Taking more river water

Regarding the letter from Paul Evans-McLeod in the Waikato Times on February 25: Thank you for your queries about two recent water infrastructure projects approved by the Council - the new Rototuna water reservoir and a pumping barge to protect our city’s water intake during low flow periods in the Waikato River.

In your letter, you ask why the city does not take more water from the Waikato River during drought conditions to allow unlimited water supply to residential areas and reduce the necessity for water restrictions. Using the Waikato River for water supply is consented by the Waikato Regional Council and we must abide by the conditions of this permit to ensure there is enough water for everyone and the river remains in good health.

We invest in our water infrastructure to match the city demand, acknowledging that if we all treat water as a valuable resource and are smart with our water use, we will be playing our part in looking after the wonderful Waikato River. CHRIS ALLEN General manager for infrastructure, Hamilton City Council

Iraq deployment

To Prime Minister John Key, who has denounced the opposition to sending military personnel to Iraq as ‘‘having no guts’’. Mr Key, this statement is a bit rich, especially when you shied away from taking a vote in Parliament before sending troops overseas.

And where were you when Rwanda Hutus and Tutsis were massacring each other? Or years ago when the Dalai Lama stood at your door to plead for Tibet’s independence? You were making money on the sharemarket.

Where were you when the Papua New Guinea Government ruthlessly killed Bougainvillians, or Timorese citizens were being killed by the Indonesians? You were in New York playing the futures market. Where were you

INSANITY STREAK

when some of us urged South Africa to end apartheid, or when Bush illegally invaded Iraq after killing tens of thousands of young men with his war of shock and awe? You were making money from other people’s investments.

The war against Isis is not going to be won by bombs and guns, as ghastly as the religious extremism is. Can’t New Zealand do something more subtle?

I don’t have the answers to this question, but to follow sycophantically United States-led forces into a war against Isis is not using your head (or guts). ALAN LEADLEY Hamilton

Forward to the past

It seems that there really is nothing new under the sun! Rather than back to the future, the item about the ‘‘shift in education’’ ( Waikato Times, February 21) takes us forward to the past! I was principal of a primary school in Upper Hutt in the late 1980s that was designed and built to provide exactly the same learning environment as is described! There were three ‘‘open block’’ classrooms, each catering for around 100 children and four to five teachers, a small teaching ‘‘auditorium’’ and several small withdrawal rooms. However, the concept was not popular at the time and conventional classrooms continued to be the norm. ANDY LOVELL Te Horo Beach

Herbicide villain

On February 18 three international speakers of stature, Dr Eric Salini (France), Emeritus Professor Don Huber (US) and Dr Vananda Shiva (India) spoke at a seminar in Te Ara Hou village.

They voiced concern about the absence of thorough food controls, especially in the US, where the evasion of testing to good scientific standards first started, a tremendous increase in around 30 chronic diseases is taking place. Evidence was shown of a relation to presence of glyphosate in food. Increased doses of the herbicide come in food crops genetically engineered for herbicide ‘‘tolerance’’. Tests on animals show organ damage and heavily reduced fertility (Seralini et al).

I notice with deep regret that my Waikato Times newspaper has chosen to not report this seminar. PETER VOLKER Te Aroha

Liquor licences

Coming from Rotorua, I was writing to say how great the sunset symphony was despite the weather. Having attended for the last six years, I must congratulate Rupert and everyone involved.

However, I was appalled to read the problems the organisers have had with the police over liquor licences and how little support the council gives (considering what they gave the V8s). Ironically, I did not see one police officer all night, not even directing traffic. ROSS ALLEN Rotorua When I first interviewed Viktor Orban 25 years ago, he was an anti-Communist student firebrand whose whole purpose in life was to free Hungary from Soviet rule.

You can travel a long way in 25 years.

In 1991 Orban celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union, but now he says: ‘‘We Europeans need Russia. We need sooner or later – rather sooner than later – a strategic alliance with Russia.’’

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has become the odd man out in the European Union, putting a close relationship with Russia well ahead of any concerns about what is happening to Ukraine.

When Russia’s President Vladimir Putin came to Budapest last week to sign a new contract for supplying gas to Hungary, Orban said: ‘‘We are convinced that locking Russia out of Europe is not rational. Whoever thinks that Europe can be competitive . . . without economic co-operation with Russia . . . is chasing ghosts.’’

And Putin, standing next to Orban, said that the war in Ukraine was all the Ukrainian government’s fault.

But it’s not just a pragmatic decision by Orban to keep the country’s main energy supplier sweet. (Hungary has also ordered new nuclear reactors from Russia.) Other members of the EU and Nato that also depend heavily on Russian gas have nevertheless condemned Putin’s actions in Ukraine. Orban has been on a philosophical journey, and it has delivered him to a strange place. Last July, he declared the Western democratic model dead and argued that authoritarian regimes like those in Russia, China and