Free Republic

Jacinda Ardern the Liberal Progressive darling of New Zealand and her Health Officials who locked down their county like no one else, has a new idea, eliminate smoking for the "public good", the plan calls for not immediately eliminating smoking but stopping young people from ever being old enough to smoke by raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes year after year...while at the same time making cigarettes much harder to purchase for legal smokers.... The lockdowns and been so uniformly adopted around the world this type of thing will only spread, here in the USA we know something about...

… As New Zealand shifts to a policy of “living with the virus,” residents accustomed to living virtually Covid-free for most of the pandemic are being confronted by rising case numbers and widening vaccine mandates. Opposition to vaccination as well as frustration with ongoing pandemic restrictions is fueling a small but vocal protest movement inspired in part by American politics. In a working paper published in November, a team of researchers in New Zealand said there had been a “sharp increase in the popularity and intensity” of disinformation around Covid-19 since August. The researchers said the disinformation was “being used...

Incredible photos have captured the extraordinary moment Maori soldiers performed a haka in North Africa during World War II. The images show members of the Maori Battalion's 'C company' at a training camp in Helwan, Egypt as they presented a haka during a ceremonial parade in June 1941. The dance was their way of welcoming King George II, his wife the Queen, his cousin Prince Peter, and Major General Freyberg, who arrived in Egypt months after the battalion had escaped an invasion in Crete. The visitors were treated to entertainment by two divisions, the B company, and the C company,...

"Fake News" is an inadequate classification. It fails even to begin to approach describing the complete scope of manufactured opinion. A high proportion of what nearly everyone believes is programmed by high wizards of opinion formation. This fact is reflected in the title of a recent book by one of the few honest reporters we have, Sharyl Attkisson, "How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control …What You Think" … (besides "What You See" and "How You Vote"). A good start at understanding the full scope of how your thinking is a commodity to be traded to the highest bidder,...

It's one thing to talk about changing allegiance to another country when a new president is elected. It's another thing to go ahead and do it. But that's exactly what seems to be happening, on a small scale, in at least in one distant corner of the world. In New Zealand, the number of Americans who applied for a grant of citizenship rose to 170 in the 12 weeks following the election of President Donald Trump from 100 in the same period a year earlier, immigration records obtained by The Associated Press show.

The prospect of a Trump presidency led to some prominent Americans — including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — joking, or perhaps half-joking, that they would move to New Zealand. Ginsburg gave a nod to this splendid isolation during an interview with the New York Times in July. “‘Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,’” Ginsburg said her husband would be urging if Trump won the election. Billy Crystal had the same idea. “I might consider finding a nice little ranch in New Zealand,” he told Australian media earlier this year. (By the way, Billy, we...

New Zealanders have chosen a silver fern on a black-and-blue background as their preferred flag design if the South Pacific nation decides to dump Britain's Union Jack from its national banner, officials said Friday. The design beat four other contenders in a nation-wide referendum, according to preliminary results released by the New Zealand Electoral Commission. Simply titled 'Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue)', the design will go head-to-head with the existing flag in a second referendum in March next year.

A giant mystery sea creature is thought to have been spotted in the turquoise waters of one of New Zealand’s most idyllic bays. A huge unexplained wake can be seen in a Google Earth image of Oke Bay, in the Bay of Islands, an area on the east coast of the Far North District of the country's North Island, captured by satellite at about 11.30am on January 30. Engineer Pita Witehira, who spotted the wake while on Google Earth researching for his holiday home, told Daily Mail Australia the wake could have been left by a creature around 12 metres...

Several pieces of Viking jewelry, some of which contain gold, have been uncovered at a farm site in Denmark that dates as far back as 1,300 years. Although the Vikings have a popular reputation as being raiders, they were also farmers, traders and explorers, and the craftsmanship seen in this jewelry demonstrates their artistic skills. Archaeologists working with volunteers used metal detectors to find the jewelry in different spots throughout a farmstead on Zealand, the largest island in Denmark. The remains of the site, which is now called Vestervang, date from the late seventh to the early 11th centuries.

Regulations that came into effect in New Zealand over the weekend forbid kosher ritual slaughter (shechita). According to the new regulations, animals must now be unconscious before being slaughtered, invalidating them for kosher slaughter.

Mum worries political pressure may influence Parole Bd NZPASunday, 21 January 2007 The mother of slain south Auckland pizza delivery man Michael Choy says her son's teenage killer is still a menace and danger to society and should not be released from prison. Bailey Junior Kurariki was 12 when he and five other young people killed Michael Choy in September 2001. A parole board is due to meet tomorrow morning in Auckland to hear an application for the release of New Zealand's youngest convicted killer. Michael Choy's mother Rita Croskery said today she was worried the parole board was under...

New Zealand warned over exodus to Australia By Paul Chapman in Wellington (Filed: 13/05/2006) New Zealand risks becoming a mere "shell country" if it continues to lose people to Australia at the current rate, according to Jim Bolger, the former prime minister. Mr Bolger, who governed from 1990 to 1997, said in a speech to his centre-Right National Party that so many "good people" were migrating that New Zealand faced the "hard question" of whether it should become part of Australia as a "conscious decision" or simply be "absorbed by osmosis". Australia's founding constitution, dating from 1901, gave New Zealand...

​​​​Will two Anglican priests within the Auckland Diocese be amongst the first to conduct civil unions come April 26? There are implications here not only for the Auckland Diocese, but also for the rest of the province and even for the whole Anglican Communion. How so? Because one of the priests has announced his intentions in the most public of fashions - national TV (read my blog on the issue). The other Priest holds a position of provincial responsibility at St John's College (the main training college of the province). And the Bishop of Auckland happens to be the chairman...

PRIME Minister John Howard refuses to rule out a further commitment of Australian troops to Iraq in the wake of Italy's surprise decision to withdraw its forces. Italy, with the fourth-biggest coalition force in Iraq, will start withdrawing troops from its 3000-strong contingent by September, amid growing public opposition to the war. The nation is outraged at the killing of an Italian intelligence agent by US forces in Baghdad 10 days ago. Australia last month committed an extra 450 soldiers to Iraq, to replace a 1400-strong Dutch force guarding Japanese engineers. After initial reluctance to send more troops, Australia is...

TEHRAN (MNA) -- During the latest season of excavations of the northern gate of Takht-e Suleiman, an ancient Zoroastrian fire temple located in northwestern Iran, the stamps of two seals were discovered which indicate that objects entered Takht-e Suleiman from other regions with special tags attached to them which seem to be advertisements. They signify that an early form of advertising was being practiced during the Sassanid era (224-642 C.E.), Yusef Moradi, the head of the excavation team, said on Friday. “The team began its excavations in early August and found the stamps of two seals at the upper levels...

Secrets of an ancient Persian armada sunk off the coast of Greece 2500 years ago are being dredged up by modern archaeologists. A team from Greece, Canada and the United States has just completed a second expedition to retrieve artefacts from 300 ships of the Persian King Darius that were wrecked in a storm off the Mt Athos Peninsula, northern Greece, in 492BC or 493BC. Aucklanders will be among the first to hear the results today when three of the expedition leaders present their findings in a free public lecture at Auckland University. In two trips so far, last October...

Clinton claim causes stir in NZ 24 June 2004 Bill Clinton has raised eyebrows in New Zealand after claiming his wife, Hillary Clinton, was named after famous Kiwi mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, AFP reported today. Problem is, Hillary conquered Mount Everest in 1953, almost seven years after infant Hillary was born. Clinton makes the claim in his memoir, My Life, which went on sale this week. The former president travelled to New Zealand several times while in office and referred to Sir Edmund as "the second favourite Hillary in our household". Hillary Clinton herself has attributed her name to the...

WELLINGTON (AP) - A New Zealand outdoor-clothing company said Wednesday it had to change a brand name for the Australian market because men there were uncomfortable with the effeminate associations of the label - Fairydown. In Australia, the clothing line has been renamed Zone, the managing director of Arthur Ellis clothing company, Hugo Venter, told the Dominion Post newspaper. Venter said he was "taken aback" by market research findings that Australian men didn't like the less-than-macho connotations associated with the word "fairy." He said the brand name had never been an issue in New Zealand. New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund...

Week of Aug. 9, 2003; Vol. 164, No. 6 Large lake floods scoured New Zealand Sid Perkins From Reno, Nevada, at a meeting of the International Union for Quaternary Research Portions of New Zealand's North Island, like many volcanic regions, have experienced immense floods when lakes filling the craters of dormant volcanoes burst through the craters' rims. Now, scientists analyzing signs of erosion in the area have estimated the size of some of those powerful deluges. Some of the largest such floods originated in Lake Taupo, says Vern Manville, a geologist with the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences in...

Actor's bare breast too much for health ministry 01 August 2003 The Health Ministry has pulled the plug on a World Breastfeeding Week promotion featuring the bare breast of actor Michael Hurst. Acting on the ministry's directive, Auckland-based Women's Health Action yesterday asked the Manawatu Standard newspaper not to use the image of Hurst, shirt unbuttoned, with a baby to his breast. The image invites people to consider whether it would be easier to breastfeed at work if men had to do it. Returning to work is one of the key reasons women give for stopping breastfeeding, according to a...