Category Archives: New Zealand

In New Zealand, it has been easy to forget Covid – now we are too complacent | Brian Ng

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The country has been lulled into a false sense of security but the only way we’ll get through this is if we are constantly vigilant

My Kiwi friends ask, somewhat jokingly, how I’m finding my first New Zealand level 4. I answer, also somewhat jokingly, that I’m a veteran at this, having lived in London and Dublin for most of the pandemic, and had gone through several hard lockdowns.

That’s why it was unfortunate, the day before New Zealand went into one, it felt like Groundhog Day to me.

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‘We’re beating this together’: Jemaine Clement on Covid, crime and his friend Taika Waititi

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The co-creator of Wellington Paranormal and Flight of the Conchords is busy with new projects and looking forward to bingeing friends’ work

It’s a blustery Wellington night and we’re on the brink of the second nationwide lockdown of the pandemic. There’s a measured knock at my flat door. Jemaine Clement shakes my hand warmly and removes his boots. We’re meeting off the back of the global success of his comedy series Wellington Paranormal and he is in an ebullient mood. He’s also in a thirsty one: tonight the former door-to-door orange juice salesman is plumping for copious glasses of water instead.

Paranormal is one of two spinoffs from his and Taika Waititi’s vampire film What We Do in the Shadows. It stars Shadows’ police officers Minogue (Mike Minogue) and O’Leary (Karen O’Leary), recruited for the paranormal unit by Sgt Ruawai Maaka (Maaka Pohatu). The trio, and their colleague Const Parker (Tom Sainsbury), are oblivious, bungling and affable. Clement explains the importance of Paranormal being a collegial shoot.

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‘No second chances’: Can New Zealand beat Delta?

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Jacinda Ardern has led a global Covid success story, but other countries have come unstuck when facing the Delta variant

As epidemiologist Michael Baker scrolled through a growing list of New Zealand’s Covid-exposed locations, “my heart just sank,” he says.

Bars, nightclubs, churches, schools, restaurants and hospitals – the bullet points were an infectious disease expert’s nightmare. “Virtually every high risk, indoor environment was on that list.”

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New Zealand national lockdown extended as Covid outbreak spreads to Wellington

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Total case numbers grow to 31, including three in Wellington, as Jacinda Ardern urges public to stay vigilant

The whole of New Zealand will remain in lockdown until midnight Tuesday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced, as the country’s coronavirus outbreak grew to 31 people and spread to Wellington.

The first case in the outbreak emerged in Auckland on Tuesday, prompting the government to put the entire country into a level-4 lockdown – the highest level of restrictions. Genome sequencing has linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia.

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Tiny New Zealand airport that tells Māori love story in running for global design award

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Regional hub in New Plymouth – built on land seized from Māori in 1960 – is up against the likes of New York’s LaGuardia for Unesco’s Prix Versailles

A tiny regional airport in New Zealand that weaves a Māori story of love and longing into its architecture is in the running for a prestigious design award, up against international heavyweights including New York’s LaGuardia.

Unesco’s Prix Versailles recognises architecture that fosters a better interaction between economy and culture, and includes a range of categories from airports to shopping malls. The finalists for the airport category include the New York LaGuardia upgrade, Berlin’s Brandenburg airport and international airports in Athens, Kazakhstan and the Philippines.

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Afghans need our help – there must be no empty seats on New Zealand’s rescue mission | Golriz Ghahraman

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History judges uninterested bystanders harshly. New Zealand must commit to saving more Afghans from the Taliban regime

What is unfolding now in Afghanistan is a moment that Afghans can’t turn away from. It will mean separated families, death, torture and sexual slavery – women, the rainbow community, journalists and human rights defenders will be most zealously targeted. At this critical moment, they have hope of rescue. But in Aotearoa New Zealand, our government is at risk of letting this hope slip away. History judges uninterested bystanders harshly. It isn’t like us to be one of those.

This week our government announced we would send a New Zealand defence force (NZDF) vessel to bring a limited category of people back from Kabul. On Thursday one of our air force Hercules planes left for Afghanistan, and I acknowledge the risks our defence force personnel are taking in this time of Covid-19 to save the lives of people who have helped us.

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‘We were very blessed’: in the Cook Islands, pandemic proved a welcome respite from tourists

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Despite the loss of income, some people say they enjoyed the peace of border closures while the environment had a chance to recover

For nearly a year and a half after the onset of the pandemic, the Cook Islands didn’t see a single tourist.

In early 2020 the south Pacific country was forced to close its borders to keep Covid-19 out. In doing so it shut the doors on an industry that contributes two-thirds of the remote island country’s GDP.

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Coronavirus live news: Japan reports record cases ahead of Paralympics, New Zealand cluster grows

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Critical care beds are reaching capacity in Japan while New Zealand is racing to contain a cluster in Auckland that has grown to 21

An update on the British man sentenced to six weeks in prison in Singapore for refusing to wear a mask:

Benjamin Glynn, 40, was released today and will be deported, the country’s prison department said.

This is an interesting story by Edward Helmore about an Australian psychologist living in Canada who penned a book on pandemics just before Covid-19 hit.

Stephen Taylor’s book, The Psychology of Pandemics, was rejected by his publisher because “no one’s going to want to read it”.

Related: ‘No one wanted to read’ his book on pandemic psychology – then Covid hit

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Ardern’s Covid lockdown finds favour as New Zealand watches Sydney’s Delta disaster

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Asked what she would say to people who questioned the need for a level 4 lockdown, the prime minister responded with one word: ‘Australia’

To overseas eyes, going into national lockdown over a single case should have been a hard sell, even for an extraordinarily popular prime minister such as Jacinda Ardern.

But a disastrous outbreak of the Delta variant in Sydney has helped galvanise New Zealand’s “team of 5 million” – and across the country, the government’s tough strategy on Covid-19 has enjoyed widespread popular support.

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Growing New Zealand Covid cluster linked to Sydney Delta outbreak

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Jacinda Ardern warns of more cases as Auckland cluster grows to seven, marking New Zealand’s first local transmissions of Delta variant

New Zealand’s coronavirus cluster has grown to seven, with genomic sequencing linking it to the Delta outbreak that began in Sydney, as the country woke up to day one of a snap lockdown stemming from just one case.

The country went into a snap level four lockdown – the highest level of restrictions – on Tuesday night, after detecting one case with no obvious links to the border. New Zealand has not had a level 4 lockdown in more than a year, and the case is the country’s first instance of Delta transmission in the community.

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Coronavirus live news: weekly deaths up by a third in England and Wales; Singapore prepares to reopen for business

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Covid mentioned in 527 deaths last week compared to 404 the week before; Singapore experts say there may be hundreds of deaths each year from endemic Covid-19

The king of Malaysia has ruled out a new general election in the country, after the resignation of the government amid mounting anger over its handling of the pandemic, because of concerns over the spread of Covid.

Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s resignation yesterday after less than 18 months in office comes as Malaysia has one of the world’s highest infection and death rates per capita, with daily cases breaching 20,000 this month despite a seven-month state of emergency and a lockdown since June.

India has administered more than 8.8m doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the past 24 hours, government data showed, close to its all-time record and speeding up a campaign to inoculate all eligible adults by December.

India has undertaken one of the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination drives and has so far administered 554m doses, giving at least one dose to about 46% of its estimated 944m adults. Only about 13% of the population have had the required two doses.

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Jacinda Ardern announces three-day lockdown after single Covid case – video

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New Zealand will go into a national lockdown on Tuesday night after detecting one case of Covid-19, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced on Tuesday. ‘Delta has been called a gamechanger and it is,’ Ardern said, adding that her government had ‘planned for this eventuality’.

Under level 4, all New Zealanders are asked to shelter in place in a ‘bubble’ that only includes their immediate household or dependents. They can only leave the house to buy food or medical supplies, to access medical care or for socially distanced exercise

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New Zealand to go into national lockdown over one Covid case

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PM Jacinda Ardern warns this is ‘only chance’ to stop spread of suspected Delta variant

New Zealand will go into a national lockdown on Tuesday night, after detecting one case of Covid-19.

The entire country will be at alert level 4 – the highest level of lockdown – for at least three days from midnight, and the regions of Auckland and Coromandel for four to seven days.

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New Zealand to deploy troops to aid citizens’ evacuation from Afghanistan

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Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand would also attempt to evacuate Afghan nationals who worked with the country

New Zealand is racing to get its remaining citizens out of Afghanistan, and will deploy troops to assist with their evacuation after the Taliban swept to power overnight.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that the country would also try to evacuate a number of Afghan nationals and their families who worked with the New Zealand deployments or in-country operations, many of whom are now in hiding and fear they will be targeted by the Taliban.

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Simon Bridges’ memoir reveals the candid, funny, vulnerable person behind the stiff exterior | Steve Braunias

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After being ousted as New Zealand opposition leader, Simon Bridges has returned to himself – a likeable maverick

He walked in the door at the same time as my cat, which heightened the impression that he looked like something the cat dragged in. It was the day after Simon Bridges had been rolled as leader of the National Party. I’d sent him a friendly text and he replied that he was in my neck of the woods the next day so maybe a cup of tea might be in order. I put on the jug. The occasion deserved a whiskey or something, but neither of us are social drinkers, or even very social.

Related: Resolutions but no revolution as National ends its annual conference as divided as ever

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Rugby, racism and the battle for the soul of Aotearoa New Zealand | John Minto

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The Springboks’ tour and the protests that ensued 40 years ago helped set the fight for Māori rights on a stronger path

The 1981 Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand will always have a special place in any narrative about the international fight against apartheid in South Africa.

The protests against the Springboks reverberated around the world – delivering a savage psychological blow to South Africa’s white regime while giving a resounding boost to the oppressed majority.

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‘A way to be heard’: the New Zealand Pasifika youth subculture devoted to emergency sirens

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Siren kings battle their way through several carefully judged rounds to establish who has the loudest, clearest sound

On the streets of south Auckland, Pasifika youth equipped with plastic siren cones have created a new sound – one that stormed TikTok, and took over a moment in pop music. Sometimes disparaged or dismissed, they say their work with sirens is more than just a sound or a hobby. It’s also about community, creativity and respite from struggle.

These are the Siren Kings – a street subculture devoted to the volume and clarity of music, channelled through the unusual vector of emergency-evacuation sirens.

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Sticking to a Covid-19 elimination strategy keeps New Zealand’s options open | Michael Baker, Amanda Kvalsvig and Nick Wilson

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The approach buys the country time to get a better understanding of the virus’ impact on people’s long-term health and on children

Aotearoa New Zealand’s new national strategy for loosening border restrictions closely follows scientific advice from an expert panel that was specifically asked to advise on the future of New Zealand’s elimination strategy and phased loosening of border controls.

Covid-19 elimination has been the dominant strategy for a number of jurisdictions across the Asia-Pacific region, including New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia. This approach contrasts with the suppression and mitigation strategies of Europe and North America.

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New Zealand’s biggest contribution to the climate struggle is its positive example | Philip McKibbin

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Suggesting that cutting New Zealand’s emissions won’t make any difference on a global scale is an argument that misses the point

Should New Zealand hold itself to its greenhouse gas emissions targets?

“Of course!” you may be thinking – and you wouldn’t be the only one. There is widespread support for climate action in Aotearoa. It led to record demonstrations in 2019, which saw 170,000 people striking, and the government is currently working on a plan in response to a recent report from the Climate Change Commission. Still, some New Zealanders seem to think otherwise, arguing that we are already doing enough.

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Amazon moves production of Lord of the Rings TV series to UK

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Show has been shot in New Zealand so far but filming will move to UK from June 2022

Amazon has made the surprise decision to move production of its $1bn-plus Lord of the Rings series from New Zealand to the UK, rejecting tens of millions of dollars in incentives to shoot the TV show in the same location as the blockbuster films.

Amazon, which four years ago paid $250m to secure the TV rights to JRR Tolkien’s works after founder Jeff Bezos demanded a Game of Thrones-style hit for its streaming service, chose to film the first series in New Zealand after competitive bids from around the world.

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