New Zealand supplied Agent Orange chemicals to the US military during the Vietnam war, a government minister has revealed.
The disclosure led to immediate claims that New Zealand was in breach of the Geneva convention and could face a flood of lawsuits from veterans and Vietnamese.
Transport Minister Harry Duynhoven said the highly toxic chemical was sent to a US base in the Philippines during the 1960s.
"The information that has been given to me is that products used to make Agent Orange were shipped from New Plymouth to Subic Bay in the Philippines," he told the Sunday News newspaper.
After nearly three decades of official denials, a high-level parliamentary committee formally acknowledged late last year that New Zealand soldiers in the Vietnam War were significantly exposed to Agent Orange, but no mention was ever made that the country was a supplier.
Although the National Party was in power during the Vietnam War, Duynhoven said his current Labor government was responsible for setting the record straight.
"Any government has to deal with the situation it finds itself in and it's always a problem if previous governments leave a mess."
Veterans spokesman John Moller said the government must compensate ex-soldiers and their families, some of whom have suffered generations of health problems.
"It's bloody unacceptable what the New Zealand government has done to us and the other countries involved in the war," he said.
"Through their deceit, cover-up and negligence, the New Zealand government has the blood of thousands of Kiwis, Vietnamese, Australians and Americans on their hands."
Under the Geneva Convention, countries cannot be party to chemical warfare and must declare the use or supply of defoliants during conflicts.
The vice-chancellor of Canterbury University, Scott Davidson, an authority on international law, said the government had left itself open to lawsuits from Vietnamese. US lawyer Constantine Kokkoris, who represents Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange, said he may sue the New Zealand government.
"It is my intention at this time to look into the possibility of bringing a class against against the New Zealand government," he said
Davidson said if negotiations between Kokkoris and the government broke down, the UN could be called on to find a setting for a court case.
From 1961 to 1971, the US and South Vietnamese military sprayed millions of liters of toxic herbicides, mainly Agent Orange, over South Vietnam to destroy the vegetation used by communist forces for cover and food.
Hanoi says the defoliant has caused health problems for more than one million Vietnamese and continues to have devastating consequences. A study released last year found that Agent Orange was still contaminating people through their food. Dioxin, the defoliant's deadly component, can cause an increased risk of cancers, immunodeficiencies, reproductive and developmental changes, nervous system and other health problems.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS