hard questions about nuclear weapons

The New Zealand Red Cross is running an essay competition for tertiary students.  The topic is, “Why do we need an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons?”  First prize: $1,000.  That’s good!  What isn’t good is that the question is completely closed.  (‘We need a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.  Tell me why in two thousand words’.  The Red Cross website is explicit on the matter.  The intention is, they say, “to reignite the debate for a ban on the use of nuclear weapons”.).

The assumption is that such a treaty is desirable and practicable.  I wonder how entrants who cast plausible doubt on either of these propositions get on?   Our universities are full enough of closed questions.  It does no service to higher education to add another one and especially on so fraught and difficult a question as that of the future of nuclear weapons and its essential relationship to global security.