Vingroup inaugurates and breaks ground on six major projects nationwide to celebrate Vietnam’s 80th national day

-

August 19, 2025

National population estimates: At 30 June 2025 – information release

19 August 2025

National population estimates give the best available measure of the population, by age and sex, usually living in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Key facts

At 30 June 2025:

the estimated resident population of Aotearoa New Zealand was 5,324,700 (provisionally)
there were 2,678,500 females and 2,646,200 males
the median age of females and males was 39.0 and 37.4 years respectively.

Visit our website to read this information release:

Business price indexes: June 2025 quarter – Stats NZ information release

By

-

August 19, 2025

Business price indexes: June 2025 quarter – information release

19 August 2025

Business price indexes (BPI) includes the producers price index (PPI), capital goods price index (CGPI), and farm expenses price index (FEPI).

Key facts

In the June 2025 quarter compared with the March 2025 quarter:

the output producers price index (PPI) rose 0.6 percent
the input PPI rose 0.6 percent
the farm expenses price index (FEPI) rose 0.5 percent
the capital goods price index (CGPI) fell 0.2 percent.

Visit our website to read this information release and to download CSV files:

Births and deaths: Year ended June 2025 – Stats NZ information release

By

-

August 19, 2025

Births and deaths: Year ended June 2025 – information release

19 August 2025

Births and deaths releases provide statistics on the number of births and deaths of people resident in New Zealand that are registered during a given period, along with selected fertility and mortality rates. They may differ from statistics presented elsewhere that relate to all births and deaths registered in New Zealand or to births and deaths occurring during a given period.

Key facts

In the year ended June 2025 compared with the year ended June 2024:

there were 58,365 live births registered, up from 57,006
there were 37,323 deaths registered, down from 37,500
the total fertility rate was 1.57 births per woman, up from 1.55
the infant mortality rate was 5.14 deaths per 1,000 live births, up from 4.95 per 1,000.

Visit our website to read this information release:

Please attribute the following to Sergeant Christopher Dunbar, Gore Public Safety:

By

-

August 19, 2025

Source: New Zealand Police

Police were disappointed after Operation Bullseye uncovered several drivers that were driving dangerously and under the influence of alcohol.

Around 200 vehicles were breath checked last week in Gore after local Police executed Operation Bullseye to catch drivers that were breaking the law.

Four people were charged with excess breath alcohol over 400mg and one driver was immediately stripped of their license and vehicle after their third subsequent offence.

Infringements were issued to several other drivers, which included them not wearing seatbelts, using their phone, speeding and plenty of breath alcohol results that were over 250mg.

Police are urging drivers to take care while driving, to remove distractions and not drive impaired.

People driving while impaired put themselves, their passengers, and other road users at risk, with alcohol and/or drugs a factor in about 20 percent of all fatal crashes.

If you are in any doubt at all about being safe or legal to drive due to impairment, don’t – it’s not worth it.

Stick to the basics when driving: watch your speed and your following distances, stay focused – put your phone out of reach – wear your seat belt, and always driver sober and alert.

Gore Police wants drivers to know they can be stopped anytime and anywhere.

ENDS

Federated Farmers Statement – “Greenpeace misleading public on glyphosate”

By

-

August 19, 2025

Source: Federated Farmers

Federated Farmers Statement: Greenpeace is once again manufacturing outrage and trying to scare New Zealanders with alarmist headlines that have no basis in science, Federated Farmers says.

“This time, they’ve turned their attention to glyphosate, one of the most widely used and well-researched weedkillers in the world,” Federated Farmers arable chair David Birkett says.

“They claim a proposed change to New Zealand’s allowed glyphosate levels is a threat to public health, but it’s complete and utter nonsense that they’re peddling.

“Our food system is one of the safest in the world. Greenpeace knows that, but fear is more useful to them than facts.”

Birkett says the latest campaign from Greenpeace is just another chapter in a long-running saga of scaremongering and political spin.

“For decades, Greenpeace has spread misinformation about dairy farmers – now they’ve shifted their attention to arable farmers.

“Once again, they’ve lied to the public, and it’s hardworking Kiwi farmers who pay the price.

“This is not a food safety issue – it’s a publicity stunt.”

One of the central claims from Greenpeace is a possible increase to glyphosate levels will result in the chemical ending up in people’s cereal bowls.

But Birkett says what’s completely missing from their messaging is that this change, even if it goes ahead, won’t affect what’s actually on Kiwi tables.

“Let me be very clear: New Zealand-grown grain for human food – like bread and breakfast cereal – is not treated with glyphosate.

“Under strict contracts with local mills, our farmers aren’t allowed to use it on those crops,” he says.

“That’s not changing. Those contracts will remain in place, so even if rules shift on paper, your porridge and your sandwich bread, if made from Kiwi grain, are still be free from glyphosate.”

Federated Farmers says the real insult here is that Greenpeace is painting a false picture of how New Zealand food is grown – damaging public trust and dragging honest farmers through the mud for the sake of a headline.

“It makes me wonder what the folks at Greenpeace have been putting in their porridge,” Birkett says.

“Our growers are following the rules, and our food is safe, but Greenpeace would rather stoke fear than deal honestly in facts.”

He says the rules around glyphosate – like all food safety standards – are set by the Ministry for Primary Industries, based on science and expert risk assessments.

“These decisions are made by scientists, experts who dedicate their careers to keeping our food safe.

“They would never approve anything that posed a real risk to human health,” Birkett says.

“We trust MPI, we follow the science, and if MPI changes the rules, farmers will comply – just like we always have.”

What makes Greenpeace’s outrage particularly hollow, Birkett says, is their silence on imported grain.

“Up to 70% of the wheat products eaten in New Zealand, like bread and biscuits, are made from imported milling wheat,” he says.

“Those imports are allowed to contain glyphosate residues at levels three times higher than what MPI is proposing for New Zealand grain.

“So, where’s the outrage about that?

“It’s not there – because it doesn’t fit Greenpeace’s narrative. They’d rather go after hardworking Kiwi farmers who are already doing the right thing.”

Federated Farmers says Kiwis can be confident that their cereals are safe.

“Our food is safe, and it always has been,” Birkett says.

“When it comes to questions about food safety, Kiwis should take advice from scientists and public health experts – not ranting Greenpeace activists trying to boost donations.”

He says this latest stunt is further proof that Greenpeace no longer deserves charitable status in New Zealand.

“This is not a charity acting in the public good. It’s an extreme activist group waging a vicious misinformation campaign to score cheap political points and raise money,” Birkett says.

“That campaign is incredibly dangerous. It’s undermining confidence in the food system, scaring families, and they just don’t seem to care – as long as donations keep flowing.” He says it’s time to hold the group accountable and strip them of their charitable status.

“Greenpeace has crossed a line. If they want to campaign, fine – but do it honestly. Don’t spread misinformation about the hard-working farming families who feed this country.

“In the meantime, Kiwis can trust that our grains are safe, our farmers are doing the right thing, and the real food safety experts, not political activists, are making the rules.”

In April, Federated Farmers lodged a formal complaint with Charities Services requesting they open an inquiry into Greenpeace’s conduct and eligibility for charitable status.

Govt Cuts – One day’s notice shows rushed approach to gutting New Zealand’s science funding – PSA

By

-

August 19, 2025

Source: PSA

Revelations that the Marsden Fund was given just one day’s notice of further funding cuts demonstrates the Government’s cavalier approach to dismantling New Zealand’s science sector, the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi said today.

The $15 million cut to the Marsden Fund is in addition to the cuts that were already announced in Budget 2025.

“It is outrageous that the Royal Society only learned of the $15 million funding cut the day before the Institute for Advanced Technology was announced and was told to keep quiet about it,” said PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons.

“This is no way to make policy that will affect New Zealand’s scientific capability for decades to come. The Government should be engaging meaningfully with our science sector workforce on their reforms, not giving them a day’s notice and swearing them to secrecy.”

“The Marsden Fund supports fundamental research – the kind of science that leads to breakthrough discoveries and innovations.

“The Government keeps talking about wanting research that can be commercialised, but they don’t seem to understand that you can’t have applied research without the fundamental research that underpins it.”

PSA represents public sector science workers including in Public Research Organisations and Callaghan Innovation.

“Our members feel demoralised and uncertain about the future. Many are considering leaving New Zealand for countries that value scientific research. We’re haemorrhaging talent and institutional knowledge,” Fitzsimons said.

“The Government needs to step back from these rushed reforms and engage meaningfully with the sector and its workforce. The final report of Sir Peter Gluckman’s review has been sitting with the Science Minister since April but still hasn’t been released.

“We call on the Government to pause these damaging cuts, release the Gluckman review, and have a meaningful conversation with scientists, researchers and their representatives. Our researchers and the New Zealand public deserve better than policy-making by stealth and ambush.”

SSSTC Launches World’s First Industrial M.2 SSD Featuring KIOXIA’s 8th generation BiCS FLASH™ Technology and PCIe® 5.0 Interface

By

-

August 19, 2025

Source: Media Outreach

TAIPEI, TAIWAN – Media OutReach Newswire – 19 August 2025 – Solid State Storage Technology Corporation (SSSTC) proudly announces the launch of the SSSTC CA8 Series, the world’s first industrial M.2 SSD built with BiCS FLASH™ generation 8 3D flash memory technology and a PCIe® Gen5 x4 interface. Offered in the industry-standard M.2 2280 form factor, the SSSTC CA8 Series is available in 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities.

The SSSTC CA8 Series is the world’s first industrial M.2 SSD to combine KIOXIA’s 8th-generation BiCS FLASH™ 3D NAND technology with PCIe Gen5 x4 interface, image credit SSSTC.

The SSSTC CA8 Series complies with PCIe® 5.0 and NVMe™ 2.0, supporting ultra-high-speed data access with transfer rates up to 32 GT/s per-lane—doubling the throughput of PCIe® 4.0 interface. With SLC caching, the SSSTC CA8 Series achieves sequential read speeds of up to 14,000 MB/s and write speeds up to 12,000 MB/s, along with random performance of up to 2,000K IOPS (read) and 1,600K IOPS (write) — making it one of the fastest industrial SSDs on the market.

At its core is KIOXIA’s 8th generation BiCS FLASH™ 218-layer 3D TLC NAND Flash Memory with CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) wafer bonding technology , enabling a 20% improvement in write performance, over 10% reduction in read latency, and up to 30% better power consumption. These enhancements make the SSSTC CA8 Series a critical enabler for data-intensive edge computing and high-performance industrial workloads.

Designed for long-term reliability and broad system compatibility, the SSSTC CA8 Series features:
• MTBF exceeding 3 million hours
• Wide operating temperature range (0 °C to 85 °C)
• Supply longevity of 5 to 10 years

Its robust durability and consistent performance make it ideal for demanding applications such as AIoT, factory automation, networking, in-vehicle systems, and edge servers—especially those involving Edge AI workloads.

To ensure data integrity and system resilience, the CA8 Series includes:
• High-performance ECC
• Power Loss Notification (PLN) to prevent data corruption during unexpected shutdowns
• AES-256 encryption and TCG Opal support for advanced data protection

As a subsidiary of KIOXIA, SSSTC is committed to delivering highly stable, high-performance SSD solutions to global enterprise and industrial customers. The SSSTC CA8 Series is scheduled to enter mass production in Q4 2025. For more information, please visit the SSSTC website

Hashtag: #SSSTC

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

– Published and distributed with permission of Media-Outreach.com.

Cheese products recalled due to possible presence of Listeria

By

-

August 19, 2025

Food Snob and Mon Ami brand French Cheeses

Source: NZ Ministry for Primary Industries

New Zealand Food Safety is supporting food importer Goodfood Group Limited in its recall of Food Snob and Mon Ami brand French Brie and Camembert cheeses due to the possible presence of Listeria monocytogenes.

All batches and all dates up to and including ‘Best Before’ date of 22 September 2025 are affected by this recall and includes the following products:

Food Snob brand Classic French Brie 125g.
Food Snob brand Classic French Brie 200g.
Food Snob brand Classic French Camembert 125g.
Food Snob brand Classic French Camembert 200g.
Mon Ami brand Double Cream French Brie Petit 125g.
Mon Ami brand Mild & Creamy French Camembert Petit 125g.

Up-to-date details of products affected by the recall, including photographs, are available on our food recall page:

“The concern with this product is that it may contain Listeria, a foodborne bacterium that can make you sick,” says New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle.

“Listeriosis infection can be serious among vulnerable groups, such as pregnant people and their unborn babies, newborns, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems.

“Listeria differs to other harmful bacteria in that it can grow at refrigerator temperatures, so you have to be very careful about the foods you eat, or provide to others, if you or they are in a vulnerable group.

“It is particularly dangerous during pregnancy because it can cause miscarriage, premature labour or stillbirth, and infection in the new-born baby.”

This product should not be eaten. It can be returned to the place of purchase for a refund. Should you be unable to do this, throw it out.

Infection in healthy adults is unlikely to be severe, at most causing mild diarrhoea and flu-like symptoms within a few days of eating contaminated food. For those in the vulnerable groups, it usually takes 2 to 3 weeks – or even longer – before symptoms appear.

If you have consumed any of these products and are concerned for your health, contact your health professional, or call Healthline on 0800 611 116.

The recalled products are being removed from shelves at retail outlets and supermarkets throughout New Zealand.

The products were made in France and have not been re-exported.

The overseas manufacturer and distributer have initiated a recall. New Zealand Food Safety has not received any notification of associated illness.

For further information and general enquiries, call MPI on 0800 008 333 or email info@mpi.govt.nz

For media enquiries, contact the media team on 029 894 0328.

Pinnacle Mastery Institute Launches “The Pinnacle” Leadership and Transformation Programme

By

-

August 19, 2025