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NZ Herald
a day ago
- Health
- NZ Herald
Weet-Bix Kid Cuba kickstarts his day dishing up big smiles at Kingsford Primary School
This article was prepared by Sanitarium and is being published by the New Zealand Herald as advertorial. It's not every day a Kiwi kid gets to be a reporter – but for Cuba, a proud Weet-Bix Kid, that's exactly what happened. The young star took the mic as a guest reporter for Kea Kids News, covering a very special morning at Kingsford Primary School with a KickStart Breakfast session where kids gather to share kai, connection, and community before the bell rings. 'What's the best thing about being a Weet-Bix Kid?' Cuba grins. 'I get energy to tackle the day and start it off bright!' This was Cuba's first time reporting for the media, and he admits he was nervous at first. 'I was shy when I was first asked and said I didn't want to do it,' he says. 'But my mum convinced me – Kea Kids said I did well at the reporter training when they came to my school.' With cameras rolling and breakfast being served, Cuba stepped up with confidence, asking questions, sharing smiles, and helping spotlight the importance of starting the day with a good meal. The KickStart Breakfast programme, delivered in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development, Fonterra and Sanitarium, fuels thousands of young New Zealanders every week. Asked what advice he'd give other Kiwi kids who might want to try something new, Cuba is full of encouragement: 'Be brave – and if you muck up, just keep on trying. Anything is possible. Give it your best!' And his favourite breakfast? 'Weet-Bix, of course,' he says proudly. 'With some sugar and warm milk.'
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- Business
- NZ Herald
Bolt launches new Family Profile feature in New Zealand
Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech. European ride-hailing firm Bolt is launching in NZ " to shake up what has long been a duopoly in the New Zealand market, dominated by Uber". Bolt's NZ country manager Adam Muirson. 27 May 2025 New Zealand Herald photograph by Dean Purcell
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
L.A.B., Stan Walker team up for outdoor summer gigs in NZ and Gold Coast
Stan Walker on the red carpet of the Aotearoa Music Awards, where he won Best Māori Artist. Photo / New Zealand Herald photography by Sylvie Whinray For Walker, 'heavy prep', like an Olympic athlete or an All Black might do, is a necessity for lead vocalists preparing to tour, as they have nothing to hide behind on stage. 'We are the only ones that can't just pick up the drumsticks and go hard or start playing the bass or whatever.' Psychologically, Walker has also learned to automatically put up 'walls' to protect himself, his family, and his creative process from 'outside noise'. Sometimes this can get in the way of connecting with an audience, Walker says, but performing in the USA and Hawaii last year, the locals' unguarded enthusiasm was so inspiring he felt the walls came down. Raised on gospel music, Walker especially loves connecting with Black fans and friends in the States. 'They're like, 'man, you need to lead us, brother!' So you get like a fire.' Auckland reggae band Corrella will support Stan Walker and L.A.B. at their Tauranga show. Photo / Supplied Hawaiian music fans, he says, aren't held back by 'tall poppyness' like many New Zealanders. 'They're like, 'I love you. You changed my life. I want to follow you for the rest of my days'.' A Kiwi who recognises him is more likely to say something like 'Yeah, my mum is a fan', Walker says. 'It's really backhanded, and I think it's our like, defence mechanism. We don't want to get rejected or whatever. I get it, but at the same time, it's ugly.' L.A.B. singer Joel Shadbolt 'resonates hard' with Walker's insight on this cultural difference – 'Oh, preach, brother. Holy moly… Don't be a second-hand fan, be first-hand.' His band has also played some amazing shows in the States, he says, and American audiences are a lot more encouraging of guitar solos. L.A.B. singer Joel Shadbolt says American audiences are a lot more into guitar solos than Kiwis. Photo / Alex Cairns 'My roots are blues, so it comes from the south, and I know that feeling, I know that music, it's in me. When I play in the States, I feel that, man. Far out, I feel it. It's magic.' Back home in Aotearoa, Shadbolt and Walker agree Christchurch is one place where people really know how to show appreciation. Although he's had 'some very opposite experiences' offstage in the South Island city, Walker says he's always felt recharged by performing there, which he first did at 16. '[Christchurch audiences] show me why I do what I do, if that makes sense. It's electric.' In the lead-up to an L.A.B. show, the members gather to make sure they're 'on the same kind of buzz', Shadbolt says, and sing a karakia and some harmony-driven songs before hitting the stage. 'We all get locked in, you know?' L.A.B will be performing in Tauranga this summer. Photo / Supplied Artists give so much and love doing it, but they also really need to refuel, Shadbolt says. When he starts feeling like he's living 'in a weird alternate reality', the remedy is going home to visit whānau. 'Hanging out with my Nan is all I need for half an hour.' As a touring vocalist, performing shows back to back, you become hyper-aware of how your body feels, Shadbolt says. Sleep, hydration, nutrition and movement are his 'four pillars'. 'You get those right, and then the voice is magic. Any of those fall down, it's like 'Oooh, should have had a feed' or 'Oooh, ate too much'.' For Walker, it's 'buzzy' that alongside R&B singer Aaradhna, the up-and-coming musician Liam Te Wehi (Te Wehi) is supporting his three shows with L.A.B. this summer. R&B singer Aaradhna will support Stan Walker and L.A.B. at all three of their outdoor summer shows. Photo / Stijl, James Ensing-Trussell Although he's been listening to his music and enjoying his TikTok for ages, the two haven't yet met. 'He looks like my dad, bro!' For Shadbolt, it's really special that pioneering hip-hop group Nesian Mystic are supporting the Stan Walker / L.A.B. show at Auckland's Outer Fields festival on January 31. It's his band's first headlining Auckland gig in over four years, and the first time Nesian Mystic have hit the stage there in about 15 years. 'I listened to some of these songs in the car before, and I was like, 'Man, it's gonna be so nostalgic hanging out and playing their stuff live'. 'We're kind of buzzing for the show up there.'
Daily Maverick
3 days ago
- Daily Maverick
Epsteingate and the dirty old men preying on young girls — how language helps them get away with abuse
'It was known generally that those incidents happened on the island, and nothing was done about it,' she said. 'It was shoved under the carpet. What good would it have done for me if I had reported it? I knew nothing would have been done about it, because of previous experience on the island. It was an act that everybody on the island knew was happening, and nobody wanted to talk about it and say it was wrong and deal with it.' (New Zealand Herald, 5 October 2004) At the first reading, the above quote might appear to be related to notorious child abuser and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's secrets from the grave about the doings of powerful old men and their penchant for underage girls. But the 2004 New Zealand publication date reveals it is about another sensational case of child rape by older, powerful men on the tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean. Culture as excuse In 1790, mutineers on the HMS Bounty found themselves on the island among the Polynesian inhabitants. Over the years a community developed, shaped by the control and power of men over women. Blending their own law with some Polynesian cultural beliefs, the men began to justify and normalise rape and domination over women. But the original cultural mores concerned relationships between adolescents, not exploitation by adult men. A 1999 investigation by Gail Cox, a UK police official (the island is a 'British Overseas Territory'), exposed endemic, intergenerational child abuse and rape by the men of the community. Cox interviewed women about sexual abuse involving children as young as five. This led to criminal charges, and in 2004 a British court, sitting on Pitcairn, found six men guilty of sexual offences against underage girls that occurred between 1964 and 1999. The defendants had all argued that the island's culture was influenced by its part-Polynesian roots and that girls had matured earlier and therefore had 'tempted' the men. Predators everywhere Epstein, US President Donald Trump's good friend of more than 15 years, had his private island playboy paradise, Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands. His jet, known as the Lolita Express by those in the know, transported many of the world's richest and most powerful men to the island, some innocently, but others to have sex with underage girls. This went on for years. These girls were procured by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's apparent 'girlfriend' and daughter of newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell. When the girls and women first spoke out, they were threatened, silenced, humiliated and marginalised. Prince Andrew eventually settled a case with Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of abusing her at Epstein's New York apartment. Bringing Buckingham Palace into disrepute, Randy Andy was stripped of his stripes and medals. It took a Miami Herald journalist, Julie K Brown, a woman, to give voice to Giuffre (who died by suicide earlier this year), Michelle Licata, Courtney Wild and Jena-Lisa Jones – all survivors of Epstein's abuse. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to one charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below the age of 18 and signed a plea deal. He was arrested again on sex trafficking charges in 2019, but was found dead in his cell soon afterwards. Language is a weapon Men like these believe they can get away with the abuse of children and women because the language we use to describe the crime, even in court matters, feeds into old and dangerous stereotypes. Keith Tuffin and Melanie Simons of Massey University in New Zealand examined the language used in the Pitcairn case and how this contributed to a lack of accountability. 'Language used in sexual assault trial judgments commonly works to reduce the level of responsibility of the perpetrator; for example, describing him as being under the influence of alcohol or portraying sexual assault as erotic, rather than violent,' noted the authors. A 2005 study of judicial sentencing in child abuse cases found similar results. Another study analysed the narratives of a convicted rapist and found 'a discourse of ambiguity about the nonconsensual nature of his crimes', which 'suggested the victim was partly to blame, having not been sufficiently clear in her rejection of sex'. All around us, this instinct to look away when old-men rape plays out. There are millions of women around the world who report cases and are not believed, or are threatened because they have reported the crimes. As US author Sandra Newman has written, in the early 20th century researchers like Havelock Ellis believed that all male sexuality was violent and predatory, and so it was to be expected that they would behave accordingly. This suggests preposterously that men are mere victims of their hormones and atavistic impulses, and external factors are always to blame for amoral behaviour. Personal accountability is seldom taken. How to stop this? Expose the paedophile rings. Jeffrey Epstein might be dead, but his secrets are not. DM This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
NZ Herald
22-07-2025
- NZ Herald
Coldplay concert affair exposes privacy struggles in digital age
Details of their personal and professional lives have spread across social media like wildfire after footage of the two ducking for cover went viral. Privacy lawyer Kathryn Dalziel told The Front Page that society has changed, we're all carrying recording devices and there are CCTV cameras everywhere. 'So, the question is whether they have a reasonable expectation of privacy and whether the publication of facts about them would be offensive to a reasonable person. 'Quite frankly, standing at a concert swaying along to Coldplay probably doesn't meet the legal tests of a privacy interest in this and what's happened. 'Even though they might have made a bad moral judgment, they weren't breaking the law; they weren't doing anything that our Government says is wrong. They were just being people and they're being judged by people. What do we do about that? I'm not 100% sure the law is the best place to do that,' she said. Legally, there isn't too much that can be done, Dalziel said, but morally as a society, we can do better. 'If that couple had been involved in an accident or something really bad happened to them that had nothing to do with their relationship, then there may have been some privacy interests. If they hadn't been having an affair, they had the right of defamation. Arguably, some of the doxxing they're receiving could amount to harassment, particularly if the media is camped outside their house,' she said. It's not the first time people have gone from complete unknowns to internet sensations. One of the early examples of this type of public internet shaming was the 2013 story of Justine Sacco. She boarded a flight from New York to South Africa. Beforehand, she posted to her 170 followers a tweet that read: 'Going to Africa. Hope I don't get Aids. Just kidding. I'm white!' She turned off her phone and when she landed 11 hours later, her life had been destroyed. Her name was trending worldwide, she'd lost her job, she was being spoken about on the news and people were tracking her flight online. Dalziel referenced Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813. 'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn? 'In the case of Pride and Prejudice, they dined with four and 20 families. It was a village. Now, we are a global village where millions, billions of people are doing, behaving in exactly the same way as in Jane Austen's village. 'We are human animals. We want to belong to a club. The club's weighing in. And so we join the club because we want to be seen as part of it. People get senses of belonging, participating, and commenting regardless of the outcome on the other person,' she said. Listen to the full episode to hear more about the legalities of leaving your house and being captured on candid camera. The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016. You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
