Author: Press Room

A “poor economic climate” has resulted in the closure of a nearly 40-year-old Dunedin motorcycle business. MCR Motorcycle Replacements, which supplied new Yamaha and Royal Enfield models, has had a presence in Dunedin since the mid-1980s. The current owner, who declined to give his name, confirmed the business officially closed last Friday. He had operated it for the past two and a-half years and it closed “due to a poor economic climate”, he said. The motorcycle retailer started out in North Rd, was later based in Hillside Rd and Maclaggan St, before settling at the Crawford St premises — next…

Netflix’s new thriller, A House of Dynamite, shows how the US might respond were a nuclear strike imminent. Mark Lacy asks, how far are we from this terrifying situation becoming a reality?As a teenager in the 1980s, I was shown a BBC drama in school called Threads that depicted the impact of a nuclear strike on a city in northern England. Threads is a brutal vision of a terrifying reality that I imagine haunted many people in the years before the end of the cold war.For younger generations who have so far experienced a world with pandemic lockdowns, wars in…

Stopping leachate from an old dump site entering a Tauranga stream will cost the council nearly $1.5m to fix.Tauranga City Council must carry out infrastructure upgrades to an old Cambridge Rd landfill site to comply with an abatement notice issued in July 2024 by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.The notice related to unauthorised discharges of leachate and stormwater from a historic overflow landfill area at 278 Cambridge Rd into the Kopurererua Stream.The stream runs through the Kopurererua Valley, one of Australasia’s largest urban wetlands home to native birds and fish.Kopurererua Valley is one of Australasia’s largest urban wetlands. (Source:…

Fonterra is no different from any other business — if any part of it is not performing, then it needs to be fixed or sold, Otago Federated Farmers chairman Luke Kane believes. Mr Kane was responding to yesterday’s shareholder vote which saw farmer shareholders overwhelmingly vote in favour of the sale of household brands such as Mainland and Anchor to French dairy giant Lactalis. While the threshold required to approve the sale was more than 50%, 88% of the votes cast backed the $4.22billion sale. Fonterra is targeting a tax-free capital return of $2 per share to shareholders and unit…

A “traitor” soldier with links to far-right groups and who tried to spy on New Zealand should be sent to prison, the Crown says.The soldier, whose name is for now suppressed, was at a court martial at Linton Military Camp near Palmerston North in August, and was sentenced to two years of military detention after admitting a charge of attempted espionage.At the Court Martial Appeal Court in Wellington on Thursday, the Crown argued the soldier should instead serve a sentence in a civilian prison.The defence said the soldier’s sentence was appropriate.RNZ was also seeking permission to appeal against the ruling…

People have been urged to stay inside their homes as firefighters tackle a large fire which broke out at a former tavern in Palmerston North this evening.Fire and Emergency NZ crews were called after the blaze broke out at the old Fitzherbert Tavern on Ferguson St, between Fitzherbert Ave and Linton St, around 5.15pm.Thick smoke billows from a fire at a liquor store in Palmerston North. (Source: Supplied / Greg Olsen) (Source: Supplied)Eight fire trucks, a command unit and a support unit are at the scene, a Fire and Emergency spokesperson told 1News.”The fire is producing a large amount of…

More than 750,000 New Zealanders currently live in areas at risk of major flooding – a number that could rise to 900,000 with three degrees of global warming.The figures come from a five-year national research programme led by Earth Sciences New Zealand, which has also launched the country’s first consistent nationwide flood hazard viewer.The online tool allows people to see whether their homes or communities fall within areas at risk from one-in-100-year rainfall events, and how that exposure could change under future climate scenarios.“Currently it’s around 750,000 people who are affected — with three degrees of warming that could go…

Belgium has found itself the butt of several jokes online, after various French media outlets reported that the country bought a fleet of F-35 fighter jets that it won’t be able to use, because its airspace is too small. The articles all begin with the same sentiment, leaning into the friendly French-Belgian rivalry by referring to a “blague belge”, or “Belgian joke”, and noting the €5.6 billion sum that the government in Brussels shelled out for 34 of the US-made jets back in 2018. However, there’s just one problem, according to the French articles: being a small country, it won’t…

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has had his first face to face encounter with US President Donald Trump at a leaders’ dinner hosted at the APEC Summit in South Korea. It is the first face to face meeting between the pair, but they have spoken on the phone once previously. President Donald Trump waits as New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon poses for a photo with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung (Source: Associated Press)Trump and Luxon met briefly before the dinner began and came out together joking with one another — Trump telling Luxon in front of international media —…

The Netherlands voted on Wednesday in a parliamentary resulting in a too close to call result with rightwing frontman Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom (PPV) and rising progressive leader Rob Jetten of the D66, both getting 26 seats. The difference between the two parties, as of Thursday morning, with more than 98% of the votes counted, is just a mere 2.000 votes. It could take several days before the final result is confirmed. Here is what we know so far: 1. The (unexpected) rise of D66 D66 was projected to get only 17 seats, compared to the 26…