Saturday, 3 July 2021, 4:23 pm
Senior UN officials appealed on Friday for immediate and
unrestricted humanitarian access to Tigray – and for an
end to deadly attacks on aid workers - as the Security
Council held its first open meeting on the conflict in the
restive northern Ethiopian region.
Painting a grim
picture, Ramesh
Rajasingham, Acting Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator,
said that 400,000 people have “crossed the threshold
into famine” – with another 1.8 million on the brink of
following them.
Some 1.7 million people have been
displaced by fighting between Ethiopian troops and the
Tigray Defence Force, with 60,000 refugees crossing the
border into neighbouring Sudan, added Rosemary
Saturday, 3 July 2021, 4:11 pm
If the Government’s smokefree action plan does not
adequately elevate nicotine vaping as the much safer
alternative, then cigarette smuggling will become a bigger
problem at New Zealand’s border, says a leading Kiwi
Tobacco Harm Reduction advocate.
Her comments follow a
media investigation which revealed Customs is currently
seizing around 125,000 smuggled cigarettes and 155 kilograms
of loose tobacco every month.
New Zealand Customs
describes it as a lucrative market. In fact, it’s thought
to be eight times more profitable than cocaine – and one
which has attracted organised crime. Large scale,
commercial-grade cigarette smuggling operators are now well
Saturday, 3 July 2021, 4:21 pm
With the chief of the UN’s gender empowerment agency
declaring that women are still “sitting in the corridors
when men are inside at the table negotiating peace”, the
historic Generation
Equality Forum in Paris concluded on Friday with new
commitments designed to address that, and other
injustices.
Close to $40 billion was pledged in new
investments, as well as ambitious policy and programme
commitments from governments, civil society and others, to
help fuel a new global five-year action plan to accelerate
true gender parity, by 2026.
“The Generation
Equality Forum marks a positive, historic shift in power and
Saturday, 3 July 2021, 4:17 pm
Seven culinary students from the Otago / Southland region
competed for a place in the National Secondary Schools
Culinary Competition (NSSCC) Grand Final. The regional final
was held at the Otago Polytechnic.
Congratulations to
William Loe from John McGlashan College, regional winner for
Otago / Southland. Will turned up the heat in the kitchen,
having to prepare, cook and plate, two individually plated
portions of an entrée within 60 minutes. The entrée had to
contain fresh New Zealand grown broccoli as the main
component of the dish.
His winning dish, Tempura
broccolini served with pickled beetroot and broccoli stem.
Saturday, 3 July 2021, 1:04 pm
Trailblazing Kiwi ‘edutainment’ business Farm
4 Life was announced the kaitiaki or guardian of the top
2021 Te Kupeka Umaka Māori ki Araiteuru (KUMA) Māori
Business Award last night.
Farm 4 Life, an
online learning platform that delivers on-demand education
for the dairy industry and owned and founded by Māori
farming identity Tangaroa Walker, became the seventh
recipient of the Suzanne Spencer Tohu Maumahara Business
Award at the KUMA Māori Business Awards. The judges based
their decision on the impact Tangaroa was having on his
local community using his experience and farming skills to
support young people in particular, and the meteoric growth