Thursday, July 30, 2015

Zinedine Zidane scores wonder try for France legends against Toulon


                                                                     Zinedine's wonder try.

By Jack Gaughan for MailOnline

FRANCE 98 victors have taken on European rugby union champions Toulon in a charity match - with World Cup star Zinedine Zidane scoring a stunning try from his own half.

The two sides played 45 minutes of football and then rugby at the Toulon stadium headquarters on Tuesday.
  
Christian Karembeu popped a three-metre pass off to Zinedine Zidane on halfway and the mercurial Frenchman looked up and saw a miniscule gap in which to drive towards.

He dropped a shoulder, weaved in between two defenders and from there, just inside the opposition half, space opened up.

Two more trailed in his wake as 43-year-old Zidane moved through the gears, accelerating beyond them before nonchalantly checking back to see if they were giving chase.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

NZ documentary exposes litany of state injustices against the Tūhoe, but also offers hope


Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alistar Kata's report on an incisive new documentary.

INVESTIGATIVE journalist Kim Webby’s incisive and compassionate new documentary, The Price of Peace, about Tūhoe campaigner and kaumatua Tame Iti and the so-called “Urewera Four” won a standing ovation at its premiere during the NZ International Film Festival this week.

It deserved this - and more. Webby has crafted arguably the most brilliant film portrayal of race and cultural relations in New Zealand in contemporary times. She has examined a criminal case of national interest to explore biculturalism and justice in general, and specifically the litany of injustices imposed on the Ngāi Tūhoe people for generations.

And Webby has exposed the hypocrisy and myth making over both the Tūhoe case of justice and the disturbing facets of the current political orthodoxy around state surveillance.

The 87-minute film – made over a period of seven years - is essentially about the trial of the Urewera Four and its aftermath following the notorious “terror” raids in Te Urewera in 2007.

It portrays a striking and polarised duality about how mainstream New Zealand viewed the arrests and the people who were brutalised by this masked “swat” team-style attack on a peaceful and laid-back community.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Rainbow Warrior: My Eyes of Fire anniversary message

David Robie speaking at the Eyes of Fire launch last night.
Image: Del Abcede/PMC; background screen image: John Miller
COMMENT: This was David Robie's book launch address.

IT'S HARD to believe that it is now 30 years – three whole decades – since state-backed terrorists blew up the peaceful environmental ship Rainbow Warrior – a vessel with such an inspiring name – and our friend and campaigner Fernando Pereira lost his life. 

I vowed to myself that I would continue the crusade as an engaged journalist by telling and retelling this story on any occasion I could.

This was the best I could do to keep Fernando’s memory alive, and to support the struggle of the Rongelap people – and all Pacific peoples harmed by the nuclear powers and their testing for more than a half century.

I remember the launch of the very first edition of Eyes of Fire in early 1986 out on the Viaduct aboard an old Auckland ferry.

Thanks to publisher Michael Guy, we had this giant cake iced with the French Tricolore. Dancing on the top of the cake were three frogmen and the phrase “J’accuse”.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Rainbow Warrior legacy 30 years on - Eyes of Fire book launch


TODAY is the 30th anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985. Cafe Pacific brings you Selwyn Manning's wide-ranging interview on Evening Report with David Robie about the Rainbow Warrior's Pacific voyage - its last - the Rongelap evacuation, the legacy of nuclear testing by the three nuclear powers in the Pacific and looking forward to the challenges of climate change.

The book launching of Eyes of Fire by outgoing Greenpeace New Zealand executive director Bunny McDiarmid, is at The Cloud on Queen's Wharf at 4.30pm today, just near to where the environmental ship was bombed by French secret agents.

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