Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Navy officer accused of threatening to kill an Afghani interpreter in 2013 has denied making any threat.

A court martial continued on Tuesday at the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland.

The court heard evidence from the complainant on Monday, who alleged the officer had threatened to have him blacklisted and killed if he attempted to contact the Minister of Defence over an immigration issue.

The accused officer was working as a delegate to help the roughly 30 interpreters through the immigration process as the New Zealand Defence Force dismantled its base in Afghanistan.

A formal statement written by the accused in 2024 was read for the court on Tuesday denying the allegation.

“I did not threaten him. I had frequent conversations with him; I do not recall and did not have any conversations with him in a threatening manner,” it read.

The complainant, who was working as an interpreter at Kiwi Base in Banyam, Afghanistan in 2013, had been offered permanent residency because the NZDF was pulling out of the conflict.

He had applied for residency as a single man but had an arranged marriage shortly afterwards and was trying to bring his new wife to New Zealand with him.

During the complainant’s evidence, he said he had received verbal acknowledgement that his marriage “should be fine”.

However, the accused’s statement indicated the complainant’s marriage came as a surprise.

“Initially [he] wasn’t married when he applied and there was no intent from him to get married during the process,” the accused’s 2024 statement said.

“To my understanding [he] came back and said he was married, however he didn’t provide any proof to myself, and he did this close to the departure time.”

The accused had said the complainant’s behaviour changed after his wife was denied residency.

“[He] was emotionally upset by the decision and over time became adjusted and agitated, and also unusable [in his role as an interpreter] as his only focus was on trying to change the decision,” the statement continued.

The complainant on Monday testified that he became aware the Minister of Defence was planning to visit the base and had written a letter to appeal for his wife to be granted residency.

The accused’s statement noted the complainant was asked not to come into work during the visit.

“[He] was asked not to come into work the day before the delegates arrived, I know [he] wanted to communicate with the Minister of Defence and also the Minister of Immigration,” the accused said.

“I do remember speaking to [him] and telling him he can’t speak to MoD, after I told him ‘no’ he was upset.”

The accused said he did not speak in a threatening way, and on Monday pleaded not guilty.

Another officer who was at Kiwi Base in 2013 and worked with interpreters, Warrant Officer Tyrone Howard, gave further evidence about the stresses involved in handling the immigration concerns.

He said the process was “frustrating, confusing, time consuming, but necessary”.

“In my mind we had to provide that opportunity, because it is a lot changing for them and they did serve our country very well over 10 years,” he said.

“But it did sometimes become frustrating with repetitive questions.”

Howard said the rules from Immigration were clear that residency would only be offered to interpreters and their immediate family members at the time the policy was enacted.

“There were a lot of back-and-forth requests and lot of denials because we couldn’t change what Immigration had given us to work with,” Howard recalled.

Though he didn’t remember the complainant specifically, he recalled that one of the interpreters had gotten married after applying for residency.

“There was a request to get married, and I remember the party line was ‘no he can’t’. We didn’t want other people to run away and get married and bring other people over.”

The complainant’s wife, whose identity is also suppressed, was the last witness to be called by the prosecution.

Via an interpreter, she told the court that she had been allowed to come to New Zealand in May of 2014 on a visitor’s visa and was eventually able to stay permanently.

She said the year-long delay between her husband’s move to New Zealand and her own had put a strain on their relationship.

“We reached the point we were going to, in fact, separate because it took a long time for him to take me to New Zealand,” she said.

Some years later, she recalled asking her husband to help her family move to New Zealand, too.

“I told [him] I would like to request to bring my family members here as well … But he said he was not certain he could do this for us,” she said.

“He said he had tried very hard to include me [when he first migrated] but in the end, he was threatened. That was the first time I heard [about the threat].”

“I saw the fact he was too scared, I could see it on his face, and he told me to keep this conversation very secret.”

The court martial continues with evidence from the defence.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

More than 4000 people queued online to secure spots on the Paparoa Great Walk on Tuesday.

It was the first of the Great Walks to open for bookings with the popular Milford Track opening on Wednesday.

The Department of Conservation upgraded its online booking system last year to include a virtual queue to help manage peak demand.

It followed a series of crashes and false starts that marred the booking process in 2023 and 2024.

DOC heritage and visitors director Cat Wilson said the booking system performed smoothly despite extremely high demand with booking queues.

“We saw around 4100 users in the online queue when bookings opened this morning at 9.30am,” she said.

“The booking platform coped beautifully under pressure, and booking queues had cleared by 10am.”

Most dates across January and March were quickly filled, but she said there was still availability outside the peak summer dates.

“We also encourage people to keep checking back, as plans change and cancellations do come up throughout the season,” Wilson said.

“We know booking day can be competitive and exciting for people planning their adventures. It’s fantastic to see so much enthusiasm for naturing and experiencing these iconic places.”

Bookings for the remaining Great Walks, huts and campsites were opening on staggered dates for the next two weeks.

Opening dates for Great Walk accommodation

For stays from 1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027. Bookings open 9:30am on listed dates.

• Tuesday, 12 May – Paparoa Track
• Wednesday, 13 May – Milford Track
• Thursday, 14 May – Abel Tasman Coast Track
• Friday, 15 May – Routeburn Track
• Tuesday, 19 May – Kepler Track
• Wednesday, 20 May – Heaphy Track, Whanganui Journey, Lake Waikaremoana Track
• Thursday, 21 May – Tongariro Northern Circuit, Rakiura Track

Note: Hump Ridge Track bookings are managed separately and can be booked up to two years in advance.

Opening dates for all other DOC accommodation

For stays from 1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027. Bookings open 9:30am or 12 noon.

• Tuesday, 12 May – Huts, lodges, and sole occupancy accommodation (excludes Tiritiri Matangi Bunkhouse*)
• Thursday, 14 May – North Island campsites
• Friday, 15 May – South Island campsites (excludes Tōtaranui Campsite)
• Friday, 22 May – Tōtaranui Campsite
• Tuesday, 16 June – Tiritiri Matangi Bunkhouse

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Content warning: This story discusses graphic details of death and may upset some readers

A jury has heard the harrowing account of how a South Auckland father allegedly murdered his five-year-old daughter by smothering her in a car last year.

Mukesh Prashad, 38, has begun his trial in the High Court at Auckland on Tuesday.

He is charged with the murder of Tulsi Amola in January 2025.

Crown lawyer ‘Aminiasi Kefu opened their case by giving the jury their version of what happened that night.

Tulsi had been at a friend’s house playing, and Prashad told his wife he would pick her up.

“Before leaving he smuggled a pillow from their bedroom and took it outside, and he avoided his wife seeing him take that pillow out,” Kefu said.

“He also told his wife that he would go to visit a friend afterwards to give him a gift. That was a lie and that was part of his plan.”

Prashad picked up his daughter and drove her to Highbrook in East Tāmaki, where he instructed her to move into the front of the car.

“He then told police that he told Tulsi, that today they both are going to die.”

Kefu said Prashad used the pillow he had smuggled from home to smother his daughter until she died.

“While doing so, Tulsi said to him ‘Papa no, Papa no, Papa no’,” Kefu said.

Kefu said Prashad moved his daughter’s body into the boot of his car, driving around before returning to the scene of the alleged murder.

He tried to take his own life, unsuccessfully, and drove around before taking himself to the Manukau police station, Kefu said.

“He told the 111 call operator, ‘Hi there, I’m outside the Manukau Police Station, actually I killed my daughter, and her body’s in the boot.”

Kefu told jurors Prashad had been working in Australia and would make trips back home.

While in Australia he contracted herpes, Kefu said.

He spoke about a beach trip taken by Prashad and his family on Christmas Day 2024, where they were bitten by bugs.

Tulsi’s bug bites became infected, and she was taken to the doctor.

It was after that Prashad believed he had somehow infected his daughter with herpes.

Kefu said Tulsi’s body was examined after her death by a pathologist, who confirmed she was never infected with any type of viral, or sexual disease.

But it was this idea that his daughter had been infected with the virus that drove Prashad to murder his daughter, Kefu said.

“He also believed that Tulsi would grow up in pain, and would be socially isolated from her friends and family because of this infection,” he said.

“Mr Prashad then started considering his options of what to do with Tulsi, and he decided that, in order to save her from this suffering, save her from this social isolation, that he would kill her.”

Kefu said Prashad had considered using sleeping pills to poison his daughter, but did not want his daughter to suffer, and settled on suffocating Tulsi with a pillow.

Prashad’s lawyer, Sharyn Green, told jurors it was accepted that Prashad killed his daughter.

“What comes over the top of that is what we call a legal excuse, and that is that he says, at the time, that he was suffering a disease of the mind, and therefore he did not mean to kill his daughter, because of the disease of the mind,” Green said.

She asked the jury to have an open mind, and to scrutinise evidence presented to them by the Crown.

“Listen to all the evidence quite carefully throughout, listen out for the issue of normality or otherwise, and then hopefully we will all give you some guidance at the end as to what to make of it,” Green said.

Green said the one witness called by defence would be a psychiatrist, but that jurors would not hear from them until the end of the trial.

“All I ask is that you remain quite open to listen to all the evidence and not have prejudices at this early stage, and think that ‘this is something that is raised frequently by men and women who seek to get off and get away with murder’.”

The first witness for the Crown was called in the afternoon, Prashad’s wife and Tulsi’s mother.

She cannot be named.

Tulsi’s mother gave evidence of how they met through an arranged marriage, and said Prashad looked after her and Tulsi.

“He was very caring, he was very good, and he used to take care of me and my daughter, ” she said through an interpreter.

The trial, before Justice Pheroze Jagose continues.

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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 defence force is drafting a directive about acceptable use of generative AI – a year after it was told stronger strategies were needed and eight months after it rolled the tools out at “speed”.

A risk assessment carried out 12 months ago looked at how New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) staff and contractors could use the free version of Microsoft’s Copilot AI, which predominantly uses publicly accessible internet content.

It concluded this presented “a low to moderate risk profile”.

However, “more rigourous and clear governance, ownership, and mitigation strategies should be in place and validated as soon as possible to monitor and prevent the risk profile from escalating,” said the six-page assessment released in an Official Information Act request.

RNZ asked if the NZDF had put each of these strategies in place and validated them, as recommended.

It said on Monday: “A Chief of Defence Force Directive is currently being drafted that sets out the acceptable use of AI.

“A date for when this will be promulgated has not been determined.”

Copilot was rolled out across phones, tablets and laptops in September.

An FAQ in October in the OIA said: “The speed with which we were able to roll out Copilot Chat was ONLY possible because Copilot Chat inherited the controls from M365. We would not have been able to do this as fast with any other GenAI.”

A full risk assessment process was carried out and controls were put in place, it said.

Unlike some other GenAI systems, “data and information stays within an organisation’s boundaries and is not used to train public models”.

The risk assessment in May 2025 had listed the vulnerabilities as “reliance on external, publicly accessible data, potential misuse by end users, and unclear boundaries for anonymisation”.

“Continued monitoring required,” it added.

The FAQ said the AI did not reach into official NZDF data or archives.

Users were allowed to upload documents or enter information marked IN-CONFIDENCE, SENSITIVE or RESTRICTED provided it fit within Defence’s restricted-and-below info environment – but it could not be used in any secret-and-above environments.

No one, including contractors, was allowed to use other types of generative AI.

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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 defence force is drafting a directive about acceptable use of generative AI – a year after it was told stronger strategies were needed and eight months after it rolled the tools out at “speed”.

A risk assessment carried out 12 months ago looked at how New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) staff and contractors could use the free version of Microsoft’s Copilot AI, which predominantly uses publicly accessible internet content.

It concluded this presented “a low to moderate risk profile”.

However, “more rigourous and clear governance, ownership, and mitigation strategies should be in place and validated as soon as possible to monitor and prevent the risk profile from escalating,” said the six-page assessment released in an Official Information Act request.

RNZ asked if the NZDF had put each of these strategies in place and validated them, as recommended.

It said on Monday: “A Chief of Defence Force Directive is currently being drafted that sets out the acceptable use of AI.

“A date for when this will be promulgated has not been determined.”

Copilot was rolled out across phones, tablets and laptops in September.

An FAQ in October in the OIA said: “The speed with which we were able to roll out Copilot Chat was ONLY possible because Copilot Chat inherited the controls from M365. We would not have been able to do this as fast with any other GenAI.”

A full risk assessment process was carried out and controls were put in place, it said.

Unlike some other GenAI systems, “data and information stays within an organisation’s boundaries and is not used to train public models”.

The risk assessment in May 2025 had listed the vulnerabilities as “reliance on external, publicly accessible data, potential misuse by end users, and unclear boundaries for anonymisation”.

“Continued monitoring required,” it added.

The FAQ said the AI did not reach into official NZDF data or archives.

Users were allowed to upload documents or enter information marked IN-CONFIDENCE, SENSITIVE or RESTRICTED provided it fit within Defence’s restricted-and-below info environment – but it could not be used in any secret-and-above environments.

No one, including contractors, was allowed to use other types of generative AI.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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