Your first two days in Antarctica, if a newbie, are spent doing Antarctic Field Training. Basically you get taught how to operate out in the field. There is a huge emphasis on health and safety, but their approach is not not so much rules based as teaching people how to make good decisions. Once you are out in the field, you need to decide a lot of stuff on the spot.

After an initial hour inside, you go out for a walk on the sea ice. There are hundreds of sea lions lazing about.

You really do not want to fall into the water!

On average we have two metres of ice over the Ross Sea, but less in some areas.

Then we spend a few more hours inside learning how to use the cookers, selecting tents and gear and then outside into a Haglund.

We travel around 5 kms away from Scott Base to set up camp.

The first tent up (and was already there) is the toilet tent. Antarctica NZ is passionate about leaving minimal impact on the environment so all human waste is collected, including urine. You all have a pee bottle to use also.  There is no going behind the rocks.

Time to start setting up the tents.

First you smooth out the area you want to pitch the tent. Then you pitch the tent, and finally weigh it down by covering the sides with snow.

This is the tent I was in. You have to basically crawl into the tent through a small tunnel, so there were lots of jokes about it being a birthing chamber 🙂

One of the other tents our groups had. The three media type people did field training with a group of four from AUT who are down to map sensitive areas of Antarctica using drones. I’ll cover their work in a later post.

And finally we have the tents all set up.

The entire time it was snowing. Lightly at first, but then more heavily. 99% of the time the snow is dry (Antarctica generally is extremely dry) but that night it was wet snow, so by the end of the night (well it is never night but you know what I mean) we were a bit wet.

After the tents were done, we then had to make our field kitchen which I’ll blog about later also.

“That government is best which governs least.”

– Thomas Paine

The quote of the week is brought to you by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. To support the Union’s campaign for lower taxes and less government waste, click here.

Jim Rose looks at Gareth Morgan’s advocacy of a universal basic income, as opposed to our current minimum family tax credit. What does he find:

If you do a UBI which is fiscally neutral, the big losers are:

• Sole parents lose $150 a week
• Retired couple lose $50 a week

So when people argue for a UBI, they are arguing for less money for sole parents and superannuitants. The big winner would be:

• Sole earner on $200,000 makes $150 a week more

What if you did a UBI, so sole parents don’t lose out?

You’d be spending an extra $10 billion a year!!!

Rose notes:

The Treasury modelled a Guaranteed Minimum income at the request of the Welfare Working Group in 2010. A  guaranteed minimum income  of $300 per week – the mean benefit income among those on benefits – would cost $44.5 billion or $52.6 billion if we extended it to super annuitants as a replacement for NZ Superannuation or old age pension. The former could be covered by a flat personal income tax rate of 45.4%; the latter, 48.6%. Full fiscal neutrality would require tax rates of 50.6% and 54.4%.

Wonderful!

He quotes Brian Easton who said:

Many advocates put the UMI forward without doing the sums. Those who do, find that the required tax rates are horrendous or the minimum income is so low that it is not a viable means of eliminating poverty.

UMI is one of those things that are great in theory, but crap in practice.

A very moving story from the Melbourne Age.

The two scientists relished life. They skied, went bushwalking and climbed mountains, often taking their three young daughters with them. Their cultural and intellectual pursuits were many – classical music, opera, literature, wine, arguments over dinner with their many friends. They donated 10 per cent of their annual income to political and environmental movements. Family events were spent thoroughly debating the topics of the day.

As their capacity declined, the conversation about ending their own lives became more serious and their rejection of what Peter called “religious do-gooders” became more fierce.

“It was also a way into their favourite topics; philosophy, ethics, politics, the law…,” says their youngest daughter, Kate. “The idea that their end-of-life decisions could be interfered with by people with the superstitions of medieval inquisitors astounded them, and alarmed them.” …

Once they were aged 87:

They set a date. Peter said it was time and Pat agreed. They would enter the “big sleep” together on October 27, the day after Pat’s 87th birthday.

Anny got on a plane. When she arrived in Melbourne on October 21, she was shocked at how frail her parents looked. She would often find her father slumped in his chair. Her mother was struggling to move in the purposeful way she used to. Anny showed them a DVD of concerts she had performed with the Munich Radio Orchestra. But she could see that her parents had changed. They were tired. Even a bit bored, she thought.

On their final night together, the family shared a last supper of sorts. The sisters prepared a plate of cheeses, avocado and smoked salmon to eat with wine. Peter and Pat pecked at it. They didn’t seem very interested in food. Anny picked up their grandmother’s violin and played for her parents. They went to bed around 10pm.

The next morning, Peter and Pat got up early. They showered, dressed and made their bed. Peter had breakfast, a fried egg and coffee. Pat did not eat. She wanted to keep her stomach empty for what was to come.

The family sat in their backyard in the soft morning sun, enjoying the native garden that had flourished around their Robin Boyd-style home. Peter had designed the house himself in the 1960s.

“They were more cheerful than I had seen them since I arrived,” Anny said.

Everybody knew the plan. The sisters were to leave around noon. They felt they had no choice. Assisting, aiding or abetting a suicide carries a penalty of up to five years’ jail in Victoria. Their mother would have liked them to stay, but not at the risk of prosecution.

Pat did not want to die by herself, so she would take a lethal drug first. After leaving her in their bed, Peter would walk alone down the hall of their home and into the living room where they had shared so many hours. He would open the back door and trek one last time through his yard and into his shed where his equipment was set up.

Wouldn’t it have been simpler if they could have had their loved ones present when they chose to go?

Somewhere in Antarctica, there is a mountain named after Peter Shaw. He conquered it in 1955 on a pioneering mission with the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions.

The following year, he was awarded a Polar Medal for the mission and he was immortalised on a postage stamp. The trip had been tough. He and his companions had endured at least one terrifying storm that was so traumatic no one ever spoke about it again. They relied on candles for light and layers of wool for warmth. There were no fancy gadgets.

The year that Peter stuck an Australian flag in that peak was the same year he fell in love with his sweetheart.

Patricia was the “it girl” in their mountaineering club. Dazzling blue eyes and blonde hair. But Pat – or Patsy as she was sometimes called – was more comfortable in shorts and hiking boots than dresses and baby-doll heels. She was whip smart, too. Had plenty to say and knew what she was talking about.

The first time Peter ever saw Pat, he later told the girls, he had turned to a friend at the club gathering and asked who she was. The attraction was mutual. They married when they were 27.

Sounds like they had a great life, and they got to leave it on their terms.

Now their daughters waited on the beach. Their greatest fear was not that their beloved parents would die, but that they – or worse, one of them – would not.

The Shaw sisters trusted their parents and had faith in their plan but they were still aware of the many things that could go wrong.

What if the drug their mother had buried in her garden for fear of a police raid had lost its potency? What if one of them survived to be accused of killing the other?

Real fears.

There is no good way to lose your parents. When the three sisters returned to their parents’ house, they were orphans. The plan had worked and there was no sign of suffering. Peter and Pat had set out to end their lives in a meticulous, scientific fashion without any fuss, just as they had lived. And they had done it.

Quality of life can be as important as quantity.

Peter and Pat should have been able to do what they did, without the need for secrecy, and with tightly regulated procedures for assistance.

Stuff reports:

A man who has battled Auckland officials for 10 years for the go-ahead to remove a dangerous norfolk pine is amazed a similar tree is being felled without permission.

Paul Walker has been rejected twice for resource consent to cut down the scheduled tree in his Otahuhu front yard, and is now appealing to the Environment Court.

Several large branches have blown off the tree and landed near the Station Road house.

One also fell on the footpath in front of the property, while cones from the norfolk pine have smashed roof tiles.

The moment branches are coming off and hitting the house, the owner should be able to trim or fell the tree.

However the independent commissioners assessing his latest resource consent application last year said removing the tree would have “an adverse effect on visual amenity within the neighbourhood”.

The neighbourhood can plant their own trees if they want.

The Antarctic Treaty is one of the most successful and succinct treaties in international law.

At the height of the cold war,  12 countries agreed to make Antarctica a continent with no wars and no commercial activity – to protect it as an area for science. These countries were Argentina, Australia, Belgium Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the UK and the US.

The treaty has stood the test of time. No country has tried to set up a non-scientific presence in Antarctica, and another 41 countries have signed up to the treaty. It has preserved Antarctica as a unique area for science, where you can learn the history of the world by drilling down through the ice. It is the planet’s dedicated science laboratory.

One extraordinary thing about the treaty is how short it is. The TPPA is 6,000 or so pages. The Antarctic Treaty is only 12 pages long. They must have kept the lawyers away from it. The later environmental protocol is much long at 50 pages (and smaller font!)

It does three main things:

1. Established that Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only

2. Mandates freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end

3. Requires scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made freely available

All countries have effectively put aside (but not dismissed) their territorial claims. And they have agreed that all facilities are open to inspection by any other country. Nominated observers have complete freedom of access.

If the treaty had never been agreed back in the late 1950s, Antarctica might be a very different place today. Rather than a continent open to anyone, it may have become a land closed to the territorial claimants only.  It was the first arms control agreement of the cold war.

The summary of the main articles is:

• Article 1 – The area is to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose;
• Article 2 – Freedom of scientific investigations and cooperation shall continue;
• Article 3 – Free exchange of information and personnel in cooperation with the United Nations and other international agencies;
• Article 4 – The treaty does not recognize, dispute, nor establish territorial sovereignty claims; no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force;
• Article 5 – The treaty prohibits nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive wastes;
• Article 6 – Includes under the treaty all land and ice shelves but not the surrounding waters south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south;
• Article 7 – Treaty-state observers have free access, including aerial observation, to any area and may inspect all stations, installations, and equipment; advance notice of all activities and of the introduction of military personnel must be given;
• Article 8 – Allows for good jurisdiction over observers and scientists by their own states;
• Article 9 – Frequent consultative meetings take place among member nations;
• Article 10 – All treaty states will discourage activities by any country in Antarctica that are contrary to the treaty;
• Article 11 – All disputes to be settled peacefully by the parties concerned or, ultimately, by the International Court of Justice;

It is a unique agreement which covers 10% of the world’s land surface and 10% of its oceans.

The US State Department has background on the initial meeting:

By the 1950s, seven nations — Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom — claimed territorial sovereignty over areas of Antarctica. Claims of Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom overlapped. Eight other nations — the United States, the Soviet Union, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Japan, and South Africa — had engaged in exploration but had put forward no specific claims. The United States did not recognize the claims of other governments and reserved the right to assert claims. The Soviet Union took a similar position.

Activities in the Antarctic had generally been conducted peacefully and cooperatively. Yet the possibility that exploitable economic resources might be found meant the possibility of future rivalry for their control. Moreover, isolated and uninhabited, the continent might at some time become a potential site for deploying nuclear weapons.

Fortunately, international scientific associations were able to work out arrangements for effective cooperation. In 1956 and 1957, for example, American meteorologists “wintered over” at the Soviet post Mirnyy, while Soviet meteorologists “wintered over” at Little America. These cooperative activities culminated in the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958 (IGY), a joint scientific effort by 12 nations — Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States — to conduct studies of the Earth and its cosmic environment.

In the years after World War II, as interest grew in keeping the continent from becoming militarized, there began diplomatic discussion of the possibility of formalizing a demilitarization arrangement. On May 3, 1958, the United States proposed to the other 11 nations participating in the IGY that a conference be held, based on the points of agreement that had been reached in informal discussions:

(1) that the legal status quo of the Antarctic Continent remain unchanged;
(2) that scientific cooperation continue;
(3) that the continent be used for peaceful purposes only.

All 11 nations accepted the U.S. invitation. The Washington Conference on Antarctica met from October 15 to December 1, 1959. No insurmountable conflicts or issues divided the conference, and negotiations culminated in a treaty signed by all 12 nations on December 1, 1959.

As I said at the beginning, few treaties have been as successful as The Antarctic Treaty.

The Antarctic Treaty

Stats NZ reports:

In the year to December 2015 food prices decreased 1.3 percent, influenced by lower prices for grocery foods, Statistics New Zealand said today. This is the largest annual fall since July 2012.

Grocery food prices decreased 3.0 percent over the year, led by lower prices for some dairy products, and for breads and cereals. Fresh milk prices were down 14 percent compared with the same period last year.

Meat, poultry, and fish prices decreased 3.8 percent over the year, led by lower prices for chicken. Chicken prices are now at their lowest level since January 2008.

“Chicken prices have fallen during the year, with the price for a kilo of chicken breast averaging $14.62 in December, compared with $16.60 a year ago,” consumer prices manager Matt Haigh said.

Fruit and vegetable prices increased 2.4 percent, with higher prices for avocados and bananas.

In seven years food prices have increased on average by just 1.2% a year. In the seven years before that they increased by 3.4% a year.

That may not sound a lot but over seven years it is.

If you were spending $300 a week on groceries at the start of the seven year period, then at 3.4% a year your food bill has increased to $371 a week. But at 1.2% a year it has increased to $325 a week only. So you have $46 a week more to spend or save.

The last 90 minutes of the flight gives you amazing views of Antarctica and the sheet ice. These photos are through a small window so don’t capture the actual panoramic view, but may give an idea.

We landed dead on schedule, and the rear door opens up to give us our first view of Antarctica from the ground.

We landed at Williams Field. It has two snow runways. On average eight metres of snow on top of 80 metres of ice, floating on the water.

A Hercules on the ice.

And a close up of the skis they land on.

We then boarded the Terra Bus for a 20 minute trip to Scott Base.

The front of Scott Base.

And my home for the next few days. Not that I’ll be sleeping inside every night. For the next day and a half I’ll be out in the field doing training, so won’t be back on base until late Monday.

Richard Harman writes at Politik:

Chris Bishop came into Parliament as a National list MP in 2014 with what you might call form. …

In other words he had precisely the sort of CV that cynics around Parliament believe means its owner is inevitably headed for a fall.

But it hasn’t happened.

Instead he has confounded his critics to the point where his name appeared last year on virtually every media shortlist as backbencher of the year.

Chris has been very active in all the ways you want an MP to be.

• Hugely active in the Hutt community where he is a List MP
• Active legislator with one member’s bill drawn from the ballot and has helped write bills for several other MPs
• Frequent speaker in parliamentary debates

• Active participant in select committees

Ask him what will matter this year and he will single out two particular areas; neither of them necessarily headline makers.

His first pick is the debate about planning reform which to a certain extent means the Resource Management Act reforms but more probably will eventually centre on the way politicians react to whatever recommendations the Productivity Commission comes up with as it examines the totality of planning legislation.

“I think this is going to be bit edgy this year,” he says.

“It sounds quite boring but it’s actually right at the hard edge of some of the economic and social debate around inequality and poverty and around housing affordability.”

Like Finance Minister Bill English he has noticed what appears to be a shift in Labour’s position indicated by an Op-Ed piece in the “NZ Herald” co- authored by Phil Twyford and NZ Initiative Director, Oliver Hartwich which essentially argued for a freeing up of urban boundaries.

“I think in terms of that battle over do we need to free up more land, do we need to liberalise planning laws— the things that we’ve been saying for a while.

“I think we’ve won that battle and the Labour Party now concedes that and so now the issue will be where that leads this year and next year.”

And in a similar vein he sees how Labour reacts to the TPP as being a key political issue this year.

“One of the big dividing lines in New Zealand politics at the moment is peoples’ attitudes to the outside world.

“We have been very resolutely focussed on the idea of an open globally competitive confident market economy.

“For 30 years there’s been a consensus that our future is as a trading nation believing that you can’t insulate yourself from the rest of the world.

“But now if you look at Labour – it looks like they are trying to have a bob each way.

“I’m not quite sure where they will go and I think that will be one of the big questions this year.”

Labour have seen sense on the costs of planning laws. Are they going to do the same on TPP, or will they cotinue to rail against an agreement that the World Bank says will grow our GDP by around 3.5%.

He describes himself as a social liberal and an economic liberal with the word liberal meaning slightly different things in each description.

My favourite type of MP 🙂

Though he is the deputy chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, a plum assignment for a new backbencher, his focus is just as much on the electorate he is trying to win, Hutt South.

He was one of four backbenchers with Todd Muller, Alfred Ngaro and Mark Mitchell, who spent a month in Northland bolstering National’s campaign in the by-election.

And that experience taught him that local mattered in politics.

Unfortunately for him Hutt South is held by Trevor Mallard whose roots in that community are deep and who is a high profile local MP.

But though Mr Bishop is only a list MP he operates and campaigns as though he is the actual MP for Hutt South.

I get Chris’ weekly Hutt newsletter. I’m amazed by how much work he is doing there, and just as a List MP. He has organised youth awards, got behind local issues, lobbied the Council, visited almost every business and community group and regularly brings Ministers into the electorate. It’s a role model for what a List MP should do to try and become the Electorate MP.

“I started door knocking in February last year and I’m going to continue doing that.

Just three months after the election.

All packed for the flight. The green bag is carry on luggage. The black bag is all the Antarctica NZ gear. The suitcase is all my other clothes, and the boots you put on once ready to board.

Headed over to the International Antarctic Centre.

Got checked by the US Centre for Disease Control that I don’t have Ebola and then into the departure terminal.

It seems Mike Moore actually got to open a building during his six weeks as Prime Minister!

And got this far and then got told our flight had been cancelled due to very strong winds causing turbulence near the bottom of the South Island.

We had been warned this could happen, but it is unusual that it is bad weather conditions in NZ that stop a flight, as opposed to Antarctica.

So we trekked back to the hotel we had checked out of 30 minutes earlier and managed to get our rooms reissued to us for another night. Spent the day in Christchurch and then we tried again the next morning.

Yes! Today we got to check in and went to the pre-departure lounge where you spend around 45 minutes watching videos. Very different to commercial flights. For example on a Hercules there are no oxygen masks – instead they have oxygen hats or helmets you put over your head.

There were 32 people flying today and the capacity for a Hercules is 30, so they said two people would be bumped to a later flight on the basis of their priority list. I was convinced a blogger would be bottom of the priority list, but didn’t get bumped so went through security screening and then onto the bus.

The bus takes you from the terminal out to the tarmac.

And time to board the Hercules. There are other planes that fly to Antarctica but at present the runway is a little slushy so the only planes that go there are the Hercules as they can land on skis.

The other planes have actual seats. The Hercules is basically a cargo plane and they just make room for a few humans around the side. So it is an eight hour flight on webbing.

The cargo is in the main body of the plane with you, at the rear.

Got allowed up to the cockpit.  Great view from there but the glare means you need sunglasses.

And this is the toilet. Not quite the same level of privacy as on a commercial plane!

The Hercules is very very noisy. You can’t have a conversation over the noise and you wear headphones or earplugs for the entire flight.

I’ll do a separate blog on the views coming in, and the landing.

Stuff reports:

The heads of the Christian churches are close to sealing a deal to fix the date of Easter, the Archbishop of Canterbury has revealed, ending more than a thousand years of confusion and debate.

The Church of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury Most Reverend Justin Welby said the agreed date would be either the second or third Sunday of April.

A fixed date would be great. So annoying to have to check every year when it will be.

He expected to make the change within 5-10 years, though he admitted that churches have been trying to agree on a date without success since the tenth century.

Progress takes time!

Archbishop Welby, Pope Francis, the Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I (head of the Greek Orthodox church) are all working towards a common date, he said.

If they can reach a deal, it will end one of the most noticeable rifts in the church, and have knock-on effects for schools, businesses and the travel industry across the Western World.

For one and a half millennia, for Anglicans and Catholics, Easter Sunday has been the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox – a convoluted formula which means the date can vary by more than a month from year to year. …

To add to the confusion, the Eastern Orthodox Church calculates Easter differently using the old Julian calendar – this year Orthodox Easter falls on May 1.

No one knows the actual date Jesus was crucified, so having it commemorated on a particular date close to the general period is as likely to be accurate as the current system.

They day before we fly out to Antarctica, we get kitted out by Antarctica New Zealand in Christchurch. It’s nice and warm in Scott Base (model of which is above) but outside it can range from a relatively pleasant 0°C to a less pleasant -57°C. And further afield it has been known to be as low as -90°C.

So Antarctica NZ make sure everyone travelling down has gear for all conditions.

Their warehouse has a wide range of styles and colours, so long as they are orange!

First to go on is the base layer. Thanks Icebreaker!

Then the mid layer.

Then the overalls.

Then you out on the first jacket.

Then a second jacket

And finally a third jacket. And as we were in a well heated warehouse, you can imagine how hot I am at this stage!

You also get two pairs of boots.

And a headband, hat, balaclava and neck gaiter!

Plus of course three pairs of gloves and mittens.

I am now confident I can spend a long long time outdoors without being cold. If anything the danger is overheating.

Also you need to wear much of the gear for the flight down to Antarctica – you can’t just change into it once you land. This is in case you crash. So I’m expecting (I wrote this before I landed) a warm flight over!

By chance there were some visiting huskies when I was in at the Antarctica Centre in Christchurch.

I got to play with all seven of them. Such gorgeous dogs. I want one!

Then headed back to the airport hotel for dinner and the final sleep. Was glad to find the report in time on Friday had changed from 6 am to 8.30 am. Due to leave at 11 am and arrive at 7 pm. Will blog the flight separately.

The Herald reports:

Visitors arriving at New Zealand’s main tourism gateway could be greeted by the stench of rotting food waste once a new composting plant begins operating nearby, claim campaigners.

But the company behind the plans says the expansion of its facilities will actually reduce odour discharge.

Living Earth, a subsidiary of Chinese-owned Waste Management, was issued resource consents just before Christmas for the continuation of green waste processing and the construction of a food composting facility on Puketutu Island in the Manukau Harbour, about 5km away from Auckland Airport.

The consents were granted on a non-notified basis so the public did not have a say.

Living Earth has been turning garden waste into compost on the island since 2007, but residents who have campaigned against existing food composting facilities in other parts of the country claim the processing of kitchen waste is a far smellier process.

Geoffrey King has been a vocal opponent of a Living Earth composting facility in the Christchurch suburb of Bromley, which has processed food waste since 2009.

He said a foul odour from the plant could be detected for up to 10km.

I’m no expert but I find this highly unlikely.

For the next week I will be blogging from Antarctica, having just arrived at Scott Base on a United States Air Force Hercules.

Technically it is night time here but of course there is no night – the sun doesn’t set for around three months. But we landed early evening.

I’m here, along with the NZ Herald’s Science reporter, to report on this amazing continent, what New Zealand does in Antarctica, the science projects done here and the work of Antarctica New Zealand. We successfully applied to come through their Community Engagement Programme which brings down media, artists and writers.

Words can not convey how excited I am to be here. It’s been a dream of mine for many years to come to Antarctica, and to actually be able to live at Scott Base, interview staff and scientists, and spend a week on this amazing continent is beyond amazing.

I thought I would start with a quote from one of the many books I have read about the continent. This is from Gabrielle Walker’s Antarctica – an intimate portrait of the world’s most mysterious continent.

Antarctica is like nowhere else on Earth. While there are other wild places or ones that seem extreme, this is the only continent in the world where people have never permanently lived. In the interior of the continent there is nothing to make a living from – no food, no shelter, no clothing, no fuel, no liquid water. Nothing but ice. …

There are no trees, or indeed plants of any kind; no land animals; nothing but glaciers, snowfields and sepia-toned rocks.

Expect lots of photos, and lots of stories as I explore Earth’s largest science laboratory.

The Herald reports:

Andrew Kirton has been selected as the Labour Party’s new general secretary.

Mr Kirton is a former adviser to Helen Clark and a former president of the New Zealand students’ union.

So he’s come back to work for two other former NZUSA presidents.

More recently, he was head of public affairs for Heathrow Airport and head of global corporate affairs for construction company Mace Group in London.

Kirton is known to have good political skills and his corporate background will help Labour with their fundraising. It looks to be a solid appointment.

Stuff reports:

Iran released 10 US sailors on Wednesday (Thursday NZ Time) after holding them overnight, bringing a swift end to an incident that had rattled nerves days ahead of the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had freed the sailors after determining they had entered Iranian territorial waters by mistake. The sailors had been detained aboard two US Navy patrol boats in the Gulf on Tuesday (Wednesday NZT).

“Our technical investigations showed the two US Navy boats entered Iranian territorial waters inadvertently,” the IRGC said in a statement carried by state television. “They were released in international waters after they apologised,” it added.

Some may disagree, but the fact this incident was settled quickly is arguably due to the agreement over the Iranian nuclear programme.

In times past Iran could well have decided to keep the sailors for weeks or months, and even threaten to put them on trial.

But now it has an agreement with the US, it has an incentive not to behave in such a way which would see the agreement fall to pieces. And they would have realised that another hostage situation would make them pariahs again.

So while the agreement is far from perfect, it does have beneficial side effects in providing an incentive for Iran to behave better than in the past.

Stuff reports:

A year after giving away the coordinates of Islamic State fighters on social media, the “bumbling jihadist” Mark John Taylor has apparently resurfaced online and is encouraging others to join him in Syria.

According to a Linkedin profile purporting to come from the former New Zealand soldier, Taylor has been teaching English to children in Raqqa under Islamic State since October 2014.

Taylor claims to have been teaching English to children between the ages of 5 and 12, “teaching with a puppet and enjoyed having fun with the students” .

“Living in the heart of the Islamic State is a good experience and I encourage others to come and see for themselves.”

A good experience for some men, but less so for the women who of course are treated as slaves.

He added: “There’s no danger here and a great place to bring up the family. Except Western Jet fighters that always drop bombs on Civilians!”

No danger here? Mr Taylor should announce he is gay, and then see whether that holds true!

Rolling Stone reports:

Daniel Walsh was first drawn to electronic cigarettes for the same reason millions of smokers have taken up the devices. “I was a guy who could work 20 hour days and juggle a number of complex projects, but I couldn’t quit,” says Walsh. “It was my greatest deficit.” The quixotic promise that have made e-cigs the subject of endless controversy — that smoking cessation and smoking as recreation can coexist — resonated with Walsh. After successfully making the switch, he was so enamored by the product that he left his job developing artificial intelligence in San Francisco, decamped to Michigan and launched Purebacco, a manufacturer of the flavored, nicotine-laced liquid that are battery-heated into an inhalable vapor inside e-cigs. With over 30 employees, satellite offices in San Francisco and London, and plans to expand into a 40,000-square-foot headquarters, Purebacco’s growth is a microcosm of the industry as a whole, which is estimated to do $3.5 billion in sales this year. “There is so much anecdotal evidence out there supporting the idea that people like me have helped hundreds of thousands of smokers quit,” says Walsh, who is known to colleagues as the High Priest of Vaping, a fitting nickname for an enigmatic scientist with a mane of blond dreadlocks who works long hours in his sleek laboratory. “Yet as an e-cig CEO, I’m not really supposed to say that, since current rules prohibit us from marketing our products as anything but another vice.”

In many countries it is more difficult to sell or import e-cigarettes than actual cigarettes. including NZ.

Whereas 84 percent of smokers believed e-cigs to be safer than ordinary cigarettes in 2010, by 2013 that figure had dropped to 63 percent. A study last year found that a third of people who had abandoned e-cigs and resumed smoking tobacco did so out of concern for the health effects of vaping.

Vaping does have some health impact, but it is exponentially less than actual smoking.

People smoke for nicotine but they die from tar.” Michael Russell, a South African scientist widely considered to be the godfather of tobacco control, wrote those words in 1976.

This is the crux – you get addicted to the nicotine, but it is the tar which kills you. So a product that delivers nicotine without tar is far better than a product that does both.

Jane Kelsey accidentally shows how well the NZ negotiators did in her Herald column.

Republicans whose support he needs to get the deal through Congress are demanding changes. Renegotiating the actual text would be very difficult so they are pushing for side-letters that have a similar effect, and ensuring other countries’ “implementation” plans satisfy the US, either by changes before the Congress votes or as a condition of bringing the TPP into force.

The major US corporate lobbies reinforced that message this week.

In giving conditional support for the agreement they stressed the political imperative to secure changes if the TPP is to pass a Congress over which they wield significant influence.

They have three main targets. First, the tobacco-specific exception that allows governments to block investor-state disputes such as the one Philip Morris brought against Australia’s plain packaging law and lost on a technicality.

Plain packaging is currently stalled in New Zealand.

Second, ensuring the marketing monopoly for new generation biologics medicines is effectively eight years – longer than New Zealand’s and which the Government claims it won’t have to change.

The third relates to requirements for holding financial data within the country.

Kelsey scores an own goal by highlighting how well the NZ negotiators by getting a TPP agreement that didn’t give the US corporates what they wanted. And no amount of side letters can over-ride stuff such as tobacco being exempt from ISDS or the five year term for biologics patent.

As Obama got voted trade authority from Congress, it can not be amended – just a straight up or down vote. If it gets passed by Congress, then we have a TPP on the terms negotiated. If they vote it down, then TPP is dead. I see no chance of a renegotiation.

To add to the hysteria we have Bryan Gould:

A petition has accordingly been drawn up and signatures invited; the petition is to be presented, not to parliament, since that would be pointless, but to the Governor General.

On taking his oath of office, Sir Jerry Mateparae undertook to protect the proper government of this country; the petition invites the Governor General to use his constitutional powers to do just that – to act as a constitutional guardian and to refuse asset to legislation that fails to uphold the rule of law and the principles of responsible government.

So he is promoting a wing nut petition calling on the Monarch’s representative to over-ride the elected Government.

It is a fair bet that the organisers of the petition had no realistic expectation that Sir Jerry would respond positively; all they were hoping for, no doubt, was that he would agree at least to receive the petition and that the resultant publicity would help their cause in some small way.

They think the GG will go out of his way to give their idiocy publicity?

Stuff reports:

Will England bid goodbye to “God Save the Queen”?

British lawmakers agreed on Wednesday (Thursday NZ Time) to consider replacing the royalist song that serves as England’s anthem at sporting events.

“God Save the Queen” is the national anthem of the United Kingdom – made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – and is played at the Olympics and other events where the UK fields a single team.

At contests where the four areas compete separately, such as the football World Cup, England and Northern Ireland generally use “God Save the Queen,” but Scotland and Wales have their own official songs – “Flower of Scotland” and “Land of My Fathers.”

Labour Party lawmaker Toby Perkins said adopting an English anthem would “re-establish the idea that the United Kingdom is a union of four separate nations with their own identities.”

Perkins told the House of Commons that said “Jerusalem,” regarded by many as England’s unofficial anthem, was the most obvious choice. The song, whose words are by mystical 18th-century poet William Blake, vows to transform a country of “dark satanic mills” into a “green and pleasant land” like the ancient England that, legend says, was once visited by Jesus Christ.

I doubt this will happen, but U think it would be a good thing – and not just because Jerusalem is such a powerful anthem.

I think the future of the UK will be as a federation of four countries, similar to the US. Four national Parliaments and one federal Parliament. So an English anthem (and English Parliament) would be steps towards that.