Peaceful Demonstration Outside Wet Pets Pet Centre In Palmerston North
Sandra Kyle - Latest News [Page 1]
The purpose of the protest is to call for a thorough investigation of Wet Pets, to raise awareness about the cold underbelly of the pet shop industry, and to spread the message 'Adopt, Don't Shop'. More >>
Animals Going To Slaughter Reduce Activists To Tears
Tuesday, 23 August 2022, 5:06 pm | Sandra Kyle
Around thirty animal activists converged at two AFFCO meatworks in Whanganui on Sunday 21st and Monday 22nd to 'bear witness' to animals going to slaughter. The concept of bearing witness is inspired by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who wrote: ... More >>
New Trade Deal With UK A Disaster
Wednesday, 27 October 2021, 11:39 am | Sandra Kyle
Sandra is a Whanganui-based animal rights campaigner, writer and teacher. This week I watched the news with dismay as Jacinda Ardern and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson congratulated each other on their new trade deal. In the new arrangement Aotearoa ... More >>
Waitotara Stock Truck Crash
Tuesday, 30 March 2021, 2:12 pm | Sandra Kyle
On Monday the 35-year old driver transporting cattle to slaughter was airlifted to Whanganui hospital after he lost control of his truck. The man was subsequently discharged, but many of the cows aboard had to be euthanised. The state of their ... More >>
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Scoop
28 minutes ago
- Scoop
Curious, Concerned: Picton Residents Weigh In On SH1 Changes
In a small room in Picton's library, dozens of people have gathered to discuss the intricacies of truck routes, intersections, school crossings and parking spaces. They pored over stands and wall displays, showing the proposed permanent State Highway 1 route along Kent Street to the ferry terminal, instead of through central Picton. The proposed changes have already caused controversy, with one resident calling them "horrible", when they were announced on 11 June. NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi's pop-up sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday hummed with questions, fresh ideas and a bit of debate, but not from Heather Hopkins, a resident of upper Kent Street, who had popped in to see how the highway would go past her home. She was pretty happy, she said. "I'm not really affected, I just wanted more information," Hopkins said. "[I have] no concerns at all, it'll be free flowing, once everyone gets used to it." In the evening session, people were most drawn to the board showing where Kent Street met the Wairau Road/SH1 intersection, which would take ferry passengers and freight trucks from the terminals out of town under the new proposal. Lara O'Brien, who lived around the corner from Kent Street, said the intersection's new alignment would cut residents off from their own town centre during peak traffic. Drivers on SH1 south of Kent Street wanting to get into central Picton would need to make a right-hand turn onto Wairau Road towards Nelson Square. During peak ferry traffic, they would be stuck in a right-turning lane with no gaps, O'Brien said. "These people [leaving the ferry terminal] get to just go, but people going to town, when do they get to go?" O'Brien said. "You get 60 trucks coming out of the ferry terminal. This is going to be a congestion point for locals coming out of town." Another group lingered around the board showing the relocation of the Picton School crossing on Kent Street. Many of the attendees were reluctant to speak publicly about their opinions on the divisive subject. The loss of roadside parking and problems with trucks parking along the road were common complaints. A truck driver from Levin, whose cousin was a Picton-based truckie, came along to the evening session. He said NZTA did a similar consultation about a pedestrian overpass in Levin and he was sceptical that feedback would alter the proposal. A Picton resident praised NZTA for moving the crossing outside Picton School back to its original position, saying he didn't know why it was put there a few years ago. "They're just putting it back to where it was, because people don't use it." NZTA regional manager of system design Robert Osborne said the sessions were a valuable way of sharing information with Picton residents and getting their feedback. "The drop-in sessions were all well attended, with around 30 - 40 people each session and some coming to visit us a couple of times to ask further questions," Osborne said. "We received a great range of questions and comments, which will help us with our detailed design work. "We also understand... that there will likely be a wide range of opinions about them. However, this project is aimed at improving Picton's roads and making it easier for people to get around. "We look forward to continuing to hear from the community about our plans." Design plans would now be finalised and work would start next winter.
Otago Daily Times
10 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
'She's wrong': Trump contradicts spy boss on Iran nuclear programme
US President Donald Trump said on Friday (local time) that his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was wrong in suggesting there was no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Trump contested intelligence assessments relayed earlier this year by his spy chief that Tehran was not building a nuclear weapon when he spoke with reporters at an airport in Morristown, New Jersey. "She's wrong," Trump said. In March, Gabbard testified to Congress that the US intelligence community continued to believe that Tehran was not building a nuclear weapon. "The (intelligence community) continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon," she said. On Friday, Gabbard said in a post on the social media platform X that: "America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can't happen, and I agree." She said the media had taken her March testimony "out of context" and was trying to "manufacture division." The White House has said Trump will weigh involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict over the next two weeks. On Tuesday, Trump made similar comments to reporters about Gabbard's assessment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has justified a week of airstrikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets by saying Tehran was on the verge of having a warhead. Iran denies developing nuclear weapons, saying its uranium enrichment programme is only for peaceful purposes. In March, Gabbard described Iran's enriched uranium stockpile as unprecedented for a state without such weapons and said the government was watching the situation closely. She also said that Iran had started discussing nuclear weapons in public, "emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran's decision-making apparatus." A source with access to US intelligence reports told Reuters that the assessment presented by Gabbard has not changed. They said US spy services also judged that it would take up to three years for Iran to build a warhead with which it could hit a target of its choice. Some experts, however, believe it could take Iran a much shorter time to build and deliver an untested crude nuclear device, although there would be no guarantee it would work. Trump has frequently disavowed the findings of US intelligence agencies, which he and his supporters have charged - without providing proof - are part of a "deep state" cabal of US officials opposed to his presidency. Gabbard, a fierce Trump loyalist, has been among the president's backers who have aired such allegations. The Republican president repeatedly clashed with US spy agencies during his first term, including over an assessment that Moscow worked to sway the 2016 presidential vote in his favour and his acceptance of Russian President Vladimir Putin's denials.
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Rights abuses continue in North Korea: investigator
A decade after a landmark U.N. report concluded North Korea committed crimes against humanity, a U.N. official investigating rights in the isolated state says many abuses continue, exacerbated by COVID-era controls that have yet to be lifted. James Heenan, who represents the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul, said he is still surprised by the continued prevalence of executions, forced labour and reports of starvation in the authoritarian country. Later this year Heenan's team will release a follow-up report to the 2014 findings by the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which said the government had committed "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations" that constituted crimes against humanity. DPRK is North Korea's official name. While the conclusions of this year's report are still being finalised, Heenan told Reuters in an interview that the last 10 years have seen mixed results, with North Korea's government engaging more with some international institutions, but doubling down on control at home. "The post-COVID period for DPRK means a period of much greater government control over people's lives and restrictions on their freedoms," he said in the interview. North Korea's embassy in London did not answer phone calls seeking comment. The government has in the past denied abuses and accused the U.N. and foreign countries of trying to use human rights as a political weapon to attack North Korea. A Reuters investigation in 2023 found leader Kim Jong Un had spent much of the COVID pandemic building a massive string of walls and fences along the previously porous border with China, and later built fences around the capital of Pyongyang. A report this week by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said the COVID pandemic raged in North Korea for more than two years before the regime admitted in May 2022 that the virus had permeated its borders, and that the regime bungled the response in a way that violated freedoms and left most citizens to fend for themselves. On Wednesday SI Analytics, a Seoul-based satellite imagery firm, released a report noting North Korea is renovating a key prison camp near the border with China, possibly in response to international criticism, while simultaneously strengthening physical control over prisoners under the pretence of facility improvement. Heenan said his team has talked to more than 300 North Koreans who fled their country in recent years, and many expressed despair. "Sometimes we hear people saying they sort of hope a war breaks out, because that might change things," he said. A number of those interviewees will speak publicly for the first time next week as part of an effort to put a human face on the U.N. findings. "It's a rare opportunity to hear from people publicly what they want to say about what's happening in the DPRK," Heenan said. He expressed concern about funding cuts for international aid and U.N. programmes around the world, which is pressuring human rights work and threatening support for North Korean refugees. While human rights has traditionally been a politically volatile subject not only for Pyongyang but for foreign governments trying to engage with the nuclear-armed North, Heenan said the issues like prison camps need to be part of any engagement on a political settlement. "There's no point self-censoring on human rights, because... no one's fooled," he said.
