Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

A public health researcher is celebrating a 29 percent decrease in new HIV diagnoses from 85 in 2010 to 60 in 2024.

The statistic comes from the Ministry of Health’s HIV Monitoring Report, released today on World AIDS Day.

It is the first time progress towards New Zealand’s 2030 goal of reducing local transmission of HIV by 90 percent has been tracked since it was set in 2023.

Associate Professor at the University of Auckland’s School of Population Health Peter Saxton said the report was encouraging and showed that investing in HIV prevention and stigma initiatives was worthwhile, especially when there were scarce health dollars available.

“This report is an opportunity to hold the government to account to fund the services that will get us to zero, but also agencies involved in the response; community agencies, researchers, communities themselves, the health services delivering HIV testing and PrEP services, hold everybody accountable to reaching that 2030 target.”

“It’s important to remember that we have all the tools to end the epidemic now, so we can end AIDS, and we can end transmission.”

However, he said that among takatāpui, or Māori men who have sex with men (MSM), there had not been a drop in new HIV diagnoses.

“That’s been pretty static for about the last 10 years, and we’ve seen only more modest increases in PrEP uptake; for Māori, that’s increased by about two percent, whereas for other gay and bisexual men it’s five to six percent.

“We know that prevention works, but only if it’s accessible to everyone. So we want to see innovations in HIV testing, and PrEP made more accessible and available in a more timely way.”

He said there had also been 28 AIDS diagnoses in 2024, which was a concern.

“An AIDS AIDS diagnosis means that someone’s typically lived with HIV undiagnosed and therefore untreated; that number should already be 0.

“If someone’s been exposed to HIV, the best outcome for them is to get an early diagnosis, go on treatment, and then they won’t be able to transmit HIV to others. So that’s an absolute priority.

“We need to think of opportunities where if we’re already drawing blood, for example, if there’s an opportunity to include HIV testing as part of that blood draw. But also syphilis and hepatitis C, these are things that can be treated, and in some cases cured, if it’s syphilis and hepatitis C. We want to make sure that we take a whole-of-system approach, it’s not just focused on HIV.”

He said eliminating stigma also needed to be a priority over the next five years.

“HIV stigma means that people might hesitate before asking for an HIV test or feel judged if they’re offered one, and we’re not going to end the HIV epidemic if we don’t end HIV stigma.”

He said the second annual AIDS Day parliamentary breakfast being held in Wellington on Monday morning was a good time to bring up these concerns.

“This 2030 target was an agreement across political parties generally. That’s why the parliamentary breakfast today is really important because it’s an opportunity to share with our political parties what we’re doing, what’s going well, but also what needs to improve so we can refocus our efforts for the next 12 months.

“HIV is one of our public health success stories, and we often forget to talk about it in that way. That’s because of our really early response in the 1980s, which was based on science, not moralism. It was a very pragmatic response. And, really importantly, it was a bipartisan response.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Aucklanders are being reminded to be watchful and report any sightings of yellow-legged hornets as efforts to eliminate the invasive pests ramp up.

Another yellow-legged hornet queen has been found on Auckland’s North Shore, as Biosecurity New Zealand escalates its attempts to eradicate the invasive insect.

To date, 27 queen hornets, seven workers and 17 nests have been successfully located and removed from the Glenfield and Birkdale areas, Biosecurity NZ said.

Biosecurity teams had so far searched more than 2100 properties and continued to search across the region.

The aggressive hornets are nearly twice the size of the common wasp, and can wipe out bee colonies.

Apiculture NZ chief executive Karin Koss told Morning Report Aucklanders need to be vigilant.

“I think the key thing is just to be really, really, watchful and keep an eye out for these hornets,” she said.

“They are bigger, they are relatively easy to identify, although they’re nests can be hard to find, and it’s really just important to take a photo and report as soon as you can.”

Koss said beekeepers were very worried about the threat of the hornets.

“It’s a very aggressive pest,” she said.

“They attack the foraging honey bee workers at the entrance, and essentially, this eventually stops the bees from collecting pollen and nectar.”

This increased the risk of starvation, Koss said.

She said beekeepers have seen colonies drop by 30 percent in places where the hornets have become established.

“They don’t have any natural defences against the hornet, so bees are really vulnerable to this pest,” Koss said.

Koss said the public had an important role to play also.

“I’ve been inundated with messages from the public, from schools, from local councils; ‘how can we help,'” she said.

Koss said the pressure against the hornet needed to stay on.

She wanted to see wider surveillance beyond the current zone. Biosecurity had earlier further expanded its surveillance and on-the-ground search operations across the North Shore.

“We know that these hornets can travel, including on transport like trucks and ferries, and so as well as doing the public campaign which is really important, and getting the message out to beekeepers, I think there’s certainly value in keeping talking to [officials] and understanding how we can extend that surveillance.”

Sightings could be reported:

• Online at report.mpi.govt.nz
• By calling Biosecurity New Zealand’s exotic pest and disease hotline on 0800 80 99 66
• More information can be found here.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Newly-released documents suggest police pressured the main Crown eye-witness to testify at the 1992 murder retrial of Ross Appelgren, something not disclosed to the jury. The documents also show police were “keeping quiet” about the fact the witness was living illegally in Australia, and that they advised him to keep his head down rather than tell Australian authorities.

The paperwork has come to light as part of the RNZ podcast, Nark, which has investigated the murder of Darcy Te Hira in Mt Eden prison in 1985. Fellow prisoner Ross Appelgren was convicted of fatally bashing Te Hira and served more than eight years for the crime, but through two trials always insisted he was innocent.

Appelgren died in 2013 but his wife Julie is going to the Court of Appeal next year in an attempt to get his conviction overturned posthumously.

The conviction relied heavily on the testimony of the Crown’s main eye-witness, who has permanent name suppression but in the podcast has been given the pseudonym Ernie. The new documents suggest he felt police cajoled him into testifying at Appelgren’s re-trial, after Appelgren had his first conviction quashed by the Governor-General. Julie Appelgren’s legal team say the prosecution’s failure to disclose that to the jury will be central to their appeal.

After Ernie claimed to have seen Appelgren bash Te Hira in 1985, he made a deal with the police. He received early release, $30,000 in cash, and the promise of help relocating to another country. After Appelgren was convicted, police honoured their end of a deal by asking Australian authorities to grant him residency there. However due to his 200 convictions for fraud, the application was denied.

Undeterred, Ernie changed his name and moved across the Tasman under his own steam at some point in 1987.

Nark has obtained a copy of a November 1990 letter Ernie wrote to New Zealand Police National Headquarters expressing concern that Australian officials might figure out his true identity and status as a prohibited immigrant.

Rather than alert their law enforcement counterparts in Australia to Ernie’s whereabouts, Kiwi police bosses advised him in writing that “the New Zealand police department cannot do anything further for you in this regard. To ensure that your fears of being interviewed do not materialize, depends in the main on keeping within the laws of the country you were living in”.

Ernie’s discomfort reared its head again in early 1991 when police had to persuade him to return to testify at Appelgren’s second trial. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jenkinson, the man in charge of the Te Hira homicide inquiry, visited Ernie in Australia. According to Jenkinson’s record of the meeting, first reported by the Sunday Star Times in 1997, Jenkinson warned Ernie that New Zealand Police could “play dirty” if he didn’t cooperate.

The new episode of Nark, out today, reveals for the first time that Ernie complained to police in January 1999 about Jenkinson’s tactics and the demand he testify a second time, writing: “There was also the issue of the police not keeping quiet to Australian officials about my position, had I not come back for the retrial, this was spoken about on several visits by police to me”.

He said he would never forgive the police for that “intrusion” and his life since had gone “down hill at a rate of knots”.

Investigator Tim McKinnel, who’s a part of Julie Appelgren’s legal team, says the police were wrong to have kept Ernie’s secret and use it as leverage. Appelgren and her lawyers are arguing Ernie lied about what he saw for his own advantage.

McKinnel told RNZ the police ultimatum to Ernie and threat to “play dirty” was “absolutely an inducement” for Ernie to give evidence, something the law required be disclosed to the defence and the jury. McKinnel said that’s because Ernie’s motivation for testifying has always been at the heart of the Appelgren case,. Any suggestion Ernie was pressured to testify would have been powerful evidence for the defence. “It is an inducement in the form of a threat. It would’ve been used heftily by any competent defence counsel in terms of cross-examination of Ernie and police”.

McKinnel is also critical of the police failure to tell the jury that detectives knew Ernie had lived illegally in Australia for years. “ I think they knew from day one that he was there illegally, and that should never have been allowed to occur. They should have taken formal steps to notify their counterparts in Australia. That would’ve been the right and proper thing to do”.

Instead, Australian officials only learnt about Ernie’s criminal past in 1995, when he was arrested for trying to incinerate his ex-wife and her new partner in Queensland. Court documents show Ernie burst in on the couple in the early hours at a suburban home, poured petrol on them, and tried to set them on fire. He was unsuccessful but following an interstate manhunt was arrested and pleaded guilty to two charges of attempting to causing grievous bodily harm. In October 1996 he was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Ernie’s arrest and convictions prompted inquiries from Australian media and authorities with New Zealand Police about the circumstances of his arrival in Australia.

Police documents from the mid-1990s released to Julie Appelgren last year show Kiwi cops advised Australian authorities that Ernie “was a former protected prisoner and there has been no suggestion that Ernie entered Australia other than in the usual immigration process. At the time he entered Australia, he was not in the witness protection program”.

New Zealand police’s 1997 media statement was more vague, however, simply saying “witness protection relates to people’s personal safety and is not a subject for public debate. Police policy is not to knowingly breach the laws of any country”.

However, in an internal briefing to then Police Minister Jack Elder in 1997, reported on for the first time in Nark, police accepted they’d not told the Australians about Ernie’s status as a prohibited immigrant before he tried to set two people alight.

Senior officers advised Elder “ Criticism could be levelled that, having become aware he was in Australia, New Zealand Police should have advised the authorities there, given that they had previously declined him entry”. However they defended their predecessor’s decision as “a judgement call”.

Tim Mckinnel says the police conduct was unacceptable and is something Appelgren’s legal team will be highlighting in his new appeal.

The latest episode of Nark is out now at rnz.co.nz/nark or wherever you get your podcasts. The series airs 7pm Sundays on RNZ National.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Weeks after a 1200-cubic-metre wastewater spill into the Mahurangi River, Auckland oyster farmers are dealing with the effects of another overflow, which they say has stuffed their Christmas season.

Watercare confirmed to RNZ that on 19 November, Warkworth experienced more than half the town’s average rainfall for the entire month, a total of 53mm overnight.

An estimated 86 cubic metres of wastewater mixed with stormwater overflowed into the river from a Warkworth pipeline, the engineered overflow point on Elizabeth Street.

The Ministry of Primary Industries instructed growers to suspend harvesting while it carried out testing, with results expected this week.

But Matakana Oysters’ Tom Walters said the spill had already ruined their plans for December, their busiest period of the year.

“It’s been pretty difficult the whole year, but this is our peak time. We’ve missed Christmas parties now and celebrations, we’ve got people who wanted to order for Christmas itself, and now we’re not even getting any orders from people because they know about the sewage situation. So they’ll be going elsewhere.

“My business relies on the Christmas-New Year period, and that’s what gets us through the months where we’re quiet. We’re basically stuffed.”

Matakana Oysters were set to begin harvesting on 20 November, before the rain derailed their plans.

“We’re hoping to be potentially back open early December at best, but that’s all going to be weather and and test results dependent,” Walters said.

He said that while farmers received compensation for the wastewater overflow in October, which Watercare admitted was caused by a technical failure, the agency was not required to compensate them for spills caused by rainfall.

“That money has all gone on debts that have occurred from all the spills over this year and the last couple of years.

“It’s not enough to keep us surviving, and Watercare won’t compensate us for wet weather spills.

“I can’t buy enough oysters from up north or other areas to cater to this time of the year, and I don’t have enough money for that either.”

Mahurangi Oyster Farmers Association president Lynette Dunn said farmers there would likely not be able to harvest until after Christmas.

“This is one of our biggest, most important times of the year prior to Christmas, getting a lot of product out before start spawning out, and we won’t be able to do that.

“All our customers are ringing up, and we can’t supply them.

“And when the Ministry of Primary Industries opens the harbour, there’s going to be scepticism about, you know, are they [the oysters] safe and everything like that.”

“It’s disheartening. It’s eating away at every farmer, and it’s devastating for each and every one of us.”

In a statement to RNZ, Watercare chief operations officer Mark Bourne said it had upgrades planned to prevent more wet weather overflows from occurring, but they would not be completed until the end of 2026.

“Earlier this year, we completed network upgrades to reduce the frequency of overflows at this location while we deliver the final stage of a $450 million programme of work: a growth-servicing pipeline. These measures are performing well, but they were never intended to prevent overflows during severe weather events like last week’s.

“We really feel for the oyster growers, who have faced many challenges this year and are now in their peak harvest season.

“To put a stop to these wet weather overflows as soon as possible, we have accelerated the first stage of the growth-servicing pipeline, bringing it forward by two years to have it in service by the end of next year. This comes at an additional cost of $2.5m. When it is in service, this pipeline will prevent an overflow in similar weather to what we experienced last week.”

Walters and Dunn said affected businesses needed more financial assistance to get them through until upgrades were done.

“This problem isn’t going to stop with wet weather spills and we’ve still got another year of it before the pipeline is ready,” said Walters.

“They’ve [Watercare] made a few little fixes which have helped with small amounts of rain, but anything over 30ml plus is going to affect us.”

Dunn said that even when the infrastructure improved, it would take a lot of work to re-build public trust.

“We need funding to keep us going. Our reputational damage is just going down the drain. Everyone associates Mahurangai Oysers with sewage. So, to try and sell our product, we’re going to have a huge battle.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Airbus A320 is a “very good aircraft to fly” and has been safely flying for more than 40 years, an aviation expert says.

It comes after more than 6000 of its fleet were grounded at the weekend to repair a critical software issue, causing significant chaos for travellers.

The upgrade followed an investigation into a incident back in October where an Airbus aircraft experienced a brief loss of altitude, Ashok Poduval from Massey University’s school of aviation told Morning Report.

That flight was a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey in the United States, on 30 October.

The upgrade followed a report by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency into the incident.

Poduval said the delay in grounding the fleet following the incident was because of the time it took to do the investigation.

“They have to do an investigation because it could be so many factors and once the incident is reported, it takes some time to investigate it,” Poduval said.

“You can’t ground a fleet of over 11,000 aircraft based on something that happened. We all have read about turbulence incidents that have caused sudden drop in altitude etcetera, so once an investigation is done and if there is a cause that is determined to be related to the aircraft, then that’s when the action is taken immediately.”

As a result, more than 6000 aircraft went through a software upgrade, but Poduval was not aware of the technical details of what the upgrade was.

Air New Zealand said all A320 updates would be completed by Sunday evening, with the flight schedule expected to return to normal on Monday.

Poduval said he was no aware if such upgrades would become more necessary as the use of technology on planes continued to increase.

But he said the aircraft were very good.

“This is probably the first event where they’ve had to ground half the fleet and do a software upgrade. Nearly 40 years the aircraft has flown very safely, I’ve flown the aircraft,” he said.

“It’s a very good aircraft to fly.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

When rising teenage ballet star Tamison Soppet found out she had been selected as candidate for Switzerland’s prestigious Prix de Lausanne she jumped for joy.

Waiting with her parents to join a two-hour ballet class in Paris, the shocked but smiling Christchurch 15-year-old was bursting with excitement when her mother called her over to break the news.

“Mum told me and I just jumped in excitement, I just had so much excitement inside me. For the rest of the class I had the biggest smile on my face. It was such a dream,” she said.

Tamison is the only New Zealander and one of just two dancers from Australasia chosen to compete at what is often regarded as the “ballet Olympics” in Lausanne in February.

As part of the application process, Tamison supplied a 15-minute video audition featuring barre, centre and pointe work, as well as a contemporary dance, demonstrating her artistic versatility and technical precision.

The selection jury of nine dance professionals viewed videos from 444 dancers from 43 countries, choosing just 81 to participate in the 2026 competition.

During competition week, dancers are marked on contemporary and classical classes and one classical and one contemporary variation.

While she would be up against the “best of the best”, Tamison said she was grateful for the opportunity to perform on the world stage.

“It’s going to be pretty tough but I’m just going to go there and enjoy myself and do my best. We’ve worked so hard to get to this point so I need to let it all go and show everybody how much I love it,” she said.

“Just getting over there and getting seen by all of these incredible schools is definitely going to be something big. I’m hoping that something can come out of it.”

Tamison’s journey to Switzerland began long before she stepped into a studio or tied the ribbons on her first pair of ballet shoes.

Her mother Toni Soppet said Tamison danced from the time she could walk, in the living room, down the hallway, anywhere music could reach her, “flying around with butterfly wings and cuteness”.

Her childhood passion had developed into a dream that demanded discipline, resilience and countless hours of sacrifice, Soppet said.

Tamison trained at Convergence Dance Studios four days per week, all while managing studies at the correspondence school, Te Kura.

“She’s very determined. She works really hard. She’s not a typical teenager. She’s literally up at 7am, into the studio by 8am, and she’s training all day,” Soppet said.

“She comes home and she is exhausted – ice baths on the feet while having the computer on the lap to do school work – but she just has so much joy for it, she has so much love for it, that I can’t imagine her doing anything else.”

Soppet said it was always a moving, emotion-filled experience watching her daughter dance.

“Tears are in my eyes, she’s just breathtaking,” she said.

“I’m usually the side stage mum or in the dressing room or those kind of things but the moments that I do get to sit in the audience and actually watch her, it’s those awe moments. She’s a beautiful dancer and the expressiveness that comes from her is breathtaking.”

Tamison won the junior women’s title at the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix in New York last year at the age of 14, cementing her reputation as one of the most promising talents of her generation.

She has earned high distinctions in RAD and NZAMD exams, top placements in international competitions, gold medals, scholarships from elite institutions and is part of The Royal Ballet School’s international scholars programme.

Tamison has trained at Convergence under artistic director Olivia Russell since the age of 10.

Russell said the Prix de Lausanne was an extraordinary opportunity to make connections with elite ballet schools and companies.

“The Prix de Lausanne is an exceptional platform for dancers to launch their careers, to be seen by international directors, to really have their dreams come true and extend themselves as artists,” she said.

“I’m over the moon, obviously very excited for her, and it’s very deserving. I feel like it’s the perfect step for her to move forward in her career and see her on the international stage.”

Russell likened the audition process to training for the Olympics. The Prix de Lausanne jury would assess dancers out of 100, with 25 marks each for the classical and contemporary classes and classical and contemporary variations.

“It’s very well-rounded. The emphasis is on a versatile dancer so everything is even. It’s not just a ballet competition, everything is looked at,” she said.

At the end of the competition week, a networking forum would give candidates who were not selected for the finals another chance to be seen by international schools and company directors interested in offering further training or job opportunities.

Russell said Tamison was a beautiful dancer with a strong work ethic and huge potential.

“She has exceptional turn-out and exceptional leg line and feet. Ballet is very aesthetic and so is dance. Her natural sense of line is quite innate. It’s kind of like architecture,” she said.

“She can make shapes when she’s dancing that leave lasting images to the person viewing them, so when you close your eyes after she’s danced you can still see that image. It’s a beautiful gift to be able to make your dancing extend past the stage into someone’s memory.

“She is like another daughter to me, so it has been a beautiful relationship with her family and the journey that we’ve gone on together. I feel very lucky.”

Tamison’s pursuit of her dancing dream has also come at a significant financial cost, so the Soppet family has set up a Givealittle page to help with contributions to pointe shoes, custom-made costumes, private coaching, strength and conditioning sessions, physio appointments and international travel.

She will next perform as Cinderella at Convergence Dance Studios’ end-of-year production on 7 December.

Tamison dreams of one day joining The Royal Ballet in London or Paris Opera Ballet and becoming a principal dancer.

“I love it so much, it just brings so much joy, even on hard days. I just love coming to the studio and getting to express my feelings through dance,” she said.

“I try to put everything I’ve worked on in the studio and rehearsals all on stage at the same time and make it my best.”

The Prix de Lausanne 2026 will take place from 1 to 8 February at the Beaulieu Theatre in Lausanne.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand