Apec Summit  AsureQuality and PwC have inked a deal with  COFCO, China’s largest agricultural and food products supplier, to continually improve China’s food safety and quality. AsureQuality and PwC (China and NZ arms) inked the deal with Cofco this morning (Beijing time) on the side-lines of the 2014 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Beijing. The formal release says: “Drawing …

Comment  The ruling National Party has been very comfortably re-elected at the weekend’s election in New Zealand, delivering Prime Minister John Key a third three year term as the countries leader. Mr Key’s personal popularity with the electorate was a crucial feature during the election, and despite the various late attempts to throw the campaign off track National were actually …

The hunt for the Islamic State killers of British and American hostages has been hampered by Edward Snowden’s leaks about western spycraft according to claims reported in The Times on September 6. The Times report says intelligence officials, MPs and academics said revelations about the ability of GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, and America’s National Security Agency to intercept emails, …

The anti-corruption campaign which has swept across China in the last two years has gone global, as Beijing seeks to enlist the help of western democratic governments in pursuing officials who flee overseas. Underlining Beijing’s rising economic and political clout, Communist party officials have already launched an investigation into assets and individuals based in New Zealand, a country that counts China as …

Comment  I’ve always been reluctant to believe in media conspiracies, but having watched the way in which Radio New Zealand and TVNZ have been covering this election campaign I have to conclude that those driving the election coverage on those channels are either wildly Left-wing or plain ignorant, and I’m genuinely not sure which explanation is the more plausible. The …

THE reported beheading of British aid worker David Haines by so-called Islamic State terrorists was, as British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “an act of pure evil’’. After months of murderous atrocities in northern Iraq and Syria, including the beheadings of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, a broad coalition of Western and Arab nations will take on an …