New Zealand Māori Party MP Takutai Kemp Dies Aged 50
Kemp, who reportedly had kidney disease, represented the Māori electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau in Auckland. She died in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Māori Party said in a statement.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
NZ soldier sentenced to two years' detention for attempted espionage
A military court sentenced a New Zealand soldier on Wednesday to two years' detention for attempting to spy for a foreign power. The soldier, whose name has been suppressed, admitted to attempted espionage, accessing a computer system for a dishonest purpose and knowingly possessing an objectionable publication. He was ordered into military detention at Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch and will be dismissed from the New Zealand Defence Force at the end of his sentence. His admission and its acceptance by the court marked the first spying conviction in New Zealand's history. The soldier will be paid at half his previous rate until his dismissal at the end of his sentence, the defence force told AFP. According to information provided to the court, he previously earned NZ$2,000 (US$1,600) a fortnight. The court martial at Linton Military Camp near Palmerston North heard the soldier gave military base maps and photographs to an undercover officer posing as an agent for a foreign nation. During the investigation, he was also found to have copies of a livestreamed video of the March 2019 killing of 51 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch by white supremacist Brenton Tarrant. - 'Harm to the world' - The soldier became a person of interest after the Christchurch attack because he was a member of some right-wing groups that police were cracking down on, the court heard. While monitoring him, the New Zealand government became aware he had "made contact with a third party, indicating that he was a soldier who was wanting to defect", according to an agreed summary of the facts read out by the prosecution. The military court has permanently suppressed the identity of the foreign nation. Chief Judge Kevin Riordan said the soldier "intended to prejudice the security and defence of New Zealand". A military panel agreed the worst of his offences was the sharing of passwords, an identity card, and access codes to Linton Military Camp and the air force's Base Ohakea, the judge said. "You were actively searching for things to supply to someone you thought was a foreign agent," Riordan said. Of the man's video of the Christchurch killings, the judge said: "Keeping the message of a gross murderer is a harm to the world in itself." The court martial was held in a large, cold hall at Linton, with banners carrying New Zealand Army slogans of "courage", "commitment", "comradeship" and "integrity". "You have comprehensively breached all of these values," Riordan told the soldier. The chief judge expressed concern over how the sentence would be perceived given that military detention is widely considered to be easier than civilian prison. - 'No remorse' - The military panel determined a starting point of between 3.5 and 4 years prison and gave deductions for the man's guilty plea and time spent under open arrest. "We spent more time over this decision than any other," Riordan said. The panel decided military detention was appropriate given the rehabilitation it would provide. Crown lawyer Grant Burston had earlier told the court the soldier's sentence should start at between 4.5 and 5 years in prison. "There is no apology," Burston said, referencing the soldier's affidavit, which was read to the court. "There is just expressed regret and a well-established expression of grievance. "There is no remorse for betraying... his country." Defence lawyer Stephen Winter said that although the offences were serious, they were "at the bottom end of offending for this particular charge". "He has grown out of that phase of his life. He is now a husband... a father," he said. The soldier was arrested in December 2019 and had spent all but six days since then under what the New Zealand Defence Force called open arrest. He was required to live on an army base in a military house and was subject to a curfew. The soldier had been suspended on full pay, earning nearly US$204,000 (NZ$350,000) since his arrest. During that time, he married and had two children. His wife is expecting a third child. The New Zealand Defence Force declined to say whether his family would be provided housing during his detention. bes/sft/djw/cwl Solve the daily Crossword
CNBC
14 hours ago
- CNBC
CNBC Daily Open: Trump's expanded tariffs mean putting out home fires could be more expensive
Tariff-related ruction appears to be settling down, but U.S. President Donald Trump is still reshaping global trade and industry — and everyday life. After the Trump administration hinted it could be open to Nvidia exporting more powerful chips to China after their revenue-sharing agreement, the semiconductor darling was reported to be developing a new chip for Beijing. And Intel's bounty from the CHIPS Act, formalized by the previous administration under Joe Biden, might come with a price tag of giving the current U.S. government a stake in the company. Other companies that have received funding from the same act — such as Micron and Samsung — may be subject to the same exchange, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, the effects of tariffs continue to creep into the home. The costs incurred by fires in the U.S. — think of the tragic Los Angeles wildfires in January or the one near the Grand Canyon just last month — are already growing, not just in terms of the physical damage but also the price of insurance premiums. And now that Trump has added fire extinguishers to a list of steel products that will face a 50% import tariff, even the price of relatively more benign and contained fires, such as those you start to burn photographs of your ex-partner, will be more expensive to put out. That's a truly protest-worthy tariff. Trump expands reach of steel and aluminum tariffs. The duties, which impose a 50% charge on imports, will include more than 400 additional product categories, such as fire extinguishers, machinery and construction materials. Japan exports sank 2.6% in July from a year ago. That figure is worse than expected, and the steepest decline for the country since February 2021. Falling shipments to the U.S. and China, Japan's two biggest export markets, contributed to the plunge. Pop Mart shares spike after it announced profit surge. Shares of the Labubu-maker were up 12.6% at 1:40 p.m. local time (1:40 a.m. ET) Wednesday as investors cheered the firm's announcement on Tuesday of a nearly 400% year-on-year jump in profit. Technology stocks weigh down U.S. markets. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.46% on Tuesday as shares of Palantir sank more than 9%. Asia-Pacific markets retreated Wednesday, as the region's tech stocks tracked declines on Wall Street. [PRO] UBS raises its forecast for gold — again. Despite the rally for gold stalling since the middle of the year, the Swiss banking giant hiked its 2025 and 2026 target for gold prices. The price is REIT: UK-quoted property sector is consolidating rapidly Episodes in which the mighty KKR receives a bloody nose are collector's items — but we had one in the U.K. last week. The private equity giant was thwarted in an attempt to buy Assura, a property company that owns more than 600 doctor's surgeries and medical centers. That speaks to a bigger story — which is that U.K. stock market investors have concluded valuations in the country's REIT (real estate investment trust) sector had become ridiculously low.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
A soldier admits to attempted espionage in New Zealand's first spying conviction
A soldier admits to attempted espionage in New Zealand's first spying conviction WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand soldier who tried to spy for a foreign power has admitted to attempted espionage in a military court. Monday's conviction was the first for spying in New Zealand's history. The soldier's name was suppressed, as was what country he sought to pass secrets to. Military court documents said the man believed he was engaged with a foreign agent in 2019 when he tried to communicate military information including base telephone directories and maps, assessments of security weaknesses, his own identity card and log-in details for a military network. The wording of the charge said his actions were 'likely to prejudice the security or defense of New Zealand.' He wasn't speaking to a foreign agent, but an undercover New Zealand police officer collecting intelligence on alleged right-wing extremist groups, documents supplied by the military court showed. The soldier came to law enforcement attention as part of an operation that was established after a March 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in the city of Christchurch, when an Australian white supremacist opened fire on Muslim worshipers, killing 51. Officers spoke to the man twice about his involvement in a group, court documents showed, and after the government became aware he had expressed a desire to defect he was contacted by the undercover officer. When the soldier's hard drive was searched, investigators found a copy of Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant's livestreamed video of his massacre and a manifesto document he published online before the killings. Possession of either without permission is a criminal offense in New Zealand and the soldier, who admitted that charge too, joins several others convicted in New Zealand of having or sharing the terrorist's banned material. In a statement read to the court by his lawyer, the man said the two nationalist groups with which he was involved were 'no more than groups of friends with similar points of view to my own,' according to Radio New Zealand. The laywer, Steve Winter, added that his client denied supporting the Christchurch shooter's ideology, RNZ reported. The soldier — who was based at Linton Military Camp near the city of Palmerston North — also pleaded guilty to accessing a military computer system for dishonest purposes. The amended suite of three charges replaced 17 counts levelled against him earlier in the proceedings. Each of the three charges he admitted carries a maximum prison term of either seven or 10 years in New Zealand. His sentence was expected to be delivered by a military panel within days after Monday's conviction. The man had been due to stand trial by court-martial on the charges before he admitted the offenses. His was the first charge in a New Zealand military court for espionage or attempted spying. The last time such a case reached the civilian courts before was in 1975, when a public servant was acquitted on charges alleging he had passed information to Russian agents. A spokesperson for New Zealand's military said they would not comment until the proceedings against the soldier finished. Charlotte Graham-mclay, The Associated Press
