NZ Herald Live: Nicola Willis gives pre-Budget social investment speech
An ambulance was stolen and taken for a joyride in Timaru while medical staff were preparing a patient for transfer. Video / Supplied
NZ Herald Live: David Seymour speaks to media on budget 2025
David Seymour speaks with Mike Hosking about the new $140 million Getting kids in School programme. Video / NZ Herald
NZ drug markets shift online, Covid-born kids face school challenges, and Trump meets Saudi leaders on visit to Middle East.
Reporter Marii is at the World Dance Crew Championships, where hip hop duos from all around the world, including Auckland's En-Locked, are battling for medals and cash.
Released by second-tier English club Hull City, Mason Johnson has now made Napier City Rovers his home. Video / Neil Reid
Reporter Marii is at the World Dance Crew Championships, where hip hop duos from all around the world, including Auckland's En-Locked, are battling for medals and cash.
Police forensics team and detectives continue to comb Onekawa properties in the hunt for Kaea Karauria's killer. Video / Neil Reid
National and Labour accuse each other of lying over pay equity claims. Video / Mark Mitchell
A trailer unit rolled outside Christchurch this morning, spilling hundreds of chickens across the road. Video / George Heard
Principals question $100m maths spend, ex-cop faces porn probe, US and China agree to major tariff reductions.
Chris Hipkins delivers pre-Budget speech at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. Video / NZ Herald
Reporter Carter is in Whangamatā where car collector Billy reveals what it took to get this custom 2-door 1950 Cadillac back on the road.
Black Power members perform a farewell haka for Manurewa homicide victim Selwyn Robson. Video / Supplied
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Otago Daily Times
19 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
'Day of the Jackal' author Frederick Forsyth dies
British novelist Frederick Forsyth, who authored best-selling thrillers such as "The Day of the Jackal" and "The Dogs of War," has died aged 86, his publisher says. A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, and an informant for Britain's MI6 foreign spy agency, Forsyth made his name by using his experiences as a reporter in Paris to pen the story of a failed assassination plot on Charles de Gaulle. "The Day of the Jackal", in which an English assassin, played in the film by Edward Fox, is hired by French paramilitaries angry at de Gaulle's withdrawal from Algeria, was published in 1971 after Forsyth found himself penniless in London. Written in just 35 days, the book was rejected by a host of publishers who worried that the story was flawed and would not sell as de Gaulle had not been assassinated. De Gaulle died in 1970 from a ruptured aorta while playing Solitaire. But Forsyth's hurricane-paced thriller complete with journalistic-style detail and brutal sub-plots of lust, betrayal and murder was an instant hit. The once poor journalist became a wealthy writer of fiction. "I never intended to be a writer at all," Forsyth later wrote in his memoir, "The Outsider - My Life in Intrigue". "After all, writers are odd creatures, and if they try to make a living at it, even more so." So influential was the novel that Venezuelan militant revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez, was dubbed "Carlos the Jackal". Forsyth presented himself as a cross between Ernest Hemingway and John le Carre - both action man and Cold War spy - but delighted in turning around the insult that he was a literary lightweight. "I am lightweight but popular. My books sell," he once said. His books, fantastical plots that almost rejoiced in the cynicism of an underworld of spies, criminals, hackers and killers, sold more than 75 million copies. Behind the swashbuckling bravado, though, there were hints of sadness. He later spoke of turning inwards to his imagination as a lonely only child during and after World War Two. The isolated Forsyth discovered a talent for languages: he claimed to be a native French speaker by the age of 12 and a native German speaker by the age of 16, largely due to exchanges. He went to Tonbridge School, one of England's ancient fee-paying schools, and learned Russian from two emigre Georgian princesses in Paris. He added Spanish by the age of 18. He also learned to fly and did his national service in the Royal Air Force where he flew fighters such as a single seater version of the de Havilland Vampire. THE REPORTER Impressing Reuters' editors with his languages and knowledge that Bujumbura was a city in Burundi, he was offered a job at the news agency in 1961 and sent to Paris and then East Berlin where the Stasi secret police kept close tabs on him. He left Reuters for the BBC but soon became disillusioned by its bureaucracy and what he saw as the corporation's failure to cover Nigeria properly due to the government's incompetent post-colonial views on Africa. It was in 1968 that Forsyth was approached by the Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, and asked by an officer named "Ronnie" to inform on what was really going on in Biafra. By his own account, he would keep contacts with the MI6, which he called "the Firm", for many years. His novels showed extensive knowledge of the world of spies and he even edited out bits of "The Fourth Protocol" (1984), he said, so that militants would not know how to detonate an atomic bomb. His writing was sometimes cruel, such as when the Jackal kills his lover after she discovers he is an assassin. "He looked down at her, and for the first time she noticed that the grey flecks in his eyes had spread and clouded over the whole expression, which had become dead and lifeless like a machine staring down at her." THE WRITER After finally finding a publisher for "The Day of the Jackal," he was offered a three-novel contract by Harold Harris of Hutchinson. Next came "The Odessa File" in 1972, the story of a young German freelance journalist who tries to track down SS man Eduard Roschmann, or "The Butcher of Riga". After that, "The Dogs of War" in 1974 is about a group of white mercenaries hired by a British mining magnate to kill the mad dictator of an African republic - based on Equatorial Guinea's Francisco Macias Nguema - and replace him with a puppet. The New York Times said at the time that the novel was "pitched at the level of a suburban Saturday night movie audience" and that it was "informed with a kind of post‐imperial condescension toward the black man". Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. But he lost a fortune in an investment scam and had to write more novels to support himself. He had two sons - Stuart and Shane - with his first wife. His later novels variously cast hackers, Russians, al Qaeda militants and cocaine smugglers against the forces of good - broadly Britain and the West. But the novels never quite reached the level of the Jackal. A supporter of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, Forsyth scolded Britain's elites for what he cast as their treachery and naivety. In columns for The Daily Express , he gave a host of withering assessments of the modern world from an intellectual right-wing perspective. The world, he said, worried too much about "the oriental pandemic" (known to most as Covid-19), Donald Trump was "deranged", Vladimir Putin "a tyrant" and "liberal luvvies of the West" were wrong on most things. He was, to the end, a reporter who wrote novels. "In a world that increasingly obsesses over the gods of power, money and fame, a journalist and a writer must remain detached," he wrote. "It is our job to hold power to account."
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Warning of phone scammers impersonating cops
Photo: RNZ Police are warning New Zealanders to keep an ear out for cold callers impersonating police officers. Waitematā's acting Detective Senior Sergeant Ben Bergin said scammers would pose as officers and try to extract personal details from the victim. "The story changes slightly, but it will usually involve some sort of investigation and this 'officer' will report having located a valuable item of yours, such as a passport," he said in a statement. "He will need your help or ask for your personal information. The caller speaks with an English accent and provides a bogus ID number to the victim." Police arrested a number of people last year for a similar scam, which involved the scammers asking victims to withdraw cash as part of an "investigation." "We strongly advise that you hang up," he said. "From time-to-time, Police officers may contact you as part of their genuine duties. It can be a bit surprising to receive a call unexpectantly, so stop and think if you get a far-fetched story shared down the telephone line."
Scoop
a day ago
- Scoop
Be Vigilant: Fake Police Scam Doing The Rounds Again
Real Police officers are warning Kiwis to be vigilant of cold callers posing as Police officers, as a pesky scam rears its head. In the past year, Police have worked quickly to warn the public as these scam calls emerged. Waitematā CIB's acting Detective Senior Sergeant Ben Bergin says, 'unsuspecting victims are essentially being called out of the blue under a ruse'. 'The story changes slightly, but it will usually involve some sort of investigation and this 'officer' will report having located a valuable item of yours, such as a passport. 'He will need your help or ask for your personal information. 'The caller speaks with an English accent and provides a bogus ID number to the victim.' If you receive a phone call such as this, Police advise the public to be extremely cautious. Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Bergin says previous iterations of this scam has involved scammers asking people to withdraw cash as part of 'an investigation' or handing over bank details. Police made several arrests last year over the scam. 'We strongly advise that you hang up,' he says. 'From time-to-time, Police officers may contact you as part of their genuine duties. 'It can be a bit surprising to receive a call unexpectantly, so stop and think if you get a far-fetched story shared down the telephone line.' In the past week, Police have received reports from Kiwis on both islands, including: Warkworth, Riverhead, Royal Oak, Ngaruawahia and in the Clutha and Queenstown-Lakes districts. 'Fortunately, at this stage we are not aware of any victims losing money,' acting Detective Senior Sergeant Bergin says. 'Those recipients have done the right thing and ended the call and reported it to the real Police.' If you have received a similar call, please report this to Police online now or call 105. Important advice from New Zealand Police: - Police will never ask for your bank details, pin numbers or banking log in - Police do not offer prize money - Police will never ask you to go to a bank and withdraw your own cash - Stop and think: If the call seems off, hang up and call 105 to verify the officer's identity, or request a callback
