Category Archives: New Zealand

Auckland's Ian McDonald-Tauaika (blue) battles Te Kotahitangi Te Tawhero from Te Toki a Maui on the opening day of competition. Photo / Dan Boobyer

The 2021 New Zealand Amateur Boxing Championships are under way in Whanganui, and the entire local contingent are already into this weekend's finals.

There was a little luck along the way, with super heavyweight Sale Oldehaver's semifinal bout cancelled after his opponent suffered a broken finger in a preliminary fight.

"That guy is the New Zealand champ but he's out, and that means anything could happen this weekend," head coach and tournament organiser Eddie Tofa said.

"There has been some luck with the draw as well, but it is what it is. Having five in the finals is great for us.

"We are hoping the local community comes down to support them."

Championship bouts take place on Friday and Saturday.

Joining Oldehaver are Isabella Parkes, 13, Tekahui Spittal-Rahina, 15, Chille Palmer, 16, and Pheenyx Apiata-Cook, 14.

Tofa said the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic had impacted overall numbers, but there would still be 70 bouts over the entire competition.

"Things have been going well. There was a real buzz yesterday [Wednesday] when things finally got under way.

"The level of competition is right up there. It's New Zealand title on the line so nobody wants to stand back.

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"There are two people standing in the middle of the ring having a go at each other."

If Whanganui is to take home titles, it will be a quick turnaround before they have to defend them.

The River City will also host the 2022 championships in October.

Tofa said he expected the next edition to have a lot more entrants.

"Everything is already booked and ready to go. People are very happy to be here this time around and they want to come back.

"This competition is good practice for us, and a trial run for the next one. We're excited."

The New Zealand Amateur Boxing Championships run until April 23 at Jubilee Stadium.

Read more from the original source:

Whanganui boxers reach finals of New Zealand Amateur Championships - New Zealand Herald

NZMEs Great Minds project will examine the state of our nations mental health and explore the growing impact mental health and anxiety has on Kiwis while searching for ways to improve it. Video / NZ Herald

The number of New Zealanders struggling with poor mental wellbeing has risen sharply during the Covid-19 outbreak, according to research obtained exclusively by the Herald, prompting calls from leading health figures for an urgent national recovery plan.

Polling for the Mental Health Foundation found that 36 per cent of people surveyed were experiencing poor emotional wellbeing, up from 27 per cent a year ago, an increase that the foundation says is significant and concerning.

The research adds to a body of evidence indicating that two years of unprecedented stress and disruption brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has had an enormous psychological toll on Kiwis - and that the burden is growing.

Today the Herald and NZME launch a major editorial project, Great Minds, to examine the state of our mental health - and solutions for improving wellbeing as the country recovers from the pandemic.

Health professionals warn the constant threat of illness, social isolation, economic worries, grief from family separation and other pressures imposed by Covid-19 have both compounded the distress of those who were already vulnerable to mental health problems, and caused people to experience symptoms of conditions such as anxiety and depression for the first time.

Prominent health figures including the leaders of the Mental Health Foundation, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, and the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists warn that New Zealand was already struggling to cope with a profusion of mental health challenges before Covid.

A wave of new problems is overwhelming public mental health services that have been depleted by years of underinvestment, experts say.

"What we have is a crisis on top of a crisis, because mental health was already in a crisis," says Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation.

"This is adding significant additional pressure. And it needs an additional response."

The full extent of the psychological impact of the pandemic has yet to emerge, experts say, and could last long after the virus itself has receded from public concern - particularly if the soaring cost of living pushes more people into hardship in the months ahead.

They urged the Government to put mental health at the centre of its post-pandemic plans, including a commitment to provide substantial new funding in next month's Budget.

Speaking to the Herald, Health Minister Andrew Little acknowledged the impact that Covid has had on people's wellbeing.

"We are aware of that and know we need to have support and services in place to be able to respond effectively to it."

Little said the Government remained committed to the transformation of mental health it promised in the 2019 Wellbeing Budget.

"We are still not there yet. We still have plenty to do."

The Ministry of Health would now focus on boosting specialist services for people with serious mental health problems, where there was "major unmet need", after putting much of its investments so far into early intervention for people with milder conditions.

"We need to do more," Little acknowledged, but would not provide details of his plans.

The health leaders' concerns are borne out by an extensive review by the Herald of government and district health board documents and data, along with interviews with numerous people in the sector, which portrays a stark picture of the growing psychological impact.

Among the findings:

Health officials told Little that Covid's impact on the public may be delayed but wide-reaching and could last for years. The consequences for young people are a particular concern. "The impacts of Covid-19 on youth mental wellbeing is likely to be extensive and enduring," officials said in a briefing to the minister in September.

DHBs say their specialist mental health services have experienced a surge in referrals during the pandemic. More people coming to them for help are in acute psychological distress and have complex conditions that are difficult to treat. It has pushed the DHBs' already-stretched workforces to the brink. "We are beyond crisis point," said one psychiatrist on the front lines.

Schools, GPs and hospital emergency departments are also being overwhelmed by the surge in distress. The Royal College of GPs says about a third of doctors' visits are now related to mental health, while the number of calls to police for mental health problems, attempted suicides and suicides has risen - to an average of more than 200 recorded nationally every day in the past three months.

In February, the Herald revealed that children and young people were hospitalised more than 5600 times after self-harming last year, a rate that has increased by 10 per cent since the start of the pandemic and nearly a third in five years.

Since then, the Herald has spoken to numerous people with experience of mental health problems and their carers who said the Covid outbreak has affected their state of mind.

One businessman in Tauranga who lost his teenage son to suicide in 2020 says he believes the pandemic contributed to the sense of hopelessness his son felt before he took his life.

"It wasn't Covid that caused what happened with my son," he says.

"But it might've been the straw that broke the camel's back."

The Mental Health Foundation began monitoring the public's mental wellbeing in December 2020, using a questionnaire devised by the World Health Organisation. The polling was conducted by IPSOS and has been repeated several times since then.

In the latest round, the average wellbeing score of those surveyed slipped to 14, down from 15.9 in December 2020.

The foundation says the percentage of people in a poor emotional state has increased steadily, rising from 25 per cent in December 2020 to 36 per cent now. The rates are particularly concerning among women, with 42 per cent showing poor emotional wellbeing in the latest survey.

"What it's showing is a dramatically deteriorating situation and it's very obvious that it's related to the impacts of Covid-19," Robinson says.

Not everyone with a poor emotional state would develop a life-altering mental condition that requires professional intervention, Robinson said, but more people were at risk of doing so, at a time when the system's capacity to help them was severely limited.

It comes after the World Health Organisation published a report saying the pandemic has resulted in a marked increase globally in mental health problems, including a 25 per cent increase in depression and anxiety.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this was the "tip of the iceberg" and "a wake-up call to all countries to pay more attention to mental health".

Health experts say the scale of the mental health burden in the coming months depends partly on unpredictable economic and social factors but that the long-term consequences could be mitigated by bold policy actions now.

Three years ago, Labour made mental health a focus of its "Wellbeing Budget", promising more investment and several new initiatives, including a counselling service aimed at people with mild and moderate problems. However, critics say these measures were insufficient to meet the need even before Covid.

With a Budget next month and a major reform of the health sector taking effect in July, health experts are calling on the Government to come up with a clear, far-reaching mental health recovery plan that includes a substantial funding increase for specialist services and tangible action on the social "determinants" of emotional wellbeing, such as housing.

"If we want to get in front of the wave, we have to grit our teeth and chuck some serious resource into the mix, in a planned and organised way," says Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.

"This is a watershed moment for health services in New Zealand," says Paul Skirrow, executive adviser at the College of Clinical Psychologists. "We absolutely cannot continue with the same models of care and training that we have been relying on up until now."

"There has to be a very clear and transparent plan, and ideally something that all political parties sign up to," says Robinson, of the Mental Health Foundation.

The Ministry of Health, in addition to the work already being done as part of Labour's Wellbeing Budget commitments, says it invested $15 million in a psychosocial response package in 2020 and another $5.6 million last year when the Delta outbreak began.

According to a ministry spokesperson, the support provided included a campaign and website, All Sorts, aimed at helping people cope with difficult emotions, in conjunction with the Mental Health Foundation. It has also boosted funding for digital and telehealth services.

The Herald will continue reporting on the nation's mental health and the way that services help people who experience difficulties. And we need your help.

We want to hear from as many people as possible who have experienced mental health problems, those who care for them, and people who work in the mental health system. The more people we can speak to, the more thorough and accurate our reporting will be. We will not publish your name or identify you as a source unless you want us to.

Please share your experience by contacting Investigations Editor Alex Spence: alex.spence@nzme.co.nz

If it is an emergency and you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

For counselling and support

Lifeline: Call 0800 543 354 or text 4357 (HELP)

Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)

Need to talk? Call or text 1737

Depression helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202

For children and young people

Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234

What's Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm)

The Lowdown: Text 5626 or webchat

For help with specific issues

Alcohol and Drug Helpline: Call 0800 787 797

Anxiety Helpline: Call 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)

OutLine: Call 0800 688 5463 (0800 OUTLINE) (6pm-9pm)

Safe to talk (sexual harm): Call 0800 044 334 or text 4334

All services are free and available 24/7 unless otherwise specified.

For more information and support, talk to your local doctor, hauora, community mental health team, or counselling service. The Mental Health Foundation has more helplines and service contacts on its website.

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Great Minds: NZ's mental health 'crisis' - more Kiwis struggling with wellbeing since Covid, research reveals - New Zealand Herald

Air New Zealand board chair Dame Therese Walsh and Tourism Minister Stuart Nash joined CEO Greg Foran who announced the airline will return to the Big Apple later this year. Video / NZ Herald

Air New Zealand chairwoman Dame Therese Walsh says the airline is feeling "balanced excitement" about the rebuilding this year as it is prepared for more Covid curveballs and competition that may act unpredictably.

The airline is midway through a $1.2 billion capital raise, part of a $2.2b debt and equity restructure to pay back loans to the Government and "refuel" its re-entry into international markets.

Walsh has said the capital raise was ''progressing as we would have expected'' and said some confusion over the two for one rights offer was partly because of ''inherent complexity".

The timing of the offer came just before more flights resumed across the Tasman as Australians skip self-isolation, the move to the domestic orange traffic light setting and the removal of mandate requirements on domestic flights.

From last week passengers no longer had to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to fly domestically and, from May 1 the airline will remove its no jab, no fly vaccination policy for international customers.

It has added an extra 96 transtasman flights over the next three months to keep up with strong demand: 11 flights from Australia one day just before Easter were full. During March, the Omicron outbreak's peak in New Zealand, domestic demand was running at 64 per cent compared to the same month in 2019.

The carrier's long-haul international network is expanding with a return to US destinations it flew to pre-pandemic later in the year and its Auckland-New York service launches in September.

''We never say never with Omicron and Covid - we've been down this road so it's sort of balanced excitement, there's a cautious optimism.''

The Government owns 51 per cent of the airline and, asked whether it provides advance information on changes to Covid restrictions she said: ''Sometimes we'll have a small amount of time, but it will be very small. It might be on one specific issue related to the airline.''

However, the airline had to steer its own course irrespective of Government decisions given it can take months to reboot international routes.

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''We have to make our own decisions about what we think is going to happen and we're doing that at the moment. We've had 700 pilots and crew come back already. We're going to progressively probably bring back more as we open up.

"So some of that is quite difficult in terms of some of these [Government] announcements,'' said Walsh, who became chairwoman of the airline in 2019.

The airline faces an around $800m loss this year after posting heavy losses since the pandemic hit, leading to a third of its staff losing their jobs.

The Government will participate in the capital raise to retain its majority stake by buying up to $602m in shares and has provided a further $400m back-up standby facility if required.

This comes on top of extensive investment to keep the airline flying during the past two years.

The airline set out in detail the support it had received in its rights offer document:

Negotiated $2b liquidity comprised of a Crown loan and redeemable shares

Obtained confirmation of Crown's participation in current rights offer

Was awarded Government-supported cargo contracts worth $620m in revenue since May 2020

Got wage subsidy support of about $170m

Received about $85m in support under the aviation relief package

Got tax-related relief of $65m and used IRD-approved PAYE deferrals

Finance Minister and shareholding minister Grant Robertson a year ago explicitly spelled out his expectations of the airline. As a national carrier, it was expected to maintain a comprehensive domestic network, to remain committed to environmental sustainability, and to continue acting as a responsible corporate citizen while being commercially sustainable.

With the level of Government/taxpayer support during the pandemic, does this change the approach of the airline?

''The key principle is that with this recapitalisation, from a balance sheet perspective, we are a balanced commercial entity with the right mix of debt and equity - 51 per cent is a good place for the Government to be and then for the rest of the market to own the rest of the company,'' said Walsh.

''We are clear that we continue to be a completely commercial organisation. And the thing for us is that growing domestic is in our best interest. What's in the best interest of Kiwis and central government is growing domestic - so everyone's aligned in that regard.''

She said there will always be ''points of difference'' between communities, stakeholders, the media and Government about domestic fares and routes. The airline's domestic operation contributed about a third of revenue before the pandemic and had at times been running at near capacity during the past two years.

Walsh said the long Auckland lockdown last year had provided useful insight into how new routes could work. Flights bypassing Auckland into Northland from Wellington had proved popular and an indication of routes was on the drawing board as the airline looks to increase domestic coverage and frequency.

The domestic network can be highly profitable - when corporate travel recovers from Covid speed humps - and there were signs this was under way. More visitors from Australia would also bolster the internal network.

Airlines in other parts of the world are bouncing back quickly. Eurocontrol figures show 81 per cent of pre-pandemic flying has been restored and some airports around the world area suffering familiar problems - congestion. A slew of new airlines have been launched during the past 18 months and Walsh says Air New Zealand is preparing for a changed competitive landscape.

Pre-pandemic, 29 international airlines operated at Auckland Airport, connecting to 45 destinations. As at the end of March this year, 14 airlines fly internationally to 25 destinations but more are returning. Walsh said Air New Zealand was counting on strong competition.

''We're not sure where the competition is going to come from as it shakes out because some won't return, some will double down. There'll be new players that try different things,'' she said.

"We're not taking any of it for granted and I mean, we were going to have to price competitively but we've got plans around our products and services and we need to execute well.''

She said it was hard to know where competition would come from and how airlines would approach the New Zealand market.

''There will be some irrational behaviour in the market. We don't know what everyone's strategies are and not every player in the aviation industry has ever been totally rational.''

More here:

Air New Zealand chairwoman Dame Therese Walsh - headwinds and tailwinds for the airline - New Zealand Herald

SINGAPORE - At the entrance of the Gardens by the Bay's Cloud Forest, amidthe lush greenery of plants native to New Zealand, a symbolic doorway greets visitors.

The new Maori kuwaha carving, named Tane Te Waiora, represents the strong friendship between Singapore and New Zealand, and was unveiled by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Indranee Rajah on Tuesday (April 19).

Comprising three pieces made of totara wood from the Pureora Forest in the central North Island, the sculpture is crafted from a tree that is estimated to be over 2,500 years old, which fell naturally in the forest during a severe storm.

The carving depicts Tane, the personification of the sun, and Hina, the personification of the moon, reinforcing the importance of light in Maori culture.

"It is a metaphor for our reconnection with Singapore, demonstrating our intention to strengthen the 'doorway' between New Zealand and Singapore, and the rest of the world," Ms Ardern said of the carving.

"The presence on the kuwaha of Hina, represented by the moon, and Tane, represented by the crops, are also significant as they symbolise a relationship of trust and reciprocity - defining features of New Zealand's relationship with Singapore."

Gardens by the Bay CEO Felix Loh said: "Maori art and culture has deep significance in New Zealand's cultural history... We are grateful for this precious gift to be placed permanently at the entrance of Cloud Forest as a lasting symbol of the close friendship between our two countries."

Ms Ardern, who arrived on Mondayfor a three-day visit, also had a new orchid hybrid named in her honour at the Istana earlier on Tuesday.

The Dendrobium Jacinda Ardern, a hybrid of Dendrobium Lim Wen Gin and Dendrobium Takashimaya, produces flowers with white petals and sepals with a flush of orchid purple towards the tips.

New Zealand is opening its borders to international travellers from May 2.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive Rene de Monchy is excited about the prospect of reopened borders. "It's a perfect opportunity to tour around and engage with the culture and the nature. There's lots of variety in activity," he said.

Some newly-introduced activities include the Te Puia, Geysers by Night, where visitors will be guided on a 3km course that ends at the picturesque Pohutu Geyser. There is Wildwire Wanaka, where thrill-seekers can abseil down Twin Falls, while those who prefer tamer activities embark on the Wild Walk Adventure Trail.

Though travelling may be "complicated" due to mandatory testing and paperwork, Mr de Monchy feels that people "have a deep-rooted desire to travel".

He added that now is the perfect time to vacation for Singaporeans who want to escape the heat, as it is autumn in New Zealand. "I certainly hope that Singaporeans will look at our blue skies and green fields and feel refreshed," he said.

Read the rest here:

Maori carving unveiled at Gardens by the Bay to symbolise New Zealand-Singapore friendship - The Straits Times

A new invasive species of wasp has been found in St Marys Bay, central Auckland.

An information flier given to St Marys Bay residents this week by Biosecurity New Zealand said the non-native pest wasp hadnt been seen in Aotearoa, until now.

Biosecurity New Zealand is interested in any further sightings of this insect as we would like to be sure there are no others in the area.

Biosecurity NZ said it was investigating to ensure the single lesser banded hornet found was the only one in the area.

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The find comes after Queensland fruit flies put parts of the North Shore into a fruit and vegetable lockdown for almost a year from early 2019.

Biosecurity NZ said the lesser banded hornet, a type of wasp, was not thought to be established in New Zealand, but is widely found in South East Asia.

Biosecurity NZs manager of surveillance and incursion Dr Wendy McDonald said the hornet found was a worker hornet, and was not able to establish a population on its own.

123rf

A lesser banded hornet, previously not found in New Zealand, has been detected in St Marys Bay, Auckland.

McDonald said no other lesser banded hornets had been found yet. She said Biosecurity NZ was still looking into how the hornet made its way into the country.

The hornets pose a risk to native wildlife by competing with native birds for nectar and fruit.

The lesser banded hornet is also known to feed on insects, including honey bees.

Much larger than other wasp species, the lesser banded hornet grows up to 3cm long, and has a brownish-red or black head, and dark brown legs. The front half of its abdomen is orange or yellow, with the rest black or dark brown.

The wings are a smoky brown colour and not transparent, like other common wasps.

Biosecurity NZ said there were five species of social wasps established in New Zealand.

The colour and markings on these species are quite different to the lesser banded hornet.

The lesser banded hornet, part of the Vespa species, is one of five hornets of biosecurity interest in Australia, New South Wales Department of Primary Industries said.

The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries said hornets use their stings to kill prey and defend their nests.

Barbara Smith/Stuff

Lesser banded hornets are about double size of paper wasps, pictured, which make a distinctive hexagon-patterned nest. (File photo)

Hornet stings are more painful to humans than a wasp sting because hornet venom contains a large amount of acetylcholine.

Individual hornets can sting repeatedly and, unlike honey bees or wasps, do not die after stinging because their stingers are not barbed and are not pulled out of their bodies.

Biosecurity NZ said this type of hornets nest can be as large as a football and is often found high up in trees, shrubs, and under the eaves of buildings.

If you see a nest, dont disturb it. Instead, take a photograph and report it to Biosecurity NZ using the online report form or call 0800 80 99 66.

These hornets can sting, so were not asking people to capture the insect or get too close, McDonald said.

Link:

Invasive wasp, the lesser banded hornet, found in Auckland for first time - Stuff

COMMENTARY: By Professor Rod Jackson

In a recent article (Weekend Herald, April 16) John Roughan wrote that the covid-19 pandemic has been an anticlimax in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Surprisingly, he acknowledges covid-19 has killed about 25 million people worldwide, so hopefully he was referring to New Zealands 600 deaths. He goes on to ask how many lives we in New Zealand have saved and states that its not the 80,000 based on modelling from the Imperial College London that panicked governments everywhere in March 2020.

I beg to differ. It is because governments panicked everywhere that the number of deaths so far is only about 25 million.

A recent comprehensive assessment of the covid-19 infection fatality proportion the proportion of people infected with covid-19 who die from the infection found that in April 2020, before most governments had panicked, the infection fatality proportion was 1.5 percent or more in numerous high-income countries. Included were Japan, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Without stringent public health measures, covid-19 is likely to have spread through the entire population, and an infection fatality proportion of 1.5 percent multiplied by 5 million (New Zealanders) equals 75,000.

Thats close to the estimated 80,000 New Zealand lives likely to have been saved because our panicking government, like many others, introduced restrictive public health measures.

Public health successes are invisibleWhat Roughan fails to appreciate is that public health successes are invisible. Unlike deaths, you cannot see people not dying.

Without the initial public health measures and then the rapid development and deployment of highly effective vaccines (unconscionably largely to high-income countries) there would have been far more deaths.

Roughan asks is this a pandemic? He states that 25 million covid deaths are only 0.3 percent of the worlds population (only 16,000 New Zealand deaths).

How many deaths make a pandemic? In 2020, covid-19 was the number one killer in the UK, responsible for causing about one in 10 deaths in every age group, with each person who died losing on average about 10 years of life expectancy.

In the US, more than 150,000 children have lost a primary or secondary caregiver to covid-19.

So, has our pandemic response been proportionate?

Stringent public health measures were highly effective pre-omicron, but are unsustainable long term.

New Zealand is incredibly fortunateWe are incredibly fortunate that highly effective vaccines were developed so rapidly.

Even the less severe omicron variant is a major killer of unvaccinated people, as demonstrated in Hong Kong, where the equivalent of 6000 New Zealanders have been killed by omicron in the past couple of months, due to low vaccination rates.

Unfortunately, despite our high vaccination rates, we are unlikely to be out of the woods, and it is likely a new covid-19 variant will be back to bite us. The only certainty is that the next variant will need to be even more contagious to overtake omicron.

As long as covid-19 passes to a new host before killing you, there is no selection advantage to a less fatal variant. We are just lucky that omicron was less virulent than delta.

Pandemics over the centuries have often taken several generations to change from being mass killers to causing the equivalent of a common cold.

What response will we accept as proportionate to shorten this process with covid-19 without millions of additional deaths?

As immunity from vaccination or infection wanes, we will need updated vaccines to prevent regular major disruptions to society.

A sustainable proportionate responseUnlike the flu, which has a natural R-value of less than two (one person on average infects fewer than two others), omicron appears to have an R-value of at least 10. That means in the time it takes flu to go from infecting one person to two, to four, to eight people, omicron (without a proportionate response) could go from infecting one to 10 to 100 to 1000 people.

There is no way that endemic covid will be as manageable as endemic flu.

The only sustainable proportionate response to covid-19 is for New Zealanders to embrace universal vaccination.

It is likely that vaccine passes will be required again if we want to live more normally and for society to thrive. It cannot be difficult to make the use of vaccine passes more seamless.

Almost every financial transaction today is electronic and it must be possible to link transactions to valid vaccine passes when required.

Almost 1 million eligible New Zealanders havent had their third vaccine dose, yet few are anti-vaccination.

Rather, thanks to vaccination and other public health measures, the pandemic has been an anticlimax for many New Zealanders and the third dose has not been a priority.

As already demonstrated, for the vast majority of New Zealanders, a vaccine pass is sufficient to make vaccination a priority.

Professor Rod Jackson is an epidemiologist with the University of Auckland. This article was originally published by The New Zealand Herald. Republished with the authors permission.

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Rod Jackson: Why New Zealand's response to the covid pandemic was proportionate? - Asia Pacific Report

WELLINGTON: Former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith was appointed Thursday to head a new set-up for the New Zealand women's team following a damning review into the way the side had been handled.

The review into the team culture found members of the Black Ferns had been subjected to culturally insensitive comments, alleged favouritism and body-shaming from coaches.

It led to the resignation last week of head coach Glenn Moore, less than six months from the Women's World Cup, which will be hosted by defending champions New Zealand.

Smith, known in rugby circles as "the professor" because of his deep knowledge of the game, moves into the role of director of rugby for the women's side.

The 65-year-old will head a new coaching structure through to the World Cup in October-November, New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said.

"There is no questioning Wayne's calibre as a coach and what he will bring to this team. We know he is excited to be involved in the Black Ferns and about what they can build this year," Robinson said.

Smith will be assisted by Whitney Hansen, who has had an intern coaching role with the team for the past two years, and Wesley Clarke.

Men's World Cup-winning coach Graham Henry will join in a support role while specialists including former All Blacks forwards coach Mike Cron will also prepare the side.

"Wes has been a long-standing member of the Black Ferns coaching team, his insight and experience is invaluable," said Robinson.

"Whitney is a coach with a big future, she has impressed in her two years within the team so this is a great recognition of her ability and potential."

Moore, who steered the team to the 2017 world crown, was under intense pressure to quit after the review found that Black Ferns players had been badly served by both team management and New Zealand Rugby.

The review was launched after hooker Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate went public with her complaints that she suffered a mental breakdown because of critical comments made by Moore.

She alleged Moore had told her she did not deserve to be on the team and was "picked only to play the guitar".

Read the original:

Wayne Smith to coach New Zealand women following damning review - The News International

Ernest ''Buz'' Sutherland was one of the best all-round athletes New Zealand has ever produced.

A farmer's son from Bunnythorpe born in Palmerston North in 1894, as a child he tried to pole vault 8 feet (2.4 metres) with a homemade pole and broke his arm.

He became the most versatile athlete in the British Empire and won 13 national championships in six events.

And yet he never got to represent New Zealand at the Empire Games because the first Games weren't held until 1930.

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World War I also got in his way where he survived being shot, gassed and buried alive.

Word first got around about his talent in 1909 when he won the Palmerston North High School under-16 high jump with a leap of ''5 feet'' (1.5 metres), at that time unheard of in Australasia.

He employed the scissors technique where the jumper stayed upright, taking off and landing on rock hard ground, no sawdust pit to land in.

Sutherland also played for the cricket 1st XI.

At the 1915 national championships in Wellington, he became the triple-jump champion and was clearly a decathlete. But not until 1948 was the decathlon contested at New Zealand championships.

He enlisted in the New Zealand Rifle Brigade and his first war injury came when he injured a shoulder in a Divisional rugby match.

Unknown/Stuff

Bunnythorpe's Buz Sutherland, in white, with the New Zealand team at an Australasian championships meeting.

On Christmas Day 1915, Sutherland's battalion saw action in Egypt against the Senussi, a Muslim clan from North Africa allied to the Turks, when six New Zealanders died.

A month later the brigade again attacked the Senussi and this time Rifleman Sutherland was shot in the thigh.

After recovering, he spent the next two-and-a-half years in and out of the hellscape trenches in France and Belgium where gas attacks took their toll. When a German shell exploded nearby and he was buried under a mound of dirt, he was hospitalised again.

At home, his father William died in 1917 after falling from his horse into the Mangaone Stream.

While Sutherland survived the battles at the Somme, Messines and Passchendaele, more than 3150 men of the NZ Rifle Brigade didn't.

As if that wasn't enough for the army, Sutherland was sent to Germany in the Army of Occupation and didn't get home until 1919 when he resumed his athletics.

At the 1920 national championships he won the triple jump, long jump and high jump and was second in the pole vault before more national titles came in 1921, the year he competed for New Zealand in Adelaide.

There he befriended South African middle-distance runner, Dave Leathern, and having struggled to find work in New Zealand, Sutherland agreed to try South Africa in 1922.

En route he stopped off in Sydney where he set an Australasian javelin record of 53 metres.

After settling on the Leathern family farm at Ladysmith in Natal, he wasn't impressed with the arid conditions so he went to work for Natal Railway before joining the police in Durban.

Sutherland had a habit of entering half of the events at athletics meets and broke the South African high-jump record with a 1.88 metres leap.

Unknown/Stuff

Olympian Buz Sutherland displays his hurdling technique which he used to good effect in the decathlon. Photo: PNBHS

Despite having represented New Zealand, he was selected to compete for South Africa in the decathlon at the 1924 Paris Olympics having lived in South Africa for only two years. Nothing came of the anomaly.

Aged 30, the boy from Bunnythorpe was the second oldest of 36 decathletes heading into the final event in Paris, the 1500 metres. He was sitting fourth, but after a 1500m of pure torture, he settled for fifth place, the best result by an Empire athlete.

Sutherland returned to South Africa where he was engaged to marry the sister of another Olympian, but he never felt settled there and they never married. In 1925, he left to be a coach in Britain, in Liverpool and Glasgow.

After a year there, he settled back in New Zealand, joined the police in Wellington in 1927 and when he resumed his athletics career he won his last title, the pole vault, 14 years after his first before retiring from athletics in 1930 at the age of 36.

By 1935, Constable Sutherland was back in Manawatu where he was regularly seen on the beat, only for tragedy to strike a year later when cycling to the Palmerston North Police Station.

Feeling ill, he decided to ride home, but at the intersection of Pirie and Featherston Streets, he careered head-first over the handlebars of his bike and ''dislocated'' his neck. A shoulder strap of his bag became entangled between his knee and handlebars.

To quote Feilding researcher Nick Rutherford, ''the mild-mannered Olympian, war veteran and constable was dead at the tragically young age of 42, leaving wife Marjorie and three children''.

Sutherland was recognised with a funeral procession through Palmerston North.

Peter Lampp is a sports commentator and former sports editor in Palmerston North.

Continued here:

The boy from Bunnythorpe, the best New Zealand Olympian you've never heard of - Stuff

iDenfy has picked up a new client in New Zealand. RBFC Global is a financial institution that specializes in online payments, remittances, and currency exchanges, and it is now using iDenfys identity verification technology to improve the onboarding experience for its users.

According to RBFC Global, iDenfys offering was more cost-effective than the other alternatives it examined, primarily because it can automate many parts of the onboarding process. With it, users are asked to take a photo of an official ID, and iDenfy uses document recognition to make sure that the document is authentic. iDenfy also supplements its automated scans with human review to help improve its verification rate. As a result, RBFC Global does not need to dedicate its own staff to verification operations.

Perhaps more importantly, the arrangement will allow RBFC Global to comply with international Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations. iDenfy noted that a significant number (41 percent) of financial institutions are currently not living up to their AML obligations, and those that dont are more vulnerable to various forms of fraud. RBFC Global, on the other hand, noted that strong identity verification is crucial for any financial institution that engages with its customers remotely instead of face-to-face.

Today, its no longer enough to use simple fraud prevention methods, said RBFC Global CCO Daniel Ramirez. Thats why were proud to partner with iDenfy. They were able to offer us multi-layer security that is also simple to implement and use.

Our mission at iDenfy is to provide safer, faster customer onboarding without compromising the security aspect, added iDenfy CEO Domantas Ciulde. Were glad to partner with RBFC Global and help their customers safely access financial services.

iDenfy is already providing onboarding services for a slew of other financial institutions. CyberstarPay, Nikulipe, and Paynovate are some of the most recent additions to the companys client roster.

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iDenfy Automates Onboarding Process for New Zealand Financial Institution - Mobile ID World

In a ceremony in Fiji on Tuesday, New Zealands foreign affairs minister, Nanaia Mahuta, unveiled a 14-foot carving, which she called a symbol of Pacific regionalism.

It was a small but symbolic moment during the first day of a historic trip Mahutas first official visit to the Pacific, which has included the signing of an agreement promising a shared commitment and vision for regional solidarity with Fiji.

But back in Wellington, the messages of unity faced scrutiny, amid the fallout over Solomon Islands proposed security deal with China, which has prompted concern that Chinese military ships could be stationed in the Pacific.

On Monday, former deputy prime minister Winston Peters accused the government of neglect.

If we wish to be honest with ourselves, we have to look back and say in the recent decades have we put the effort in? The proper answer is no, we havent done as much as we should have done, Peters told RNZ.

While prime minister Jacinda Ardern dismissed the criticism, defence minister Peeni Henare stressed the need to send the right signals to Pacific nations in response to the news. Shortly after, Mahutas office announced a continuation of New Zealands military and police presence in the Solomons.

But as the situation unfolds, New Zealand experts are warning that New Zealands influence in the region may be harmed by overreaction to any perceived Chinese threat.

Theres a danger because it creates a situation of military escalation of tension, says distinguished professor Steven Ratuva, director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at Canterbury University.

Theres much more complex political narratives at play than what were seeing on the surface Its a matter of playing smart politics, because sometimes when you try to stop another power from engaging in the region, you actually escalate the problem.

New Zealands influence in the Pacific has declined in recent years as Chinas has risen, says Dr Anna Powles, senior lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University.

Powles attributes this shift to periods of decreased engagement by Canberra and Wellington and assumptions that Australia and New Zealand didnt need to put considerable effort into the region to maintain their perceived primacy, which saw Pacific states diversifying their foreign policy relationships.

During this period other actors began to increase their engagement in the Pacific. China was one of those rising regional powers.

China provided around $3bn in aid to Pacific countries between 2006 and 2020 according to the Lowy Institute, and is now the largest export market for the Pacific. In October last year, an inaugural China-Pacific Islands foreign ministers meeting was held, with plans for regular meetings.

Prof Ratuva says the dynamic in the Pacific has changed dramatically in recent years with Chinas increasing presence, but New Zealands influence remains strong.

The strategy has changed Its probably less visible, but that doesnt mean its lost its influence, he says.

The Pacific has long been the primary recipient of New Zealand aid. However, New Zealands total aid declined during the previous government from 0.3% to 0.25% of GDP. About 60% of New Zealands foreign aid goes to the Pacific.

In 2018, New Zealand launched its Pacific Reset which increased development funding in the region. That approach has now been replaced with Pacific Resilience, a doctrine which Mahuta says reflects a Pacific-centric view of our collective interests in the region.

The Pacific Reset had an anti Chinese orientation. It was a way of re-engaging with the Pacific to check Chinese aid and diplomacy in the Pacific. But the Pacific Resilience is a bit different. It is to do with people to people relationships and reengaging with the culture of Aotearoa and the Pacific.

The way forward is not to compete with China, Ratuva says, but for New Zealand to maintain an independent approach to its dealings in the Pacific.

New Zealand has been very independent in its foreign policy and that has been seen by those with hawkish lenses as a sign of weakness. In fact, its probably a sign of strength. It allows New Zealand to engage much more freely with the rest of the world without being cast as being part of a particular alliance.

Its not a matter of being strong or weak, its a matter of being effective in the way that you engage with the rest of the world.

By contrast, Ratuva says Australia has tended toward a very militaristic approach, such as through the Aukus alliance, which will provide Australia with nuclear-propelled submarines.

Dr Powles says New Zealands soft power in the Pacific is its investment in relationships, in part informed by New Zealands growing Pacific identity, but more consistent engagement is needed to ensure New Zealands purported values are coupled with material outcomes.

Opposition National party foreign affairs spokesperson, Gerry Brownlee, says New Zealand needs to increase financial support to the Pacific over time, and increase collaboration with other donors to ensure the general influence of western democracy is not lost.

Back in Honiara, where the recent controversy began, Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has made clear that its foreign policy is its own business.

Speaking to parliament, he said that, while New Zealand would remain a close partner, to achieve our security needs, it is clear we need to diversify the countrys relationship with other partners. What is wrong with that?

The rest is here:

Power shifts: New Zealand reconsiders Pacific role as Chinas influence grows - The Guardian