World News – Page 3

March 9, 2026

Raisina: The Taiwan Strait Issue

By Graeme Acton, Asia Media Centre

This week’s 11th Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi decided to take the Taiwan Strait issue seriously. GREG BAKER/AFP

If China decides to attack Taiwan, what exactly does the rest of the world do? Graeme Acton is at the 2026 Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi.

It’s the kind of question that diplomatic forums sometimes avoid. However, this week’s 11th Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi decided to take the Taiwan Strait issue seriously, first session, second day.

A panel of five experts took the stage, and warned that the scope of simultaneous conflicts across the globe is widening in ways that stress-test the architecture of deterrence and diplomacy – with much of that stress seemingly by design.

Washington’s policy of strategic ambiguity – deliberately leaving unclear whether it would militarily defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack – has long provided a kind of managed uncertainty that has kept Beijing cautious.

But the “might is right” ethos of American power under the current administration, combined with its scepticism toward long-standing commitments and international norms, has eroded the credibility that US ambiguity once traded upon.

Simultaneously, Beijing has grown more, not less, vehement in its insistence on what it calls “reunification”.

Experts at Raisina 2026 argued that the ongoing conflict in Iran is no longer a regional affair but one that is “bleeding together” with security concerns across the Indo-Pacific. Dhruva Jaishankar, Executive Director of ORF America, pointed to the expanding reach of Iranian missile and drone capabilities – including strikes on a British military base in Cyprus – as evidence of this widening arc of instability.

Indian commentators are obviously also concerned about the sinking of an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka just a few days ago. The ship had just been on exercises with the Indian navy, and PM Modi has been roundly criticised in Indian media for his silence to date on the issue.

The risk, Raisina panellists argued, is that Beijing sees American engagement in Iran Asia as a window of opportunity. Bonnie Glick of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies pushed back on that assessment, maintaining that Washington remains perfectly capable of dealing with multiple crises simultaneously and that its messaging on Taiwan stays firm. “I think China views bottom line American intervention in Iran right now as a moment for consideration of Taiwan,” she told the audience, but she also felt China has this moment to consider the consequences of dealing with a US administration quite happy to let loose the dogs of war under circumstances it regards as appropriate.

Helena Legarda of the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies offered a more cautious European perspective. While acknowledging that Beijing might exploit other conflicts for “rhetorical ammunition,” she noted that this does not necessarily legitimise direct military action against Taiwan – partly because Beijing still wishes to present itself as a responsible global power.

But her assessment of Europe’s practical capacity to respond to a Taiwan crisis was sobering. If the war in Ukraine is still ongoing and Europe is managing that conflict largely alone, she said, it would be unlikely that EU member states could assemble the right military assets quickly enough for a standoff in the South China Sea.

Ms Legarda cut to the chase on what makes the Taiwan question so difficult: the world’s potential democratic responders are already stretched. Japan has adopted the firmest posture among US treaty allies, bolstered by a new defence pact with the Philippines.

But what Australia, New Zealand or South Korea would actually do in the event of a crisis -not rhetorically, but operationally – remains cloudy. All three nations have trade and economic ties with China that hugely complicate the situation.

From Taipei itself, I-Chung Lai of the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation offered his reading of China’s military readiness: China simply does not yet possess the capability to carry out a successful invasion of Taiwan.

Crossing the Taiwan Strait is one of the most complex military operations imaginable. You need to move tens of thousands of troops, armoured vehicles, and supplies across 150-200 km of open water, under fire, and then storm heavily defended beaches. But as Dhruva Jaishankar pointed out , China has been involved in extensive military exercises in the South China Sea, as much a signal to Taiwan as a process of military preparedness.

Some analysts suggest the Chinese Army (the PLA) just doesn’t have the resources necessary at present. Add to this the fact that Taiwan has just signed off on the largest defence budget in its history – roughly $US40 billion to be spent from 2026 to 2033 – focused on asymmetric warfare capabilities including munitions designed to cripple amphibious landing forces at long range

I-Chung Lai also mentioned the concept of “Pax Silica.”, the peace maintained by the understanding that global chip makers would be devastated if Taiwan’s giant semiconductor factories went down. The disruption to supply chains – from cars to laptops to AI infrastructure would be massive on all sides of the conflict. In 2025 the US moved to set up a network of “trusted chip suppliers” – India joined that group last month.

But despite the chip issue, Beijing’s signals around Taiwan remain clear, and the recent invasion of Ukraine shows that sometimes nations will act against their economic interests while chasing their strategic objectives.

What Raisina 2026 made clear is that the comfortable old framework – American strategic ambiguity underpinning a reasonably stable cross-strait status quo – is fraying. The burden of deterrence is being redistributed across a coalition whose cohesion, resolve, and actual capacity vary enormously.

For New Zealand’s part, the three AUKUS founding members (US, UK, Australia) have themselves said they are “not yet in a position to consider expanding to additional partners” – meaning New Zealand hasn’t been formally offered a military “Pillar Two” membership.

But New Zealand’s recent Defence Capability Plan, released nearly a year ago, proposes investments in long-range drones, satellite surveillance, data integration, and counter-drone technologies that closely mirror the priorities seen in AUKUS.

New Zealand also maintains its own ambiguity on the Taiwan question -arguably edging closer to the alliance without triggering Beijing’s red lines –or the New Zealand public’s nuclear-free sensitivities and marked hesitancy about fighting other people’s wars.

The question is not simply whether anyone will come to Taiwan’s defence. It is whether the network of interests, alliances, economic interdependencies, and democratic solidarity that constitutes the current world order can commit and act quickly enough, and firmly enough, to make Beijing reconsider an assault on the island.

-Asia Media Centre

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

March 8, 2026

Can psychopaths change?

Source: Radio New Zealand

Psychopaths might account for only about 1 percent of the general population, but they account for a disproportionate share of violent crime.

Distinct from other conditions like sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder, psychopaths tend to show traits such as an absence of remorse or guilt, a lack of empathy and a charming and manipulative interpersonal style.

You may find it hard to imagine how someone without much empathy can change. And early psychological treatments were not successful. But advances in research are showing that a deeper understanding of psychopathy may help to create more effective interventions.

To help psychopaths change, we first need to understand them.

Unsplash

. If you have ever seen someone badly hurt themselves, then you probably had an averse response.

Your brain will have reacted to their pain and your body will probably have shown signs of physiological arousal. Your heart rate might have gone up, or you might have sweated.

These are common signs of physiological arousal in response to someone else’s suffering. But they are often lacking in psychopaths.

When my colleagues and I asked people in prison with a history of violence to view pictures of others’ emotional facial expressions, those who reported more of the characteristic features of psychopathy also showed blunted physiological arousal. Our 2019 study found that the pupil (the small black hole in the centre of the eye that lets in light but also increases in size during physiological arousal) did not change much in size among people higher in psychopathic traits when they looked at pictures of people who were afraid.

These differences mean that some people with these traits might struggle to learn about how their actions cause other people to feel distressed or afraid.

Prisons and secure forensic hospitals are where people with psychopathic traits are often entered into treatment programmes designed to reduce their risk of reoffending. Modest reductions in general reoffending have been reported following cognitive behavioural programmes that are offered to people in prison with or without psychopathy or another personality disorder.

But not all criminal behaviour programs have been marked by success. For example, in the UK in 2017 the failure of the Core Sexual Offender Treatment Programme designed by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and approved for use in 1992, to lower reoffending was highly publicised.

HMPPS has since introduced a new programme, Building Choices. It adopts a strengths-based, skill focused approach to improve emotion management, healthy relationships and sense of purpose. Unlike the previous course, the programme is not designed to address particular offence types, and it has shown some signs of promise.

Historically, researchers have considered such programmes less effective at reducing reoffending when offered to people with psychopathy. Indeed, some studies even suggest that people with psychopathy worsened following treatment.

One of these programmes, offered from around 1965 to 1978 at the maximum-security Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada, made use of a so called “total encounter capsule.”

These results made for a high degree of pessimism among scientists and practitioners alike. But that pessimism might be misplaced.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the “total encounter capsule” did not prove effective. The capsule was “a tiny self-contained chamber where sustenance was supplied through tubes in the walls and from which no group members would leave during sessions that lasted up to two weeks”.

Participants were reported to be nude and did not participate voluntarily. There were few professional therapists, and the use of force and humiliation was permitted.

Historically, there has been a lot of pessimism around treatment for other personality disorders, too.

This is in part a reflection of stigma attached to these disorders. But it is also because personality difficulties can make it harder for people to build relationships, including with the people responsible for their treatment.

Yet a form of therapy known as dialectical behaviour therapy has shown success in reducing self-harm in people with borderline personality disorder. This type of therapy is designed to help people cope with intense emotions and to learn interpersonal skills.

In another recent study, mentalisation-based treatment, which targets the person’s ability to understand and regulate the negative effects of thoughts and feelings, led to reductions in aggressive behaviour in people with antisocial personality disorder. Findings like these suggest tailored interventions are more effective when it comes to personality disorders.

Capable of empathy?

One important consideration when treating psychopaths is that they are often assumed to be incapable of empathy. But this assumption has been challenged by some intriguing studies, which suggests that they might instead lack the motivation for empathy.

In a 2013 brain scanning study, a group of scientists at the university of Groningen, the Netherlands, showed that although criminal psychopaths did not automatically feel empathy for other people’s pain depicted in videos, their brains did generate an empathic response similar to that of non-psychopaths when instructed to feel what the people in the videos were feeling.

It could be an important step toward helping people with psychopathy if they could better understand how their actions can hurt other people.

Perhaps the most promising work that suggests people with psychopathy can change has been conducted with young people. Although children and young people under the age of 18 cannot be diagnosed as psychopathic, features of psychopathy referred to as callous unemotional traits can be reliably assessed in children as young as two years of age.

A 2018 study adapted parenting interventions to be more effective for this high-risk group of children, aged three to six years old. Afterwards, the children showed significant reductions in behavioural problems, callous unemotional traits and aggression. The researchers coached parents to show more warmth, sensitivity and responsiveness. Parents were also asked to focus on reward-based rather than punishment-based strategies to encourage the child participants to be more responsive to distress in others.

A 2022 study also reported positive outcomes, showing improvements in behaviour and personal relationships in adolescents after an intervention with a focus on strength-based (helping children understand what they’re good at) rather than punishment-based parenting strategies.

So recent work is offering a glimpse of a more optimistic future for reducing aggressive and antisocial behaviour associated with psychopathy. Perhaps the question is not can psychopaths change now, but can we get better at helping them to change.

Steven Gillespie is senior lecturer in clinical psychology, University of Liverpool.

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

March 8, 2026

World-leading neurobiologist: Science means it’s not okay for me to hate Donald Trump

Source: Radio New Zealand

In his latest book, Determined, Robert Sapolsky argues that we are not, in fact, masters of our own destiny. Everything we think and do is beyond our control and caused by a combination of biology and environment.

The Stanford University professor was just 14 when one “very revelatory night”, he realised that humans have no free will at all.

“Suddenly, I woke up at two in the morning and said, ‘Ah, I get it. There’s no free will. And there’s no God. And there’s no purpose in the universe whatsoever.’ It all just evaporated right then and hasn’t been back since.”

This video is hosted on Youtube.

. But for him, this argument is “missing 99 percent of what’s going on”.

“It never asks the question, how did you become the sort of person who would choose regular coffee over decaf? How did you wind up being somebody who would be standing in that coffee shop at that time? How do you wind up being employed enough so you had money in your pocket to pay for it? How did you arrive at this moment?

“When you look at all the things that brought you to that instant – brain and hormones and genes and early environment – and throw all of that stuff in there, there’s simply no room in there for you to have made a decision completely free of your biology and the environment that it interacted with.”

The notion that we actually have no control over our lives is “a drag” for lots of people, Sapolsky admits.

“But if that depresses you, by definition, you are one of the lucky ones, because you’ve spent your life being treated better than average because of things you had nothing to do with.

“You didn’t choose the womb you were in. You didn’t choose your parents’ socioeconomic status. You didn’t choose your genome. You didn’t choose any of that stuff.”

Professor Robert Sapolsky: Life Without Free Will

Saturday Morning

By contrast, if you’re someone whose been treated worse than average in your life for reasons you had nothing to do with, the idea of there being no free will is “liberating”.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t choose your genes. You didn’t choose how your brain wired up. You didn’t choose your adolescent experiences.”

Once you really believe there’s no free will, it makes no sense, intellectually or ethically, to blame, punish, praise or reward another person, he says.

“It also makes the entire criminal justice system irrelevant and irrational – the whole legal system is built on a notion of free will that doesn’t exist.”

Acknowledging that it’s biology and circumstances that make us do the things we do is “hugely humane” and also “hugely scientifically sound”, Sapolsky says.

“Seeing where this stuff comes from makes us not only better at interventions, but it also makes us better at not constructing societies where, by definition, half the people are treated worse than average for stuff they had nothing to do with.”

Donald Trump is “very, very damaging” and also fundamentally “unlucky”, says neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky.

AFP / Andrew Caballero-Reynolds

Hating an individual person who was unlucky in their combination of biology and upbringing, even destructive people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, makes as much sense as hating a virus for getting into your lungs or hating an earthquake, he says.

“I spent a lot of the last 10 years now having to think through why it’s not okay for me to hate Donald Trump. He had an awful upbringing. His father was a nightmare. His mother was ice-cold. He spent his whole life having to pay people to pretend that they love him. No wonder he turned out this way.

“Does that mean you shouldn’t be very activated in trying to keep him from doing what he’s doing to destroy our democracy? No. He sure as hell needs to be stopped, but he had nothing to do with it. Putin had nothing to do with it … but you recognise, nonetheless, they turned out to be very, very damaging people.”

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

March 7, 2026

Acid rain falls on Vanuatu islands as volcano belches ash

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Manaro Voui volcano is spewing ash and smoke as high as four kilometres above sea level. The alert level remains at three on a scale of five and a 3km danger zone has been declared around the crater. 24 February 2026 Supplied/Sergei Kriukov – Unity Airlines

The Vanuatu government has decided not to order a mass evacuation of communities on Ambae island affected by acid rain from the Manaro Voui volcano.

On Friday the Council of Ministers (cabinet) endorsed the recommendations of the National Disaster Committee for a plan of action.

This included approving a budget of 20 million vatu (US$170,000) for a team from the National Disaster Management Office to go to Ambae on Saturday.

Once there they will assess the most affected parts of the island and have them declared disaster zones.

Climate change minister Ralph Regenvanu said there is no mandatory evacuation at this stage but people in the worst affected areas are encouraged to move to less affected parts of the island if they do not feel safe.

“Even though on Ambae we are hearing the activity of the volcano is changing, sometimes it is increasing and sometimes it is going down, it is still only at alert level three,” Regenvanu said speaking in Bislama.

Regenvanu said plans are in place should the volcanic activity increase even further.

“The council has also approved that if we go to alert level four, which is the worst case scenario, and will require the whole island to be declared a disaster zone and for us to start evacuations, an emergency plan is already in place.”

Acid rain impacts

Acid rain from the volcano on Ambae – 310km north west of the capital of Port Vila – is reportedly effecting water and food supplies.

Authorities say the volcano is spewing toxic burning ash which is now covering the entire island due to wind changes.

The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazard department (VMGD) says acid rain has now reached Santo, Malakula, Pentecost and Ambrym islands.

Its director, Levu Antfalo described its effects.

“It burns, right because it contains sulphuric oxide, it rains down and becomes acid rain. It burns their crops, pretty much anything that it gets in contact with, water as well. Usually those who use wells, drums, tanks that are not covered could be affected, but bore hold water seems to be okay,” he said.

Antfalo said the heavy ash fall also alters the PH levels in water, making it more acidic.

“I mean it burns their protein source, like vegetables.. We were told as well it increases the PH of water as well as prawns and fish that are there (in rivers).”

Vanuatu’s cabinet is convening an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the escalating situation on Ambae Island following increased volcanic activity at the Manaro volcano. Facebook / Ministry of the Prime Minister – Vanuatu

Edwin Tarai and his family were evacuated after Ambae erupted in 2018, and have never returned.

The 74-year-old, who lives in Santo, said people on Ambae were complaining about government inaction.

“There is no plan of moving out at the moment but there is a concern. People are complaining and wondering what is the government’s next move,” Tarai said.

The former nurse practitioner said that the noise is increasing and can be heard in east Santo, Pentecost and Ambrym islands.

Nixon Garae, a tug boat captain in Luganville, Santo has relatives in East Ambae, who described the noise.

“They said the noise is very loud because when people are talking you can’t hear the other person talking. It is causing ear pain because it’s very loud and heavy,” he said.

“Last Saturday when they were in church, when the preacher stood up at the front, they could hardly hear him because the noise was too loud.”

Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department

Active shield volcano

A volcano duty officer with New Zealand’s GNS Science, Yannick Behr said Ambae is a typical shield volcano and a very active one at that.

“It’s part of a chain of volcanoes in Vanuatu, they’re sitting on a rifting zone that is caused by the eastward subduction of the Australian plate. That tectonic process keeps that volcanism alive so all volcanoes on this rifting zone, they erupt quite regularly,” Beer said.

The latest plumes are about four kilometres above sea level, he said.

“It can twice as high, but again these are explosive eruptions but because of the consistency of the magma they tend to be not quite as catastrophic as you can see them (sic) from other types of volcanoes,” Beer said.

The geohazards department has issued a reminder to Ambae residents to stay out of the danger zone.

This comes after an aviation warning was issued on Thursday for volcanic ash cover over the island.

In a public address overnight director Levu Antfalo warned residents to take precautions.

“Just a reminder that the danger zone is a three kilometres radius around the crater. So do not go close to it,” Antfalo said.

“Things to take care of include water, protect your water supply. It will also affect food gardens. And also those with respiratory illnesses…this can affect the health of families that live close to or in the surrounding areas of Ambae,” he said.

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

March 7, 2026

The Oscars are coming up and it’s anyone’s game

Source: Radio New Zealand

With the Academy Awards right around the corner, it’s difficult to find another year when the race was this wide open, this late in the game.

The Golden Globes, Critics Choice, BAFTA and Actor (formerly SAG) Awards are now firmly in the rearview mirror, and while some elements have come into sharper focus – it’s Hamnet star Jessie Buckley’s best actress Oscar to lose, for instance – many other aspects of the race remain foggy to predict at best, like who might walk away with the best actor trophy opposite her.

And that’s not to mention the seemingly wide-open fields in both supporting actor races.

Irish actress Jessie Buckley accepts the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture for Hamnet.

VALERIE MACON

. RNZ will live blog the red carpet and the awards show from 11am.

A breakdown of top categories follows:

Best picture

Regina Hall in One Battle After Another.

Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures via CNN Newsource

Two titans seem sure to be big competitors on Oscar night, namely critical darlings One Battle After Another and Sinners.

Pointed commentaries on racial inequality and American values, featuring a handful of buzzy performances and fuelling strong word of mouth, these two Warner Bros. Pictures films (which come from CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery) both had considerable momentum going into the season.

But while 14-time Oscar nominee Paul Thomas Anderson’s Battle seemed like the one to beat a few months ago – especially after best picture wins at the Golden Globes (on the comedy side, inexplicably), Critics Choice Awards and the BAFTAs – Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has picked up more than a little renewed steam, mainly after the film’s decisive ensemble win at the Actor Awards on Sunday.

It’s been 15 years since the Academy opened up the best picture race to more than the previously fixed number of five nominees – vacillating between eight and ten best picture contenders, and settling consistently on ten for the last few years. This year, there are of course some other contenders in the ten-film category – including Sentimental Value, Marty Supreme, Hamnet and Bugonia – but the race seems set for the vampires versus the revolutionaries.

Best actress

Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley and Bodhi Rae Breathnach in director Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet.

Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features via CNN Newsource

In the clearest-seeming race of them all, Jessie Buckley’s portrayal of a grief-stricken mother and wife to William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet looks all but sure to net the Oscar, after she was previously up for best supporting actress in 2022 for The Lost Daughter. Buckley’s recent passionate and emotional speech at the Actor Awards, mostly directed toward her Hamnet costar Emily Watson, certainly only helped her chances.

In addition to Buckley, two of the other women up for best actress have been nominated before (the Academy loves return nominees), but if anyone might be able to pull off an upset, it’s a tossup between the two first-timers: Rose Byrne, who won best actress in the comedy category at the Golden Globes for her work as an overextended mother in the harrowing If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and acclaimed Norwegian performer Renate Reinsve as a resentful daughter in Sentimental Value.

Australian actress Rose Byrne won the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy award for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” during the 83rd annual Golden Globe Awards on January 11, 2026.

AFP / Etienne Laurent

Best actor

Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent.

MK2 Films via CNN Newsource

This is where any confident handicapping ends, and the rest of the acting categories are essentially anyone’s game.

Early momentum for best actor went to Timothée ‘I-want-to-be-one-of-the-greats’ Chalamet, who clinched the Golden Globe, comedy lead actor award as well as the Critics Choice Award. But both the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards threw a bit of a wrench in things, with the Brits awarding non-Oscar nominee Robert Aramayo (for I Swear) and the Screen Actors Guild bestowing best actor honours on Michael B. Jordan for his twin roles of Smoke and Stack in Sinners.

Jordan might indeed ride the wave of Sinners love all the way to the Oscars podium, or it just might be Timmy’s turn (Chalamet was also nominated last year for portraying Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, which won him the then-still-named SAG Award).

But let’s not forget Narcos actor Wagner Moura, who made waves for his work in the Brazilian film The Secret Agent, winning him best actor at Cannes, as well as the Golden Globe for lead actor in the drama category.

Best supporting actress

Amy Madigan in Weapons.

Warner Bros. via CNN Newsource

The best supporting actress race is, historically, a tough one to predict, and this year is no exception. While Teyana Taylor’s visceral, kinetic performance as revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills in One Battle After Another was the early favourite after her Golden Globe win, two other attention-getting actresses have kept reinserting themselves into the conversation, thanks to their undeniable work.

The first is Amy Madigan, known to most for ’80s films like Uncle Buck and Field of Dreams, who turned out a bonkers performance as the villainous witch Aunt Gladys in last summer’s breakout elevated horror hit Weapons (also from Warner Bros.). With both the Critics Choice and Actor Award under Madigan’s belt, the Oscar may very well fall under Gladys’ spell come 15 March.

But we shouldn’t count out Wunmi Mosaku, whose performance as Annie in Sinners rooted the film in heritage, magic and heart. Mosaku won the BAFTA award in this category last month, and in case there’s a Sinners sweep come Oscar night, hers would be thoroughly deserved.

While horror doesn’t often get recognized by the Academy, both Madigan and Mosaku are up for playing magically inclined women in horror films this year, and remind us that there is a precedent – Ruth Gordon won supporting actress Oscar gold in 1969 for playing a similarly witchy character in Rosemary’s Baby, and landmark genre films like The Exorcist and Aliens also received Academy recognition for the actresses who starred in them.

Best supporting actor

Does the monster’s new look reveal something about our modern age? A scene from the new “Frankenstein” film directed by Guillermo del Toro. Ken Woroner/Netflix A scene from the new Frankenstein film directed by Guillermo del Toro.

Netflix

Last but certainly not least is best supporting actor, which could go to a newly minted star, industry veterans enjoying their first nomination or heavyweights with Oscar hardware already sitting at home.

Let’s start with the newbie – Jacob Elordi has been getting recognition for his transformative portrait of the creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, including a win at the Critics Choice Awards. If 2017’s The Shape of Water is any indication, one should never write off this visionary director’s projects when it comes to the Oscars’ affections.

Then there are the industry vets who are basking in their first Academy Award nominations, namely Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value and Delroy Lindo for Sinners. Skarsgård was surprised and gracious when he won best supporting actor at the Golden Globes, topped only by Lindo’s sheer gratitude when he took the microphone after Sinners won for best motion picture cast at the Actor Awards. Both actors boast prolific and respected bodies of work, and each contributed head-turning performances this year.

Lastly, there are the One Battle After Another boys, previous Oscar-winners Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro. While it might be tempting to assume they would split the vote and cancel each other out (much like what looks to be the case with Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Sentimental Value in the previous category), Penn has been getting late-in-the-game attention for his physical and gritty portrayal of a hardened, racist, misogynistic colonel in Battle. So far, he’s clinched the BAFTA and Actor Awards. It really is anyone’s game.

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

March 7, 2026

Amanda Seyfried’s ‘prosthetic butthole’ isn’t a joke

Source: Radio New Zealand

In The Testament of Ann Lee, a musical drama about the Shaker sect, Amanda Seyfried wears what she calls a “prosthetic butthole” as she is stripped and beaten in front of a burning church.

“This movie needed to be graphic, so I wore a prosthetic butthole. […] It was cool. It was exciting. I was pregnant and naked, but I wasn’t naked at all. And at the end of the movie, I was standing in front of a burning building with just a merkin. I felt so free”, she told BBC Radio 2:

On the surface, Seyfried’s comments might seem like a case of TMI. But costume performs an important, invisible technical function of a quasi-body the actor inhabits to transform into their character.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

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But some roles can require the actor to portray intense emotional vulnerability or distressing events, which can leave them feeling anything from mildly embarrassed to deeply traumatised.

By creating a costume that can be taken off, even when the character appears to be naked, costume designers help create an important separation between the role and the actor.

Taking care of the actor

Historically, actors have often been expected to do whatever appalling things the director demanded of them, regardless of the consequences to their physical or mental health.

Actors have also been expected to manage their own emotions in these roles. While many have different processes to help them exit the role, they still rely on theatre and film professionals like stage managers, dressers and directors to help manage their sources of emotion and distraction.

An important part of leaving the character behind involves taking off the costume at the end of a play or scene. But if your own naked body is the character’s costume in a scene, then how can you take it off?

The Testament of Ann Lee covers the life of the founder of the Shaker faith and how she used her religious faith to process pain and grief and inspire others.

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Every actor has a different approach. Some don’t mind appearing nude for laughs, while others might use body doubles for sex and nude scenes, which provides them with a surrogate body.

The newer job of intimacy coordinators has developed in the past 15 years to help protect actors on stage and set. These are professional advocates who establish the ground rules, look out for the actors’ physical and emotional well-being, and assist with the choreography during scenes that require intimate touching, nudity or sex.

Actors and intimacy coordinators collaborate closely with the costume department to ensure the actor will be protected during nude and sex scenes with the right type of coverage.

Costume designing for ‘nudity’

Costume departments have a host of garments, accessories, prosthetics and hacks to protect an actor’s dignity in nude and sex scenes. These include modesty patches, fake nipples, stick-on bras, strapless thongs and pouches that cover the genitals. These can be attached to the body with fashion tape or kinesiology tape.

The devices are made to match the actor’s skin tone and can be padded with a thick material (think yoga mat fabric) or made from a hard plastic to mitigate the impact of being touched or grabbed. Other costume hacks, such as merkins, have been around for hundreds of years.

The use of these devices means you won’t see the actor’s actual private parts or pubic hair; you’ll see the character’s.

This crucial distinction gives the actor a body they can take off.

Creating Ann Lee’s naked body

The Testament of Ann Lee covers the life of the founder of the Shaker faith over three decades and shows how she used her religious faith to process the pain and grief of physical tribulations, sexual abuse and the loss of her children, and to inspire others.

Seyfried has described the role of Ann Lee as “fucking daunting” and “really scary”, and has said the part needed to be graphic to show the strength of Lee’s faith in the face of extreme adversity.

Towards the end of the film, local thugs who do not want the Shakers to establish a church near their village attack Lee and her fellow worshippers at night and burn down their church. The thugs strip Lee and beat and humiliate her, accusing her of being a man and of being a witch. Ann Lee’s naked body is on display in front of the burning church during the brutal scene.

Amanda Seyfried described the role of Ann Lee as “fucking daunting” and “really scary”.

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

This is the scene where Seyfried wore a merkin and the “prosthetic butthole” – likely a modesty sticker, or a strapless, skin-toned thong with the merkin on the front that covered the vulva, perineum and anus.

The pubic wig is seen, but the fake anus is not. But wearing them meant Seyfried could focus on the intensity of her acting and fully embody Lee in the scene, without worrying about her own dignity.

The modesty garments also gave Seyfried a body she could take off, leaving any potential for personal trauma, embarrassment or pain from playing Ann Lee behind her.

Emily Brayshaw is an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Design, University of Technology, Sydney.

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

March 7, 2026

Israel, US intensify attacks on Iran as war hits 7th day

Source: Radio New Zealand

Follow the latest with our live blog above.

The conflict in Iran continues to widen.

In Azerbaijan, two people have been injured after Iranian drones hit an airport and landed near a school building.Explosions have been heard over Bahrain and Qatar.

Evacuation notices have been issued for southern parts of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, Israel is attacking strongholds of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military says it has continued its attacks on Iran.

And, US President Donald Trump told news outlet Axios that he needs to personally be involved in selecting Iran’s new leader.

Follow the latest with our live blog at the top of this page.

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

March 6, 2026

Sir Peter Jackson to receive an honorary award at Cannes

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand Oscar-winning filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson will be awarded the Palm d’Or at the opening of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Best known for creating the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson said the honour was “one of the greatest privileges of my career”.

The French film festival organisers said the award recognised “a body of work that blends Hollywood blockbusters and films d’auteur with extraordinary artistic vision and technological audacity”.

“Cannes has been a meaningful part of my filmmaking journey,” Jackson said in a statement following Thursday’s announcement.

“In 1988, I attended the Festival Marketplace with my first movie, Bad Taste, then in 2001 we screened a preview sequence from The Fellowship of the Ring, both of which were important milestones in my career.

“This festival has always celebrated bold, visionary cinema, and I’m incredibly grateful to the Festival de Cannes for being recognised among the filmmakers and the artists whose work continues to inspire me.”

In giving Jackson the honour, Cannes president Iris Knobloch said: “The Festival welcomes and thanks a filmmaker of boundless creativity who has brought prestige to the heroic fantasy genre”.

In 1993 Jackson founded Wētā Digital with Sir Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk. The workshop has produced visual effects for films including The Lord of the Rings series King Kong, Avatar and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Previous recipients of the award include Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep. Last year it was given to Robert De Niro and Denzel Washington.

The Cannes Film Festival runs from 12-23 May. Sourh Korean director Park Chan-wook will preside over this year’s jury.

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

March 6, 2026

Donald Trump replaces Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem

Source: Radio New Zealand

By Ted Hesson, Reuters

Kristi Noem is being moved to a new role. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP

One of the top officials overseeing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, will leave her role, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday (US time).

It’s a major staffing move that raises questions about the direction of the Republican president’s immigration agenda.

“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Noem will serve as “Special envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” Trump said.

Noem, a former governor of South Dakota, became one of Trump’s most high-profile Cabinet secretaries with social media posts that portrayed immigrants in harsh terms, highlighting cases of alleged criminal offenders and using vitriolic language.

She faced criticism in January when she quickly labelled two US citizens fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis as committing “domestic terrorism.”

Videos that emerged after the deaths undercut the assertion by Noem and other Trump officials that the two deceased – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – were violent aggressors.

The public backlash for the deaths led the Trump administration to move to a more targeted approach to immigration enforcement in Minnesota after months of sweeps through US cities that led to violent clashes with residents opposing the crackdown.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives moved to impeach Noem and at least two Republicans in Congress called for her to lose her job after the incidents.

During congressional hearings in March, Democrats and some Republicans criticized Noem for her approach to the immigration crackdown and management of DHS, including concern over a US$220 million (NZ$373m) ad campaign that heavily featured Noem.

The staffing change raises questions about whether the Trump administration could seek to intensify its mass deportation push or retreat to a more targeted approach.

Under Noem’s leadership, masked immigration agents surged into Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC., scouring neighborhoods and Home Depot parking lots in search of possible immigration offenders.

The popularity of Trump’s immigration approach fell as agents detained US citizens and tear-gassed streets in an attempt to drive up deportations, which last year fell short of the administration’s goal of 1 million per year.

AFP/Kamil Krzaczynski

Strong embrace of Trump’s hardline immigration approach

While Noem, 54, served as a prominent proponent of Trump’s agenda, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a long-time Trump aide, controls Trump’s immigration policy.

Noem was quickly confirmed to lead the 260,000-employee Department of Homeland Security in January 2025 after Trump took office. On social media, she referred to immigrants convicted of crimes as “scumbags” even as the number of non-criminals arrested by immigration authorities rose under Trump.

She joined immigration enforcement operations on the ground in New York City and visited a maximum-security prison in El Salvador where Venezuelan immigrants deported by the Trump administration were being held without charges or access to lawyers.

The number of migrants caught trying to illegally cross the US-Mexico border plummeted under Trump’s restrictive policies, a steep drop after high levels of illegal immigration under former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Noem, reflecting Trump’s agenda, also took steps to cut legal immigration programmes and increase vetting. She ended several Temporary Protected Status programmes that provided work permits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Venezuela, Haiti and other nations, drawing legal challenges.

After an Afghan immigrant was accused of attacking National Guard members in Washington, DC, Noem said she recommended that Trump place “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

Critics said Noem demonised immigrants and promoted an immigration enforcement strategy that targeted non-criminal, working immigrants and families.

During Noem’s tenure, the number of deaths in immigration detention rose to a two-decade high while staff in DHS oversight offices were slashed sharply.

-Reuters

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

March 6, 2026

Britney Spears arrested in California

Source: Radio New Zealand

Britney Spears was arrested Wednesday night (local time), according to information from Ventura County, California authorities.

Booking information obtained by CNN shows that the pop superstar was stopped by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) around 9.30pm, was booked shortly after 3am, Thursday and later released.

CHP public information officer Ryan Ayers confirmed to CNN via phone on Thursday that Spears was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI).

Her vehicle was towed, according to the arrest information.

“This was an unfortunate incident that is completely inexcusable,” a representative for Spears told CNN in an email. “Britney is going to take the right steps and comply with the law and hopefully this can be the first step in long overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life. Hopefully, she can get the help and support she needs during this difficult time.”

“Her boys are going to be spending time with her,” the representative said. “Her loved ones are going to come up with an overdue needed plan to set her up for success for well being.”

It is not the first time Spears has had legal issues.

The following year she was hospitalized for a psychiatric evaluation. Her father, Jamie Spears, was subsequently granted what was initially temporary conservatorship over her assets.

That conservatorship was later extended and lasted for 13 years, prompting fans to start a “Free Britney” movement aimed at ending it.

It was terminated in 2021 and since then Spears has mainly been seen through posts on her social media accounts, often in videos of her dancing posted to Instagram. Her account was unavailable Thursday.

Spears is scheduled to appear in court on 4 May.

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