World
Oceania
Kiwi pilot held hostage in West Papua freed after 592 days
Phillip Mark Mehrtens, a pilot from Christchurch who was working for Indonesian aviation company Susi Air, was captured by separatist rebels last year.
- by Niniek Karmini and Charlotte Graham-McLay
Latest
Pope arrives in deeply Catholic Timor-Leste where crowds may reach 750,000
His three-day visit will include an open-air celebration of Mass the Vatican says may include more than half the population of 1.3 million.
- by Nicole Winfield
New Zealand has a new monarch. She’s 27 and a haka expert
Twelve Maori male elders chose Nga Wai Hono i te Po Paki, a Maori culture expert, ahead of her older brothers to succeed her father, Kiingi Tuheitia.
- by Michael E. Miller
New Zealand to slug tourists nearly $100 per visit
The government – which announced a $NZ13.4 billion budget deficit in May – expects to raise up to an extra $NZ173 million each year.
- by Ben McKay
Opinion
Climate crisis
Why Australia may no longer be ‘God’s country’, according to Ajay Banga. Amen
In stark contrast to his predecessor at the World Bank, the new president is a warrior in the cause of confronting climate change.
- by Peter Hartcher
Updated
Vale
‘A mighty tree has fallen’: New Zealand’s Maori King Tuheitia dies
King Charles, NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and former PM Jacinda Ardern are among those paying tribute to the country’s Maori King.
- by Ben McKay
Pope urged to address child sex abuse scandals during Timor-Leste visit
Francis will come face to face with the faithful on his first trip to Timor-Leste where many still don’t believe an independence hero and bishop abused young boys.
- by Niniek Karmini, David Rising and Nicole Winfield
NZ food bank unknowingly distributes lollies with ‘lethal’ levels of meth
The amount of methamphetamine in each “revolting” lolly was up to 300 times the level someone would usually take, with a street value of $915.
- by Charlotte Graham McLay
Gunmen kill New Zealand helicopter pilot in Indonesia’s Papua region
Glen Malcolm Conning, a pilot for Indonesian aviation company PT Intan Angkasa Air Service, was shot to death by gunmen allegedly with the West Papua Liberation Army.
- by Alfian Kartono and Niniek Karmini
Opinion
French Polynesia
What links a dead paedophile painter with Paris 2024? Shame
As Paris holds the world’s gaze, France’s continued meddling in the Pacific paints a less-than-golden picture of colonial neglect and the price of imperialism.
- by Malcolm Knox
Inquiry finds 200,000 people were abused in NZ over decades in ‘national disgrace’
The scale of abuse was “unimaginable” with an estimated 200,000 people abused over seven decades, many of them Maori, a new report found.
- by Charlotte Graham-McLay