Caught in the middle of a drug trafficking route, island countries are in danger of falling under the control of drug cartels
Four years ago I stood in front of a top level security conference and warned that we have just a few years to get on top of the problem of drugs being trafficked through the Pacific region or it could turn into a semi-narco region, controlled by criminal syndicates.
In the four years since I gave that speech, things have gotten worse.
Continue reading...Australia urged to take action to stop cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking from Latin America through Pacific region
Australia and New Zealand have been urged to do more to fight the drug trade across the Pacific and take responsibility for the fact that the demand for drugs in cities such as Sydney and Auckland was having devastating effects on small Pacific nations.
Drug traffickers transport cocaine and methamphetamines through Pacific nations from the US and Latin America to Australia and New Zealand, where drug users pay the highest price per gram (about A$300 or £180) for cocaine and have the highest cocaine use per capita in the world.
Continue reading...Questions over how chief executive David Hisco was allowed to run up large expense accounts and over wife’s purchase of a bank property
Pressure is mounting on the ANZ bank board after New Zealand’s central bank ordered two independent reviews into the company’s conduct following the departure of its NZ chief executive who ran up expense accounts averaging more than $400,000 a year.
The bank’s chairman, former New Zealand prime minister Sir John Key, last week announced the departure of David Hisco, who is an Australian, after the company learned of his spending for “non-monetary benefits” including a personal chauffeur service and wine cellaring.
Continue reading...Explosion in number of boats carrying cocaine and meth from Latin America to Australia is causing havoc for islands on the way
• Cocaine used as washing powder: police struggle with Pacific drug influx
It is the drug route you’ve never heard of: a multibillion-dollar operation involving cocaine and methamphetamines being packed into the hulls of sailing boats in the US and Latin America and transported to Australia via South Pacific islands more often thought of as holiday destinations than narcotics hubs.
In the past five years there has been an explosion in the number of boats, sometimes carrying more than a tonne of cocaine, making the journey across the Pacific Ocean to feed Australia’s growing and very lucrative drug habit.
Continue reading...Under-resourced but undeterred, Fiji’s officers battle surge in trafficking – with just one boat
• The new drug highway: Pacific islands at centre of cocaine trafficking boom
Sitiveni Qiliho, Fiji’s police commissioner, says he doesn’t watch films any more because, since taking on Fiji police’s top job two years ago, his life has enough drama.
Over the past few months he has found himself scuba diving in search of multimillion-dollar stashes of cocaine stored in huge underwater nets, arresting drug traffickers on the high seas and informing remote islands communities that the mysterious packages washing up on their beaches are full of cocaine and shouldn’t be baked into cakes or put in tea.
Continue reading...Shake-up of voting laws by Labour government will also allow same-day registration
As well as picking up a carton of milk and a loaf of bread at the supermarket, voters in New Zealand will also be able to pick their new prime minister at the next election, after a shake-up of voting laws allowed for ballot boxes to be placed in busy shops and malls.
The new regulations announced this week will also allow same-day registration and voting.
Continue reading...New Zealand gave a home, and hope, to Abbas Nazari. He wishes all refugee children could be given the same chance
Abbas Nazari was stranded on a ship in the Indian ocean when he first heard the words “New Zealand”.
Then aged 7, Nazari’s mother, father and four siblings were among 430 asylum seekers, predominantly of the ethnic minority Hazaras of Afghanistan, plucked from a sinking fishing boat by the Norwegian cargo ship, the Tampa. They were later transferred to the HMAS Manoora, where they waited for asylum after Australia refused to accept them; creating an international quagmire over which country would, or should, offer sanctuary on humanitarian grounds.
Continue reading...Trial to be held in May 2020 for Australian man who faces 51 murder charges, 40 of attempted murder and one terrorism charge
Australian Brenton Tarrant has pleaded not guilty to all charges in relation to the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand.
Tarrant, 28, is facing 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of engaging in a terrorist act. The trial, estimated to take six weeks, will go ahead on 4 May, 2020.
Continue reading...Praise for spending on mental health and child wellbeing is tempered with concerns that the economic plan fails to address root causes of inequality
Pensioner Garry Harvey lived in Australia for decades before returning home to a tidy council flat in South Dunedin earlier this year. The socio-economically deprived suburb at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island is in the crosshairs of the nation’s first-ever “wellbeing budget”, a radical economic plan for the country devised by Jacinda Ardern to improve the lives of the poorest citizens.
For the first time the annual budget puts social wellbeing indicators ahead of GDP when it comes to spending decisions. From now on, the health of New Zealand will not be measured by growth alone, but instead by the overall wellbeing and prosperity of its nearly 5 million people.
Continue reading...Search for Darren Myers, who went missing in the Tararua ranges on Saturday, hampered by bad weather
Hopes of finding a British hiker alive after he went missing in New Zealand five days ago are dwindling as rescuers battle severe weather on a mountain range where he was last seen.
Darren Myers, 49, failed to return from a hike in the Tararua ranges in the North Island at noon on Saturday. The Tararuas are a rugged destination popular with hikers from Wellington.
Continue reading...Claim follows review into bullying and harassment that uncovered three allegations of serious sexual assault
The deputy leader of New Zealand’s opposition party has called for an investigation after the parliament’s speaker suggested there was a rapist working at Parliament House.
After the release of a review of bullying and harassment in parliament, speaker Trevor Mallard said there were three allegations of “serious sexual assault” that amounted to rape.
Continue reading...Pictures show a lot of groundwater has seeped into the mine since 2010 disaster that killed 29
The first images from inside the New Zealand’s Pike river mine, where an explosion killed 29 men nearly nine years ago, have been released.
The shots were taken as a three-person re-entry crew broke through the 88cm concrete seal on Tuesday at the mine’s opening to start the process of gathering evidence on what caused New Zealand’s worst mining disaster since 1914. The bodies of the 29 victims remain in the mine.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron met companies and G7 nations in Paris for Christchurch Call summit
World leaders and heads of global technology companies have pledged at a Paris summit to tackle terrorist and extremist violence online in what they described as an “unprecedented agreement”.
Wednesday’s event, organised two months to the day since the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand, drew up a “plan of action” to be adopted by countries and companies to prevent extreme material going viral on the internet.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister says laws changed after massacres in her country and in Australia
New Zealand’s prime minister has said she cannot understand America’s failure to ban automatic and semi-automatic guns, despite dozens of mass shootings.
Jacinda Ardern told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in unusually blunt language: “Australia experienced a massacre and changed its laws. New Zealand has had its experience and changed its laws. To be honest with you, I don’t understand the United States.”
Continue reading...New Zealand PM will reportedly urge nations to enforce laws banning extremist material and set rules for reporting on terrorism
Details have emerged of a plan by New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and French president Emmanuel Macron to eliminate terrorist and violent content online.
Ardern and Macron will meet in Paris this week on the sidelines of a meeting of digital ministers from the Group of 7 nations to discuss the plan – named the “Christchurch Call” – and urge other leaders to sign up.
Continue reading...Scientists have identified a spike in ‘vagrant’ species of fish including damselfish, wrasse and triggerfish
Warming ocean temperatures have been blamed for luring tropical fish thousands of kilometres into New Zealand waters, threatening vulnerable native species as they compete for resources.
Scientists have identified increasing numbers of what they call “vagrant” species rarely seen in the New Zealand’s oceans and said their extended visits were raising concerns about how the islands’ unique local wildlife would adapt.
Continue reading...Police called after flight delayed following refusal of woman to watch safety video and read card in exit row seat
A woman who refused to watch the regulation air safety video or read the safety instructions card handed to her by flight attendants has reportedly been removed from an Air New Zealand flight in Wellington.
The woman, described by other passengers as “wealthy-looking”, was sitting in the exit row but ignored attendants’ attempts to get her to listen to the safety instructions for flight NZ424 to Auckland on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Ardern, who has been with the TV presenter for five years, was spotted wearing a diamond ring on Friday
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is engaged to her long-term partner Clarke Gayford, a spokesperson for the prime minister has confirmed.
It emerged that the couple had got engaged over the Easter weekend in Hawke’s Bay after Ardern was spotted wearing a diamond ring at an event at the Pike River mine on Friday.
Continue reading...Reporting guidelines devised and signed by five major news organisations
New Zealand media organisations have taken the unprecedented step of agreeing to censor their reporting of the trial of the man accused of the Christchurch mosque massacre in an attempt to contain the dissemination of his white supremacist beliefs.
On 15 March a shooter killed 50 people in two Christchurch mosques, the largest mass shooting in New Zealand’s modern history.
Continue reading...Duke of Cambridge and Jacinda Ardern press noses as part of hongi during visit to honour those affected by the Christchurch attacks
Prince William has joined Jacinda Ardern at Anzac commemorations in New Zealand in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks.
The pair shared an intimate hongi [Māori nose press] and espoused the values of freedom, democracy, and peace where they attended a service in Auckland before travelling to Christchurch to meet with survivors.
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