Police are today releasing the name of a Northland man fatally shot in Otaika this week.
He was 18-year-old Kyle Zachary Jenkins, of Maungatapere.
The homicide investigation continues into Kyle’s murder.
Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Shane Pilmer says: “Our thoughts are with Kyle’s family at this very difficult time.
“They are continuing to grieve his death and have asked for privacy at this time.”
Police are continuing to maintain an appeal for information about what took place on the Otaika Valley Road layby.
“Our investigation continues to piece together why this tragic event occurred, and identify the person responsible,” acting Detective Senior Sergeant Pilmer says.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
An online portal has been set up for any footage or photographs to be uploaded.
Attributable to Detective Senior Sergeant Kristine Clarke:
Police are making inquiries into the death of a woman in Hamilton overnight.
Emergency services were called to a Forest Lake address shortly before 12:30am today to reports the 19-year-old was unresponsive.
On arrival, medical staff confirmed she had sadly died.
Police were speaking with those present at the address at the time, and completing further scene and area inquiries, to help determine what took place.
The death is currently being treated as unexplained.
Police are releasing further information in the Otaika homicide investigation as the appeal for footage continues.
An investigation team has begun the task of piecing together what took place on the layby on Otaika Valley Road earlier this week.
Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Shane Pilmer, of Whangārei CIB, says a post-mortem examination on the motorcyclist has been completed.
“I can confirm that the victim was shot,” he says.
“At this point in the enquiry we are not in a position to release further details around the injuries or firearm likely used in this homicide.”
Since an appeal for information was launched on Thursday, a steady stream of footage has been sent into Police for examination.
“This is an encouraging start, and this is already helping us piece together a timeline of movements in-and-around that layby,” acting Detective Senior Sergeant Pilmer says.
“We now know from dashcam footage that there were a number of vehicles parked in the layby prior to the victim arriving on his motorbike.”
Police are continuing to ask those in the community to make contact if they have footage or information.
“At this point in the enquiry, we believe the victim has been shot in that layby late on 28 January, between 7pm and 11pm.”
Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Pilmer says Police anticipate releasing further information about the victim over the coming days.
“We’re continuing to support the man’s family as our investigation continues.
“Our focus is on finding answers for the family for how the victim has died in such a violent manner.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
Police would like any sightings of the victim’s blue and silver coloured road bike that was parked in the layby.
That is particularly between 8pm on 28 January through to 5am on 29 January.
Anyone with dashcam or CCTV footage around key locations between 7pm on 28 January and 5am on 29 January should contact Police.
Those areas of interest are along Otaika Valley Road, between the intersections with State Highway 14, Maungatapere, and Loop and Cemetery Roads, in Otaika.
An online portal has been set up for any footage or photographs to be uploaded.
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa is alarmed Winston Peters and the Human Rights Commissioner have given the green light to Destiny Church assaults against Palestinian support protests this weekend.
PSNA has been contacted by police to say that Brian Tamaki’s Destiny Church has just issued direct threats to ‘shut down’ PSNA if the government and police won’t do it for them.
Tamaki has done this several times over the past 16 months but PSNA Chair John Minto says the orchestrated claims of antisemitism against PSNA this past week have encouraged Brian Tamaki to now believe he could get away with unleashing violence against peaceful protests against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank.
“We are most concerned about our supporters in smaller centres. We have about 30 local protests in support of Palestinian rights over the next two days. It just takes two or three Destiny Church adherents to get it into their heads that they are doing God’s work and turn up to beat up our people.
Minto says he can understand why Tamaki thinks he is licenced to carry out his threats.
“Our government still has not uttered one word condemning Israeli genocide. But when we say we want to tell Israeli soldiers who are on holiday here that they are not welcome in Aotearoa, then the Human Rights Commissioner distorts this into the threats of violence and the Foreign Minister falls into line behind him.”
“We did not advocate violence. We are not encouraging nor are we promoting violence – even against Israelis guilty of participating in genocide having a happy holiday here.”
“In particular we are concerned that the Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow is leading the claims against Palestinian human rights supporters.”
“Rainbow was a prominent champion of Israeli apartheid before the was appointed Human Rights Commissioner.”
“Only a year ago he was writing such articles for the Israel Institute NZ, entitled“With every chant, Israel’s case grows stronger”condemning “kaffiyeh wearing antics of Labour and Green MP’s of late.”
“Rainbow has not parked his Zionist apartheid politics at the door of the Human Rights Commission. He is misusing his high status semi-judicial position to openly promote on behalf of Israel – as a state committing genocide – by misrepresenting PSNA.’
“No wonder Brian Tamaki and his Destiny Church think the government will turn a blind eye to Destiny Church escalating into physical attacks.”
Minto says Palestinian New Zealanders will be feeling our government and institutions are sanctioning violence against them.
“Many Palestinians in this country have lost immediate family in the massive Israeli onslaught on Gaza over the past 16 months. They are well aware the New Zealand Foreign Minister has been absolutely silent about any blame on Israel. Yet he is instantly quick to condemn local human rights groups which these Palestinians belong to.”
“To send a message of reassurance to Palestinian New Zealanders and hopefully restrain Tamaki, Paul Goldsmith, as Rainbow’s minister, must at the very least immediately suspend Rainbow as Human Rights Commissioner.”
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.
“I am alive, I am well and I am back,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson.
“I’m delighted to be returning to my Taitokerau whenua, and to stand alongside my fellow wahine co-leader Chlöe and our Green Party colleagues to demonstrate our movement’s core beliefs in upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and in championing the wellbeing of people and planet.
“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to return to my work. And I am grateful, beyond words, for the aroha and support my whānau, my community and so many have graced me with this past year.
“I believe in community – I believe in our collective strength, and my journey over the past year has made so clear how necessary it is to take care of others, and to be taken care of.
“We know the value of caring for one another. Together, we will create the future our mokopuna deserve,” says Marama Davidson.
Police were notified about 8:10pm yesterday that a body had washed up on Bethells Beach.
Although formal identification is ongoing, Police believe it is likely the body of the man who got into difficulty in the water at Piha on Tuesday evening.
The man’s family has been advised and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.
LOS ANGELES, USA – Newsaktuell – 31 January 2025 – High levels of governance have masked a slow decline in Germany, with political, economic, and social fractures “festering over years”, a new scientific report released only weeks ahead of the February 23 parliamentary elections concludes.
On February 23, Germany elects a new Bundestag. The issue of migration plays a particularly important role, not least for supporters of the far-right AfD party – seen here at a demonstration in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, the seat of the Bundestag, in 2022. (Photo by Christoph Soeder/dpa)
“It has become clear that Germany rested on its laurels for far too long”, the BGI Germany Report on the country’s governance performance says. It is based on the Berggruen Governance Index (BGI) and was conducted by researchers from the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute think tank, the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Hertie School, a German university.
In their report “Germany 2025 – Slow decline in governance performance erupts into crisis of government as geopolitics worsen” the researchers conclude that the country’s government and administrative systems have appeared increasingly sclerotic and hesitant to adopt necessary changes. Effective, often painful reforms are urgently needed, but political and economic constraints make them difficult to implement, the researchers write.
The 2024 BGI measures democratic accountability, delivery of public goods and state capacity on a scale from 0 to 100. It analyses the years from 2000 to 2021. According to the report, Germany has lost ground on all three measures, with structural problems festering since the “deceptively benign” years of the chancellorship of Angela Merkel (2005-2021). The Democracy Accountability Index score, for example, slid to 93 in 2021 from a near perfect 99 at the beginning of the century.
The data “suggests that some of Germany’s state capacity and democratic accountability challenges were masked by economic growth, driven by the success of its export-oriented model during the 2010s”, the report says. Chief among Germany’s challenges are economic troubles that have worsened in recent years, largely stemming from a lack of public investment during that period in areas such as digitalization and transport infrastructure.
On February 23, Germans go to the polls early after the ruling three-party coalition consisting of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) collapsed in November. Intra-government fighting over how to get the country’s ailing economy back on track was a main factor of the break-up.
At the same time, social trust is declining in Europe’s largest economy. However, a possible new government under the conservative CDU/CSU alliance and its candidate for the chancellorship, Friedrich Merz, seems poised to exacerbate divisions rather than resolving them, the researchers say.
The economic difficulties heighten uncertainty and discontent, the report argues – with migration emerging as the other major flashpoint. Rhetoric on economic scarcity is used to highlight tensions over migration, which are exploited by both the extreme right and left. That debate has been exacerbated by a recent deadly stabbing in which a migrant facing deportation from Germany is the main suspect.
Yet immigration is essential to Germany’s future growth, the BGI report says: “Any future government will have to attempt to reconcile anti-immigrant attitudes with the social reality of integration and the economic necessity of attracting foreign-born workers.”
Merz is promising a hard line on migration in case of an election victory. Despite provoking outrage from other political parties, Merz on Wednesday (January 29) pushed through a vote in parliament on proposals for tightening immigration controls. “Current asylum and immigration policy jeopardizes the security of the people and the confidence of all of society in the state,” the text of the motion by the CDU/CSU says.
The passed proposal includes a request to the German government to turn back asylum seekers at Germany’s borders. But even more incendiary in German politics has been Merz’s willingness to break long-standing taboos and use votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in order to pass the motion. All long-established parties in the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, had previously said they would not work with the AfD, with many Germans alarmed at the rise of the party in recent years in a country still scarred by its Nazi past.
According to the latest opinion polls by the five major polling institutes, the conservative CDU/CSU is clearly in the lead, polling at between 28 and 34 per cent. Second comes the AfD with 19 to 21 per cent, followed by the SPD with 15 to 19 per cent. The current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a member of the SPD. The Greens are at 12 to 15 per cent in the opinion polls, while the FDP this time may not clear the 5-per-cent-threshold necessary to enter the Bundestag.
———————————————-
This text and the accompanying material (photos and graphics) are an offer from the Democracy News Alliance, a close co-operation between Agence France-Presse (AFP, France), Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA, Italy), The Canadian Press (CP, Canada), Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa, Germany) and PA Media (PA, UK). All recipients can use this material without the need for a separate subscription agreement with one or more of the participating agencies. This includes the recipient’s right to publish the material in own products.
The DNA content is an independent journalistic service that operates separately from the other services of the participating agencies. It is produced by editorial units that are not involved in the production of the agencies’ main news services. Nevertheless, the editorial standards of the agencies and their assurance of completely independent, impartial and unbiased reporting also apply here.
Further coverage by the Democracy News Alliance can be found in the DNA digital newsroom athttps://www.presseportal.de/en/nr/174021
Hashtag: #DNA
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
“New Zealand’s climate target for 2035 fails to show our commitment to stand with the Pacific and stop climate harm” said Oxfam Aotearoa Climate Justice Lead, Nick Henry.
The New Zealand Government has just announced its climate target for 2035 under the Paris Agreement. New Zealand is obliged to set a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that shows ‘maximum possible ambition’ to reduce climate-harming emissions. The NDC must also show progress from the 2030 target.
New Zealand’s first NDC committed to net emissions in 2030 being 50% less than gross emissions in 2005. The new target for 2035 commits to 51-55% reductions in the same terms.
“While other countries around the world are making real progress, committing to 60 and 70% reductions by 2035, New Zealand offers a paltry additional 1-5% from their 2030 goal.”
‘The new target stretches the meaning of “progress” to a breaking point and fails to show the “maximum possible ambition” that our Government promised.’
‘We are at a critical point for the Pacific as global heating creeps closer to 1.5 degrees. Our Government should be standing with the communities most affected and leading global efforts to stop the climate crisis getting worse.’
