$3.4bn AI Cloud Contract & 5GW Strategic Partnership with NVIDIA

2026 Expansion to $3.7bn ARR On Track¹

2027 Expansion to 1.2GW of AI Cloud Capacity In Build

2028+ Expansion Across North America, Europe and APAC Underway

NEW YORK, May 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) (“IREN” or “the Company”) today provided a business update and reported its financial results for the three months ended Mar 31, 2026.

Highlights

• $3.4bn AI Cloud contract with NVIDIA
  • 5-year contract for air-cooled Blackwell GPUs
  • Deploying within 60MW of existing data centers at Childress
  • Targeting ramp from early 2027
• 5GW strategic partnership with NVIDIA
  • Collaboration to support deployment of NVIDIA-aligned infrastructure and architecture across IREN’s 5GW global data center pipeline
  • As part of the partnership, IREN issued to NVIDIA a 5-year right to purchase up to 30 million shares of ordinary stock at an exercise price of $70 per share, resulting in a right to invest up to $2.1 billion, subject to certain conditions including regulatory²
• 2026 expansion to 480MW on track 
  • Horizon 1-4 on track for delivery by year-end
  • Operational capacity fully contracted
  • $3.1bn ARR under contract, targeting $3.7bn ARR by end of CY26^{1, 3}
• 2027 expansion to 1,210MW in build
  • Childress Horizons 5–6
  • Childress air-cooled capacity
  • Sweetwater 1 initial phase
• 2028+ expansion across 5GW secured power underway
  • Additional Sweetwater and Kiowa data center capacity expected to ramp from 2028
  • Acquisition of Nostrum adds 490MW in Spain and GW+ development pipeline
  • Additional development projects in Australia advancing toward connection agreement
• Strengthening AI Cloud delivery with acquisition of Mirantis
  • Strengthens how IREN’s compute is deployed, managed and operated for customers
  • Builds on IREN’s existing software, engineering and customer support capabilities 
  • Enables IREN to serve a broader range of customer requirements over time
  • Supporting delivery of NVIDIA AI Cloud contract
• Multiple GPU, data center and corporate level financing initiatives underway
  • Near term capex expected to be met through combination of existing cash ($2.6bn at Apr 30)⁴, operating cash flows, GPU financing and additional financing initiatives

Q3 FY26 Financial Results

• Results reflected continued progress in the transition from Bitcoin mining to AI Cloud
  • Total revenue decreased to $144.8m (vs. Q2 FY26 $184.7m)
  • Net income (loss) of $(247.8)m (vs. Q2 FY26 $(155.4)m)
  • Adj. EBITDA decreased to $59.5m (vs. Q2 FY26 $75.3m)⁵
• Revenues decreased $39.9m, driven by lower average Bitcoin price combined with decommissioning of mining hardware ahead of GPU installation and billing, partially offset by increase in AI Cloud revenue
• Cost of revenues decreased $25.9m, primarily driven by lower electricity cost resulting from reduced Bitcoin mining capacity
• Net income (loss) impacted by non-cash impairments of $(140.4m) primarily related to decommissioning of mining hardware and unrealized losses related to capped calls associated with convertible notes of $(23.7)m

Management Commentary

“The world is structurally short compute, and the bottleneck is delivered data center and GPU capacity,” said Daniel Roberts, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of IREN. “That plays directly into IREN’s core strengths – securing power, developing land, building data centers and bringing compute online at scale.

This quarter reflected strong execution against that opportunity. We energized the Sweetwater 1 substation on schedule, advanced the Horizon 1-4 liquid-cooled data centers at Childress in support of our $9.7bn contract with Microsoft, and continued transitioning existing data centers from ASICs to GPUs for higher-value AI Cloud workloads. We also signed a 5-year, $3.4bn AI Cloud contract with NVIDIA and entered into a broader strategic partnership that further validates IREN’s key role in the AI infrastructure ecosystem.

The acquisitions of Nostrum and Mirantis will strengthen our platform, adding European sites and teams, together with software, orchestration and support capabilities that will broaden customer access over time as we scale across our global 5GW secured power portfolio.”

Q3 FY26 Results Webcast & Conference Call
IREN will host its Q3 FY26 results webcast and conference call at the following time:

The webcast will be recorded, and the replay will be accessible shortly after the event at https://iren.com/investor/events-and-presentations

About IREN

IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud provider, delivering large-scale data centers and GPU clusters for AI training and inference. IREN’s platform is underpinned by its expansive portfolio of grid-connected land and power in renewable-rich regions across North America, Europe and APAC.

Contacts

Investors
ir@iren.com

Media
media@iren.com

Assumptions and Notes

1. ARR of $3.7bn represents expected $1.9bn average annual revenue under Microsoft contract plus estimated $1.8bn ARR from ~74k GPU deployment at British Columbia and Childress sites, based on internal company assumptions regarding GPU models, utilization and pricing. It is not fully contracted, there can be no assurance that it will be achieved, and actual revenue may differ materially. Assumes on time delivery and commissioning of GPUs.
2. The investment will be made pursuant to a Securities Purchase Agreement pursuant to which IREN has agreed to sell investment rights to NVIDIA to purchase an aggregate of 30,000,000 ordinary shares in IREN, subject to certain adjustments in accordance with the terms of the investment rights, in a private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $2.1bn (if fully exercised and subject to any regulatory limitations).
3. ARR under contract of $3.1bn represents expected $1.9bn average annual revenue under Microsoft contract, expected $0.7bn average annual revenue under NVIDIA contract, plus $0.5bn ARR under contract from GPU deployments at Prince George. ARR under contract includes amounts that are not yet revenue-generating until the relevant GPUs are delivered, commissioned, and in service. There can be no assurance that contracted GPUs will result in such hours or pricing, and actual revenue may vary materially.
4. Reflects USD equivalent, unaudited preliminary cash and cash equivalents as of April 30, 2026.
5. Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures. Refer to page 12 for a reconciliation to the nearest comparable GAAP financial measure.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (“Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (“Exchange Act”), that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations, including descriptions of our business plan and strategies and trends we expect to affect our business. These statements often include words such as “anticipate,” “expect,” “suggest,” “plan,” “believe,” “intend,” “estimate,” “target,” “project,” “should,” “potential,” “could,” “would,” “may,” “will,” “forecast,” and other similar expressions Forward-looking statements may also be made, verbally or in writing, by members of our Board or management team. Such statements are subject to the same limitations, uncertainties, assumptions and disclaimers set out in this press release.

We base these forward-looking statements or projections on our current expectations, plans and assumptions that we have made in light of our experience in the industry, as well as our perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors we believe are appropriate under the circumstances and at such time. The forward-looking statements are subject to and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions at the time they are made, you should be aware that many factors could affect our actual financial results or results of operations, and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that may materially affect such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: our ability to obtain additional capital on commercially reasonable terms and in a timely manner to meet our capital needs and facilitate our expansion plans; the amount and terms of any future financing or grant of security, or any refinancing, restructuring or modification to the terms of any existing or future financing or grant of security, which could require us to comply with onerous covenants, restrictions or guarantees, and our ability to service our debt obligations; our ability to successfully execute on our growth strategies and operating plans, including our ability to continue to develop our existing data center sites, design and deploy direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems, provide software, and operate and expand our high-performance computing (“HPC”) business (including our AI Cloud Services business and, potentially, colocation services such as powered shell, build-to-suit and turnkey data centers (“Colocation Services”) (collectively “HPC and AI services”)); our limited experience with respect to new markets and geographies we have entered or may seek to enter, including the market for HPC and AI services, the expansion of our capabilities to include software offerings, and our expansion into new geographies for data centers such as Australia and Europe; our ability to remain competitive in dynamic and rapidly evolving industries; expectations with respect to the useful life and obsolescence of hardware (including GPUs, hardware for Bitcoin mining and any current or future HPC and AI services we offer) and the related impairment charges we may incur upon retirement thereof, which could be material; ability to, and costs associated with, re-purpose data centers historically used for Bitcoin mining for use in any current or future HPC and AI services, along with the related impairment charges we may incur upon retirement of existing Bitcoin mining hardware, which could be material; delays, increases in costs or reductions in the supply of equipment used in our operations including as a result of tariffs and duties, and certain equipment (including GPUs and any other hardware for any current or future HPC and AI services we offer) being in high demand due to global supply chain constraints, and our ability to secure additional hardware (including GPUs and any other hardware for any current or future HPC and AI services we offer), on commercially reasonable terms or at all; expectations with respect to the profitability, viability, operability, security, popularity and public perceptions of any current and future HPC and AI services we offer, including GPU rental rates; our ability to secure and retain customers on commercially reasonable terms or at all, particularly as it relates to our strategy to expand our AI Cloud Services business and potentially diversify into markets for other HPC and AI services; our ability to establish and maintain a customer base for our HPC and AI services business and customer concentration; our ability to manage counterparty risk (including credit risk) associated with any current or future customers, including customers of our HPC and AI services and other counterparties; the risk that any current or future customers, including customers of our HPC and AI services or other counterparties, may terminate, default on or underperform their contractual obligations; our ability to perform under, and observe our obligations pursuant to, service level agreements and other contractual obligations with counterparties, including customers of our HPC and AI services; changing political and geopolitical conditions, including changing international trade policies and the implementation of wide-ranging, reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs, surtaxes and other similar import or export duties, or trade restrictions; Bitcoin price, Bitcoin global hashrate and foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; expectations with respect to the ongoing profitability, viability, operability, security, popularity and public perceptions of the Bitcoin network; our ability to secure renewable energy, renewable energy certificates, power capacity, timely grid connections, facilities and sites on commercially reasonable terms or at all; delays and costs associated with, or failure to obtain or complete, permitting approvals, grid connections and other development activities customary for greenfield or brownfield infrastructure projects in various jurisdictions, including as a result of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s (“ERCOT”) announced amendments to the approval process for large load interconnection requests; our reliance on power, network and utilities providers, third party mining pools, exchanges, banks, insurance providers and our ability to maintain relationships with such parties; expectations regarding availability and pricing of electricity; our participation and ability to successfully participate in demand response products and services and other load management programs run, operated or offered by electricity network operators, regulators or electricity market operators; the availability, reliability and/or cost of electricity supply, hardware and electrical and data center infrastructure, including with respect to any electricity outages and any laws and regulations that may restrict the electricity supply available to us; any variance between the actual operating performance of our miner hardware achieved compared to the nameplate performance including hashrate; electricity market risks relating to changes in laws, regulations and requirements of market operators, network operators and/or regulatory bodies in the jurisdictions in which we operate, including with respect to interconnection of facilities of large electrical loads to the ERCOT grid (for example, via a process that may batch multiple large load interconnection requests), grid stability, voltage ride-through, frequency ride-through and curtailment obligations; heightened complexity and additional constraints in energy markets, including international energy markets with which we are less familiar, including load ramp requirements by utilities or grid operators which may not align with our planned data center development and commissioning timelines; our ability to curtail our electricity consumption and/or monetize electricity depending on market conditions, including changes in Bitcoin mining economics and prevailing electricity prices; actions undertaken or inaction by electricity network and market operators, regulators, governments or communities in the regions in which we operate, including such actions that could result in the estimated power availability at secured sites being materially less than initially expected, available too late, delayed, conditioned upon technical or operational requirements or not available in each case whether at sustainable cost or at all; our ability to secure connection agreements to access power sources and permits or to maintain in good standing the operating and other permits, approvals and/or licenses required for our operations, construction activities and business which could be delayed by regulatory approval processes, may not be successful or may be cost prohibitive; the availability, suitability, reliability and cost of internet connections at our facilities; the pending acquisitions of Mirantis, Inc. (“Mirantis”) and of the Ingenostrum, S.L. (trading as Nostrum Group) (“Nostrum Group”), as well as any other pending or future acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures or other strategic transactions, including our ability to obtain the requisite regulatory approvals, satisfy the applicable closing conditions and to consummate any such transactions on terms favorable to the Group or at all, as well as to successfully integrate and achieve the anticipated benefits of any such acquisition that may be completed; unanticipated costs or liabilities associated with the pending acquisition of Mirantis or Nostrum Group, or any other pending or future acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures or other strategic transactions, and any failure to comply with laws, rules, regulations or business practices that we may become subject to as a result of any expansion of our business in connection with the pending acquisition of Mirantis or Nostrum Group or any other such acquisition, joint venture or other strategic transaction; our ability to operate in an evolving regulatory environment; our ability to successfully operate and maintain our property and infrastructure; reliability and performance of our infrastructure compared to expectations; malicious attacks on our property, infrastructure or IT systems; our ability to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights and confidential information; any intellectual property infringement and product liability claims; whether the secular trends we expect to drive growth in our business materialize to the degree we expect them to, or at all; any pending or future acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures or other strategic transactions, including our ability to consummate any such transactions on terms favorable to the Group or at all; the occurrence of any environmental, health and safety incidents at our sites, and any material costs relating to environmental, health and safety requirements or liabilities; damage to our property and infrastructure and the risk that any insurance we maintain may not fully cover all potential exposures; settlement and termination of proceedings relating to the default under certain equipment financing facilities, ongoing securities litigation, and any future litigation, claims and/or regulatory investigations, and the costs, expenses, use of resources, diversion of management time and efforts, liability and damages that may result therefrom; our failure to comply with any laws including the anti-corruption and sanctions laws, rules and regulations of the United States and various international jurisdictions; any failure of our compliance and risk management methods; any laws, regulations and ethical standards that may relate to our business, including those that relate to data centers, HPC and AI services, Bitcoin and the Bitcoin mining industry and those that relate to any other services we offer, including laws and regulations related to data privacy, cybersecurity and the storage, use or processing of information and consumer laws; our ability to attract, motivate and retain senior management and qualified employees; increased risks to our global operations including, but not limited to, political instability, outbreak of war, acts of terrorism, theft and vandalism, cyberattacks and other cybersecurity incidents and unexpected regulatory and economic sanctions changes, among other things; climate change, severe weather conditions and natural and man-made disasters that may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations; public health crises, including an outbreak of an infectious disease and any governmental or industry measures taken in response; damage to our brand and reputation; evolving stakeholder expectations and requirements relating to environmental, social or governance (“ESG”) issues or reporting, including actual or perceived failure to comply with such expectations and requirements; volatility with respect to the market price of our ordinary shares (“Ordinary shares”); that we do not currently pay any cash dividends on our Ordinary shares, and may not in the foreseeable future and, accordingly, your ability to achieve a return on your investment in our Ordinary shares will depend on appreciation, if any, in the price of our Ordinary shares; and other important factors discussed under “Part 1. Item 1.A. Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2025 and “Part II. Item 1A. Risk Factors” in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2025, as such factors may be updated from time to time in our other filings with the SEC, accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov and the Investor Relations section of IREN’s website at https:// investors.iren.com.

The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive and does not necessarily include all of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any of our forward-looking statements.

These and other important factors could cause actual results to differ materially by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Any forward-looking statement that IREN makes in this press release speaks only as of the date of such statement. Except as required by law, IREN disclaims any obligation to update or revise, or to publicly announce any update or revision to, any of the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This press release refers to certain measures that are not recognized under GAAP and do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP. IREN uses non-GAAP measures including “Adjusted EBITDA” and “Adjusted EBITDA margin” (each as defined below) as additional information to complement GAAP measures by providing further understanding of the Company’s operations from management’s perspective.

Adjusted EBITDA is defined as net income (loss), excluding income tax (expense) benefit, finance expense, interest income and depreciation and amortization, stock based compensation, foreign exchange gain (loss), impairment of assets, certain other non-recurring income, gain (loss) on disposal of property, plant and equipment, unrealized fair value gain (loss) on financial instruments, debt conversion inducement expense, gain (loss) on partial extinguishment of financial liabilities, increase (decrease) in fair value of assets held for sale and certain other expense items. “Adjusted EBITDA margin” is defined as Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue.

Beginning in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026, the Company has changed its definition of Adjusted EBITDA to exclude debt conversion inducement expense. This is a change from the presentation of Adjusted EBITDA in prior periods, and these adjustments did not have any impact on the calculation of Adjusted EBITDA in prior periods.

The reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are shown in the Appendix hereto.

Consolidated Balance Sheet

Consolidated Statement of Operations

Consolidated Statement of Cashflows

Non-GAAP Metric Reconciliation

– Published by The MIL Network

Explainer – You’re reading this in English right now – but should English be an official language? Parliament is soon set to decide.

A long-running debate on the status of the most commonly spoken language in New Zealand is nearing its climax in Parliament, as the English Language Act works its way through the House.

During a fiery debate in Parliament back in February at the first reading, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters made his case for the bill while many opposition MPs firmly denounced it.

Peters called it a “common sense idea” and has said it fills an anomaly where Māori and English Sign Language are already both codified as official languages in New Zealand, but English is not specifically.

Others disagree. “Language is being used as a political football here,” said Dr Sharon Harvey, an associate professor specialising in applied linguistics at Auckland University of Technology.

The bill is currently before select committee with a report due to be presented on 3 September. The next step is a second reading of the bill and it’s likely it would come to a final vote before November’s election.

But what would the bill actually do? Here’s what you need to know.

What does the bill say?

Bills are often pretty darned long, but this one can actually be summed up right here – it’s only five lines.

It calls for Parliament to enact the English Language Act 2025, and says, “The purpose of this Act is to provide legislative recognition of the status of English as an official language of New Zealand” and that the Act would bind the Crown.

That’s it.

What would the bill actually do?

“The bill is so short because it doesn’t actually have any legal effect that needs spelt out in detail,” University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis said. “It will have literally no practical consequences at all.

“That isn’t an exaggeration – it will change absolutely no aspect of Aotearoa New Zealand’s current legal rules, practices or procedures. It’s the linguistic equivalent of passing an Act of Parliament that says: ‘The official colour of the New Zealand Rugby Team’s home jersey is black.’”

The bill doesn’t lay out any instructions, punishments or restrictions on other languages. It would add English as an official language alongside Te Reo Māori – which was designated in the Māori Language Act in 1987 – and English Sign Language, designated in the New Zealand Sign Language Act of 2006.

“While the bill is pretty slim in terms of its content it does serve symbolically at least to cast in legislation the pre-eminence of the already dominant and majoritarian language of NZ: English,” Harvey said.

Legislatively, it would not affect Māori and ESL, Geddis said, as they have “separately guaranteed (but limited) rights to use those languages”.

“Legislative language recognition was hard won for both Māori and the deaf community and so the English Language Bill also minimises the historical and contemporaneous importance of those difficult and long language struggles,” Harvey said.

As written, the bill wouldn’t even affect, for instance, signs that include Chinese language at some popular tourist spots, Geddis said.

“That legislative recognition does not add anything to English’s existing legal role and usage. You can use English for any official, public business now. If this bill passes, you will continue to be able to do so. Nothing will have changed.”

Watch: Winston Peters introduces the English Language Act.

[embedded content]

If nothing will change, why was this bill introduced?

Making English an official language was part of the coalition agreement between National, NZ First and ACT back in 2023.

Former NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell put forth a similar member’s bill in 2018 but it was never drawn from the ballot.

New Zealand First has pushed for such recognition for some time.

Did you know that English is not an official language? Well, we’re changing that by delivering on a key campaign promise – we are making English an official language of New Zealand. We will continue to fight for common sense ideas and work in the interests of all New Zealanders. pic.twitter.com/ki3dDh8tDI

— New Zealand First (@nzfirst) December 14, 2023

In introducing the current bill, Peters said that it’s correcting an “anomaly” that English is not included with the other two official languages.

“It has never been formally recognised in statute as an official language. This bill seeks to correct that anomaly, providing consistency in legal framework and clarifying the status of all three official languages in legislation.

“The bill does not diminish the status of other official languages, te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, but rather complements them, acknowledging the linguistic reality of our nation.”

Peters said the bill is “affirming the value of English as a shared means of communication used by the mass majority of the population – I’ll say it again quietly: used by the mass majority of the population.”

Although his name is actually on the bill as the MP in charge, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith previously told RNZ that it wasn’t a top priority for National and did not speak at the first reading.

“It wouldn’t be the top priority for us, absolutely not. But it’s something in the coalition and it’s getting done.”

Peters has said that the rise in te reo Māori has “has created situations that encourage misunderstanding and confusion for all, and all for the purpose to push a narrative”.

“We have some very real situations now where communications and names of important services are using te reo as primary names and language, and the room for confusion and miscommunication is huge.”

He cited the possibility of confusion where places have had primary names in Māori.

“First responders, on their vehicles and in communications, being unable to get to places because they don’t know where they’re going; transport services with important road signs – they have all announced that.”

Harvey disagreed, saying the dynamic of Māori and English is what makes New Zealand special.

“Te reo Māori only exists in ANZ and so if it does not survive and flourish here it will not survive.”

“Most of us would recognise that Te Whatu Ora means health especially if it’s heading a letter with health information or is signage on a public hospital,” she said.

“There is no ‘danger’ to English now or in the future. Apart from anything else it is the pre-eminent global language.

“It would be so much better for NZ if we could all gain high proficiency in te reo Māori (as well as English) and if schools could be proactive in supporting students’ home languages, as well as teaching a variety of languages.”

Is English language use becoming a “culture war” issue?

Well, people on both sides of the debate of the current bill have accused the other of “virtue signalling.”

In Parliament, Peters said that “This bill won’t solve the push of this virtue signalling narrative completely, but it is the first step towards ensuring logic and common sense prevails when the vast majority of New Zealanders communicate in English and understand English in a country that should use English as its primary and official language.”

“The (bill) is virtue signalling to a small, monolingual in English, sector of the voting public by NZ First,” Harvey said. “It’s a waste of public money and time and should never have been agreed to as part of the National-NZ First coalition agreement.”

Debate at the first reading was equally heated.

“The English language is not under threat,” said Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. “We are literally speaking it and debating in it right now. This is a bill which is an answer to a problem that does not exist.”

“The government wants to stoke a fight between te iwi Māori and Pākehā, and they want that fight to be the focus of this election,” she claimed.

At the debate, National MP Rima Nakhle called for calmer temperatures.

“We’re only making English official. It’s not the end of the world.”

Geddis said “the bill seems to be motivated by an odd form of linguistic jealousy – something akin to ‘it’s not fair that those languages get called official in a statute, but English doesn’t!’”

New Zealand First’s 2023 coalition agreement with National also stipulated that public service departments have their primary name in English and be required to communicate “primarily in English” except for entities specifically related to Māori. It has been seen in changes to how agencies such as the New Zealand Transport Agency or Health New Zealand are referred to.

Peters has also been vocal about the use of “Aotearoa” to refer to New Zealand by other MPs.

Other countries like Australia and the United Kingdom do not have any official laws on the books declaring English an official language, although it has de facto official status in government, courts and education.

In America, Donald Trump signed an executive order last year “designating English as an official language of the United States.” But as the decision was not passed by Congress and is an executive order, it doesn’t have the power to change existing federal laws and statutes. Around 30 US states also have proclaimed English the official language.

Will the English Language Act pass?

It’s unclear. It is part of the coalition agreement so National and ACT may be obliged to support it.

“Being that we are an English-speaking country, it is bizarre that we have to do this, but this is how far this extremism has taken our country,” Peters said in 2023 before the last election as he pledged to pass the bill that may finally be law soon.

“The bill very well may be rushed into law during the inevitable end-of-term use of urgency in the House,” Geddis said.

“Given current frosty relations between National and NZ First, there could well be some coalition partner reluctance to give NZ First time in Parliament to proceed with what really is nothing more than a form of legislative virtue signalling to its support base,” he said.

“Although National have publicly said they’re not concerned whether the bill passes or not, I think there is every chance it will pass which will be a great shame for NZ,” Harvey said.

“It’s a waste of the government’s time and considerably sets back New Zealand’s progress in righting the wrongs of our violent, colonial past.”

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

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

The white supremacist terrorist who massacred 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques will remain in prison for the rest of his life after the Court of Appeal dismissed his attempt to overturn his convictions and sentence.

Survivors and families of the victims were relieved the court declined Brenton Tarrant’s appeals, saying the decision spares them from reliving the trauma again.

During a week-long Court of Appeal hearing in February, the terrorist claimed he was “forced” to plead guilty to 92 charges following the March 2019 terror attack because he was irrational as a result of his prison conditions.

He wanted his convictions set aside and to stand trial instead.

A week after February’s hearing, the 35-year-old Australian then sought to abandon his appeal and fired his lawyer the following week.

The terrorist had to seek the court’s leave – or permission – to appeal his convictions and sentence out of time because his application was filed 505 days late.

In a unanimous decision released on Thursday, the court’s justices declined the terrorist’s application for leave and his application to abandon the appeal against his convictions.

The court granted his application to abandon the appeal against his sentence, which would have been heard at a later date.

“Mr Tarrant has failed by a considerable margin to adequately explain the extraordinarily long delay in filing his notice of appeal,” the court said.

“The facts concerning Mr Tarrant’s offending are beyond dispute. He has not identified any arguable defence, or indeed any defence known to the law. We have also rejected his claim that his guilty pleas were the product of him having an irrational state of mind induced by his prison conditions.

“Mr Tarrant’s proposed appeal is utterly devoid of merit.”

In a statement, lawyers acting for the survivors and families of victims said they were pleased by the court’s decision.

“This is a huge relief that the law has now done its job and that the families, and frankly all of us, will be spared the trauma of reliving the 15th of March all over again in a trial,” they said.

“It is a huge relief that the difficult and often unsupported journey families are on will not now be added to by the great burden of a new trial. It would have been unimaginably traumatic.

“This has not been easy. As families try to move on … and rebuild their lives seven years on, this appeal has been yet another challenge. But it is another challenge they have overcome and we acknowledge their resilience.”

Crown lawyers, including deputy solicitor-general Madeleine Laracy, met with some victims ahead of February’s hearing.

“The Crown considers it was extremely important for the victims’ sense of justice, and for wider public confidence in the appeal process, that the Court of Appeal delivered a judgment which addressed the merits of the appellant’s claims despite his attempt to abandon the appeal shortly after the five-day hearing. The judgment is thorough, and speaks for itself,” Laracy said.

Tarrant left 51 people dead or dying in little over 15 minutes after taking an arsenal of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and incendiary devices to Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on 15 March and opening fire as worshippers marked Jumu’ah – the most significant prayer of the Muslim week.

The terrorist initially pleaded not guilty in June 2019 to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder, and one of committing terrorism.

His former lawyers told the Court of Appeal in February he then wavered in late July 2019 and prepared to plead guilty before again changing his mind days later.

In March 2020, he formally pleaded guilty to all charges and was jailed for life without the possibility of parole in August 2020.

The terrorist had 20 working days to file an appeal against his convictions or sentence but the application came more than a year later in November 2022.

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

A law professor is concerned that left wing terrorism is on the rise in the United States.

On Saturday night a lone gunman opened fire at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington.

“For a long time, the left-wing terror attacks were a thing of the 1960s and 1970s,” said University of Waikato Law Professor Alexander Gillespie. “But now you’re seeing a resurgence as there is a reaction against some of the right-wing leaders.”

Other forms of terror attacks included right-wing and religious-based terror.

Current US president and Republican Donald Trump, who was rushed from the dinner along with wife Melania Trump, has survived two prior assassination attempts, both during his 2024 campaign, along with a number of other threats and security failures during his two terms as president.

Gillespie said “reaction” against right-wing leaders was a trend which was becoming dominant in the United States.

“I think the pendulum is now swinging towards left-wing, and unfortunately, the pendulum may have some way to swing yet,” Gillespie said.

Gillespie said it was very important for political leaders on all sides of the political spectrum to now condemn the violence and discourage copycat attempts.

Authorities have not yet disclosed if Saturday’s shooting was intended as a terror attack.

Who is the suspected shooter?

Law enforcement have identified the suspected shooter as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California.

According to US media Allen is a Caltech graduate who was working part-time teacher as a teacher for C2 Education ​and as a self-employed ​game developer.

Allen reportedly registered a trademark for an indie game called ‘Bohrdom’ he developed in 2018, and was developing a second game, with the working name ‘First Law’.”

According to Federal Election Commission records, in October 2024 Allen donated US$25 to ActBlue, a political action committee that raises funds for Democrats, earmarked for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

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

MIL OSI

21 April 2026 – Amnesty International calls on states to stop predatory, anti-rights order from taking hold in pivotal moment for humanity

Predatory attacks on multilateralism, international law and civil society marked 2025
The alternative on offer is a racist, patriarchal, unequal and anti-rights world order
Protesters, activists and global bodies are working to resist, disrupt and transform

The world is on the brink of a perilous new era, driven by powerful states’, corporations’ and anti-rights movements’ assaults on multilateralism, international law and human rights, Amnesty International warned today upon launching its annual report, The State of the World’s Human Rights. States, international bodies and civil society must reject the politics of appeasement and collectively resist these attacks to prevent this new order from taking hold, the organization said in its assessment of the human rights situation in 144 countries.

“We are confronting the most challenging moment of our age. Humanity is under attack from transnational anti-rights movements and predatory governments determined to assert their dominance through unlawful wars and brazen economic blackmail,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard.

“For years, Amnesty International has denounced the gradual disintegration of human rights in every part of the world, warning of the consequences of flagrant rule-breaking by governments and corporate actors. We’ve also demonstrated time and again how double standards and selective compliance with international law have weakened the multilateral system and accountability.

“What marks this moment as fundamentally different is that we’re no longer documenting erosion around the system’s edges. This is a direct assault on the foundations of human rights and the international rules-based order by the most powerful actors for the purpose of control, impunity and profit.

“The spiralling conflict in the Middle East is a product of this descent into lawlessness. Following the initial unlawful US-Israeli attacks in violation of the UN Charter, which triggered Iran’s indiscriminate retaliation, the conflict has quickly morphed into an open warfare against civilians and civilian infrastructure, exacerbating the already catastrophic suffering of people across the region. It is now engulfing countries around the world, impacting populations everywhere, and threatening the livelihood of millions. This is what happens when the norms, institutions and legal framework painstakingly built to safeguard humanity are hollowed out for the purpose of domination.”

“Amnesty’s 2025 annual report moves beyond warning of imminent breakdown to documenting a collapse now underway, and exposing its devastating consequences for human rights, global stability and the lives of millions in 2026 and beyond. It calls on states around the world to urgently reject the politics of appeasement embraced in 2025, overcome fear, and resist in words and actions the construction of a predatory world order.”

Predatory attacks are accelerating the destruction of international law

The State of the World’s Human Rights, and Amnesty International’s documentation so far this year, detail pervasive crimes under international law and mounting attacks on the international justice system, which are gravely harming the foundations that underpin human rights globally.

Israel has maintained its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, despite the October 2025 ceasefire agreement, and its system of apartheid over Palestinians, while accelerating the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and taking steps toward annexation. Israeli authorities have increasingly allowed or encouraged settlers to attack and terrorize Palestinians with impunity, and prominent officials have praised and glorified violence against Palestinians, including arbitrary arrests and the torture of detainees.

The United States of America has committed over 150 extrajudicial executions by bombing boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and carried out an act of aggression against Venezuela in January 2026. Russia has intensified its aerial attacks on critical civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, while Myanmar’s military used motorized paragliders to drop explosive munitions on villages last year, killing dozens of civilians, including children.

The United Arab Emirates has fuelled the conflict in Sudan by providing advanced Chinese weaponry to the Rapid Support Forces, who seized control of El Fasher last October after an 18-month siege of the city and committed mass civilian killings and sexual violence. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the M23 armed group, with the active support of Rwanda, captured the cities of Goma and Bukavu and unlawfully killed civilians and tortured detainees.

In early 2026, the USA and Israel’s unlawful use of force against Iran, in violation of the UN Charter, has triggered retaliatory Iranian strikes on Israel and Gulf Cooperation Council countries, while Israel has escalated its attacks on Lebanon. From the killing of over 100 children in an unlawful US strike on a school in Iran, to the devastating attacks by all parties on energy infrastructure, the conflict has endangered the lives and health of millions of civilians and threatens to inflict vast, predictable and long-term civilian and environmental harm, impacting access to energy, healthcare, food and water across an already turbulent region and beyond.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban escalated its predatory policies against the female population, with further bans prohibiting them from education, work and freedom of movement, while in Iran, the authorities massacred protesters in January 2026, in what was likely the most lethal such repression for decades.

The USA, Israel and Russia further undermined international accountability mechanisms, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in particular, last year. The Trump administration enacted sanctions against ICC staff, collaborators and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, while Russian courts issued arrest warrants against ICC officials. Several other states withdrew or announced their intention to withdraw from the Rome Statute and treaties banning cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines.

The vast majority of states have been unwilling or unable to consistently denounce predatory acts by the USA, Russia, Israel or China, or to chisel out diplomatic solutions. The European Union and most European states appeased US assaults on international law and multilateral mechanisms. They have failed to take meaningful action to stop Israel’s genocide or end the irresponsible arms and technology transfers fuelling crimes under international law around the world. They have also been unwilling to enact blocking statutes to protect the targets of US sanctions, including on ICC judges and prosecutors. Italy and Hungary declined to arrest individuals subject to ICC warrants in their territory, while France, Germany and Poland implied they would do the same.

“World leaders have been far too submissive in the face of attacks on international law and the multilateral system. Their silence and inaction are inexcusable. It is morally bankrupt and will bring nothing but retreat, defeat and the erasure of decades of hard-fought human rights gains. To appease aggressors is to pour fuel on a fire that will burn us all and scorch the future for generations to come,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Some may be tempted to dismiss the system built over the last 80 years as nothing but an illusion. This is to ignore the hard-fought achievements towards the recognition of universal rights, the adoption of multiple international conventions and national laws protecting against racial discrimination and violence against women, enshrining the rights of workers and trade unions, and recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is to forget the poverty addressed, the reproductive rights strengthened and the justice delivered when states chose to uphold the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  

“The political and economic predators, and their enablers, are declaring the multilateral system dead not because it’s inefficient but because it’s not serving their hegemony and control. The response is not to proclaim it an illusion or beyond repair, but to confront its failures, end its selective application and keep transforming it so that it’s fully capable of defending all people with equal resolve.”

Ramped-up assaults on civil society spread around the world

The proliferation of attacks on civil society and social movements deepened in 2025, with sustained efforts to silence and disempower human rights defenders, organizations and dissenters spreading to almost every part of the world.

Authorities in Nepal and Tanzania were particularly brazen in their unlawful use of lethal force to repress protests expressing political and socio-economic grievances. The governments of Afghanistan, China, Egypt, India, Kenya, the USA and Venezuela, among others, also violently repressed protests, criminalized dissent through counterterrorism and security laws, or used abusive policing tactics, enforced disappearances or extrajudicial executions.

In the United Kingdom, authorities proscribed Palestine Action, a direct-action protest network primarily targeting Israeli arms manufacturers and their subsidiaries, under overly broad counterterrorism laws and arrested more than 2,700 people for peacefully opposing the ban. The UK High Court ruled this unlawful in February 2026. The government is appealing the decision.

Turkish authorities detained hundreds of peacefully protesters after the arrest of Istanbul mayor and presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is among over 400 people facing politically motivated prosecution under alleged corruption charges.

US authorities launched an unlawful clampdown on migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, committing unnecessary and excessive use of force, racial profiling, arbitrary detention, and practices that amounted to torture and enforced disappearance. In Latin America, states such as Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela adopted or reformed legal frameworks that impose disproportionate controls on civil society organizations directly impacting their ability to operate, access resources, support communities and defend human rights.

Many governments, facilitated by corporate actors, used spyware and digital censorship to restrict freedom of expression and the right to information. US authorities used AI-powered surveillance tools to target foreign students expressing solidarity with Palestinians with arrest and deportation. Serbia’s government used spyware and digital forensics tools against student protesters, civil society and journalists. Kenyan authorities systematically deployed technology-facilitated repression tactics, including online intimidation, threats, incitement to hatred and unlawful surveillance, to suppress youth-led protests.

The USA, Canada, France, Germany and the UK, among others, announced or enacted sweeping cuts to international aid budgets, despite knowing they would likely result in millions of avoidable deaths, and in several cases while committing to massive parallel hikes in military expenditure. This has had a catastrophic impact on NGOs’ efforts to advance press freedom, climate resilience, and gender justice, to protect refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, and to provide healthcare and sexual and reproductive rights.

Many states continued to resist reining in the aggressive tax avoidance and evasion by billionaires and corporate giants while weakening further restraints on corporate power. In the USA, strategic lawsuits against public participation had a chilling effect on civil society, with one such lawsuit resulting in a court ordering Greenpeace to pay a fossil fuel company $345 million (reduced from an initial $660 million).

In a context dominated by the US president describing climate change as a “scam”, governments did nowhere near enough to address climate displacement, equitably transition away from fossil fuels, or adequately ramp up finance for climate action – even as the UN Environment Programme warned that the world is on track to reach 3°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

“What alternative do the bullies and predators offer to the imperfect global experiment they’re so intent on destroying? The world order they propose is one that mocks and discards racial, gender and climate justice, treats civil society as an enemy, and rejects international solidarity. It is built on silencing dissent, weaponizing the law and dehumanizing those deemed ‘others’. Their vision of the world is predicated not on respect for our common humanity, but on military force, trade domination and technological hegemony. It is, ultimately, a vision with no moral compass,” said Agnès Callamard.

Protesters, civil society and international bodies lead efforts to resist, disrupt and transform

Undeterred by adversity, millions around the world are resisting injustice and authoritarian practices.

Gen Z protests swept over a dozen countries in 2025, including Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Nepal and Peru, and around 300,000 people defied Hungary’s ban on Budapest Pride to defend LGBTI rights. Throughout early 2026, demonstrators from Los Angeles to Minneapolis have organized street by street and block by block against violent and highly militarized US immigration enforcement raids.

Mass demonstrations against Israel’s genocide spread around the world last year and humanitarians from over 40 countries launched flotillas to show solidarity with Palestinians. Global activism against the flow of arms to Israel expanded, with dockworkers in France, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Spain and Sweden seeking to disrupt arms shipment routes. Activism and legal pressure also led several states to restrict or ban arms exports to Israel.

While many governments appeased attacks on international justice, several states and bodies bucked this trend by demonstrating their commitment to multilateralism and rule of law. A growing number acknowledged that Israel was committing genocide and several states joined the Hague Group, a collective committed to holding Israel accountable for violations of international law, and contributed to South Africa’s case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Philippines handed former president Rodrigo Duterte over to the ICC to face charges of the crime against humanity of murder, and the court issued warrants against two Taliban leaders for gender-based persecution. The Council of Europe and Ukraine agreed to establish the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, and a hybrid court in the Central African Republic convicted six former members of an armed group for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The UN Human Rights Council established an independent investigative mechanism for Afghanistan and a fact-finding mission and Commission of Inquiry on Eastern DRC, and expanded the mandate of its fact-finding mission on Iran. Significant progress was made toward a binding UN tax convention and a Crimes Against Humanity Convention, and the ICJ and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued landmark advisory opinions affirming state human rights obligations to respond to climate damage.

More states have started speaking out against authoritarian practices and attacks on the rules-based order in 2026, with the Spanish government notably taking principled stands, but such calls must be backed up with decisive and sustained action.

“From city streets to multilateral forums, 2025 brought powerful displays of resistance and solidarity from protesters, diplomats, political leaders and many others around the world. We must build on their example and courage and forge bold coalitions to reimagine, rebuild and re-centre the global order around human rights, the rule of law and universal values,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Let 2026 be the year we assert our agency and demonstrate that history is not merely something imposed upon us; it is ours to make. And for the sake of humanity, the time to make history is now.”

MIL OSI

New Zealand’s top spies will be weighing cutting the US out of some intelligence it shares with other Five Eyes partners, a former CIA head of counterintelligence has told RNZ.

Susan Miller had a long career in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including as its head of counterintelligence. She worked under the first Trump administration, but has since retired from the agency and seen her security clearance cut off by Trump in retribution for leading a probe into the Russian influence campaign during the 2016 US Presidential election.

Miller spoke with RNZ for a new podcast, The Agency, which has just been released in partnership with Bird of Paradise Productions. The podcast examines New Zealand’s close links with the CIA through the story of a Kiwi spy who spent six years in cover for the US agency.

Miller, who described New Zealand’s intelligence community as “righteous”, said she was certain they would be weighing how much could be shared with the US under Trump.

“I’m not going to be in that room when the Five Eyes, minus America, probably sit down and say, what do we do? Do we share Russia with him? Do we? Do we even claim that we’re allies anymore when he’s doing this? What do we do? And that’s what I think is probably going on.”

It was likely they would conclude: “We can’t share everything with this guy,” she said.

“I can’t trust him, and maybe they can on some China things and things like that, but when he’s acting like this … I would think that your leadership right now would be, at a minimum, thinking to themselves, wait a minute. I might not want to share this Russian information with this ambassador here, because he’s a Trump appointee.”

Late last year the UK stopped sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it was concerned about getting bound up in potentially illegal military strikes on the boats.

Miller said she was saddened that the intelligence sharing relationship had to be curtailed but cautioned against backing out of the Five Eyes arrangement completely.

“We’re always very focused on our relationship with Five Eyes and our joint things that we do on hard targets, whether it’s terrorism or China or, you know, name something else that comes up in the day … It’s super important that we have this and I would ask them to stay as long as they can and do what they are doing, keep that door open. Don’t completely break off from us.”

During her time with the CIA, Miller said she met with then-Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern as well as senior counterparts here to discuss China.

“Your team there, it’s a very small group that works in your intelligence service. They are righteous. I mean, these guys are super smart,” Miller said.

Listen now to all six episodes of The Agency, via Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

In the podcast, the minister formerly in charge of New Zealand’s intelligence agencies, Andrew Little, agreed the agencies were likely to be thinking about “current conditions”.

“I think given their obligations under the New Zealand legislation – which is they’ve got to act independently, and they have to think carefully about their own legal and human rights obligations before sharing intelligence – I’d be surprised if they weren’t actively considering how they share intelligence and the current conditions.”

The “general sentiment and moves which undermine democracy” were “a cause for worry”, Little said.

“But I’m equally confident that the Five Eyes relationship will endure through that and without agencies like ours, and indeed, the other partners, compromising their principles, their requirement to respect democracy and freedom of expression and all those sorts of things. I think the Five Eyes arrangement will survive.”

A spokesman for the SIS said: “Whilst the global environment continues to be dynamic, the Five Eyes intelligence sharing partnership continues to function largely as it always has, and our relationships with our Five Eyes counterparts remains strong and enduring, regardless of political change within partner administrations.”

The Five Eyes was a “valued partnership”, with significant benefits to New Zealand.

“There are robust policies and processes in place to ensure that any cooperation New Zealand does with its Five Eyes partners, including the US, is consistent with New Zealand’s policy and legal framework, including human rights obligations.”

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

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

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has just written to Foreign Minister Winston Peters, urging him to put Palestine front and centre in his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington this week.

“The escalating international crisis, which all stems from resistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, must be reined in, and pressure from New Zealand should be part of this” says PSNA Co-Chair Maher Nazzal.

“The US will want to recruit New Zealand into the US and Israel war on Iran, and try to get Peters to offer something crazy, like dispatching the New Zealand frigates Te Kaha and Te Mana to help force the Straits of Hormuz.”

‘But the open wound of Palestine remains the single greatest threat to peace and stability across the entire world.”

“We are urging Peters to press the US to demand equal rights for everyone living ‘between the river and the sea’”, says Nazzal.

“This means confronting the apartheid state of Israel head-on. The world can no longer tolerate a genocidal and racist state in West Asia, which is armed to the teeth by the US and hell-bent on attacking its neighbours to capture territory.”

“Israel continues to stoke the flames of hatred and eternal war by last week passing legislation to execute Palestinians convicted of what Israel calls ‘terrorism’.”

“This racist apartheid law does not apply to Jewish Israeli settlers who are killing Palestinians daily.  It exclusively applies in the Military Courts, which are only used to try Palestinians.  They have a conviction rate of over 96 percent.”

“Racist Israeli ministers and Knesset members celebrated the inflammatory racist law with champagne. There was barely a peep from Peters.”

“New Zealand has played an important role in helping resolve international conflicts in the past – we can be part of the solution now.”

Maher Nazzal
Co-Chair PSNA

MIL OSI

New Zealand has joined Australia, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom in expressing “deep concern” about an Israeli bill expanding the death penalty for Palestinians.

Winston Peters posted on social media on Wednesday night, indicating New Zealand had joined the other nations, and emphasising the country’s opposition “for decades” to the death penalty “in all circumstances”.

It comes as the Green Party tried on Wednesday to move a motion in Parliament on the issue, but failed to get the support of all parties.

The ACT party told RNZ it did not support the motion being put without notice, and noted the Minister of Foreign Affairs was responsible for expressing New Zealand’s position on international issues.

Earlier this week, the Israeli parliament finalised a controversial bill that would effectively expand the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism and nationalistic murders.

The bill stipulated that residents in the West Bank who killed an Israeli “with the intent to negate the existence of the State of Israel” would be sentenced to death.

The Foreign Ministers of Australia, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom released a joint statementexpressing their “deep concern” about the bill, saying it would “significantly expand the possibilities to impose the death penalty in Israel”.

“We are particularly worried about the de facto discriminatory character of the bill. The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles.

“The death penalty is an inhumane and degrading form of punishment without any deterring effect. This is why we oppose the death penalty, whatever the circumstances around the world. The rejection of the death penalty is a fundamental value that unites us.”

The statement also urged the Israeli decision makers to “abandon these plans”.

The Green party wanted to highlight the issue in parliament, and sought support from across the House to move a motion without notice.

Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick told reporters on Wednesday afternoon convention stipulated motions without notice needed prior agreement from all parties.

“This stops spurious motions going up and clogging the time of our parliament.”

The motion read that the “New Zealand House of Representatives expresses deep concern about Israel’s new legislation which extends the use of the death penalty against Palestinians living under unlawful occupation; shares the concerns of Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy about the “de facto discriminatory character’ of the legislation; and calls on the Israeli Government to reverse this legislation”.

Labour and Te Pāti Māori both told RNZ they supported the motion.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said his party would firmly support a motion in the House to condemn Israel’s use of the death penalty against Palestianians.

“It clearly discriminates against Palestinians – a point underscored by the fact that the law does not apply to Israeli extremists who commit similar crimes. There are major issues with the process including that it removes the right to an appeal. By condemning Israel, we would stand alongside the United Nations, EU and the UK.”

Te Pāti Māori told RNZ it supported the motion, and queried why other parties had not.

“This law further embeds discrimination into Israel’s justice system by allowing Palestinians to be sentenced to death while others are not subject to the same punishment for similar acts,” a spokesperson for the party said.

“It sits within the context of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, and the backdrop of Israel and the United States’ illegal invasion of Iran and Lebanon.”

National and New Zealand First did not respond to queries but the ACT party told RNZ it did not support the motion being put without notice.

A spokesperson for the party said it noted the Minister of Foreign Affairs was responsible for expressing New Zealand’s position on international issues, and “ACT supports that approach over symbolic motions in the House”.

“If the House passed a motion every time a country passed a law of concern, we would spend more time talking about other countries’ legislation than our own.

“All MPs have the right to put a motion on notice under Standing Orders.”

In response, Swarbrick said it was “deeply disappointing” and acknowledged the point was “symbolism”.

“I can point to many different examples when the ACT Party, for example, has put forward very similar motions, evidently for the very purpose of that same symbolism, which in turn means something on the international stage.

“It felt particularly pertinent for our country to take a stand against the perpetuation of abuse of human rights with the Israeli parliament passing the ability to effectively murder, to slaughter Palestinian hostages and prisoners.”

She said a motion on notice did not have the status of being read out in Parliament and having the backing of every single parliamentary party.

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

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

The coronial inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks has been paused because of other court action.

Deputy Chief Coroner Brigitte Windley last week adjourned the second-phase inquiry, which is examining how white supremacist terrorist Brenton Tarrant came to obtain the guns used in the March 2019 massacres at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre.

“I emphasise that I do not take this step lightly; I am acutely conscious of the impact of further delays both on Interested Parties and in optimising the preventative potential of this Inquiry,” her decision said.

“At the same time, the circumstances demand that I make every effort to ensure the integrity of the criminal appeal proceedings is not undermined by the work of this Inquiry. I continue to be committed to ensuring the timely progression of the Inquiry and will revisit this decision once the [judicial review] appeal has been determined.”

Windley had sought to call Brenton Tarrant as a witness in the second-phase inquest into the deaths of the 51 people killed 15 March 2019 terror attack.

However, some victims’ families were fighting that decision – first unsuccessfully to the High Court and now in the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal was now weighing that appeal as well as a separate appeal by the terrorist against his convictions and sentence.

The 35-year-old Australian terrorist was serving a life sentence without parole but now wanted the Court of Appeal to overturn his convictions and sentence.

The terrorist claimed he was “forced” to plead guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism because he was irrational as a result of torturous and inhumane prison conditions.

Coroner Windley said the second-phase inquiry might create a risk of prejudice to the terrorist.

“Having regard to the risk of prejudice to Mr Tarrant and other jurisdictional challenges raised in the JR appeal in my view the interests of justice require, at least for now, the adjournment of the Second Phase of the Inquiry and inquest,” the coroner’s decision said.

The Court of Appeal heard submissions about the possibility of judicial review earlier this month.

Survivors and victims’ families made their objections to the terrorist being called as a witness heard throughout the second-phase inquest and sought judicial review at the High Court following the coroner’s ultimate decision to call him to face cross-examination.

Justice Jonathan Eaton dismissed the application in October.

Some of the victims’ families then appealed that decision to the Court of Appeal.

The notice of appeal claimed Justice Eaton had made several mistakes in dismissing the application for judicial review.

“The High Court erred in finding community abhorrence and the second respondent’s convictions were not proper considerations for a coroner when determining whether to call him as a witness for cross-examination at an inquest into the deaths of 51 people in relation to the 15 March 2019 Christchurch Masjidain Attack,” the notice said.

The victims’ families were appealing Justice Eaton’s entire decision.

The Court of Appeal heard the terrorist was a witness “like no other” and should not be allowed to give oral evidence at an inquest into his victims’ deaths.

Last month the court also heard the terrorist’s attempt to overturn his sentence and conviction.

The white supremacist left 51 people dead or dying in little over 15 minutes after taking an arsenal of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and incendiary devices to the mosques as worshippers marked Jumu’ah – the most significant prayer of the Muslim week – and opening fire.

The terrorist initially pleaded not guilty in June 2019 to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of committing terrorism.

The Court of Appeal heard he wavered in late July 2019 and prepared to plead guilty before again changing his mind only days later.

In March 2020 he formally pleaded guilty to all charges and was jailed for life without the possibility of parole in August 2020.

The terrorist had 20 working days to file an appeal against his conviction or sentence but the “out of time” application came years later.

The Court of Appeal was now considering if it would allow the terrorist’s appeal to proceed.

Both decisions have been reserved by the Court of Appeal.

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

By Aaron Blake, CNN

Analysis – Top Trump administration officials testified publicly on Thursday (NZT) for the first time since the launch of the Iran war three weeks ago.

Officials including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where they were pressed on the administration’s often-confusing and contradictory claims about the Iran war and the underlying intelligence.

The testimony came a day after the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, became the highest-profile Trump administration official to resign over the war. Kent did so while suggesting the administration had lied about Iran posing an imminent threat.

Here’s what to know from Wednesday’s hearing:

Intel officials contradicted or failed to back up Trump’s biggest claims about the war

The biggest question going into the hearing was what these officials would say about the Trump administration’s many dubious claims about the Iran war. These officials see the intelligence after all, and they were testifying under penalty of perjury.

Wednesday (local time), they repeatedly either contradicted Trump and the administration’s claims or failed to back them up.

On Iran’s nuclear program, Trump has stated that Iran had “attempted to rebuild their nuclear program” after his June strikes on that program, and he said in his State of the Union address last month that they were “starting it all over.”

White House adviser Steve Witkoff went further, saying Iran was “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.” And the White House has cited an “imminent nuclear threat” posed by Iran.

But Gabbard in her prepared opening statement told a far different tale.

“As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer (in June), Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated,” she said. “There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.”

Gabbard notably did not read this portion of her opening statement. When pressed on why, she said it was because her “time was running long.”

When asked by Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia whether that remained the assessment of the intelligence community, she said, “Yes.”

Also in his State of the Union address, Trump claimed Iran was building intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that would “soon reach the United States of America.”

But that’s not what US intelligence has said. And Gabbard in her prepared statement reiterated a previous assessment that Iran “could use” existing technology “to begin to develop a militarily viable ICBM before 2035 should Tehran attempt to pursue that capability.” Gabbard said that assessment would be updated in light of the current war.

When Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton of Arkansas cited other analysts’ estimates that Iran could have had an ICBM “to threaten the United States in as few as six months,” Ratcliffe declined to put a date range on it.

Ratcliffe instead said Cotton was right to be concerned, and that “if left unimpeded … they would have the ability to range missiles to the continental US.”

But he did not echo the six-month timeframe – or Trump’s claim that it could be “soon.”

And lastly, Gabbard also would not back up Trump’s claim this week that no experts had predicted Iran would respond to being attacked by attacking its Gulf neighbours. In fact, Iran has spoken publicly about that possibility, and it was no secret.

When Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon asked about Trump’s claim, Gabbard avoided directly answering the question.

When pressed by Democratic Vice Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia, Gabbard said she wasn’t “aware of those remarks” and declined to say whether she briefed Trump on the possibility – citing “internal conversations.”

The very mixed signals on Iran as an ‘imminent’ threat

Perhaps the central issue is a more subjective one – whether Iran posed an “imminent” threat that warranted going to war.

The Trump administration has offered a series of different reasons why that was the case, many of which haven’t withstood scrutiny.

Kent in his resignation letter said Iran did not pose such an imminent threat. And afterward Gabbard – who before joining the administration strongly opposed war with Iran – issued a carefully worded statement in which she didn’t pass judgement on the claim herself. She instead cast it as Trump’s call to decide whether the threat was “imminent.”

But that in and of itself was remarkable – Trump’s own DNI declining to call the threat “imminent,” in the judgement of herself or the intel community.

The hearing didn’t provide too much evidence that the intelligence showed an imminent threat.

The testimony about Iran’s nuclear intentions and ICBM program didn’t suggest those were imminent threats.

When asked by Ossoff whether the intelligence showed an “imminent nuclear threat,” Gabbard responded, “The only person who can determine what is and is not a threat is the president.”

“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” Gabbard maintained.

Ossoff rejected Gabbard’s stance, saying making such independent determinations was in fact the job of the intelligence community.

In his own comments, Ratcliffe reflected on Iranian-backed attacks on Americans in the region and said it has long posed an “immediate” threat.

“I think Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time and posed an immediate threat at this time,” Ratcliffe said.

Ratcliffe was also asked about whether he disagreed with Kent about Iran’s capabilities, and he said, “I do.”

But the exchange largely focused not on Iranian attacks on the US homeland, but rather attacks on Americans in the Middle East, including via Iran’s proxy groups.

And none of the witnesses described Iran as an “imminent” threat to the United States, in their own words.

Democrats didn’t dwell on Kent

While Kent’s resignation was major news, the Democrats on the committee declined to lean too hard on his account.

Warner brought up Kent’s claim about there being no imminent threat early in the hearing. Later, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas asked Ratcliffe about whether he disagreed with Kent.

But the hearing didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of Kent’s claims, including his meeting before he resigned with Gabbard and Vice President JD Vance, both of whom have also been reluctant to vocally support the Iran war.

So why did Kent get short shrift?

Part of the reason could be that Democrats were wary of aligning themselves too much with him. Kent has a history of associating with extremists on the right, and his resignation letter accused Israel of being behind not just the Iran war, but also the Iraq war and the Syrian civil war.

Trump’s allies have criticised the political left for leaning so heavily on Kent’s account.

Democrats on Wednesday seemed to reason that they could get at the crux of Kent’s resignation without invoking him personally.

Gabbard provides little clarity on Fulton County search

It’s not as current an issue as the Iran war, but Gabbard’s presence at an FBI search of a Fulton County, Georgia, elections office two months ago raised more than a few eyebrows. And given concerns about the Trump administration’s activities vis-à-vis the 2026 midterm elections, it’s likely we’ll hear more about it.

The administration struggled mightily to explain why Gabbard, whose purview generally involves foreign threats, was present at the search. The search itself was controversial, too, given the affidavit used to get the search warrant recycled a series of dubious and debunked claims about the 2020 election.

Gabbard initially said Trump sent her. But then the White House distanced itself, with Trump saying Attorney General Pam Bondi had sent Gabbard (“she went at Pam’s insistence”) and that he didn’t even know why Gabbard was there. Then Gabbard claimed both Trump and Bondi had sent her, but Bondi declined to confirm it.

The situation remained clear as mud after Wednesday’s (local time) hearing.

Gabbard reiterated that she was at the Fulton County search “at the request of the president.”

Gabbard declined to say how Trump conveyed this request to her, but she said he asked her to “help oversee” the search.

But when Warner pressed her on why Trump would be involved or even aware of an FBI search, Gabbard suggested it was possible Trump wasn’t aware of the details behind the search.

– CNN

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

Hundreds of people gathered in a shady grove at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, surrounded by bird song and the hum of cicadas, to remember one of the darkest days in the city’s history.

A formal ceremony to mark the seventh anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks brought together loved ones of the 51 shuhada (martyrs) killed by a white supremacist terrorist on 15 March, 2019, those injured in the attacks, first responders including representatives from Police and Hato Hone St John, members of the public and politicians.

Following a moment of silence, the names of the 51 dead were read out, interspersed with the tolling of the city’s World Peace Bell following each name.

Wreaths were later laid by dignitaries, including Mayor Phil Mauger, MPs Megan Woods and Matt Doocey, Senior Sergeant Roy Appley, who led the police communications centre on the day of the attack, and St John national youth manager Kerry Mitchell.

Many attendees gathered first at the Bridge of Remembrance, as part of the Walk the Talk for Unity event, making their way from the city centre to the gardens carrying signs and 51 prayer mats.

The Sakinah Community Trust – a not-for-profit started by seven bereaved women after the attacks – organised the Unity Week events.

Chair Dr Hamimah Ahmat said the mats represented each of those killed at prayer, but the impacts rippled across the whole community, including the families and friends of those killed, and the many injured who live with the memories every day.

“We’re not just talking about 51,” she said. “We are talking about the families of the 51, we’re talking about the friends of the 51s, the neighbours of the 51s, and then not forgetting the people who were physically injured and their families, who continue to live through and go through the memory of March 15th.”

Everyone grieves differently, Ahmat said, and would acknowledge the day in different ways.

“Alhamdulillah [thank God], we are thankful that, as people grieve and heal, more and more are starting to support this kaupapa and support this idea.”

Initially, non-Muslims struggled with how to express their sorrow over 15 March, because they feared it could be culturally inappropriate or disrespectful, Amhat said. The focus on unity and bringing people together was a key part of the Islamic tradition, and the group was happy to pave the way to remembering lost loved ones even from the depths of their grief.

“It wasn’t just Muslims that were directly impacted. In many different ways, everyone – the whole of New Zealand, including people of non-faith – were also affected and impacted by what happened to this beautiful country, by a person that they did not invite.”

She said the organisation’s Unity Summit conference had talked at length about how moving the nation forward would take many hands, including the hands and voices of young people.

In the future, Amhat hoped to see Unity Week events happening around the country, not just in Christchurch.

Australian activist Robert Martin was invited, alongside Melbourne imam Alla Elzokm, to take part in the Unity Summit and speak at the unity walk.

He said his visit had been deeply moving and he had been inspired by the resilience of the community, but he was taken aback at the lack of publicity surrounding the event.

“There’s nothing – signs, TV ads, radio ads, anything about the commemoration. I can’t believe there isn’t anything.

“These poor families need something they can go to, other than just a tombstone.”

Christchurch man Nicholas Witte took part in commemorative events for the first time, and it had been a pleasure and an honour.

“I’m here with other fellow members of my community. We’re Jewish, we want to express our wholehearted support for this.

“It’s a completely authentic expression of what we believe.

“Very early on in our historic teachings, we’re told B’tselem elohim – all human beings are made in the image of God – it’s something we take completely seriously.”

Kathleen Gallagher attended to honour the lives of two lifelong friends of her sons, who were killed in the attacks.

She said the compassionate way Ōtautahi responded to the devastating attacks was the most important thing, something the world needed more than ever.

A senior adviser at Norway’s 22nd July Centre, Anne Talsnes said images of Sunday’s march were engraved in her memory.

“Walking around with those 51 mats, it will forever stay with me.”

Talsnes – whose background was in memory studies, a multidisciplinary field that examined the politics of memory, and what societies choose to remember or not – works at the centre set up four years, after the massacre carried out by Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik in July 2011, killing 77.

There were a lot of similarities in communities that went through what our communities had gone through, she said.

Talnes said she could not yet judge how New Zealand was processing the memory of 15 March, but it stood out how the commemorations were community led and how much the faith community had taken agency over what happened to them.

“They own their own story, and they’re incredibly resilient and open-hearted.”

Norwegians had to confront many unpleasant conversations in the effort to confront the horrors of the 2011 attacks.

“We couldn’t keep just talking about the love and the unity that came out of it,” she said. “We also had to address the source and the ideology behind it, which took a long time.”

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

Commemorations are underway in Christchurch to mark the seventh anniversary of the mosque attacks.

On 15 March 2019, Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant opened fire at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre as the congregations marked Jumu’ah – the most significant prayer of the week.

This year’s commemorations started with a walk-the-talk-for-unity event at the Bridge of Remembrance, organised by the Sakinah Community Trust, an organisation established by a number of the widows.

A service at the Peace Bell in the botanic gardens started with a minute’s silence, followed by the names of the 51 victims.

It will conclude with the laying of wreaths.

‘Showed the world strength, compassion and unity’ – PM

In a post on social media, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon paid tribute to those who lost their lives.

“Today we remember the 51 people who were killed in the Christchurch attacks, and we think of the families, friends, and communities who still live with that loss.

“Seven years ago, Christchurch, and New Zealand, showed the world strength, compassion and unity in the face of tragedy.

“We honour those who were taken from us by continuing to build a country where everyone can live in peace and safety,” the post said.

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

As Muslims in Christchurch prepare to mark seven years since 51 people were murdered while worshipping at two mosques in the city, there are fears hate is again on the rise.

Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant opened fire at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on 15 March 2019 as the congregations marked Jumu’ah – the most significant prayer of the week.

He left 51 people dead or dying in little over 15 minutes.

The now 35-year-old pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism in March 2020 and in August of that year was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

But he is now appealing his sentence and conviction, and there is a possibility of him giving verbal evidence to the coronial inquiry into the deaths of those he murdered.

Seven years on from what former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described as one of New Zealand’s darkest days, some in the community were still grieving wounds that felt fresh with little closure or solace.

Hamimah Ahmat’s husband Zekeriya Tuyan was mortally injured during the shooting at Al Noor Mosque and became the 51st shaheed, or martyr, almost seven weeks after the attack.

“Life seems to have moved forward around us,” she said.

“People seem to be forgetting March 15 and the lessons from it, while for many of us it often feels like time actually stopped on March 15, 2019.”

Rosemary Omar also lost her son Tariq during the massacre at Al Noor Mosque.

“I know it’s seven years but it does feel like yesterday and obviously some days are better than others,” she said.

“It was such a waste of such a good young man. He was just such a peaceful, kind, caring, compassionate young man that it seems very cruel that he should lose his life like that.”

Farid Ahmed’s wife Husna had left Al Noor Mosque to escort other women and children to safety.

The gunman shot her as she returned to find her husband, who uses a wheelchair.

“It was a dreadful day,” he said.

“For a moment I was thinking it was the end of the world for me. The world was becoming a very narrow for me. I was feeling that I was going to be sinking – swallowed by the earth.”

But the terrorist’s bullets did not just touch 91 people, they tore through the lives of thousands who felt the loss and pain of those killed or maimed.

The shuhada – or martyrs – left behind 34 spouses, 92 children and more than 100 siblings.

Rosemary Omar said the legal process surrounding her son’s death had felt overwhelming at times.

“I think we’ll never move on,” she said.

“I think it’s more a case of learning to sit with Tariq’s death next to me. It’s also more a process as well of appreciating having Tariq for 24 years rather than everything being sort of focused on how he died. And it’s very difficult as the anniversaries approach to actually stay in that moment of gratitude because everything’s sort of thrown up in the air and all these appeals obviously don’t help.”

She believed the terrorist’s appeals were motivated by the intent of further traumatising survivors and victims’ families.

“It’s quite disturbing and he’s sort of mocking everybody by basically breathing,” Omar said.

She hoped the coronial inquiry into her son’s death might result in some positive change.

However, she was cynical about the process especially after the government ended its formal response to the Royal Commission into the attacks with many recommendations scrapped.

Politicians seemed to have used the community for photo opportunities when it suited them but had now moved on, Omar said.

“I don’t believe they have any concept of what families have been through,” she said.

“There appears to be no compassion.”

Federation of Islamic Associations spokesperson Abdur Razzaq said hate crime was on the rise.

“We are tracking, according to police statistics, about three hate incidents recorded per week,” he said.

“That’s a level that we haven’t seen anywhere in the past. Last year, they recorded once over 150.”

Three people had been arrested in recent months for planning or discussing harming the Muslim community, Razzaq said.

There was also an alarming level of Islamophobia online, he said.

Hamimah Ahmat said while most New Zealanders remained quietly supportive of the community, she agreed hate was growing and had experienced it herself.

“Just two years after March 15, I was taking a walk … and a car passed by me and the hooligans shouted ‘go back to your country’.”

It was alarming to have come so soon after the terror attack.

There were also still ongoing and concerning reports of Muslim women having their hijab pulled by strangers as well as an increase in anti-migrant rhetoric, including by some politicians, Ahmat said.

“I would say my experience generally – generally – has been has been great but it’s hard because it just takes one or two incidents to bring us back to that anxiety again,” she said.

She had been involved in a lot of work to foster and improve social cohesion following the shootings.

She believed the government should back a national unity week to coincide with the anniversary of 15 March.

“It’s about our national security,” Ahmat said.

“What are we doing in terms of making sure communities are resilient? How are we ensuring that we respond compassionately and with sensitivity to voices that try to divide us? How do we acknowledge that New Zealand is not predominantly white, that it is made-up of many different peoples, many different countries, with many different cultures?

“Assimilating is not the answer to it. It is about accepting that we are all different and we can all make New Zealand great by being different and being unique.”

Farid Ahmed had a similar mindset and hoped by living as an example to others he could foster love and kindness in the community.

Ahmed moved the world when he publicly forgave his wife’s killer only weeks after the shootings.

“I decided with my 15-year-old daughter that the quickest way of healing for us is to offer forgiveness so we will have the freedom in our hearts from anger, from retribution, from hatred, and we could use our clean heart to work for peace and harmony and love,” he said.

“It is not an easy journey but it is possible that we can carry the grief and at the same time we can choose to overcome it by contributing in love and compassion towards others.”

That philosophy allowed him to live a happy life despite the enormity of his loss.

“From time to time, because of the love, I cry for my wife. When I reflect on the good things that I had, time to time I cry. But every cry I had gives me double motivation to do something better because if she was here she would have wanted me to do this sort of good thing,” Ahmed said.

On Sunday he would mark 15 March at the public service in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and by giving away 150 cakes to his community, each with a message of love and hope.

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

By Ted Hesson, Reuters

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.

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

MIL OSI

Families of victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings are continuing their fight to prevent the terrorist from giving evidence at the coronial inquest into their loved ones’ deaths.

Deputy Chief Coroner Brigitte Windley has sought to call Brenton Tarrant as a witness in the second-phase inquest into the deaths of the 51 people massacred at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on 15 March 2019.

Survivors and victims’ families made their objections heard throughout the inquest and sought judicial review of the decision at the High Court.

Justice Jonathan Eaton dismissed the application in October.

Some of the victims’ families are now appealing that decision to the Court of Appeal, where the matter will be heard next Wednesday.

The notice of appeal claimed Justice Eaton had made several mistakes in dismissing the application for judicial review.

“The High Court erred in finding community abhorrence and the second respondent’s convictions were not proper considerations for a coroner when determining whether to call him as a witness for cross-examination at an inquest into the deaths of 51 people in relation to the 15 March 2019 Christchurch Masjidain Attack,” the notice said.

The victims’ families were appealing Justice Eaton’s entire decision.

They sought three orders:

• One allowing the appeal.
• One setting aside deputy chief coroner Windley’s decision to call the terrorist as a witness.
• And one directing the coroner to reconsider her decision to call the terrorist as a witness and any consequential decisions.

The 35-year-old Australian-born terrorist is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the terror attack.

The second-phase inquest began in October 2024 and is examining how the terrorist came to obtain the guns used in the massacre.

It adjourned part-heard after objections were raised to the terrorist giving evidence.

Deputy Chief Coroner Windley granted interested party status to Tarrant before the inquest, asked him to answer written questions and asked lawyers for survivors and victims’ families – as well as other parties to the inquest – if they wished to cross-examine him.

The terrorist provided two written briefs to the court in September 2024.

The only application to cross-examine him was filed by counsel assisting the coroner.

In dismissing the application for judicial review, Justice Eaton said he had listened to the concerns of victims and their families.

“At a hearing on 14 October 2024, those interested parties opposed Mr Tarrant giving evidence in open court due to the risk of him turning the process into ‘a platform to encourage like-minded individuals into the murderous behaviour of the terrorist’,” he said in a decision released in October.

“They questioned whether Mr Tarrant would provide oral evidence that was reliable or that had not previously been addressed by the Royal Commission of Inquiry. Further, they were concerned the costs and the efforts that would need to be taken to allow Mr Tarrant to give evidence may not be outweighed by any benefit.”

However, Justice Eaton ruled the coroner had not made any error of law.

“Each of the considerations identified by the applicant under the first ground of the review were weighed by the coroner, including those which are arguably not relevant to the admissibility of evidence. The coroner has exercised her judgement in an appropriate manner having regard to the countervailing interests, including public order and safety, as well as the overarching purpose of the inquiry,” Justice Eaton said.

“The alleged errors of law do not withstand scrutiny. They are closely connected and advanced on a flawed premise.

“Parliament has invested in the coroner a very broad discretion as to the evidence to be admitted at an inquiry. That reflects the broad purposes of an inquiry, including not only an investigation into the circumstances of the death, but making of recommendations to avoid a similar future event. Generally, but particularly in a coronial inquiry involving such horrific offending, so many deaths and such great public interest, issues of relevance, necessity or desirability of hearing evidence is very much for an experienced coroner so well versed with the subject matter.

“The extensive powers set out in the Act allow coroners to pursue all lines of inquiry and to weigh the evidence in a holistic manner to ensure findings are both effective and robust. Only then will the determination command the respect of society – this particular determination being one that is of high public interest both domestically and internationally.

“With respect and recognition given to the very sensitive nature of these proceedings, there has been no reviewable error by the coroner.”

The terrorist gave evidence at a Court of Appeal hearing earlier in February in a bid to quash his convictions and sentence.

The terrorist claims he was “forced” to plead guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism because he was irrational as a result of torturous and inhumane prison conditions.

The Court of Appeal reserved its decision in that matter after a week-long hearing.

The second-phase inquest is on hold while the decision on the terrorist appearing as a witness is decided in the courts.

The coroner’s first phase inquest, which began in October 2023 and heard further evidence in May and August 2024, covered 10 issues relating to the events of 15 March 2019 and the response of emergency services to the massacre.

It took just minutes for the terrorist to leave 44 worshippers dead or dying at Al Noor Mosque as he possessed two semi-automatic centrefire rifles as well as a multitude of high-capacity magazines, two shotguns, a lever-action rifle and a bolt-action rifle.

He then drove to the mosque in Linwood, where he killed seven more people.

Tarrant was able to obtain a New Zealand firearms licence through a gaming friend who was aware of his extremist political opinions and his racist and Islamophobic beliefs.

The friend and the friend’s father acted as referees.

He had originally planned to use his sister as a referee, but the licensing clerk rejected that possibility because she lived in Australia and could not be interviewed face-to-face.

The terrorist first submitted an application to obtain a firearms licence just 15 days after arriving in New Zealand in August 2017.

At the time of the attacks, the terrorist only held a standard A-category licence, but by inserting the high-capacity magazines into the semi-automatic centrefire rifles, he had turned them into restricted E-category military-style semi-automatic rifles.

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

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says there are thousands of New Zealanders whose plans have been disrupted by the current war between the US and Israel and Iran.

All sorts of contingencies to help them were being looked at but it was a complex situation, he told Morning Report.

SafeTravel said on Wednesday United Arab Emirates had partially reopened its air space.

There were limited flights operating from Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Follow updates with RNZ’s blog

It said there had so far been no official announcement on flights to Australia or New Zealand, but the NZ government were in contact with airline representatives to get urgent confirmation on the status of flights.

Spain and the United Kingdom have announced they are organising evacuation flights for their citizens while Australia has opened an emergency portal for its citizens.

Asked on Morning Report about possible evacuation flights for Kiwis Peters said the situation was “difficult”.

“We’re saying to people if you can get out, and if you are concerned, get out. If you can’t, then try and stay safe or stay inside where you are or make sure you have places that are safe most of the time.”

There were thousands of Kiwis in the region with not a great number registered on SafeTravel, he said.

Last time there was conflict in the Middle East a plane was sent, and within an hour of it landing “peace broke out” and noone got on the flight, Peters said.

“We’ve got all sorts of contingencies ready now – all aspects have been looked at. Obviously I’ve got to be confidential but Foreign Affairs is doing a superb job to do the maximum they can to help New Zealanders there.”

Peters said New Zealand was “talking to everybody” regarding Kiwis stranded by the conflict.

Regarding the negotiations that had been going on in Switzerland just before the weekend attacks, Peters said they had been “protracted” and that was why countries such as New Zealand could see the possibility of conflict and advised citizens to leave.

“We were saying that a long time before this war broke out.”

Not concerned about upsetting US

In an earlier statement, the government said New Zealand had consistently condemned Iran’s nuclear programme and its “destabilising activities” in the region and “acknowledged” the strikes.

Peters said he wasn’t worried about blowback from the United States if New Zealand expressed any criticism over the joint attacks with Israel on Iran.

Critics were commenting as if the current war was from a 1980s or 1990s setting.

“Everything’s changed dramatically. …It’s the most uncertain world since the Second World War.”

Legal experts would decide but in some situations such as the US-Israel attacks it became “a reprisal or retaliation” and the genesis to the current conflict was the earlier actions of Iran.

People had to understand countries were dealing with a group of “religious fanatics” in Iran. Their Arabic neighbours didn’t support Iran because it had been supporting various forms of terrorism for decades.

Critics had “rushed to judgement” over the legality of the US-Israel attacks, however, they had no answers to the way Iran was acting.

While critics referred to rules-based order, Iran had not been observing this and it had been exporting “continual chaos overseas”.

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

The Prime Minister has admitted he “misspoke” when he said New Zealand supported “any actions” to prevent Iran having nuclear weapons.

Christopher Luxon also said New Zealand will not join the conflict.

At his post-Cabinet press conference on Monday, Luxon said successive governments have had a longstanding position that any action that stopped Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, from sponsoring terrorism, and from stopping them killing there own people was “a good thing.”

On Tuesday, Luxon described his comments as meaning New Zealand had long supported actions to prevent Iran from getting “its hands on nuclear weapons” and actions to stop the country sponsoring terrorism and repressing its people, but said “obviously, not any action.”

He said that was any action, but not “at any cost.”

Referring to the example raised of carpet bombing Iran, Luxon said “clearly that is not what we want to see.”

When asked how he made the error, given he repeated “any action” multiple times on Monday, Luxon said “I just said to you, I misspoke,” and passed on apologies.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said it was good that the Prime Minister had admitted he misspoke.

“Words matter – to quote our Foreign Affairs Minister – and in this particular instance words matter a great deal,” Hipkins said.

“Adherence to international law shouldn’t be a matter of discretion, it should be something we expect all countries to adhere to.”

“It’s a no” – Luxon rules out New Zealand joining strikes

Asked whether New Zealand would join the United States in this instance, Luxon confirmed it would not.

“It’s a no from me, and we haven’t been asked to, and I think we’re unlikely to do so as well.”

Luxon reiterated his comments from Monday, in which he said New Zealand was not party to the information that led to the strikes, and would also not speak about US President Donald Trump’s judgement when it came to conflict.

Hipkins welcomed the Prime Minister’s decision to rule out joining in the United States’ actions.

“I would prefer that the New Zealand government continued to take a very principled stance in saying we’re actually opposed to this bombing campaign, because it is a violation of international law, and New Zealand has a lot of reasons to want the rest of the world to be adhering to international law”

Iran and Israel have continued to trade strikes since joint US and Iran airstrikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.

US President Donald Trump has warned that bigger strikes are to come, and says the conflict could drag out longer than the four to five weeks he initially planned.

New Zealanders in Iran are urged to leave if it is safe to do so, and register on SafeTravel.

Luxon confirmed that 2150 New Zealanders were registered.

On Morning Report, Hipkins disagreed with the Prime Minister’s stance that it was not New Zealand’s place to comment on the legality of the strikes.

Hipkins said he believed the strikes were illegal.

“I think New Zealand government seems to be moving away from what has been a long-standing and principled approach to these issues,” he told Morning Report.

“We have been very clear that we think international law matters, and that all parties to these sorts of conflicts should follow international law. That’s not the case here.”

He said it is important that our government speaks with authority and in favour of international law.

“New Zealand’s government should stand up for the international system of rules that we rely on for our own security as a country,” Hipkins said.

“If the situation becomes that the countries with the most power can do whatever they like regardless of what international law says, that’s very bad news for a small country like New Zealand.”

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the latest conflict in the Middle East endangered the rules-based order New Zealand relied on.

“The idea that we can start encouraging and allowing other countries to invade just because we don’t like their leaders is an incredibly dangerous take for this Prime Minister to support.

“He needs to be up front and declare whether he supports the rule of law, whether he supports countries in the world just willy nilly being able to decide, on vibes, whether they can invade or not.

“That’s really dangerous. That puts us and regions of the world in a really unsafe position.”

Deputy Prime Minister and ACT leader David Seymour is backing Luxon’s stance on the US-Israel attacks on Iran.

“One thing he’s noted that’s important is that New Zealand does not have all of the information that the US and Israel have used to justify their actions,” he told RNZ’s First Up on Tuesday. “So, we could spend a lot of time with New Zealand trying to be precise in its position, but I don’t think that’s what the world’s waiting for.”

He said as a result of the strikes, Iranian girls will have an opportunity to “dress as you like, go to school, do things that are normal rights that have been withheld from them by this regime”.

“And finally, for them in Iran and also for all of us around the world, it’s critical that trade is able to continue and resume so that we don’t face price shocks and even more economic peril. Those are the things that I think are important.”

Seymour would not say if he expected advance warning from allies like the UK if New Zealand troops at allies’ bases in the region were in danger.

“That’s something that we constantly talk about with our allies, but I think it’s safe to say that whatever we may or may not be doing won’t be helped by me announcing it on New Zealand radio…

“Clearly, the safety of New Zealand personnel is critical, and whatever moves might or might not be afoot, we’re not going to discuss publicly.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand was not given any advance notice of the attack on Iran, and has again urged New Zealanders to leave if it is safe to do so.

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

The Prime Minister says only the US and Israel have the intelligence to back up their attacks on Iran – and New Zealand won’t be asking to see it.

Christopher Luxon was asked if he believed the attacks were a breach of international law in his weekly post-Cabinet media conference Monday afternoon.

“Issues of legality [are] for Israel and the US to talk to because we’re not party to that information or that intelligence they may have,” he said.

Luxon went on to say it wasn’t guaranteed New Zealand would ever see this intelligence – and his government would not be asking to see it.

“We’ve had a long standing commitment under successive governments that any actions that stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a good thing, any actions that take to stop them from sponsoring terrorism is a good thing, any actions that stops them from killing their own people is a good thing.

“This is not a good regime and that has been a long standing position of New Zealand governments under different administrations.”

Asked if New Zealand’s support for “any actions” extended to “carpet bombing” Iran, Luxon made several attempts at answering the question before repeating his earlier lines.

“We’ve long supported actions under our governments, under successive political parties, that actually stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

“There have been endless rounds of diplomacy where Iran has flagrantly disregarded international law with respect to nuclear weapons programmes. That has not worked.”

Luxon was asked if New Zealand’s support for “any actions” extended to the bombing of a girls’ school that – according to reports by the BBC – killed at least 153 people.

“That is up to them [the US and Israel] to present what has happened there because I’m not in a position to judge that from sitting in New Zealand.”

Asked to clarify if he meant to say he couldn’t make a judgement call if a children’s school being bombed was a good or bad thing, Luxon said civilians should be protected.

“We want to make sure that any action is consistent with international law but we also need Israel and the US to explain their actions and their understanding of that event and that is for them to explain.”

The coalition has condemned the Iranian regime, focusing its criticism on the regime’s killing of civilians and pursuit of its nuclear programme.

The New Zealand government’s criticism has not extended to the United States and Israel’s actions, even after former Prime Minister Helen Clark said they clearly breached international law.

Asked if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade had advised the government on the legality of the US and Israel’s attacks, Luxon said he couldn’t comment.

In terms of advice he had received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Luxon said he couldn’t go into it.

“I just can’t comment on that. Cabinet rules preclude me from doing so.”

Hard ‘no’ from Labour on supporting the US and Israel’s attacks

Fronting reporters shortly after the post-Cabinet briefing, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was asked if his party supported the actions of the US and Israel.

“No,” he said.

Hipkins said he had been taken aback by Luxon’s language around New Zealand supporting “all actions” to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“I was somewhat shocked to see that comment…that does not reflect the position that successive New Zealand governments have taken.

“Successive New Zealand governments have expressed significant concern about the Iranian regime but that does not justify any action, particularly when it breaches international law.”

Hipkins said New Zealand should, as it had in the past, stand up for its values and international law.

“When it came to the invasion of Iraq, New Zealand stood apart from what was a lot of international support for that action, and said no we did not think that was the right thing to do and I think we should do so here as well.”

Hipkins said there was “never a justification for killing school children”.

“International rules still matter. New Zealand has been very clear and consistent in its position of condemning the actions of the Iranian government and that’s been across successive governments.

“But that doesn’t justify simply ripping up the international rule book. There’s a need for a return to diplomacy, a return to international institutions. This is why bodies like the United Nations were established in the first place.”

Hipkins said if he were prime minister, he would be asking for New Zealand’s Five Eyes partners for more information about the situation.

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

Labour remains ahead on most of the key issues in the latest Ipsos Issues Monitor, but National has improved its ratings on the economy and the cost of living.

The rating of the government’s overall performance has also rebounded from its record low in the previous survey.

The quarterly survey asks a thousand New Zealanders what they think are the three most important issues facing the country, and the political parties they believe are most capable of handling them.

Labour is seen as most capable on three of the top five issues, and equal with National on a fourth.

In total, Labour leads in 14 of the top 20 issues.

Respondents believed Labour had the best handle on inflation/the cost of living, healthcare, and housing.

National is still seen as most capable on law and order.

While Labour overtook National on the economy in the previous survey, the parties are now neck and neck.

In the rest of the top 20, Labour is also ahead on unemployment, poverty/inequality, drug/alcohol abuse, petrol prices/fuel, education, immigration, household debt/personal debt, race relations/racism, transport/public transport/infrastructure, taxation, and population/overpopulation.

National is seen as most capable on defence/foreign affairs/terrorism, the Greens are ahead on climate change and environmental pollution/water concerns, and Te Pāti Māori is seen as most capable of handling issues facing Māori.

The cost of living and inflation remains New Zealanders’ number one concern, with 59 percent of people identifying it as a key issue, down from 61 percent in the previous survey.

35 percent of people believe Labour is the best party at handling the issue, a slight dip of one percentage point.

National has risen to 28 percent, up from 24 percent.

Healthcare is still the second most important issue, but decreasing again on previous surveys, with Labour on 37 percent.

National is on 25 percent, closing the gap from 19 points in the previous survey to 12.

On the economy, both Labour and National are on 32 percent.

Petrol prices has entered the top 10 issues, while immigration has risen four places to joint 11th.

Despite the country being affected by devastating weather events over the summer, there was no increase on climate change as an issue.

Overall, the government’s performance was rated 4.2, up from a record low of 3.9 in the previous survey.

This brings the government back to the same rating as the February 2025 and August 2025 surveys, though still not as high as the 4.7 it rated in October 2024, and well off the survey’s record high of 7.6, which the Labour-led coalition reached in May 2020.

The study was conducted using online research panels between 11 and 18 February 2026, with 1,000 New Zealanders aged 18 and older asked what the top three issues were facing the country today. Quotas were set to ensure representativeness.

The total New Zealand results have a credibility interval of +/-3.5 percentage points.

See the full survey here.

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

The Foreign Affairs minister says New Zealand was not given any advance notice of the attack on Iran, and has again urged New Zealanders to leave if it is safe to do so.

The United States and Israel launched a major attack on Iran, with US President Donald Trump claiming the attack killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At this stage, the United Nations were unable to confirm the Ayatollah’s death.

The New Zealand government said the US and Israel’s actions were “designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security,” and condemnded Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.

It also called for a “resumption of negotiations and adherence to international law,” urging the Iranian leadership to seek a negotiated solution that “returns Iran to the community of nations.”

Speaking at the Defence Force base at Auckland’s Whenuapai on Sunday, Winston Peters said all sorts of people would want to “pontificate” on the attack, but the rule of law needed to be enforced.

“Iran has been a promoter of terrorism in countless theatres for decades now. That’s not an excuse for what you’ve seen. But it is an explanation,” he said.

It was “premature” to talk about what New Zealand would do if things escalated, Peters said.

“Let’s see what we’re dealing with. We’re doing our best to talk to our international partners and other collaborators around the world.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade had told New Zealanders in the region to shelter in place, and to follow the advice of local authorities and register on SafeTravel.

Peters said there were around 34 to 38 New Zealanders registered in Iran, but there would be “many more.”

The government has long told New Zealanders in Iran to leave, a message Peters reiterated if people were able to do so.

“It will be very difficult in the risky cities. But if you’re out in the countryside and can get away, give it a go. Otherwise, try and say safe, stay inside, and we’ll see how things develop. But it’s very, very difficult for us, this far away from personal circumstances to tell people what to do,” he said.

“Mind you, we’ve been telling them for weeks to get ready, just in case this happened. Maybe next time, listen to the government of New Zealand, who does care what their future might be.”

A repatriation flight was possible, “if it comes to that,” but it was too risky at the moment.

“We’ll do our best that we can, but we are a long, long way from this conflict. Way out in the south west Pacific. Let’s not get too rushed trying to be involved here.”

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