Clark: More Maori employed, but there's work to do
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Prime Minister Helen Clark used a speech to Ratana today to recall Maori hardship last decade.
"In 1992 one in every four Maori New Zealanders was out of work," Miss Clark told the gathering of several hundred.
"Today it stands at under 8 per cent but we know we can do better."
Miss Clark's 15th visit to the annual Ratana celebrations come as Labour's influence in the Maori seats wanes and the long-standing alliance between Labour and the Ratana movement is tested by the rise of the Maori Party.
Miss Clark referred to the links between her own party and Ratana but acknowledged New Zealand was now in "a more complex and multi-party environment".
She used her speech to highlight the Labour government's record with Maoridom and referred to the Maori renaissance of recent years, in business, the arts, entertainment and elsewhere.
Like National leader John Key, Miss Clark paid tribute to Sir Edmund Hillary and Maori poet Hone Tuwhare.
Earlier, Key pledged to revive what he labelled a "stalled" treaty settlement process.
Speaking at the 135th celebrations of the birthday of the Ratana's founder, Mr Key acknowledged the long-standing relationship between Maori and the Labour Party, who formed an allegiance with the Ratana movement more than 70 years ago.
But Mr Key questioned whether the nature of the relationship was partly to blame for the lack of progress on treaty settlements.
Thousands are expected at Ratana for the birthday celebrations, which have become a significant event at the start of the political calendar.
The mood at the commemorations was relaxed, with speakers welcoming Mr Key onto the marae to laughter at the suggestion that there was only a "slim chance" of him becoming the next prime minister.
The Dominion post
Two Australians quizzed over Singapore plane alert
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Two Australians were being questioned by Singapore police after the small plane they were flying caused a temporary lockdown of city-state's commercial airspace on Tuesday evening, a local paper.
The plane, a single-engine turboprop Cessna 208, flew into Singapore airspace from Thailand without permission and was intercepted by two Singapore air force fighter jets before landing at Changi Airport.
The Straits Times reported that the plane was bought this month by an Australian woman who owned a travel company. The report did not identify the two people on board.
The closure of commercial airspace affected 23 aircraft, disrupting flights in and out of Changi Airport. Another inbound aircraft was diverted to Senai Airport in neighbouring Malaysia. Reuters kc \NZP
Reuters
Five charged over murder of Australian in Vanuatu
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Five men have been charged with murdering an Australian woman at her home in the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila.
Lyndall Jaques, 69, was found with her throat cut in her house in the largely expatriate enclave on the outskirts of city earlier this month.
The head of the investigation into Jaques' death, Superintendent Bule Kelson, said five men were taken into custody last week and all were charged with murdering and robbing Jaques.
All five have admitted their part in the robbery, although only one, 21-year-old Jacky Saul, has stated he killed the woman.
The other men charged are Mafe Willie, Faty Jimmy, Hiu Jack and Sandrino Paul.
The suspects appeared briefly in court last week and have been remanded to re-appear on January 30.
Police were still awaiting the outcome of a coroner's report on whether Jaques was sexually assaulted, although Saul had not admitted to that, Kelson said.
"They all went together. They admitted going together and robbing the house and that Jacky Saul did the killing.
"He admitted killing her, just because she was there on that night. She tried to disturb them so that is why he did it," Kelson said.
He said two of the men turned themselves in to police and the other three suspects were arrested last week.
The death of Jaques sparked outrage in Vanuatu, amid claims it signalled an explosion of crime in Port Vila, a usually quiet harbourside city.
Saul was on the run from authorities and local villagers who were angered by the killing.
"There was a lot of talking about what has happened, including from our head of state, the family members, the community. So he (Saul) approached one of the leaders in the community to give himself up," Kelson said.
"The situation in Port Vila is very quiet. It is just one of those incidents, but people are again going about their normal way of life," he said.
Jaques, a former school teacher in Sydney, had lived in Vanuatu since 1986.
AAP
Canada says will not attend UN racism conference
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Canada will not take part in a major United Nations conference on racism next year because the event is likely to descend into "regrettable anti-Semitism", a top official said.
Officials said they believed Canada was the first nation to announce it will not attend the conference in Durban, South Africa.
A similar meeting at the same venue in 2001 was marred when Israel and the United States walked out in protest over draft conference texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state – language that was later dropped.
"(We) had hoped that the preparatory process for the 2009. . . conference would remedy the mistakes of the past. Despite our efforts, we have concluded that it will not. Canada will therefore not participate," Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said in a statement.
Jason Kenney, the secretary of state for multiculturalism, said the Conservative government was sure the conference would "showcase the same regrettable anti-Semitism" as the 2001 meeting.
"Our government sees no value in allowing Canada's participation to continue to dignify or legitimate such hateful and un-Canadian propaganda," he said.
The Canadian government is a strong supporter of Israel. Bernier apologized on Saturday for an internal Foreign Ministry training manual that listed both Israel and the United States on a torture watch list.
B'nai Brith Canada praised Ottawa for pulling out of "a farce of conference" that it said "pays lip service to anti-racism but in fact provides a platform for the promotion of hatred and bigotry".
The Canadian Jewish Congress also commended Ottawa for what it said was a principled stand.
Reuters
Killers smile at each other during sentencing
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Two lesbian killers who murdered a 16-year-old girl for being annoying, smiled at each today as a Perth court was told it took their victim half an hour to die.
Jessica Ellen Stasinowsky, 20, and her girlfriend Valerie Paige Parashumti, 19, pleaded guilty in December to the wilful murder of Stacey Mitchell.
They admitted in the West Australian Supreme Court to killing Mitchell between December 17 and 21, 2006, while the girl was staying with them at a house in Perth.
Her body was later found in a wheelie bin in the back shed of the house.
During sentencing submissions today, prosecutor David Dempster described how Parashumti bludgeoned Stacey with a concrete block while Stasinowsky strangled her with a dog chain.
The two girls grinned and grimaced at each other as Dempster told the court it took their victim half an hour to die.
Their expressions drew a rebuke from Justice Peter Blaxell.
Under West Australian law, wilful murder carries a mandatory life sentence of at least 15 years in jail, although the sentencing judge can set a higher minimum time.
AAP
Paul Wolfowitz to chair arms control panel
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Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war who was forced to resign from the World Bank because of an ethics scandal, will chair a US advisory panel on arms control, the State Department said.
The former deputy secretary of defence and advocate of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq will head the State Department's International Security Advisory Board, which gives the department independent advice on arms control, disarmament, international security and other matters.
Wolfowitz was forced to resign as president of the World Bank last year after a bank panel found he broke several of its rules by involving himself in the promotion of his companion Shaha Riza, a Middle East expert at the bank.
The controversy sparked outrage among some of the bank's 10,000 employees and prompted senior staff to write to its board complaining the leadership crisis had undermined their work, especially in fighting corruption.
Reuters
West Bank violence erupts
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Israeli air strikes killed four Palestinian militants in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, from where more people streamed over a breached border into Egypt to escape an Israeli blockade.
Violence also flared in the occupied West Bank where two Palestinians and an Israeli border policeman were shot dead.
Israel's deputy defence minister said the Jewish state wanted to cut its links with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after militants blasted open the territory's border fence with Egypt.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was up to Egypt to ensure the security of its border with Gaza.
"It's a difficult situation for them, but it is an international border. It needs to be protected and I believe that Egypt understands the importance of doing that," she said.
Washington said it was willing to work with Egyptian authorities to restore order but did not give details.
Earlier, two separate Israeli air strikes on cars killed at least four Palestinian militants in Rafah, Gaza security officials and medical staff said.
Jewish settlers shot dead two Palestinians and gunmen killed an Israeli border policeman in two separate incidents in the occupied West Bank in areas which have remained relatively calm for a months.
A police spokesman said Palestinian gunmen shot an Israeli paramilitary border policeman and seriously wounded a female colleague at the Shuafat refugee camp in the West Bank near Jerusalem.
The Israeli was the first fatality in the occupied West Bank since Palestinian gunmen shot and killed two off-duty soldiers near the city of Hebron last month.
There was no immediate claim for the attack.
In a second incident Jewish settlers overpowered and shot dead two Palestinians who infiltrated the settlement of Kfar Etzion not far from Bethlehem, an army spokeswoman said.
Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said Israel wanted to wash its hands of Gaza altogether by handing over the supply of electricity, water and medicine to others. An Israeli security official said Egypt should take over responsibility.
"When Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility for it. So we want to disconnect from it," Vilnai said.
Israel occupied Gaza in 1967 but pulled troops and settlers out in 2005, although it still controls the strip's northern and eastern borders, airspace and coastal waters.
It has imposed a blockade it says is meant to counter militant rocket fire.
A spokesman for Hamas, which seized control of Gaza after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces in June, rejected Vilnai's disengagement idea as an attempt to separate Gaza from the occupied West Bank.
Reuters
Chinese train runs down, kills workers
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A high-speed Chinese train ran through a group of maintenance workers, killing 18 and injuring nine, the Railway Ministry said.
The train was travelling from Beijing to the eastern coastal resort city of Qingdao on Wednesday evening when the accident happened.
"The workers were relocating the tracks when the train ran into the work site" in the city of Anqiu in Shandong province, Xinhua news agency said.
The workers had arrived on the site ahead of schedule, when passing trains were still travelling at up to 120 km per hour (75 mph), rather than the 45 km per hour mandated for passing through areas under maintenance, the report added.
"The injured had been hospitalised and were in a stable condition and the transportation of the railway had resumed after a short suspension," it cited the ministry as saying.
No passengers on the train were killed or injured, a ministry official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters. He did not explain why it took two days for the news to come to light.
Trains are packed in China as people head to their home provinces for the Lunar New Year holiday which starts on February 7.
Reuters
Greenpeace whale protest ship returning to port
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Greenpeace's ship Esperanza, which has been pursuing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, is running low on fuel and returning to port.
Greenpeace said tonight that in a dramatic 4300 nautical mile pursuit, the Esperanza spent 14 days chasing the whaling fleet's factory ship, the Nisshin Maru.
Without the factory ship, the remaining hunter vessels had been unable to operate - bringing the whaling programme to a halt.
Greenpeace said it was estimated that the fleet needed to catch approximately nine minke whales each day and an endangered fin whale every other day in order to reach their self-imposed quota of nearly 1000 whales.
However, the Japanese government said they would not whale while Greenpeace was with the Nisshin Maru.
"While the Esperanza must return to port, the campaign to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is far from over," said expedition leader Karli Thomas.
Yesterday it was reported the fleet was heading into waters under New Zealand's control.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said air surveillance photos of the fleet would be published if the ships entered areas patrolled by air force Orions.
Miss Clark said co-ordinates would not be published "for obvious safety-related reasons" but information would be released about its location.
She said the presence of the fleet anywhere near New Zealand's search and rescue area was a cause of grave concern.
"It's an area that's very difficult to access. If there are problems it's difficult to render assistance," she said.
Last year the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru was disabled by fire in the Ross Sea.
One whaler was killed but the ship eventually managed to return to port under its own steam.
The Australian government ship Oceanic Viking is still tracking the fleet.
-NZPA
