Category Archives: New Zealand

New Zealand stabbings: officials tried for years to deport terrorist prior to Auckland attack, Jacinda Ardern says

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Jacinda Ardern says ‘every legal avenue’ was used to detain Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen until his refugee status was resolved

New Zealand had tried for years to deport the terrorist who stabbed shoppers in an Auckland supermarket on Friday before being shot dead by the police officers tasked with watching him, the country’s prime minister has said.

Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, a 32-year-old Sri Lankan man, was fighting to keep his refugee status in New Zealand when he carried out the attack, which Jacinda Ardern said was inspired by the Islamic State.

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New Zealand stabbings: police made repeated attempts to curb ‘highly paranoid’ man

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As number of victims updated from six to seven, police say ‘every legal avenue’ was explored to try to contain threat of attack

Seven people were injured in the Islamic State-inspired terror attack in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern has said, updating initial reports that only six people had been hurt.

Speaking at a media conference in Wellington on Saturday, New Zealand’s prime minister said that of the seven injured, five were in hospital, and three of them were in a critical condition.

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Coronavirus live news: Denmark to give third jab to care home residents; UK watchdog rules out vaccine for children

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Denmark has recorded a rise in cases in nursing homes; UK vaccines watchdog says not enough evidence to roll out Covid jabs to 12- to 15-year-olds; North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to fight Covid in ‘our style’

Consumers have been warned of an autumn rise in living costs from sharp increases in household energy bills and food prices, as Covid and Brexit disruption ripple through the UK economy.

Sounding the alarm for a wide range of products and services going up in price, business leaders said the UK was facing a “perfect storm” of worker shortages and problems with global supply chains that would lead to a burst of inflation within months.

Related: Inflation set to surge this autumn as Brexit and Covid combine

Here is a brief summary of all the big coronavirus news from so far today:

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New Zealand attack suspect ‘found with IS propaganda earlier this year’

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Judge said court report suggested man shot dead by police posed high risk of reoffending

The man shot dead by police after stabbing six people in an Islamic State-inspired attack on Friday was reportedly sentenced by a New Zealand court earlier in the year for possessing IS propaganda that encouraged acts of violence and terrorism.

The man, whose name is covered by legal suppression orders and who is referred to only as “S” in court proceedings, was reportedly found guilty by a jury of possessing objectionable material, and failing to assist a police officer exercise a search power.

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NZ shooting: PM Jacinda Ardern says ‘violent extremist’ under surveillance at time of attack – video

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New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says a man who allegedly attacked six people in an Auckland supermarket on Friday was a 'violent extremist' who was being monitored by police. In a press conference following the attack, she said police shot him dead within 60 seconds of the attack starting. Three people were in a critical condition. Ardern said: 'What happened today was despicable. It was hateful, it was wrong, it was carried out by an individual, not a faith, not a culture, not an ethnicity, but an individual person who was gripped by ideology that is not supported here by anyone or any community. He alone carries the responsibility for these acts' 

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New Zealand: Covid-positive escapee had tried to flee hotel quarantine three times, officials say

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Man’s mother said she had called police on her son when he left home in Auckland after receiving his positive test result

A man who tested positive for Covid-19 before absconding from a quarantine facility in Auckland on Thursday had attempted to escape three times before he was successful, health officials report.

New Zealand police arrested the man at a south Auckland address on Thursday afternoon, roughly 10km from the Novotel Ibis hotel in Ellerslie, where he was quarantining. He had been in the community for at least 12 hours at the time of his arrest.

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New Zealand police surround address after Covid-positive man escapes quarantine

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Man was arrested later by police in full protective equipment who had sealed off the Auckland property

A Covid-positive man absconded from a managed quarantine facility in central Auckland on Thursday, prompting New Zealand police to respond to the incident in full protective equipment.

Officers surrounded and cordoned off an address in Ōtāhuhu, south Auckland, after being told of the escape from the facility in Ellerslie, about 10km away (six miles) away. The person was was later arrested.

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Photos from ‘beyond the grave’: camera discovery reveals climber’s last images before fatal avalanche

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Two decades ago Richard Stiles escaped an avalanche in New Zealand, but friend Steve Robinson wasn’t so lucky. Now the mountain has given up some of its secrets

When mountaineer Chris Hill found a backpack with an old camera in it on the Hooker Glacier – an 11km chunk of ice on New Zealand’s South Island – he was intrigued and decided to get the film inside developed.

Hooker is at the base of Aoraki (Mount Cook), in a national park of icy peaks where hundreds of climbers have died, dozens of them never to be found.

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Coronavirus live news: Israel reports record daily Covid cases; Ireland to remove all restrictions by 31 October

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Israel records nearly 11,000 new Covid infections; EU hits its target for vaccinating adults; Ireland’s cabinet to sign off on plans to remove restrictions

Mexico on Tuesday reported 11,146 new confirmed cases of Covid and 835 more deaths, Reuters reports.

It brings the total number of infections in the country to 3,352,410 and the death toll to 259,326, according to health ministry data.

The latest on the Covid situation in Australia:

Related: Morning mail: Taliban takes control, mixed vaccines ‘don’t make sense’, love in lockdown

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Unstoppable movement: how New Zealand’s Māori are reclaiming land with occupations

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Since 1975, Māori have been able to reclaim land through a tribunal – but its reach is limited and now they are exploring other options

Two years ago, a small pocket of land three kilometres from Auckland’s international airport became the most prominent site of a struggle by Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous people, to reclaim land confiscated by the crown more than 150 years ago.

Ihumātao contains evidence of New Zealand’s first commercial gardens, where thousands of hectares were planted with kumara, a tropical sweet potato which thrived in the warm and nutritious soil. The adjacent stonefields, today a category one Unesco heritage site, are rich with ancient nurseries and storage pits. When William Hobson, then-governor of New Zealand, founded Auckland in 1840, the produce of Ihumātao sustained the growing population.

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New Zealand Covid update: cases drop to 49 in ‘reassuring indication’ lockdown is working

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Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said virus’ reproduction rate remained under one, meaning cases would continue to drop

New cases of Covid-19 have continued to drop in New Zealand, in a promising early indication that the country’s strict lockdown is working and its latest outbreak may be coming under control.

The country announced 49 new cases on Tuesday – dropping for the second day in a row, down from 53 cases on Monday and 83 on Sunday. It is the lowest number of new cases reported in the country in six days.

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New Zealand minister’s TV interview interrupted by son waving phallic carrot

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Carmel Sepuloni said she would ‘never buy the odd shaped carrot pack again’ after ‘almost wrestling’ with son over vegetable

A New Zealand cabinet minister has become the latest public figure to be embarrassed by an unfortunate incident involving a video call after her live TV interview was interrupted by her son, who entered the room excitedly brandishing a phallic carrot.

Carmel Sepuloni, the minister for social development, was doing a live Zoom interview with Radio Samoa when her grinning son burst through the door behind her, holding an oddly shaped carrot he’d apparently found among the groceries.

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New Zealand flash floods force evacuations in Auckland, motorists rescued by jet ski

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Floods came after unexpectedly heavy rains, with as much as 90mm per hour hitting the city through the night

Aucklanders have been forced to evacuate their homes in the middle of the night due to flash flooding, after New Zealand’s largest city was hit by unexpectedly heavy rainfall.

Evacuations were carried out in the suburbs of west Auckland and nearby townships, such as Kumeu and Piha, with firefighters having to use jet skis to reach motorists trapped in their cars, according to the New Zealand Herald.

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Fifty percent: Short film asks ‘Is it better to know your future or live in the moment?’ – video

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With a 50% chance of inheriting a fatal disease, is it better to know your future or live in the moment?

Lillian Hanly has a 50/50 chance of inheriting Huntington’s, a neurodegenerative disease. With a number of her family testing positive for the gene, and her mother already affected by it, she must come to a decision: Get tested now or continue to live on, in the unknown.

Fifty Percent is part of the Loading Docs 2021 collection. The films can be viewed online via www.loadingdocs.net

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I have a 50/50 chance of inheriting Huntington’s disease – should I take a test to find out? | Lillian Hanly

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A coin toss could give me two completely different lives. But once I know the result there’s no going back

I’ve spent most of my life knowing I may have inherited a faulty gene that would cause Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that can be fatal. My grandad had the disease, my mum has it, and I am yet to take the test to find out if I have it too. It’s a 50/50 chance of inheritance. Right now, I am happily ignorant of whether I carry the mutation or not. A coin toss could give me two completely different lives. Once I know the results, there’s no going back. So far, everyone who has been tested in my family has tested positive. It seems the odds are against me. I’m 27 years old, and I’m starting to think seriously about my future, whether that is moving overseas or contemplating having children. Whatever big decisions I am facing now, I can’t help but wonder, could this disease overshadow them? I explore this tension in a newly released short documentary, Fifty Percent.

Related: After the Nobel, what next for Crispr gene-editing therapies?

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Even as New Zealand battles Covid, trust in government bucks global trend

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With a nationwide lockdown and some of the world’s strictest restrictions, Jacinda Ardern is counting on her people’s goodwill again

In locked-down New Zealand, life orbits around the 1pm briefing. As the home-bound nation digests its lunch, the director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield – frequently alongside prime minister Jacinda Ardern – takes the stage behind a socially distanced podium and updates the country.

In the midst of a Covid outbreak, those briefings occur almost every weekday. They are so clockwork-regular, so predictable in their essential structure, that certain sentences became memes: “Kia ora koutou katoa. There are X cases of Covid-19 in the community,” each begins. After the last outbreak, media outlet The Spinoff spliced together Bloomfield saying it 44 times.

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Pasifika are on the frontline in New Zealand’s Covid battle – and are copping racist abuse for it | Fa’anana Efeso Collins

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Public indifference to abuse of the Pasifika community is especially concerning – we all need to show compassion in this crisis

The past week in lockdown has been tumultuous for many in my community. I was on my way to pick up my daughter from school when media outlets began reporting that New Zealand was headed for a possible level 4 lockdown, suggesting the Delta variant had breached our borders and there was a probable case in the community. By the time I arrived at the school, notifications were filling my messenger feed with supermarkets packed to the brim as the rush for toilet paper began. New Zealand went into full lockdown that night in its fight against Covid-19.

Within a matter of hours, news emerged that a person from the North Shore of Auckland had tested positive followed by people who had attended a large church gathering in south Auckland. Church plays a pivotal role in the Pacific community. It serves as a hub to express our faith, language and culture, where we reconnect with friends and family. It grounds us and allows us to recharge before we head back into a society that is different to what we knew in our home islands dotted around the Pacific.

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New Zealand Covid update: 83 new cases, with all but one in Auckland

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The nation’s Delta outbreak continues to grow, with Auckland likely to remain in lockdown for at least another fortnight

Jacinda Ardern says she won’t hesitate to impose tougher restrictions to contain New Zealand’s growing Covid-19 outbreak, as the country reported 83 cases on Sunday – a new daily high for this outbreak.

All but one of the new cases were found in Auckland, with the other in Wellington.

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‘A neat trick’: critics aim to shift Aotearoa debate, but historical fidelity no longer matters

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The early European explorers understood the power of naming and so do Māori today

New Zealand is, in its own imagination, a progressive utopia. The first country in the world where women won the right to vote, the first country in the world to introduce workplace arbitration, the Anglosphere’s chief critic of nuclear weapons, and the former British colony with “the fairest treaty ever made by Europeans with a native race”.

Related: New Zealand Māori may have been first to discover Antarctica, study suggests

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