Canary in the Mine

The gap between what we spend and what we earn internationally has widened to Grand Canyon proportions - with the current account deficit for the year to March topping $10 billion for the first time. The annual deficit was pushed to $10.3 billion by the combined effect of weaker export volumes, declining earnings from tourism and bumper profits for foreign-owned companies. Measured against the size of the economy, it is 7 per cent of gross domestic product - the worst that ratio has been since 1986. ANZ economist Sean Comber described the result, which was worse than any market economist had forecast, as "another shocker, which will throw market attention back to the sustainability of New Zealand's recent spending-driven growth surge".

The Government is in retreat over race-based funding. It will change more than a third of its ethnically targeted programmes and well over half of the rest could be altered or axed once further reviews are done.

Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton talked tough to farmers protesting against new land access rules yesterday - but signs are emerging that legislation introducing the controversial changes may not be seen until after the election.

The Auckland city council is turning into a disaster zone, riven by factions, in-fighting and a power struggle between the Mayor and deputy mayor. Perhaps that's what you get when the Mayor was voted in because he was not John Banks.

There was a good programme on TV last night showing the problems with prostitution of under-age girls in Manurewa. Deborah Coddington's comments are so good I have appended them in full below.

The US response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has dangerously undermined scientific enterprise and national security by abridging the constitutional and academic freedoms that have long fostered the nation's technical superiority, the American Civil Liberties Union charges. A dramatic increase in the designation of scientific documents as "classified"; the emergence of new, vaguely defined categories of "sensitive but not classified" information; inordinately strict constraints on foreign students -- a mainstay of American science; and restricted access to equipment crucial to the advancement of U.S. research all represent overreactions to the terrorist threat and have left the nation less prepared for future challenges, its report says. The report also highlights several initiatives aimed at keeping potential terrorists from entering the country but that, the report asserts, have done little more than keep thousands of innocent foreigners, including countless scientists, out of the country. As the government responded, much of the report has more to do with politics than fact, but there's still enough left to be cause for concern.

After heated debate, the Spanish Senate has vetoed a bill that would make homosexual unions equivalent to marriage. Now voters are demanding the bill be completely killed in the Senate rather than being sent to the House of Representatives and that a referendum on the issue be held.

But Slovenia has passed a bill on same sex partnerships, backed 44:3 after the centre-left opposition staged a walk-out early in the debate. It allows same-sex couples to register their partnership, and gives partners equal rights and obligations in relation to property and earnings, housing and inheritance, healthcare and information.

Meanwhile, in the US, Rep. Jerrold Nadler has introduced legislation that would give same-sex couples who are not US citizens marriage-like rights to help them remain together. This would circumvent many of the laws passed by States specifically to bar same-sex marriages.

Tail-out: South Korea's baseball authorities have banned a star pitcher from wearing frozen cabbage leaves in his cap to keep cool during games. They ruled that cabbage was a "foreign substance". Players may now only wear cabbage by presenting a doctor's note in advance.