Aotearoa / New Zealand

A pair of fishers are likely to face charges after being caught with more than 1800 pāua in Porirua.

The pāua was seized by fishery officers based in Wellington earlier this week.

"While inspecting a vessel shortly after it landed at Titahi Bay on Tuesday afternoon, fishery officers discovered 1863 pāua, which had already been shucked," Fisheries New Zealand regional Manager Phil Tasker said.

The estimated retail value of the pāua was approximately $25,000.

Tasker said it was one of the biggest hauls of illegally harvested pāua in recent times.

"There is a maximum daily limit of five pāua per fisher in this area, which gives some context to the scale of this offending, and the potential damage it could do to the pāua population."

He said it was incredibly disappointing to see offending of this scale.

"This fishery is a shared resource, and the rules are there to protect its sustainability for everyone. Our message for those who think they can steal this shared resource is that we will pursue offending and there will be consequences."

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31782869

Before/After. Meaux Street, Paris.

A man leaving his home for work at 6.30am went to jump into his work van but unexpectedly found his landlord sitting in it, drinking a handle of beer.

On another occasion, the landlord, Jake Sim, left a note for the tenant on the bench saying: "It's fixed ya winging pr**k" after going to the property to fix a heatpump".

The incidents were a part of a bigger tenancy issue in which Sim turned up at the property intoxicated and banging on the doors, and on other occasions, unlawfully let himself in.

The tenant told the tribunal that on 23 April that year, he went to the rental, the location of which was redacted from the decision, and found a treadmill set up and a TV mounted on a wall.

Around mid-2024, the tenant changed the locks to the house.

He acknowledged it was a breach of his obligations as a tenant but said he felt he had no other option.

The tribunal ruled it would not order him to pay exemplary damages, given the context in which the locks were changed.

Sim then said he had used a lock-picking kit to let himself in on November 14. Then, on November 15, when he believed the tenancy had ended, he climbed through a window.

The tenant claimed that when he returned to the premises on November 16 to finish moving, his gun safe had been opened and $3000 in cash and two rings were gone.

He was ordered to pay the tenant, who was awarded name suppression, $2000 compensation and $1500 in damages.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37069205

New Zealand has announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russia, Belarus, Iran, and North Korea, expanding its pressure campaign against states supporting or enabling Moscow’s war efforts.

According to an official statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published on June 19, the sanctions list includes ten individuals and eight entities connected to Russia’s military-industrial complex.

It also targets political figures and actors from Iran, Belarus, and North Korea, who support Russia`s full0scale war against Ukraine.

[...]

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

Archived

New Zealand has suspended its financial assistance to the Cook Islands, saying its former Pacific Island colony did not consult it before signing a deal with China.

Wellington is the Cook Islands' largest financial backer, but it's paused $16.9 million in funding to the country for development this year.

[...]

A spokesperson for New Zealand's foreign minister says the Cook Islands needs to rebuild trust before Wellington considers new funding.

Archived link

Beijing sent shivers through the South Pacific in September 2024, when its elite Rocket Force fired a dummy warhead into the high seas near French Polynesia.

A tranche of classified government briefing notes obtained by AFP shows deep concern within the New Zealand government in the wake of the surprise launch, which China shrugged off as "routine".

It was China's first long-range missile launch over international waters in more than 40 years, the papers confirmed, serving as a blunt reminder of Beijing's potent nuclear-strike capabilities.

"We are concerned that China is characterising this as a 'routine test'," senior diplomats wrote in a memo to New Zealand's foreign affairs minister.

"It is not routine: China has not conducted this type of long-range missile test in over 40 years.

"We do not want to see this test repeated."

China's military played down the test as a "legitimate and routine arrangement for military training".

Behind the scenes, New Zealand diplomats privately decried China's "mischaracterisation".

"As this is the first time that China has undertaken such an action in the Pacific in several decades, it is a significant and concerning development," they wrote in one of the briefing documents.

...

China alerted the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and New Zealand before the test.

But there was only a vague indication of what it would do, according to a separate batch of Australian government documents obtained by AFP.

"Beijing advised us of a planned activity the evening prior to the launch, but specific details were not forthcoming," Australian defence officials wrote in November last year.

Pacific island nations, however, were not provided with advance notice of the launch, New Zealand diplomats noted.

Following the launch, Japan publicly voiced "serious concern", Australia said the test risked "destabilising" the South Pacific, and Fiji urged "respect for our region".

Pacific nation Kiribati, one of China's warmest friends in the region, said the South Pacific Ocean should not be a proving ground for jostling big powers.

...