TLDL: This week Peter Bale and I took around the big news of the last week around the world, including the latest climate change extremes, America’s disastrous initial Covid-19 response under Trump and a quick discussion about my lack of faith or hope in New Zealand’s housing future.
Peter does a weekly world bulletin email for The Spinoff on global affairs. Here is his latest published on Thursday, which I’d encourage you all to sign up for.
We start off with a look at the heatwaves hammering Northern America just as we had our cold snap. Shortly after we recorded this the town in Canada that experienced 46.5 degrees celsius was razed by bushfires.
We then take a look at the various wars in central Africa and the role of Russian mercenaries.
Peter then introduces the new book ‘Landslide’ just out from a friend, Michael Wolff, on Donald Trump’s final months in office. The first extract is in New York Magazine this week. We also talk about Michael Lewis’ new book on the doomed attempt to prepare for Covid-19 inside the bowels of the American Government. It’s called The Premonition and Lewis gave a good interview to Kim Hill a couple of weeks ago.
We then talk about New Zealand’s migration reviews and my bits of research on the winners and losers from the pandemic here, along with a discussion about house prices.
Enjoy
News Zealand over the horizon