From extreme weather obliterating homes to rising sea levels ruining crops, climate breakdown is a terrifying daily reality for many
Throughout the 2021 United Nations climate change conference, the Guardian will be publishing the stories of the people whose lives have been upended – sometimes devastated – by the climate breakdown.
Continue reading...The Wellington-based studio built characters and scenes for films including Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Wonder Woman and Planet of the Apes
The special effects studio co-founded by Sir Peter Jackson, which has brought blockbusters including Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones to life, has been sold for more than $1.6bn, in the latest blow to New Zealand’s film and TV industry.
The cash and shares deal, which will see Weta Digital sold to US-based video game company Unity Software for $1.63bn, comes less than three months after Amazon made the shock decision to move its $1bn-plus development of a small screen adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (LOTR) from New Zealand to the UK after shooting just one series.
Continue reading...The New Zealand prime minister was trying to explain changing Covid rules when her three-year-old daughter appeared off-screen
The New Zealand prime minister has been interrupted by a persistent heckler: her three-year-old daughter, who had “escaped” and was up past her bedtime while Jacinda Ardern was trying to give a live update on the country’s Covid response.
The prime minister was conducting a livestream about shifting public health restrictions when she was interrupted by an apparently wide awake Neve.
Continue reading...New Zealand's prime minister is interrupted by her three-year-old as the leader takes to Facebook live to share a Covid update. ‘You're meant to be in bed, darling,’ Jacinda Ardern says, turning her head to speak to Neve. ‘It's bedtime, darling, pop back to bed, I'll come and see you in a second.' Ardern’s mother then ushers Neve back to her room and the PM turns back to camera to joke: ‘Well, that was a bedtime fail, wasn’t it?’
Continue reading...The bird has failed to complete the non-stop, 12,200km journey three times in the past year
A plucky migrating godwit that captured New Zealand’s attention after it was forced to make a dramatic U-turn back to Alaska after 33 hours of non-stop flight has finally touched down in the country.
Every year, the Eastern bar-tailed godwits, or kuaka in Māori, make one of the longest avian migration flights in the world, travelling from their breeding ground in the Arctic, across the Pacific, to New Zealand.
Continue reading...Germany’s Robert Koch Institute records incidence rate of 201.1; Lockdown of New Zealand’s largest city likely to end this month
Dozens of crossings at the Mexico-US border reopened to non-essential travel on Monday after a 20-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lizbeth Diaz reports for Reuters from Tijuana that ahead of the reopening, hundreds of cars formed lines stretching back kilometres from the border, while queues at pedestrian crossings grew steadily.
Continue reading...Players and umpires dropped like flies as bees descended on a Plunket Shield match between Wellington and Canterbury
It’s usually rain that stops play in New Zealand, but on Sunday it was the unfamiliar sight of a swarm of bees that brought a halt to the cricket being played at Wellington’s Basin Reserve.
Players and umpires dropped like flies as they took cover from the descending bees on the relative safety of the oval’s turf on the opening day of the Plunket Shield match between Wellington and Canterbury.
Continue reading...Constant change in the climate policies of Australia and New Zealand has been a huge disappointment to Pacific island nations
When I came into office as president of Kiribati in 2003, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released its third assessment report and, like my predecessors, I believed the report’s projected rise in sea levels posed a real threat to the survival for those of us on the frontline. Accordingly, in my first address at the UN General Assembly in 2004 I drew attention to the dangers posed by climate change, especially to small island nations like Kiribati and other Pacific island countries.
The fact that no other leader made any reference to it in their statement worried me and I wondered whether I might be making a fool of myself, especially when the focus of international attention at the time was on more real and present threats like terrorism. Thankfully by the next assembly, in 2005, other Pacific island leaders had joined the call for action. This has gathered great momentum in the years since.
Continue reading...200 daily cases for the first time as PM says it is on track to have ‘amongst the highest vaccination rates in the world’
New Zealand has passed 200 daily cases of Covid-19 for the first time in the pandemic, placing it on a worrying trajectory for the summer and raising expert concerns that the growing outbreak could overwhelm the health system.
On Saturday there were 206 cases announced – 200 based in Auckland, the city at the centre of the outbreak. There were 73 people in hospital with the virus, seven in intensive care.
Continue reading...Down to just one breeding pair 40 years ago, the bird bounced back after extraordinary efforts – now its survival is again under threat
Forty years ago, on a remote rocky island in the Pacific, 800km east of New Zealand, a conservationist set out to bring the rarest bird in the world back from the brink of extinction.
Don Merton, wearing a check shirt and shorts, climbed 200 metres up the rockface of Little Mangere Island, part of the Chatham Islands (Rēkohu in the indigenous Moriori language and Wharekauri in Māori), and laid a soft netted trap for the black robin, also known as kakaruia and karure – a tiny endemic bird that lives up to its name, with black plumage, black eyes and a little pointy black beak. Once captured, he gently placed the bird inside a wooden box, strapped it to his back, descended the cliff and jumped on a boat to the neighbouring island – Mangere, a larger, more verdant habitat.
Continue reading...Only those vaccinated or recovered from Covid will be allowed to frequent restaurants and cultural venues in Austria ; UK records 34,029 new infections
Germany recorded its second consecutive daily record for new coronavirus cases on Friday as infections pick up across Europe, and its disease control centre said unvaccinated people face a “very high” risk of infection.
The country reported 37,120 new infections over the past 24 hours, according to the centre, the Robert Koch Institute. That compared with Thursday’s figure of 33,949 – which in turn topped the previous record of 33,777 set on 18 December last year.
A giant 7.9kg potato found in a New Zealand couple’s overgrown garden may set a new world record for the heaviest of its kind ever to be discovered. Colin and Donna Craig-Brown were weeding in their Hamilton garden when Colin hit the large tuber. The couple have grown fond of the potato, nicknaming it Doug and taking it for walks. The current Guinness world records entry for the heaviest potato is a 2011 specimen found in Britain, that weighed in at just under 5kg, with the Craig-Browns saying they are waiting to hear if Doug will be the new record holder
Continue reading...Colin and Donna Craig-Brown have named the 17.4lb tuber Doug and have been taking him for walks
A giant 7.9kg potato found in a New Zealand couple’s overgrown garden may set a new world record for the largest of its kind ever to be discovered.
Colin and Donna Craig-Brown were doing a spot of weeding in their Hamilton back yard, when Colin’s hoe hit something below the ground.
Continue reading...Some of New Zealand’s anti-vaxxers say that the Covid vaccine is a form of 21st-century colonialism – it’s not
One thing that characterises the typical anti-vaxxer, other than being wrong, is their short attention span.
In the space of a single conversation the enemy can range from 5G, the electromagnetic spectrum that can apparently spread biological matter as well as a phone signal, to Bill Gates, the Microsoft (“microchip”) billionaire allegedly at the centre of a nexus to command and control the world populace. In New Zealand, anti-vaxxers take this shopping list of modern hazards and foreign enemies and add their own local products. In one conspiracy prime minister Jacinda Ardern is part of an international plot to microchip New Zealanders using the Pfizer vaccine as the vector. Her reward? The UN secretary generalship.
Continue reading...Seven New Zealand gang leaders, representing four of the country's best-known street gangs, have joined forces in a video urging their communities to get vaccinated, in a concept thought up by a government minister
Continue reading...Gangs put aside their differences make video calling on the public to get the vaccine after Māori minister came up with the idea
Seven New Zealand gang leaders, representing four of the countries most well-known street gangs, have joined forces in a video urging their communities to get vaccinated, in a concept that was conjured up by a government minister.
The video was commissioned by the minister for Maori development, Willie Jackson, after a discussion with gang leaders, who then provided footage that was edited by Jackson’s son, Hikurangi, the Herald reported.
Continue reading...The New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, abruptly halted a media conference after being heckled by at least two people who appeared to be anti-vaxxers. One man claiming to be a journalist continued interrupting, asking Ardern: 'Why is the vaccine not working in Israel? And you are still pushing it.' Ardern replied: 'Sir, I will shut down the press conference if this continues.'
For context, Israel is recording a seven-day average of about 600 new daily cases, compared with a peak of about 11,000 daily infections in September. No vaccine on the market claims to be 100% effective at preventing transmission
A more truthful understanding of history is largely dependent on education. A lot is riding on the success of this new curriculum
Aotearoa New Zealand has come a long way in the past few years in its efforts to engage with its history in a more upfront and honest manner. For those of us who have campaigned for such a change, this is not before time.
This newfound willingness to move beyond a rose-tinted approach to the nation’s past in which anything uncomfortable or considered to reflect poorly on the Pākehā (European) majority is shunned and ignored has taken considerable effort and is still very much a work in progress.
Continue reading...No stunt, say organisers, who wanted to raise awareness of the pekapeka-tou-roa, which faces the same threats as native birds
In a huge upset to New Zealand birds, but a win for one of the country’s only native land mammals, a bat has swooped in “by a long way” to take out the annual bird of the year competition.
Forest and Bird, which runs the election, thew the bat among the pigeons as a surprise entry this year. The pekapeka-tou-roa, or long tailed bat, is one of two bats in the country and one of the rarest mammals in the world. It is as small as a thumb, and the size of a bumblebee when it is born.
Continue reading...The tiny town of Matatā provides a bleak preview of the challenges that could play out across the country in the decades to come
There’s a moment on the road from Auckland to the Bay of Plenty, after hours of farmland, when the view of the sea rears up in front of you. The fields retreat, the horizon expands, the road is lined by Pohutukawa trees clinging to the cliffs. The change in view is as stark as an etch-a-sketch being wiped clean.
Follow that road and you come to a tiny settlement, slipped between the sea and a steep spine of hills running down New Zealand’s Toi-te-Huatahi coastline. Gradually, the once-orderly and plush beachfront homes are disappearing. Houses are replaced with grassed lots, weeds push up through the cul de sac pavements. Soon, the view will be transformed further still, the last remnants of the neighbourhood replaced with a reserve stretching from the road to the sea. On one of the few remaining fences is a sign: “Leave our homes alone! Watch out the rest of New Zealand – you’re next!”
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