Polity: TPP, eh?
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
So what was the ratio of security to attendees at the various events?
Not to mention the undoubted crowd plants, spooks on roofs, snipers in trees and drone coverage...
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This is what passes for 'Justice' in the USA these days:
Iran was ordered by a U.S. judge to pay more than $10.5 billion in damages to families of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to a group of insurers.
U.S. District Judge George Daniels in New York issued a default judgment Wednesday against Iran for $7.5 billion to the estates and families of people who died at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It includes $2 million to each estate for the victims’ pain and suffering plus $6.88 million in punitive damages.
Daniels also awarded $3 billion to insurers including Chubb Ltd. that paid property damage, business interruption and other claims.
Earlier in the case, Daniels found that Iran had failed to defend claims that it aided the Sept. 11 hijackers and was therefore liable for damages tied to the attacks. Daniels’s ruling Wednesday adopts damages findings by a U.S. magistrate judge in December. While it is difficult to collect damages from an unwilling foreign nation, the plaintiffs may try to collect part of the judgments using a law that permits parties to tap terrorists’ assets frozen by the government.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-10/iran-told-to-pay-10-5-billion-to-sept-11-kin-insurers
No need for evidence and that sort of thing - just failure to contest!!
Do we really want that sort of un-nuanced machine blundering out of control through our green and pleasant land? -
Alfie, in reply to
No need for evidence and that sort of thing – just failure to contest!!
Especially when most of the evidence so far points to the Saudis funding 9/11. But hey... they're on our side... sort of.. kinda... maybe.
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As the "TPPA Benefits" roadshow continues they're finding new and creative ways to effectively exclude the great unwashed.
Today's Invercargill performance was free to members of the Southland Chamber of Commerce, but the public had to pay $45 to attend the talk. Seriously? WTF?
Trade Minister Todd McClay (twisted to "McCLay" in Stuff parlance) told southerners that the TPPA would be good for Invercargill because... the internet. His logic somehow connects 800 million online consumers as justifying the signing of this treacherous treaty.
Sorry Mr McClay, but those 800m people were online before you signed away our sovereignty, and would still have been there if the TPPA never existed. Logic fail.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
the Saudis...
...were granted immunity from prosecution it seems !
Sept. 29, 2015 10:56 p.m. ET
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed Saudi Arabia as a defendant in lawsuits brought by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying the plaintiffs hadn’t presented sufficient evidence that Saudi Arabia was involved.
The decision by U.S. District Judge George Daniels marks a setback for the decade long legal effort to secure billions of dollars in damages for families of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the attacks.
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Saudi Arabia was initially dismissed from the case in 2005, on the basis of foreign countries’ immunity from prosecution, but a federal appeals court in 2013 reversed that decision. Saudi Arabia again moved to be excused from the case, claiming state immunity to prosecution and lack of evidence tying the kingdom to the attacks.http://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-is-dismissed-as-defendant-in-9-11-lawsuits-1443581766
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Following the blanket secrecy which surrounded negotiations and the farce of those “public consultations” which effectively excluded anyone who opposed the TPP, the Nats have finally had enough and proffered two fingers to the democratic process.
The committee considering hundreds of public submissions had a stupidly tight four week schedule in which to give each submission due consideration before writing a final report for parliament. That period has just been reduced to just five days. It would be impossible for MPs to wade through all the submissions in that timeframe, let alone write a considered report.
The Nats are sick of hearing opposition to the TPP and just want to get the job over and done with. This surrendering of any pretence of due process can only lead to one conclusion. That the outcome has been predetermined.
Democracy. It’s one of those annoying things which has to be worked around.
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Angela Hart, in reply to
Does the committtee have no options? If I were a member I'd be considering walking out or resigning. Could the committee simply reject the new timeframe and refuse to put out a report until it had properly considered the submissions?
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Sacha, in reply to
The opposition members of the committee can write a minority report - and given the govt's behaviour on this they would be stupid not to.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
This surrendering of any pretence of due process can only lead to one conclusion. That the outcome has been predetermined.
Pushing things through 'under urgency' - it's the National way....
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Govt unexpectedly posts 8-month surplus on increased tax take
Until you read the figures..
Income $48.1 Billion
Expenses $48.4 Billion
Er... that's a loss of $300 million......
But wait.... there's more...
Assets $275.3 Billion
Liabilities $188.3 Billion
Hey we're $87 Billion ahead..
Hang on... The operating balance is -$5.1 billion so $82 billion..
ButIn the first eight months, net debt was lower than forecast at $62.4 billion
I wonder who's arse they pulled that figure out of?.
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While TPP discussion seems to have died down and none of the US Presidential candidates support it, our government is still proceeding down the path of handing over our sovereignty to kangaroo courts of US lawyers to the benefit of multi-national corporations.
Canadian professor Gus van Haarten is visiting NZ and warning us about the dangers of investor-State dispute settlements (ISDS)
Trade Minister Todd McClay, best known now for his role in scrapping the IRD investigation into dubious offshore trusts after lobbying from the PM's personal (non) lawyer, keeps talking about the "huge economic benefits" of the TPP while ignoring the very real risks involved.
Prof van Haarten points out that under the NAFTA agreement, Canada has become the fifth most sued country in the world. Here's a comprehensive study of the 77 known NAFTA investor-state dispute settlement claims up to January 1 2015.
The list of Cases Filed Against the Government of Canada under ISDS provisions makes for chilling reading.
Canada has lost or settled six claims paying a total of $170 million in damages, while Mexico has lost five cases and paid out $204 million. The U.S.,meanwhile, has won 11 cases and has never lost a NAFTA investor-state case.
The bill to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement successfully passed its first reading on Thursday backed by National, Act and United Future.
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Timmy reassures US pharma he has done their bidding.
New Zealand Ambassador Tim Groser said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch’s position on biologics in the TPP was “principled” but that the Utah Republican should not be worried about the level of protection the deal will provide for the new class of drugs.
Not enough attention has been paid to TPP language saying that all countries must provide "effective market protection" for biological drugs, Groser told reporters Friday at a lunch hosted by the National Foreign Trade Council.
“[New Zealand] will meet our TPP obligations, which require us to give effective market control through a variety of different mechanisms,” said Groser, who recently served as his country’s trade minister. “The shortest period of time between the marketing of the original [biological drug] and the entry of [a biosimilar] through our regulatory process ... the shortest period is over 20 years. So this is not just pure theory I’m spouting.”
Two-faced creep.
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Trump has chucked out the TPP. While the Nats are making desperate squeaky noises about trying to revive the deal with the other partners, so much of the document was written by and for the benefit of US corporates that the thing is basically dead in the water. That's a good thing.
I believe that Key's government passed a number of laws in anticipation of the TPP being ratified. Things like copyright and extended protection for biologics.
I'd like to know exactly which of our laws fit this category, and if they will be rolled back. And if not, why not.
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linger, in reply to
If the drafters were in any way competent, such laws would be worded so as to come into effect only after the TPP, which would make them dead letters now anyway. But then again, why should we expect competence from these assclowns?
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Ironic isn't it - Donald Trump saves us from the ultimate in American hegemony.
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lets be clear, Trump scrapped it and announced that the US will do individual deals that are worse for small countries.
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