In Iran, at least five people were killed in the floods in Lorestan province on 31 March. In a 24-hour period to 1 April Khorramabad, capital of Lorestan Province, recorded 106.9mm of rain and Hamedan in Hamadan Province, recorded 98.6mm, Approximately 100 people were injured, while hundreds of buildings were damaged across Fars Province.
The country had already endured days of flooding and heavy rain, which began in northern areas of Golestan and Mazandaran during mid-March. At least 70 people were reported to have died and in total around 56,000 people were affected by the floods.
In Iraq, floods swamped rural areas of the provinces of Wasit, Babil, Basra, and Nineveh. One person was reported dead in Wasit Province.
The heavy rain and flash flooding affected parts of northern and western Afghanistan from late on 28 March. Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh Province recorded 90mm of rain in 24 hours. It was reported that at least 27 people died and more than 3,000 houses were destroyed.
In Syria, the flooding affected northern areas, including relief camps in Idlib Province and areas of Al-Hasakah Governorate, where it was reported that two people died.
Are kickbacks from the Z regime to Nato leaders the big reason why they keep funneling money his way? Has any forensic accounting investigation been done of Ursula ‘fond of Lyin’ von der Leyen, Merz, Rutte, Macron, Frederiksen, etc — and of course, Nancy Pelosi? Unlikely.
The girlfriend of Deputy Prosecutor General. Verbitsky who was fired after illicit enrichment accusations by Anti-corruption agencies.
They found illegal assets worth more than $US 2,000,000 linked to him. But, he didn’t go to prison — he continues raising ‘charity’ money, living in a house worth $1,000,000+ and driving a Ferrari. His girlfriend drives a Porsche.
No shortage of money for Zelensky’s friends.
Geoffrey comments
This is Anastasia, a young Ukrainian woman who was a pen-friend of mine for some time and who was eager to escape Ukraine because of the Globalist interference and corruption in the country that was making the elite rich and everyone else impoverished. Eventually via a dating site she found a man in Riverside, Los Angeles. It was a fascinating story, and one that made me firmly anti-EU and anti-Nato.
As can be seen they are now about 2 metres tall rather than the 0.6 to 0.7 metres when they were planted. They were planted about 1 metre apart (mostly by volunteers) but that soon becomes fairly dense.
A video exposing Ford’s dystopian patents for new vehicles has gone viral on X, fueling outrage over the accelerating war on personal vehicle ownership and freedom of movement.
The clip details in-cabin cameras, biometric scanners, lip-reading AI, emotion detection, and real-time criminal database queries – all deciding whether your truck will let you drive.
In the video, the narrator states “imagine there was an emergency outside the truck… An accident…I jump in this truck. But it won’t shift into drive. Why? Because cameras and sensors inside of my cab won’t let me shift.”
“It detects that my eyes are big. There’s some emotion. Some panic. And doesn’t feel like I’m fit to drive. That isn’t science fiction. This is happening. Ford just filed patents,” he explains.
He continues: “Ford actually has a series of patents down at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office that deal with sensors and cameras inside their cab. And if that sensor determines you’re not fit to drive, the truck won’t shift from park to drive.”
The patents extend deep into control. Biometric systems scan face, iris, and fingerprint, cross-referencing law enforcement databases before allowing movement.
“You wake up one morning, walk out to the driveway, climb into a vehicle with your name on the title… Before you go anywhere, before you’ve done a single thing wrong, your truck has already run your face through a law enforcement database. Ford’s own patent language describes this as ‘potentially useful for police,’” the narrator further outlines.
First, I want to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who sent in submissions regarding the Government’s proposed Resource Management Act (RMA) replacement legislation.
Your voices are essential in the fight for democratic equality and property rights.
A few weeks ago, Hobson’s Pledge sent the Government an Official Information Act (OIA) request concerning the Gore District Plan and its requirement that farmers and those using the land must assess their use against Ngāi Tahu’s cultural values, such as mauri, wairua, whakapapa, and utu.In this request, we pointed out how the Government has repeatedly emphasised its commitment to equal rights and the removal of race-based preferences in public policy. Yet through the Gore District Plan, we see a planning framework that is embedding cultural obligations and is thereby contrary to the Government’s intentions.
We originally sent this OIA to Minister Simon Watts (as Minister of Local Government), but the reply came from the Hon Chris Bishop, the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform.
While the Minister’s tone was polite, the substance of his reply — and the reality of the Government’s proposed legislation — should concern every New Zealander who values equality and private property rights.The Minister assures us that the new Planning and Natural Environment Bills will be “clearer,” “faster,” and offer “stronger recognition of private property rights.”
However, there is a glaring disconnect between the Minister’s words and the draft Bills themselves.Despite the promise to put property rights at the heart of these reforms, the sad irony is that property rights are never mentioned in the ‘purpose’ or ‘goals’ of the two Bills.
While property rights are frequently referenced by Ministers, it is missing from the defining reasons for the Bills. Instead of a system based on universal principles of ownership and use, we are seeing the entrenchment of a two-tiered system of citizenship based on ancestry. Support the principle of “One Person, One Vote”
What the Minister isn’t saying— While the Minister suggests that the Government is moving away from the “shortcomings” of the current RMA, the draft Bills explicitly state that:“…each local authority will ensure that its obligations or agreements under iwi participation legislation… joint management agreements, or existing or initiated Mana Whakahono ā Rohe are upheld during the process.”In plain English: the bureaucracy of co-governance isn’t being dismantled; instead, it is being embedded so as to be “nationally consistent” and “clearly defined.”
By enshrining these specific iwi participation requirements into the new system, the Government is not fixing the RMA – they are instead perfecting the machinery of division.
Why Gore Matters
We raised the Gore District Plan with the Government because it serves as another canary in the coal mine, incorporating cultural concepts that infringe upon the rights of all residents. The Minister’s response was, essentially, that while he doesn’t “expect” such approaches in the new system, his hands are tied because this particular plan is “well advanced.”
This approach is already seeing some councils racing to get joint management agreements and other co-governance arrangements in place before this RMA reform passes in Parliament. Not only is this wrong, but rushing these agreements will lead to even more trouble.
Nick Clark of the NZ Initiative, who spent many years with Federated Farmers, has written carefully on what getting the new system right would actually require. His analysis makes very clear what the draft Bills currently lack: a genuine commitment to equal treatment before the law, and to property rights as a foundational principle.
Commenting in the Sunday Star Times over the weekend, Damien Grant also noted that the danger with these “reforms” is that they often replace one complex, failed system with another that simply formalises the very problems we seek to escape.This is simply not good enough. If the Government truly intended to restore the principle of democratic equality, these reforms would prioritise the rights of the individual over the vested interests of any entity, tribal or otherwise. Sustain Democratic Equality here
We respect Minister Bishop’s intent. We do not question his good faith. But good intentions don’t guarantee good legislation, and the draft Bills as currently written do not match the rhetoric in his recent letter to us.
The Minister still has time to get this right. He has time to delete the clauses that privilege one group of New Zealanders over all others, and it is certainly time to write “property rights” into the law. We urge the Minister to do so for the sake of all New Zealanders.
It is clear, more than ever, that we must see change to these two RMA replacement Bills and that we here at Hobson’s Pledge need to do even more. We are considering our next moves to put pressure on the Minister and the Coalition Government to stand by its promises and to have the new RMA Bills reflect what was promised – a commitment to Kiwis’ property rights, and not to division and preference based on ancestry.
Thank you for your continued support as we hold the Government to account on their promises.
Don Brash, Trustee of Hobson’s Pledge