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The EU chief argued Europe and the US should team up against China to secure a climate-friendly future.
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Suzanne Lynch
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Tag: New Zealand
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Jacinda Ardern resigns as New Zealand’s prime minister
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New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will resign from the top job “no later” than February 7, she announced on Thursday at a press conference at her party’s annual caucus meeting, saying she didn’t have “enough in the tank” to continue.
Ardern, who became the youngest female head of government when she was elected prime minister in 2017 aged 37, confirmed New Zealanders will head to the polls for a national election on October 14 this year, and that she would not stand for reelection.
“It’s time,” Ardern said on Thursday of her plans to step down as prime minister.
“I’m leaving, because with such a privileged role comes responsibility,” she said. “The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.”
Speaking to her 4-year-old daughter Neve, Ardern said she was looking forward to spending time with her when she started school this year. In a message to her fiancé Clarke Gayford, she said: “Let’s finally get married.”
Ardern said that while she knew there would be “much discussion in the aftermath of this decision as to what the so-called real reason was, I can tell you that what I’m sharing today, is it. The only interesting angle that you will find is that after going on six years of some big challenges, I am human, politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can. And then it’s time. And for me, it’s time,” she said.
Ardern led New Zealand through the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as several crises such as the terror attack on two Christchurch mosques in March 2019 and the White Island volcanic eruption in December 2019.
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Zoya Sheftalovich
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The world’s in a ‘polycrisis’ — and these countries want to quash it by looking beyond GDP
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“The need for a new economic model has never been clearer,” Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told CNBC. “Which I think is why we’re seeing such growing interest in the well-being economy approach, both here in Scotland and around the world.”
Jane Barlow – Pa Images | Pa Images | Getty Images
LONDON — For a small but growing network of countries, the world’s go-to metric of economic health is no longer fit for purpose.
Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership. The coalition, which is expected to expand in the coming months, aims to transform economies around the world to deliver shared well-being for people and the planet by 2040.
That means abandoning the idea that the percentage change in gross domestic product is a good indicator of progress, and instead reframing economic policy to deliver quality of life for all people in harmony with the environment.
“The need for a new economic model has never been clearer,” Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told CNBC. “Which I think is why we’re seeing such growing interest in the well-being economy approach, both here in Scotland and around the world.”
Encouraging other policymakers to consider an economic approach centered on well-being, Sturgeon said multiple global crises, such as the climate emergency, biodiversity loss and the cost-of-living crisis, “raise fundamental questions about what we value — and what our economies are actually for.”
“Building a wellbeing economy is a huge challenge for any country, at any time, and the current crises we are facing make it harder — but they also underline why we need to make this transformation as a matter of urgency,” Sturgeon said. “We’ve made progress over the past five years, but we still have much more to do.”
I often say that we need to shift from power, profit and patriarchy to people, planet and prosperity.
Sandrine Dixson-Declève
Co-president of the Club of Rome
In just the last few months, New Zealand published its first national Wellbeing Report; the European Union recognized the need to shift to a well-being economy; and the World Health Organization launched an initiative that calls for well-being to be at the heart of economic recovery.
Australia, Canada and Costa Rica are among some of the countries to have worked closely with the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership in recent months, and “post-growth” advocates believe it is just a matter of time before more countries embrace the well-being movement. A post-growth society is one that resists the demand for constant economic growth.
‘Building the plane as we fly it’
Dominick Stephens, chief economic advisor at the Treasury in New Zealand, hailed the country’s first well-being report as a “landmark moment,” saying it aims to provide lawmakers with a big-picture view of what life is like in the South Pacific nation.
“We want to look beyond GDP to understand progress, but we don’t have a singular measure of wellbeing — so we need to look across a range of indicators and evidence to understand progress in this broader sense,” Stephens told CNBC.
“This helps us all to understand where New Zealand is doing well, where we are lagging and how wellbeing is experienced differently for different people in our country.”
Among the findings published on Nov. 24, the report highlighted the wide and growing gap between the well-being of older citizens and that of younger citizens, with older citizens faring better on a range of metrics.
Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership.
Fiona Goodall | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Treasury identified three priority areas in need of improvement: mental health; educational achievement; and housing affordability and quality.
Stephens said that while the report would not be the final word, it’s now up to New Zealanders to decide on the extent to which they are concerned about those issues and the actions needed to address them.
“We do not have a silver bullet in New Zealand on how to do Wellbeing Reporting well,” Stephens said. “Different countries have taken different approaches. We are, in some ways, building the plane as we fly it.”
“More countries trying different approaches to integrating wellbeing analysis into policy means more opportunities for New Zealand, and other countries, to learn from the experiences of others,” he added.
The ‘Limits to Growth’ — 50 years on
The gathering momentum for a transformation of the current economic system comes half a century after the Club of Rome think tank published its groundbreaking “Limits to Growth” report.
The 1972 book warned that the planet’s resources would not be able to support the exponential rates of economic and population growth and would therefore collapse before the end of this century. Broadly speaking — and following a sharp backlash to its dire predictions at the time — the world has gone down the path that the book’s authors predicted it would.
Academics and economists told CNBC that an ultimatum from the world’s top climate scientists about the dangers of exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of global heating — a critically important temperature threshold beyond which dangerous tipping points become more likely — underscores the need to end an obsession with growth at all costs.
“If they hadn’t realized it 50 years ago that we already needed to shift, I think now is the time because we are confronted with a polycrisis,” Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the Club of Rome think tank, told CNBC via telephone.
The term “polycrisis” refers to crises that occur in multiple global systems and become entangled in such a way that they produce harms greater than those crises would in aggregate.
“Not only is our planet sick from continued growth scenarios, because we have gone way beyond a healthy use of natural resources, but our people are getting increasingly sick, and our young people are making less and less money,” Dixson-Declève said.
When asked whether that means she believes there is no alternative to a well-being strategy, Dixson-Declève replied, “Yes, absolutely. I often say that we need to shift from power, profit and patriarchy to people, planet and prosperity.”
Just how important is GDP?
U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy once said a country’s GDP measures everything “except that which makes life worthwhile.”
Critics of GDP, which represents the total value of goods and services over a specific time period, argue that the indicator is misleading because it measures “the good, the bad and the ugly” of economic activity and calls it all good.
GDP does not, for instance, take into account unpaid work, nor does it distinguish between economic activity which contributes positively or negatively to the health and well-being of people and the natural environment.
I think it just shows our lack of imagination. We can’t even imagine an economy that is better than growth.
Katherine Trebeck
Co-founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance
In the U.K., Rishi Sunak said in his first speech as prime minister that his predecessor Liz Truss was not wrong to want to improve economic growth in the country. “It is a noble aim,” Sunak said outside Downing Street on Oct. 25.
Three months earlier, opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said Britain needed three things to fix its broken social contract. “Growth. Growth. And growth.”
“I think it just shows our lack of imagination. We can’t even imagine an economy that is better than growth,” said Katherine Trebeck, co-founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a network of academics, businesses and social movements.
“The best we can do is put some nice adjectives in front of growth — sustainable growth, green growth, inclusive growth, shared growth — but we are almost not allowed to entertain the prospect that a growing economy is a 20th-century recipe,” she added.
“High-income nations have got enough in overall terms but there are huge profound inequalities within the richest countries. So, what they need to do is think about how to share and cherish those resources,” Trebeck said.
“I use the phrase that they need to recognize that they’ve arrived. The job of growth has been done and they need to now move to a second project which is about making themselves at home.”
Trebeck described well-being economics as a “picnic blanket term,” which encompasses movements such as “degrowth,” “doughnut” economics or circular and regenerative models rather than an alternative policy.
“I think there is a profound moral obligation [on high-income countries] because they are taking up more than their ecological fair share which is implicitly saying that countries around the world that don’t have enough to meet the basic material needs of their citizens are effectively going to stay there,” Trebeck said.
“It is about really saying how do we live fairly on this one finite planet?”
‘GDP is not a way to measure richness’
The push to look beyond economic growth comes at a time of growing calls to end fossil fuel production worldwide.
“Basically, with a growth commitment, you have a commitment to more energy and material use which then consequently results in environmental impacts — and it makes decarbonization harder,” Julia Steinberger, ecological economist at the University of Lausanne, told CNBC via telephone.
“What you need to do for decarbonization is you need to stop using all fossil fuels and replace energy demand with renewable or low or zero-carbon energy sources and that is harder to do [and] it is going to take longer to do if we have constantly growing energy demand,” Steinberger said. “That’s the climate case for it.”
The South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu last month became the first country to use the U.N.’s annual climate summit to push for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. The European Parliament, the Vatican and WHO have all backed the proposal.
But only a handful of small countries have endorsed the initiative to date, and the fossil fuel industry has typically sought to underline the importance of energy security in the planned transition to renewables.
The burning of fossil fuels — such as coal, oil and gas — is the chief driver of the climate emergency.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called out what he described as the “massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny.”
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also recently joined a chorus of voices calling for GDP to be dropped as the world’s go-to indicator of economic growth, pushing instead for policymakers to shift to a circular economy.
This refers to an economic system that is based on the reuse and repair of materials to extend the life cycle of products for as long as possible and moves away from the world’s current “take, make, throw away” model.
“We need to change course — now — and end our senseless and suicidal war against nature,” Guterres said at a major international environmental meeting in early June.
“We must place true value on the environment and go beyond Gross Domestic Product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing,” Guterres said. “Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP. GDP is not a way to measure richness in the present situation in the world.”
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Sex-abuse video victimizes child long after abuser is gone
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By MICHAEL REZENDES and HELEN WIEFFERING
The video of a man raping his 9-year-old daughter was discovered in New Zealand in 2016 and triggered a global search for the little girl.
Investigators contacted Interpol and the pursuit eventually included the FBI, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Months later, investigators raided the Bisbee, Arizona, home of Paul Adams, arrested him and rescued the girl in the video along with her five siblings.
While Adams can no longer physically hurt his daughter — he died by suicide in custody — the videos live on, downloaded and uploaded by child pornographers across the U.S. and around the globe, growing ever more popular even as as police, prosecutors and internet companies chase behind in a futile effort to remove the images.
The number of times the Adams video has been seen soared from fewer than 100 in 2017 to 4,500 in 2021, according to data provided to The Associated Press with the permission of the girl and her adoptive mother, Nancy Salminen. The tally was produced by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit that tracks child pornography on the internet and works with law enforcement agencies throughout the world.
“That’s the horrendous part about it,” Salminen said. “You can’t just say that’s in the past and shut the door and move on. She will never be able to turn her back on what’s happened.”
The ongoing victimization of the child could have been avoided.
Six years before the video surfaced in Auckland, Adams, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church, confessed to his bishop that he abused his daughter, identified by the AP as MJ.
But a prominent church lawyer told the bishop to keep the abuse secret. And as a result, MJ was brutalized for seven more years. Today, she continues to be victimized almost daily in a different way, as the video, and others Adams took, circulate on the internet. Details of the Mormon officials’ cover-up of the Adams rapes were reported in an AP investigation in August.
The data provided to the AP also shows that police in the U.S. referred the Adams video, or portions of it, to NCMEC for identification 1,850 times since it was discovered, contributing to nearly 800 arrests on federal child pornography charges last year alone.
Those arrested comprise a coast-to-coast catalog of men — women rarely traffic in child pornography, the data shows — that defies economic or geographic boundaries. A random sampling includes:
— Kurt Sheldon, 31, a librarian in Putnam County, Florida, was arrested in September 2020 for possession of child pornography and using Snapchat to solicit pornography from a 12-year-oid girl. Sheldon was sentenced to nearly 22 years in federal prison.
— Joseph Mollick, 58, a physician affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center was arrested in October 2021. Federal officials charged him with using the social media application Kik to upload 2,000 child pornography videos and images. Mollick pleaded not guilty.
— Jared Faircloth, 24, a U.S. Air Force airman, was arrested in October 2021 in Cream Ridge, New Jersey, for downloading more than 2,800 child sex abuse videos and images through the BitTorrent network. Faircloth pleaded guilty to federal charges and is awaiting sentencing.
— Harold “HL” Moody, Jr., 39, a former communications director for the Arkansas Democratic party, was arrested in November 2018 for distributing child pornography in online chatrooms. The Little Rock resident pleaded guilty to federal charges and is awaiting sentencing.
LIMITS OF COMPUTER SLEUTHING
The seeming immortality of the Adams video underscores the limits of computer sleuthing by a global network of investigators racing to stop internet child pornography, and it reveals how advances in data storage and video technology have outpaced efforts to stop it.
Permanently removing the images from the open internet is nearly impossible, child sex abuse experts say, because pornographers throughout the world are constantly downloading the images, storing them and reposting them.
“That’s what makes the whole crime type so abhorrent,” said Simon Peterson, the New Zealand customs agent who discovered the Adams video, during an interview with the AP. Victims of online child pornography, he said, “have to wake up every morning knowing that there’s imagery of those terrible times in their lives still out there, and that people are accessing it for their own gratification.”
The Adams case has also highlighted a glaring loophole in state child sex abuse reporting laws. Adams, a member of the Mormon church, confessed he was abusing his daughter to his Bishop, John Herrod, in 2010. In Arizona, clergy are among the professionals required to report child sexual abuse to police or child welfare officials.
But when the bishop called the church’s “help line” for advice, Merrill Nelson, a lawyer representing the church, directed him to withhold the information from police and child welfare officials.
According to legal documents, Nelson, who was also a Utah legislator, pointed to an exception in the state’s mandatory child sex abuse reporting law that allows clergy to keep information revealed during a confession to themselves. The so-called clergy-penitent privilege is on the books in 33 states, the AP found.
Behind this veil of church secrecy, Adams continued molesting MJ and, five years later, started raping her younger sister as well, beginning when she was just 6 weeks old. He was also taking videos and photographs of the abuse and posting them to the internet, including the nine-minute video that was eventually his undoing.
A WORLDWIDE QUEST
It was November 2016 when Peterson and his team of agents in Auckland raided the home of a 47-year-old farm worker whom they’d been watching online for months.
“He knew what we were there for,” Peterson recalled. “And by the end of the morning we’d arrested him, interviewed him and charged him for exporting and possessing child sexual abuse material.”
For weeks the investigators pored over the computers and cell phones they had seized in the raid, and shortly before Christmas, Peterson found the Adams video, which the farmworker had downloaded from an internet site based in Russia.
Agents who chase child pornographers often see the same images over and over. But Peterson said the Adams video was different. After running it through a New Zealand database of seized child pornography, and a second database maintained by Interpol, the organization that helps law enforcement agencies work across countries, Peterson suspected the video might be new, and the child depicted might still be in danger.
He could also see obvious clues that could help identify the rapist and his victim.
“We could see both their faces for a start,” Peterson said. “And they were talking throughout it, as well. We could tell from the accent if it wasn’t Canadian, it was American. So we could narrow it down pretty quickly.”
Interpol sent the video to NCMEC, which acts as a clearinghouse for agencies investigating child pornography throughout the world. Computer analysts there isolated several images of Adams’ face and sent them to Homeland Security Investigations, which in turn sent them to the FBI, where analysts tried unsuccessfully to identify them with facial recognition technology, according to summaries of the case compiled by the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
The FBI’s Operation Rescue Me then turned to the State Department to compare the images to those in a database of visa and passport photos and found eight potential matches. Investigators finally zeroed in on Adams and his daughter through his wife’s Facebook page. They were also able to determine that the video was made on June 20, 2015, and that Adams was a U.S. Border Patrol employee who had that day off, so he was free to create the video at home.
On Feb. 8, 2017, about six weeks after Peterson discovered the video in New Zealand, Homeland Security agents arrested Adams on the job at the Naco, Arizona, border crossing while federal agents raided his home, seized electronic devices and rescued his six children.
“It was quite emotional,” Peterson said. “We don’t get success often.”
A GLOBAL GLUT OF CHILD PORN
Over the last several years, sightings of child sexual abuse material on the internet have skyrocketed.
Under federal law, every internet platform based in the United States is required to report discoveries of child pornography on their social media pages to NCMEC’s Cyber Tipline. Last year, the organization received 29 million reports, up from 21 million in 2020, and 18 million in 2019 — a 61% increase over just two years.
The vast majority of these reports stem from child pornography posted on the open internet and do not account for additional child porn posted to the dark web, where producers and consumers of child sexual abuse material — or CSAM — operate with near complete anonymity.
“It’s nearly impossible to fully estimate and scope how much CSAM is on the internet, whether that’s open web, P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing or the dark net,” said John Shehan, vice president of NCMEC’s Exploited Children Division.
But investigators agree that the surge in reports by companies with open internet platforms such as Facebook indicates an enormous increase in the volume of child sexual abuse material on the internet. These investigators attribute the increase to advances in technology that have made it easier and less expensive for amateurs to take pornographic videos with their cellphones and to store vast amounts child pornography at minimal cost on remote servers or external hard drives.
Erin Burke, the Homeland Security section chief for the agency’s Cyber Crimes Center, said it’s common for investigators to find child pornographers with “terabytes of files.” A single terabyte is enough space to hold hundreds of hours of video and can be stored on a remote server for as little as $25 a month, or on an external hard drive that can cost less than $100.
Investigators also attribute the sharp rise in internet child pornography to the worldwide travel restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic.
Unable to visit countries where child prostitution proliferates, some pornographers resorted to a practice known as “sextortion,” in which an online perpetrator lures a child into sending compromising selfies. If the child later refuses to produce more explicit images, the perpetrator threatens to post the selfies the child initially created to the child’s social media contacts, which typically include family members.
“That’s one of the bad outcomes of COVID,” Burke said. “It was bound to happen anyway but it just kind of sped up that process.”
On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department issued an alert on a related scheme in which young sextortion victims are also extorted for money, citing more than 3,000 victims and multiple suicides this year.
Another chilling outcome of the pandemic, Burke said, is the advent of live streaming of child sexual abuse for audiences ranging from a handful to thousands. On platforms that offer live video chats and end-to-end encryption, viewers who pay minimal, untraceable fees may choose from a menu of child victims of varying ages, including infants, and request to see specific sex acts.
Burke said Homeland Security investigators have found that much of the live streaming originates in the Philippines and is performed for U.S. and Western European audiences. English is commonly spoken in the Southeast Asian nation and high-quality internet service is available, she said. At the same time, harsh economic conditions provide an incentive for families to participate.
“They’re mostly abusing family members,” Burke said. “It’s not grabbing kids off the street.”
As the volume of internet child sexual abuse material has soared, so too have the number of agencies working to stop it. Homeland Security and the FBI both have special units dedicated to tracking down child pornographers. Along with NCMEC, they work closely with more than 60 local branches of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program, with units spread throughout the U.S.
Internationally, Homeland Security and NCMEC work with investigators at Interpol and law enforcement agencies throughout the world, including those in the other “Five Eyes” countries — Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand — which cooperate in a range of intelligence activities.
RESTITUTION
In the six years following the discovery of the nine-minute Adams video, law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have seized thousands of images of MJ’s abuse and have referred the material to NCMEC for positive identification. In turn, NCMEC has cataloged the identities of those arrested who may have possessed or trafficked the images and given the information to MJ’s lawyers, who can sue each perpetrator for up to $150,000 in restitution under federal civil law, in addition to restitution that may be available through criminal proceedings.
Lynne Cadigan, one of several attorneys representing three of the Adams children, said MJ will seek compensation from the child pornographers.
But she and Salminen, the girl’s adoptive mother, lay most of the blame for the sexual abuse on officials of the Mormon church, who knew Adams molested MJ as early as 2010 and did nothing to stop it.
“She went to church with people who didn’t help her and as a result thousands of people are looking at the video and there’s nothing she can do about it,” Cadigan said.
Two years ago, the three Adams children filed a lawsuit that accuses the church, two bishops and a third Mormon official of conspiring to keep the years of abuse by their father out of the hands of civil authorities.
As part of the lawsuit, the Arizona Court of Appeals on Dec. 15 ruled that the church does not have to turn over disciplinary records for Adams, who was excommunicated in 2013. The court also ruled that a church official who attended a disciplinary hearing could refuse to answer questions from the plaintiffs’ attorneys during pretrial testimony, based on the clergy-penitent privilege. Lawyers for the three Adams children said they plan to appeal.
Attorneys for the church say the bishops who knew that Adams abused his daughter — John Herrod and Robert “Kim” Mauzy — did nothing wrong by taking a lawyer’s advice and withholding the information because Adams told Herrod about the abuse during a spiritual confession, triggering the privilege.
In a statement to the AP, the church said it had no knowledge Adams was recording himself abusing his two daughters and posting the material on the internet until 2017. “The Church had no idea that these videos were being created or circulated until after Paul Adams was arrested,” the statement read. “The church supports all efforts to prosecute anyone who possesses or distributes these heinous and disturbing videos.”
Adams might never have stopped raping his two daughters if Peterson hadn’t discovered the nine-minute video in New Zealand. But unlike Adams, the video may never be stopped.
“They’re living with it for the rest of their lives,” Peterson said. “It’s on the internet. It’s not going anywhere.”
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AP investigative reporter Jason Dearen, video journalist Jesse Wardarski and data journalist Justin Myers contributed to this story.
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To contact AP’s investigations team, email investigative@ap.org
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Zelenskyy asks New Zealand to focus on war’s ecological toll
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged New Zealand to take a leading role in focusing on the environmental destruction his country is suffering as a result of Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskyy delivered his message via video link to lawmakers who packed the debating chamber at 8 a.m. Wednesday. He became just the second foreign leader to address New Zealand’s parliament, after Australia’s Julia Gillard did so in 2011.
Zelenskyy said it was possible to rebuild a nation’s economy and infrastructure, even though it may take many years.
“But you can’t rebuild destroyed nature, just as you can’t restore destroyed lives,” he said.
Zelenskyy is pushing for a 10-point peace plan that, as well as environmental protection, including items such as nuclear safety and justice. He has been asking various countries to take a lead on different points.
He said some of the environmental effects of the war included poisoned groundwater, ravaged forests, flooded coal mines and huge areas of Ukraine that remain contaminated from unexploded mines.
Zelenskyy thanked New Zealand for their contributions to Ukraine’s war effort so far and offered a message of hope.
“Various dictators and aggressors, they always fail to realize the strength of the free world’s governments,” he said.
New Zealand announced it was providing another 3 million New Zealand dollars ($2 million) in humanitarian aid through the International Committee of the Red Cross, adding to the NZ$8 million it had already provided.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Zelenskyy her country’s support for Ukraine wasn’t determined by geography or diplomatic ties.
“Our judgment was a simple one,” she said. “We asked ourselves the question, ‘What if it was us?’”
She said that in such a scenario, New Zealand would want nations in the international community to use their voices, “regardless of their political systems, their distance, or their size.”
Lawmakers finished the address by singing a World War II-era song in the Indigenous Māori language.
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New Zealand PM Ardern caught name-calling rival on hot mic
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was caught on a hot mic Tuesday using a vulgarity against a rival politician in a rare misstep for a leader known for her skill at debating and calm, measured responses.
After five years as prime minister, Ardern faces a tough election campaign in 2023. Her liberal Labour Party won reelection two years ago in a landslide of historic proportions, but recent polls have put her party behind its conservative rivals.
The comment came after lawmaker David Seymour, who leads the libertarian ACT party, peppered Ardern with questions about her government’s record for around seven minutes during Parliament’s Question Time, which allows for spirited debate between rival parties.
As an aside to her deputy Grant Robertson, Ardern said what sounded like, “He’s such an arrogant pr———,” after sitting down. Her words are barely audible on Parliament TV but are just picked up in the background by her desk microphone as House Speaker Adrian Rurawhe talks.
Ardern’s office said she apologized to Seymour for the comment. When asked by The Associated Press to clarify, Ardern’s office did not dispute the comment. In an interview with the AP, Seymour said she had used those words.
“I’m absolutely shocked and astonished at her use of language,” Seymour said. “It’s very out of character for Jacinda, and I’ve personally known her for 11 years.”
He said it was also ironic because his question to the prime minister had been about whether she had ever admitted a mistake as leader and then fixed it. “And she couldn’t give a single example of when she’s admitted she’s wrong and apologized,” Seymour said.
Seymour said that in her text, Ardern wrote that she “apologized, she shouldn’t have made the comments, and that, as her mom said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.”
Seymour, who said he admired some of Ardern’s political skills immensely, said he’d written back to Ardern thanking her for the apology and wishing her a very Merry Christmas.
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Can James Cameron and ‘Avatar’ wow again? Don’t doubt it.
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NEW YORK — James Cameron has been living on Pandora for a long time.
But 13 years after the original “Avatar” and five years after starting production on its sequel, “The Way of Water,” Cameron is unveiling the long-awaited follow-up to the highest grossing film of all-time. Speaking the day after “The Way of Water” debuted in London, Cameron — back on Earth and self-admittedly out of practice with the hoopla of a red-carpet premiere — describes the experience of finally having the movie out in the world “surreal.”
“You work on these films kind of in a bubble. You create this world around you with your artists, with your casts and so on,” Cameron says. “Then one day you realize, ‘Oh crap, we’re going to have to show this to people at some point.’”
For a long time, the “Avatar” sequel was the “Waiting for Godot” of blockbusters – more theoretical than real, with release dates that kept spiraling into the future. Meanwhile, an unending parade of pieces pondered the original’s curious place in entertainment: a box-office behemoth with little cultural footprint, a $3 billion ghost.
But the first look at Cameron’s “Avatar” sequel has thrown some cold water on that notion. The overwhelming reaction to the director’s latest three-hour opus? Never bet against James Cameron.
“The important thing is that there are people willing to bet on me and on the ideas that interest me and I want to go forward with” Cameron says, speaking by video conference. “It was 20th Century Fox, Jim Gianopulos specifically, who OK’ed this film to go forward. Then we were acquired by Disney. That could have gone south but it didn’t. The word I got from them all the way along was: ‘We want quality. We want this movie. We want this movie for the theaters. We want to remind people what the theatrical experience is.’”
With a reported price tag of more than $350 million, a third “Avatar” film already wrapped and two more films planned after that, the Walt Disney Co. is placing a very big wager, indeed, on “The Way of Water.” But regardless of jokes about blue people or Papyrus font, Cameron’s latest — a deep-blue ocean epic of natural splendor, ecological protectionism and family perseverance — is poised to again blow audiences away, and possibly, once more rake in billions.
The film, which opens in theaters Thursday, might be Cameron’s most ambitious undertaking yet — which is saying something for the 68-year-old filmmaker of “Titanic,” “The Terminator” and “Aliens.”
“I don’t want to do anything but big swings,” Cameron says. “I’m going to fall on my ass sooner or later. But if you’re not ready to fall on your ass, you’re not doing anything interesting.”
We’ve been here before. After cost overruns and delays, “Titanic” was written off as a sure-to-bomb case study of Hollywood excess. Then it made $2.2 billion in ticket sales and won 11 Oscars. Not everyone was pre-sold on “Avatar,” either, which resuscitated 3-D after decades of dormancy.
“‘Titanic’ was assumed to be a big steaming pile,” says Cameron. “That was a much bigger flip. And we had a similar flip on a smaller scale with the first ‘Avatar.’ People saw the trailer on a little window on their laptop and called it ‘Smurfs’ and ‘videogame cinematic’ and stuff like that. Then they went to see it in the movie theater and went, ‘Wait, wait. It’s pretty cool.’”
“There was a guarded skepticism around this film,” he adds, “as there should always be with any new film.”
“The Way of Water,” which Cameron scripted with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, takes place a decade after the events of the first “Avatar.” Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the paralyzed Marine who donned an avatar on Pandora, is now fully enmeshed in the remote world of the Na’vi. He and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have three teenage children. When human soldiers come hunting for him, Jake moves his family to a reef clan of Na’vi who live harmoniously with the ocean.
The trials the family endures turn surprisingly wrenching in what’s already been called Cameron’s most emotional film. That may be partly because much of Cameron’s own experience as a father raising five children in New Zealand is woven into the film, as is his early life growing up in Ontario as the eldest son of an electrical engineer father.
“I remember what that was like for me. I’ve been Lo-ak,” says Cameron, referring to Jake and Neytiri’s middle son. “I’ve been the kid whose father doesn’t get him or see him. I don’t mean to disparage my dad. He was a great dad of that period in the sense of putting a roof over our heads and out there working hard, breadwinner. But he didn’t know what to do with an artist kid. He didn’t know what to do with a flamboyant artist whose head was out in interstellar space all the time.”
“The Way of Water,” which is being shown in 3-D and 48-frames-per-second (double the standard), also means a new generation of technological advancement. While it’s unlikely to be as much a milestone as the first was visually, the blend of CGI and live action, above ground and under water, makes for an even more strikingly detailed vistas.
“We’re able to deliver a much greater ability of photorealism than we ever did before,” says producer Jon Landau. “When we made the first movie, I would say to people, ‘We need it to be photographic.’ Now in this movie, we have so many Avatar, Na’vi characters in the live-action world and we have so many live-action characters in the Pandora world, we need to be photoreal. That’s a new standard we have to live up to.”
That’s most beautifully rendered in the film’s waters, where teeming science-fiction species of flora and fauna enrich an imagined ocean paradise. To Cameron, an avid deep-sea explorer whose passions for sea nearly outstrip his love of filmmaking, “The Way of the Water” is his grand ode to the ocean.
“It’s also a cri de coeur to people around the world to protect and be guardians of the oceans, to be guardians of nature, in general. That’s what these ‘Avatar’ movies are about,” Cameron says. “In New Zealand, the Maori people call it kaitiakitanga and it basically means guardianship of nature. I don’t think most people in so-called Western, industrial society really feel that strongly.
“Obviously, there are people of conscience, there are people who are activists for climate change and rain forest preservation and so on. But unfortunately, they’re not the majority in the seat of power. So I think it’s fair to say that we’ve got to change the way we do business or we’re not going to have these things,” Cameron says. “The ocean of Pandora is probably very much like how the ocean of Earth used to be, at least in terms of profusion.”
“The Way of the Water” will arrive in theaters with expectations of a debut of at least $150 million on opening weekend in North America. More notably, it will quench the thirst of multiplexes that have, after some big summer successes, seen the number of wide releases — and moviegoers — slide this fall. When he debuted the first “Avatar,” streaming was nascent; Netflix was just getting into the business of making movies. Now, for a much different movie landscape, Cameron will again hope to show audiences the full power of visionary grand-scale filmmaking.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what art is in its essence. And I think dreams have something to do with it,” he says. “There’s like a render engine or a narrative engine that runs in our heads every night. It puts images and scenarios together in some kind of sequence. Sometimes, most times, they’re completely illogical. But they have a kind of momentary logic to them. I’m always telling everybody on the film, this is a movie with floating mountains. It doesn’t have to always be logical. It just has to have that dream logic.”
At the “Way of Water” premiere in London, Cameron was struck by how the audience looked different to him. It was a black-tie affair, unusual for him as a director, but that wasn’t only it.
“I looked out at that audience and everybody looked so beautiful and they put so much energy into just showing up. It struck me that maybe we’re back,” Cameron says. “Maybe cinema’s back. Maybe enough people out there do care about that dream of cinema.”
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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A Rather Grand Bit Of The Shire Lists In New Zealand’s Wairarapa District
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After 15 years, one of New Zealand’s most significant properties has been priced for market at $5.2 million―the grand estate’s otherworldly gardens blushed with myth. Its substantial lake was the set piece for a doomed hobbit who found a golden ring buried on its murky bottom for two and half millennia.
New Zealand film director Peter Jackson, in fact, lives a half-hour drive north of the residence. Jackson was the director, writer and producer of The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies filmed in New Zealand.
The lake area of the New Zealand estate was used in the filming of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
The historic country house’s own origin story dates to 1860 when the property was secured via a crown grant with a spread of 2,300-plus acres. It’s since been pared to about 29 acres and its previous structures razed. Now, a 1924 American Colonial Revival home graces the land, its eight-bedroom interior done in a Georgian layout of 900 square meters.
Located in the South Wairarapa district at the southeast end of the country’s north island, the heritage estate called Fernside was mastered by Kiwi architect Heathcote Helmore. He also designed the 1933 Vogel House, for a time the official Wellington residence for the country’s Prime Minister.
An oak-lined entry drive of nearly 2 kilometers is best driven at a leisurely pace. A dozen or more sheep wander the road’s edge, keeping grasses tidy.
The 1924 Georgian-style home has been restored to its former grandeur.
Fernside’s exterior is of white weatherboard accented by forest green shutters, all topped with a steep neo-Georgian slate roof. Fully restored gardens that gratify at every turn―they’re counted as among the finest in the country―lie beyond. But first, the home.
Upon entry, the residence’s highly symmetrical L-shaped layout begins with the foyer’s ample wainscoting done in cream set against pale golden walls. It’s a warm welcome.
To the left, there’s a formal dining room and to the right, two drawing rooms, one with an adjacent sunroom. “The drawing rooms are big, but they’re still intimate and with views onto the gardens,” says listing agent Anthony Morsinkhof of PQ Property Intelligence. “They’re north-facing with lots of light and with views to the gardens. With big roaring fires blazing in them, it’s very special.”
The grounds have also undergone an extensive rehabilitation since the sellers took ownership in … [+]
Overall, “you feel you’re at home” in the estate, he adds. “It’s very livable. You don’t get lost in this home even though it’s large, whereas, in other properties, it can be so easy to get absolutely lost.”
Beyond the dining room are a modern commercial kitchen, utility areas and staff offices with a dedicated staircase that ascends to three staff bedrooms. On the first floor near the kitchen, there’s a flower room, a box room and one for wine. Of note is a centralized bell system linked to upper rooms for summoning servants―it recalls the one featured in Julian Fellowes’ historical drama series, Downton Abbey.
There’s also a lift, currently not working―the first of its kind in New Zealand.
Interior details include wainscoting, high ceilings and crown molding.
Just up the handsome Georgian-style staircase, separate from the staff stairs and bedrooms, are five spacious bedrooms, four of them en suite, “which was very much ahead of its time,” says Morsinkhof, adding that the bathrooms have original tile and Carrara marble.
Floors in the residence are of oak and Jarrah, a eucalyptus native to Western Australia prized for its beauty and durability.
Intricate Regency-style plasterwork adorns the walls in “Ella’s bedroom” set with a fireplace. The room was named in honor of socialite Ella Elgar, wife of Charles Elgar who purchased the property in 1888. Elgar built a homestead that grew to 24 rooms. Thirty-five years later, a fire destroyed the residence and the numerous antiques collected by the well-traveled couple. The Elgars rebuilt in 1924.
The formal dining room can easily accommodate a party of 14.
In 1949, after the Elgars died, Fernside was carved up and sold to the United States government for £12,000 as a residence for the American ambassador to New Zealand, Robert M. Scotten. He and his wife lived at the English country estate from 1949 to 1955. Under their watch, the address furthered its reputation as an elegant venue for parties. The Scottens’ overnight guests included American diplomat John Foster Dulles, who later became a U.S. Secretary of State.
Subsequent owners oversaw the property’s repeating cycles of deterioration and renovation. But by 2007, when the current owners bought the property, it was in dire shape. Free-roaming sheep had chewed up the gardens and hedges and the grounds were overgrown. The owners dredged the lake and shored it up. Paths and bridges were restored and a new orchard and herbaceous borders were planted―to start the lengthy list.
The grounds are designed in the Arts and Crafts style with numerous garden rooms.
Before that, a yearlong exterior renovation included such details as replacing cast iron gutters, section by section. The interior was also improved and freshened.
“Everything the owners added or improved was absolutely in keeping with the property’s history,” Morsinkhof says. “They’ve brought the home right up to top condition. It’s just beautifully presented.”
That presentation includes a two-story 200-square-meter cottage that can be rented or used for guest or staff quarters. It has a full kitchen and three double bedrooms.
Formal hedges surround the central fountain.
In preparation for the garden extension and restoration, the owners visited the United Kingdom’s stellar heritage gardens for inspiration: Great Dixterer, Rousham, Hidcote, Heligan and Sissinghurst.
The arts and crafts-style gardens now proceed with a formal entrance courtyard set with a fountain wreathed by white carpet roses and box hedging. A restored rose garden is adjacent, anchored with a nimble statue of Mercury.
The sprawling main lawn, just outside a drawing room terrace, is ideal for croquet and other lawn sports. Beyond that is Fernside Lake, its mature trees an optimal match for fictional Middle-earth. In 1999, the lake’s now 123-year-old bridge was tricked out Elvin-style for The Lord of the Rings filming. Scenes in the trilogy’s first two films were shot there.
Mature trees shade the extensive lawn, which can be used for croquet or quiet strolls.
The bridge is reportedly the only pre-existing structure to have been used in the epic trilogy.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, elves, wizards and trolls (but never orcs) could be spotted in the gardens―opened on occasion for The Lord of the Rings tours, popular with costumed fans.
The lake, which dates to the late 1800s, is fed by 3 miles of water races that travel the grounds. They were engineered by Charles Elgar and are sourced at the Tauherenikau River. The lakeshore is planted with an abundance of vibrant flowering plants.
The tranquil lake reflects mirror images of the surrounding vegetation.
Many of the original Victoria garden details remain, including a brick-lined sound shell that offers a quiet sit. The enclosure amplifies nearby bubbling water.
There are also waterfalls, a well-ordered chess garden (clipped Buxus is used as chess pieces), a formal knot garden, a Japanese water garden, a Victorian sunken garden, a stream-cut native garden and, of course, a secret garden. It’s anchored with a central Italian fountain and includes a summerhouse and entertainment area.
“You walk up to a small opening in a hedge not realizing there’s a walkway there and suddenly you’re entering another garden,” Morsinkhof says. “There are all sorts of little surprises in the garden like that.”
The country estate is being offered at US $5.2 million.
As for the new formal gardens, “the owners created them so they look like they’ve been there a hundred years,” he says, “When, in reality, they’re 10 to 15 years old.”
While the variety of vegetation is vast, a common theme centers on naturalized hellebores, bluebells, giant Himalayan lilies, as well as rhododendrons, maples, magnolias and dogwoods.
The property’s Australian and New Zealand native woodlands include species well over 100 years old: oaks, cedars, elms, liquidambars, poplars, eucalyptus, beech, linden, chestnut, weeping willow.
“There’s a cathedral of oak trees,” Morsinkhof says. “You walk through them with the light beaming down and you’re lost for words. It’s so incredibly beautiful.’
Via the orchard, the estate’s kitchen is cyclically stocked with fresh apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, feijoas, figs, persimmons, avocados, lemons, grapefruit, limes, mandarins, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, mulberries and medlars.
The chess garden adds a touch of whimsy.
The kitchen garden serves up strawberries, blackcurrants, blueberries, red currants, gooseberries, raspberries, kiwifruit and boysenberries.
Outbuildings include a 1920s-era greenhouse and a newly built three-car garage (in addition to the original two-car garage) with a workshop, loft storage area and staff room. Beneath is a 70,000-liter concrete water tank. There’s also a four-bay implement shed that houses a tractor, truck, riding mower and other utility vehicles.
The property comes with an extensive list of utility and garden equipment, with additional items available for purchase. The estate’s various Sotheby’s-quality antiques are also procurable via separate purchase.
Fernside is set in farmland, yet close to services.
Fernside is a short drive from Featherston and Greytown. The latter is “much like the Hamptons in the States,” Morsinkhof says. “Little boutiques, high-end shops and nice restaurants.” About 100 kilometers from Fernside: the ultraluxury Wharekauhau, an Edwardian-style lodge that edges Palliser Bay.
New Zealand’s largely rural Wairarapa district is dotted with 60 boutique wineries, with pinot noir being the region’s standout product.
Via the country’s Metlink system, Fernside is an hour’s train ride to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital. The Wellington International Airport is adjacent to the city.
PQ Property Intelligence is an exclusive member of Forbes Global Properties, a consumer marketplace and membership network of elite brokerages selling the world’s most luxurious homes.
MORE FROM FORBES GLOBAL PROPERTIES
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R. Daniel Foster, Contributor
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New Zealand’s Ardern eyes trade mission to China
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New Zealand prime minister says she hopes to visit main trade partner early next year if border restrictions allow.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has expressed her intention to lead a trade mission to China once the country reopens its borders.
Ardern said on Friday she had expressed her hopes to visit to China’s President Xi Jinping during talks last month on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, their first in-person meeting since 2018.
“I do hope to return to China in person when the settings allow, and I discussed with the president our ambition of taking a trade mission into China early next year – a plan that was welcomed by the president,” Ardern told a meeting of the New Zealand-China Council in Auckland.
Ardern said New Zealand’s trade and economic links with China have proven resilient despite the challenges of COVID. Her comments came just two days after China announced it was dismantling key parts of a strict “zero-COVID” policy, in a much-needed move to give momentum to a flagging economy.
Delivering a speech marking the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Ardern said New Zealand’s relationship with China was important but complex and evolving.
Ardern said, “We continue to recognise that there are areas where China and New Zealand do not agree, where our interests or world view differ.”
She added that in those areas where New Zealand and China disagreed her government remained willing to engage but would always advocate for New Zealand’s interests and values, and speak out when needed.
“We do this predictably, consistently and respectfully,” she said.
During the talks in Bangkok Ardern discussed bilateral relations and areas of cooperation with Xi while also raising concerns about human rights and the Taiwan Strait.
New Zealand has long been seen as the moderate, even absent, voice on China in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, but it adopted a tougher tone this year after China and the Solomon Islands struck a security pact.
While Australia’s relationship with China has deteriorated, New Zealand and China’s interactions have remained largely cordial.
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New Zealand launches inquiry into its coronavirus response
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand is launching a wide-ranging inquiry into whether it made the right decisions in battling COVID-19 and how it can better prepare for future pandemics.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday the coronavirus had posed the greatest threat to the nation’s health and economy since World War II. She said now was an appropriate time to examine the government’s response with the highest level of independent inquiry.
Among the questions will be whether or not New Zealand took the right approach initially by imposing strict lockdowns and border quarantine restrictions in order to try and wipe out the virus entirely.
That zero-tolerance strategy was initially hailed internationally as a success because New Zealand’s death rate remained much lower than in most other countries and people were able to continue life much as normal.
But over time, the downsides of the elimination approach came into clearer focus as the economic and social costs rose. Some citizens faced big delays returning home due to a bottleneck at border quarantine facilities.
The government eventually abandoned its elimination approach in October 2021 after new and more contagious variants proved impossible to contain and people were given the chance to get vaccinated.
China is one of the only countries that continues to pursue a zero-tolerance policy. Experts say the approach is unsustainable over the long-term and that China has no exit strategy.
New Zealand’s Royal Commission of Inquiry will be led by Tony Blakely, an Australian-based epidemiologist and professor. From early next year, it has 17 months to research and prepare an exhaustive report.
Ardern said it was critical to detail what worked in its response to help the country through future pandemics.
“We had no playbook by which to manage COVID but, as a country, we united in an extraordinary way, and we did save lives and livelihoods,” she said.
COVID-19 Response Minister Dr. Ayesha Verrall said one of the lessons was that having a prescriptive pandemic plan, like New Zealand’s influenza-based plan before COVID-19 hit, was not much use.
“I imagine the lesson has been learned that just looking at the characteristics of one bug isn’t going to cut it,” Verrall said. “You have to look much more broadly.”
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Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin respond to reporter’s sexist question about their historic meeting
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David Rowland / Getty Images
Finland’s Sanna Marin made history this week as the nation’s first prime minister to visit New Zealand. But the significance was overshadowed during a press conference with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday, when a reporter questioned whether the two women’s age and “common stuff” was the reason for the visit, rather than global political relations.
Marin and Ardern are among just a handful of women prime ministers in the world. According to New Zealand’s government, Marin’s visit marks the first time a Finnish PM has visited the country.
“Are you two meeting just because you’re similar in age and you’ve got a lot of common stuff there, you know, when you got into politics and stuff?” Newstalk ZB reporter Joey Dwyer asked the leaders on Wednesday. “Or can Kiwis actually expect to see more deals between our two countries down the line?”
The reason for Marin’s visit had been widely known ahead of this week. Ardern issued a statement on Nov. 23 that she and Marin would discuss trade and sustainable development. The question also seemingly discounted the significant achievements both women have had in their countries.
Ardern, 42, has been New Zealand’s prime minister since 2017, and boasts of her role in passing the landmark Child Poverty Reduction Act and setting policies to fight climate change. She was first elected to Parliament in 2008 before becoming the country’s youngest PM in more than 150 years, according to the Council of Women World Leaders.
Marin, 37, became Finland’s PM in 2019; she is only the third woman and the youngest person in Finland’s history to hold the seat. As leader of the Social Democratic Party, she has also prioritized climate issues and strengthening social welfare.
Both women handled the sexist questioning with grace.
“My first question is, I wonder whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and John Key if they meet because they were of similar age,” Ardern responded. “We, of course, have a higher proportion of men in politics, it’s reality. Because two women meet, it’s not simply because of their gender.”
Marin agreed, seemingly chuckling at his question as she responded, “We are meeting because we are prime ministers.”
The press conference occurred on the final day of the leaders’ meeting. In a statement, Ardern said on Wednesday that the two had reiterated their nations’ “similar views and values” and strengthened the countries’ relationship. They also discussed the global economy, labor shortages, the rights of women and girls in Iran, and the war in Ukraine, among other things.
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Leaders of New Zealand and Finland hit back at reporter’s question on age and gender | CNN
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As two of the youngest heads of government and among a small percentage of female world leaders, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Finnish counterpart Sanna Marin have long faced questions about their age and gender.
But they were quick to shoot down a journalist who asked about the purpose of the first-ever visit to New Zealand by a Finnish prime minister on Wednesday.
“A lot of people will be wondering are you two meeting just because you’re similar in age and, you know, got a lot of common stuff there,” the journalist said during a joint news conference in Auckland.
Ardern, 42, was quick to cut off the questioner.
“I wonder whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and John Key if they met because they were of similar age,” she said, in reference to the former prime ministers of the United States and New Zealand.
“We, of course, have a higher proportion of men in politics, it’s reality. Because two women meet it’s not simply because of their gender.”
Marin, 37, who is in New Zealand with a Finnish trade delegation, emphasized the country’s growing trade ties.
“We are meeting because we are prime ministers,” she said in response.
She ends her visit to the southern hemisphere in Australia later this week.
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NATO’s looming fault line: China
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NATO allies finally agreed earlier this year that China is a “challenge.” What that means is anyone’s guess.
That’s the task now facing officials from NATO’s 30-member sprawl since they settled on the label in June: Turning an endlessly malleable term into an actual plan.
Progress, thus far, has been modest — at best.
At one end, China hawks like the U.S. are trying to converge NATO’s goals with their own desire to constrain Beijing. At the other are China softliners like Hungary who want to engage Beijing. Then there’s a vast and shifting middle: hawks that don’t want to overly antagonize Beijing; softliners that still fret about economic reliance on China.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith insisted the American and NATO strategies can be compatible.
“I see tremendous alignment between the two,” she told POLITICO. But, she acknowledged, translating the alliance’s words into action is “a long and complicated story.”
Indeed, looming over the entire debate is the question of whether China even merits so much attention right now. War is raging in NATO’s backyard. Russia is not giving up its revanchist ambitions.
“NATO was not conceived for operations in the Pacific Ocean — it’s a North Atlantic alliance,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, in a recent interview with POLITICO.
“Certainly one can consider other threats and challenges,” he added. “But [for] the time being, don’t you think that we have enough threats and challenges on the traditional scenario of NATO?”
The issue will be on the table this week in Bucharest, where foreign ministers from across the alliance will sign off on a new report about responding to China. While officials have agreed on several baseline issues, the talks will still offer a preview of the tough debates expected to torment NATO for years, especially given China’s anticipated move to throttle Taiwan — the semi-autonomous island the U.S. has pledged to defend.
“Now,” said one senior European diplomat, “the ‘so what’ is not easy.”
30 allies, 30 opinions
NATO’s “challenge” label for China — which came at an annual summit in Madrid — is a seemingly innocuous word that still represented an unprecedented show of Western unity against Beijing’s rise.
In a key section of the alliance’s new strategic blueprint, leaders wrote that “we will work together responsibly, as Allies, to address the systemic challenges” that China poses to the military alliance.
It was, in many ways, a historic moment, hinting at NATO’s future and reflecting deft coordination among 30 members that have long enjoyed vastly different relationships with Beijing.
The U.S. has driven much of the effort to draw NATO’s attention to China, arguing the alliance must curtail Beijing’s influence, reduce dependencies on the Asian power and invest in its own capabilities. Numerous allies have backed this quest, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.
China is “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,” the U.S. wrote in its own national security strategy released last month.
NATO is a wide-ranging alliance | Denis Doyle/Getty Images But NATO is a wide-ranging alliance. Numerous eastern European countries lean toward these hawks but want to keep the alliance squarely focused on the Russian threat. Some are wary of angering China, and the possibility of pushing Beijing further into Moscow’s arms. Meanwhile, a number of western European powers fret over China’s role in sensitive parts of the Western economy but still want to maintain economic links.
Now the work is on to turn these disparate sentiments into something usable.
“There is a risk that we endlessly debate the adjectives that we apply here,” said David Quarrey, the United Kingdom’s ambassador to NATO.
“We are very focused on practical implementation,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “I think that’s where the debate needs to go here — and I think we are making progress with that.”
For Quarrey and Smith, the U.S. ambassador, that means getting NATO to consider several components: building more protections in cyberspace, a domain China is seeking to dominate; preparing to thwart attacks on the infrastructure powering society, a Western vulnerability Russia has exposed; and ensuring key supply chains don’t run through China.
Additionally, Quarrey said, NATO must also deepen “even further” its partnerships with regional allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
While NATO allies can likely broadly agree on goals like boosting cyber defenses, there’s some grumbling about the ramifications of pivoting to Asia.
The U.S. “wants as much China as possible to make NATO relevant to China-minded Washingtonians,” the senior European diplomat said. But, this person added, it is “not clear where NATO really adds value.”
And the U.K., the diplomat argued, is pressing NATO on China because it is “in need of some multilateral framework after Brexit.”
Perhaps most importantly, a turn to China raises existential questions about Europe’s own security. Currently, Europe is heavily reliant on U.S. security guarantees, U.S. troops stationed locally and U.S. arms suppliers.
“An unspoken truth is that to reinforce Taiwan,” the European diplomat said, the U.S. would not be “in a position to reinforce permanently in Europe.”
Europeans, this person said, “have to face the music and do more.”
Compromise central
Smith, the U.S. ambassador, realizes different perspectives on China persist within NATO.
The upcoming report on China therefore hits the safer themes, like defending critical infrastructure. While some diplomats had hoped for a more ambitious report, Smith insisted she was satisfied. The U.S. priority, she said, is to formally get the work started.
“We could argue,” she said, about “the adjectives and the way in which some of those challenges are described. But what was most important for the United States was that we were able to get all of those workstreams in the report.”
But even that is a baby step on the long highway ahead for NATO. Agreeing to descriptions and areas of work is one thing, actually doing that work is another.
“We’re still not doing much,” said a second senior European diplomat. “It’s still a report describing what areas we need to work on — there’s a lot in front of us.”
Among the big questions that remain unanswered: How could China be integrated into NATO’s defense planning? How would NATO backfill the U.S. support that currently goes to Europe if some of it is redirected to Asia? Will European allies offer Taiwan support in a crisis scenario?
Western capitals’ unyielding support for Kyiv — and the complications the war has created — is also being closely watched as countries game plan for a potential military showdown in the Asia-Pacific.
Asked last month whether the alliance would respond to an escalation over Taiwan, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told POLITICO that “the main ambition is, of course, to prevent that from happening,” partly by working more closely with partners in the area.
Smith similarly demurred when asked about the NATO role if a full-fledged confrontation breaks out over Taiwan — a distinct possibility given Beijing’s stated desire to reunify the island with the mainland.
Instead, Smith pointed to how Pacific countries had backed Ukraine half a world away during the current war, saying “European allies have taken note.”
She added: “I think it’s triggered some questions about, should other scenarios unfold in the future, how would those Atlantic and Pacific allies come together again, to defend the core principles of the [United Nations] Charter.”
Stuart Lau contributed reporting.
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Lili Bayer
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Magnitude 7 quake shocks Solomon Islands but no major damage
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A powerful magnitude 7.0 earthquake rattled the Solomon Islands Tuesday afternoon, overturning tables and sending people racing for higher ground.
There were no immediate reports of widespread damage or injuries. An initial tsunami warning was withdrawn after the threat passed.
Government spokesperson George Herming said he was in his office on the second floor of a building in the capital, Honiara, when the quake rocked the city. He said he crawled underneath his table.
“It’s a huge one that just shocked everybody,” Herming said.
“We have tables and desks, books and everything scattered all over the place as a result of the earthquake, but there’s no major damage to structure or buildings,” he said.
Herming said the Solomon Islands, which is home to about 700,000 people, doesn’t have any big high-rises that might be vulnerable to a quake. He said there was some panic around the town and traffic jams as everybody tried to drive to higher ground.
Freelance journalist Charley Piringi said he was standing outside near schools on the outskirts of Honiara when the quake sent the children running.
“The earthquake rocked the place,” he said. “It was a huge one. We were all shocked, and everyone is running everywhere.”
The quake’s epicenter was in the ocean about 56 kilometers (35 miles) southwest of Honiara at a depth of 13 kilometers (8 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned of possible hazardous waves for the region but later downgraded a tsunami warning as the threat passed.
The Solomon Islands sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a arc along the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
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India to assume the Chair of Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence
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India will take over the chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) from France, the outgoing Council Chair on November 21, 2022 at a meeting to be hold in Tokyo. The Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar will represent India at the GPAI meeting.
GPAI is an international initiative to support responsible and human-centric development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This development comes on the heels of assuming the presidency of G20, a league of world’s largest economies.
GPAI is a congregation of 25 member countries, including the US, the UK, EU, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, and Singapore. India joined GPAI in 2020 as a founding member.As per the information shared by Ministry of Electronics & IT, in the election to the Council Chair, India had received more than a two-third majority of first-preference votes while Canada and the United States of America ranked in the two next best places in the tally – so they were elected to the two additional government seats on the Steering Committee
For the 2022-2023 Steering Committee, the five government seats will therefore be held by Japan (as Lead Council Chair and Co-Chair of the Steering Committee), France (Outgoing Council Chair), India (Incoming Council Chair), Canada and the United States.
Artificial Intelligence has been Catalyzing the Tech Landscape and is expected to add $967 Billion to Indian economy by 2035 and $450–500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025, accounting for 10% of the country’s $5 trillion GDP target, according to the ministry. Artificial Intelligence is a Kinetic enabler for growth of India’s Technology ecosystem & a force multiplier for achieving $1 Trillion Digital Economy goal by 2025.
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The Latest | UN Climate Summit
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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Negotiators at U.N. climate talks in Egypt say they have struck a potential breakthrough deal on the creation of a fund for compensating poor nations that are the most vulnerable to climate change, called ‘loss and damage.’
“There is an agreement on loss and damage,” Maldives Environment Minister Aminath Shauna told The Associated Press Saturday. “That means for countries like ours we will have the mosaic of solutions that we have been advocating for.”
It still needs to be approved unanimously in a vote later today.
Saturday afternoon’s draft proposal came from the Egyptian presidency.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
— UN climate talks drag into extra time with scant progress
— Despair, lack of progress at climate talks, yet hope blooms
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Two separate drafts released by the Egyptian presidency, on efforts to step up emissions cuts and the overarching decision of this year’s talks, barely build on what was agreed in Glasgow last year.
The texts leave in place a reference to the Paris accords goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit)” which scientists say is far too risky.
They also don’t suggest any new short-term targets for either developing or developed countries, which experts say are needed to achieve the more ambitious 1.5 C (2.7 F) goal that would prevent some of the more extreme effects of climate change.
A new proposal on the issue of loss and damage that calls for the creation of a new fund to help developing countries hit by climate disasters said developed countries would be “urged” to contribute to the fund, which would also draw on other private and public sources of money such as international financial institutions.
However, the proposal does not suggest that major emerging economies such as China have to contribute to the fund, which was a key ask of the European Union and the United States.
It also does not tie the creation of the new fund to any increase in efforts to cut emissions, or restrict the recipients of funding to those countries that are most vulnerable.
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Alok Sharma, the British official who chaired last year’s climate talks in Glasgow, declined to comment on criticism of the Egyptian presidency, but made clear that an ambitious outcome to combat climate change was crucial.
“Every presidency runs things in their own way,” he said. “The key issue for me and for the UK is that what we have here at the end of the day is a balanced and ambitious text across all the key pillars,” he said.
“For us it’s also vitally important to not just preserve what we agreed in Glasgow but that we build on that as well,” said Sharma, referring to the recommitment made last year to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) and a pledge to increase efforts to slash emissions cuts.
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Spain’s environment minister said they are willing to walk out if they can’t reach a fair deal at the U.N. climate talks.
“We could be exiting of course,” said Teresa Ribera. “We won’t be part of a result that we find unfair and not effective to address the problem that we are handling, which is climate change and the need to reduce emissions.”
Ribera said she is “concerned” that a draft of the final document may not include a mention of the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming limit target set in Paris in 2015.
She added she didn’t want to see a result “that may backtrack what we already did in Glasgow,” referring to the renewed commitment to the 1.5 C goal at the climate summit last year.
“That’s something that we’d like to see, that there is a strong commitment to the 1.5 target,” said Teresa Ribera.
On the role of the presidency, Ribera said that the process has been “very confusing.”
“It is not clear … and we are running out of time,” she said.
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Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said parties must now “rise to the occasion” in a news conference Saturday morning.
“The issue now rests with the will of the parties,” Shoukry said at a press conference. “It is the parties who must rise to the occasion and take upon themselves the responsibility of finding the areas of convergence and moving forward.”
On a new draft text for the overarching decision at the conference, which was being worked on overnight, Shoukry said that “a vast majority of the parties indicated to me that they considered the text as balanced and that they constitute a potential breakthrough that can lead to consensus.”
He added that “all must show the necessary flexibility” in reaching a consensus, and that Egypt was merely “facilitating this process.”
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New Zealand’s climate minister has said a draft of the final document circulated by the presidency “has been received quite poorly by pretty much everybody,” adding that delegations are going into another round of talks.
Speaking to The Associated Press, James Shaw called the draft “entirely unsatisfactory.”
He added that the proposal “abandons really any hope of achieving 1.5 (degrees Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit),” referring to the warming limit agreed at the Paris agreement back in 2015.
He said parties will continue to work on the issue as well as look to reach consensus on a loss and damage fund for developing nations who are suffering from the impacts of climate change.
“Everybody wants an outcome on loss and damage and everybody wants to keep 1.5 alive. So that’s what we’re going to keep doing,” he said.
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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says that responsibility for the fat of the U.N. climate talks “now lies in the hands of the Egyptian COP presidency.”
She said the European Union had made clear overnight that “we will not sign a paper here that diverges significantly from the 1.5 C path, that would bury the goal of 1.5 degrees.”
“If these climate conferences set us back then we wouldn’t have needed to travel here in the first place,” she said.
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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Ram Charan’s outdoor workout on New Zealand holiday gives endless fitness goals; WATCH
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The actors have to take care of their physique in order to look good on the screen. To maintain their toned bodies, they spend a lot of time sweating it out in the gym. RRR star Ram Charan is also a fitness junkie and proving the same, he took to this Instagram handle and dropped a video of working out in the outdoor gym he created during his visit to New Zealand. He captioned the post, “All set for my upcoming schedule, workout has no vacation!”
It is believed that the Acharya star is prepping for the next schedule of his highly-awaited drama with director S Shankar named RC15 for now. Bankrolled by Dil Raju and Sirish under the banner of Sri Venkateswara Creations, the film has Bollywood beauty, Kiara Advani, as the leading lady opposite Ram Charan. Actor SJ Suryah will also be seen playing a crucial role in the film, along with Anjali, Jayaram, Sunil, Srikanth, and Naveen Chandra in supporting roles.
Check out the video below:
The gripping story of RC15 has been penned by Karthik Subbaraju and Tirru is cranking the camera for the film. The songs for the movie are scored by ace composer S Thaman, while the track has been choreographed by Jani Master.
RC16 shelved
Ram Charan’s next with Jersey fame director Gowtam Tinnanuri has got shelved. The speculations about the project being folded were doing rounds for some time, and recently, Ram Charan’s PR confirmed the same with a Tweet that read, “Our MegaPowerStar @AlwaysRamCharan garu’s next project #RC16 vth Gowtam is not happening as previously announced, hope & wish it to happen at later point of time! Ram Charan garu’s new project announcement vl b Unveiling officially very soon, whatever the combo is, it vl be lit.”
Also Read: WATCH: Chiranjeevi’s swag is on point as he arrives in Mumbai; Ram Charan spreads his rakish charm
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Rugby World Cup: England ‘gutted’ after loss but refuse to blame Lydia Thompson’s red card for defeat
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New Zealand win 34-31 to claim the Rugby World Cup for a sixth time and end England’s 30-match winning streak; Lydia Thompson sent off for the Red Roses during the first half of an incredible final in Auckland
Last Updated: 12/11/22 11:04am
Former England international Vicky Fleetwood says that England would have ‘absolutely’ won the Rugby World Cup final if Lydia Thompson had not been shown a red card.
Former England international Vicky Fleetwood says that England would have ‘absolutely’ won the Rugby World Cup final if Lydia Thompson had not been shown a red card.
England captain Sarah Hunter believes the Red Roses can be proud of their World Cup performance and insists Lydia Thompson’s red card cannot be solely blamed for their “cruel” defeat to New Zealand in the final.
The Red Roses saw their 30-match winning streak ended in an epic contest against the tournament hosts and defending champions, as they were beaten 34-31 in front of a sell-out crowd at Eden Park.
England spent more than an hour with 14 players after Thompson was sent off for a reckless tackle, although Simon Middleton’s side led for large spells before being beaten by the Black Ferns in a World Cup final for a fifth time.
2003 Rugby World Cup winner Will Greenwood says the Rugby World Cup ‘has transcended an 80-minute game’ and believes the Red Roses will sell Twickenham out in the next few years. 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Will Greenwood says the Rugby World Cup ‘has transcended an 80-minute game’ and believes the Red Roses will sell Twickenham out in the next few years.
“I’m gutted,” Hunter said. “I’m so proud of the team, we came out fighting. We had our backs against the wall for 60 minutes but we never gave up.
“One result doesn’t define the squad that we are, the people we are. Hopefully we have inspired the next generation back home and given themselves something to be proud of.
“Sport is cruel. Credit to New Zealand, they found a way and they go home as deserved champions. We left no stone unturned, we left everything on the pitch. We are hurting.”
1994 Rugby World Cup winner Giselle Mather says the Red Roses ‘have given everything for the cause’ during their Rugby World Cup final defeat. 1994 Rugby World Cup winner Giselle Mather says the Red Roses ‘have given everything for the cause’ during their Rugby World Cup final defeat.
How did the red card impact England?
England made the dream start and were 14-0 ahead after early tries from Ellie Kildunne and Amy Cokayne, only for New Zealand to be gifted a way back into the game in the 18th minute with Thompson’s dismissal.
“It [the red card] didn’t help,” Middleton admitted. “It definitely affected how the game was played. You look at the points they scored immediately down the side – it’s difficult to defend. We had to adapt but when you’ve got 14 and cover one area then it weakens you in another.
“Good teams find you out and they found us out a little bit, so it made a tough game a whole lot tougher, but we took it down to the last play and the game was in the balance when the hooter had gone.
“You cannot overstate how proud I am and the rest of the staff are of the players and how proud of they should be of themselves. To get that close, with so many challenges that went on through the game, was immense and it shows what the squad is all about.”
Former England international Vicky Fleetwood says that England’s players will be heart-broken by their defeat in the World Cup final. Former England international Vicky Fleetwood says that England’s players will be heart-broken by their defeat in the World Cup final.
The Red Roses battled valiantly and held a narrow two-point advantage until Ayesha Leti-I’iga scored the winning try nine minutes from time, with Hunter adamant that Thompson has the full backing of her England teammates.
“Lydia’s hurting, she’s such a great person, a great player and in moments like this we need to come around her,” Hunter said. “There’s one thing for sure – and that wasn’t the reason we lost the game.
“We are a team that is as one and we won’t point any fingers or identify a single person on the end result. We’ve got her back, we’ll look after her, we’ll put an arm around her and make sure she’s alright.
“In games, people get sent-off and teams still win. I don’t think it necessarily defined the outcome. It makes it harder, but it’s not the sole reason why we were not on the end of the result we wanted this evening.”
Positives to take for Red Roses?
Middleton said in the build-up to the World Cup that anything less than a win for England would be a disappointment, but the head coach said afterwards he has seen progress from his side during the tournament.
England narrowly missed out on World Cup victory in New Zealand
“That’s the overwhelming feeling, how proud I am and we are of the players, Middleton said “They gave absolutely everything. Not just, tonight but for 50, 51 days. They’ve given nothing but their absolute best every single day.”
“In terms of our goals, it is [disappointing not to win]. Talk to any of the players and they’ll say exactly the same. But we won on massive fronts.
“We wanted to leave these shores a better team than we came. We did 100 per cent. We’ve lost tonight but won massively over the last 51 days.”
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G20 host Indonesia lobbies West to soften Russia criticism in communiqué
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BALI, Indonesia — Senior Indonesian politicians are calling on Western leaders to make concessions on how far to go in criticizing Russia over the war in Ukraine in a last-ditch effort to avoid leaving the G20 summit later this week without a joint declaration, three diplomats with knowledge of the ongoing negotiations told POLITICO.
According to these diplomats, U.S., European, Australian, Canadian and Japanese officials are among those under pressure from Indonesian counterparts, all the way up to President Joko Widodo, to show “flexibility” and consider using less tough rhetoric in order for Moscow — represented at the Bali summit by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — to say yes to a communiqué at the end of the gathering.
Widodo “considers it a personal success” if a G20 declaration could be reached, one of the officials said, adding that the Indonesian leader has lamented repeatedly that he is chairing the “most difficult” G20 summit ever.
He is also seeking to avoid kicking Russia out and making it the G19, which the G8 did in the wake of Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.
One possibility would be to focus squarely on the aspect of “upholding international law.” If adopted, that would be much more coded wording than what’s been used by the G7, which has repeatedly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.
The latest G7 statement, following this month’s meeting of foreign ministers from the group, criticized Moscow for “its war of aggression against Ukraine” and called for Russia to withdraw. “We condemn Russia’s recent escalation, including its attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure,” it said. The G7 countries also blasted “Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric,” according to the Nov. 4 statement.
“Obviously we can’t be as tough as we do it in G7 when you need the Russians, Chinese and Saudis to agree,” a Western diplomat said, referring to the larger G20 grouping. “The question is how much we need to delete.”
China, Saudi Arabia, India and Brazil, four of the fellow G20 countries, are described as “sitting on the fence” over the issue.
Beijing, in particular, would find it impossible to accept any direct criticism of Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will be attending the G20 summit personally, has so far only made an effort to show disapproval of any threats of using nuclear weapons, without attributing such threats to Moscow.
Another issue for Widodo is the likely lack of a family photo for the two-day summit that starts on Tuesday. According to convention, all the G20 leaders would line up and take a group picture to show solidarity. This time, however, Western leaders have hesitation about being in the same frame as Lavrov, a key aide to Putin, whom U.S. President Joe Biden has called a “killer.”
Widodo is described as “interested” in assessing fellow leaders’ opinions on having such a family photo.
Much of his lobbying has taken place in Cambodia, where he’s attending the East Asia Summit. Also in Cambodia were Biden, European Council President Charles Michel, Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Australia’s Anthony Albanese. Russia’s Lavrov and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang were also in Phnom Penh.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has urged Western countries for more “flexibility” | Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP via Getty Images Speaking in Cambodia, Albanese confirmed to reporters that officials are still negotiating over the wording a G20 final communiqué.
“You know the way that these conferences work. We’ve just got through an East Asia Summit, an ASEAN meeting and a range of other summits. So we’re waiting to see what happens, but I go into the G20 with a great deal of confidence,” Albanese said.
Lavrov criticized Washington for stirring up confrontation in Asia. “There is a clear trend on militarization of the region through coordination of efforts of local U.S. allies such Australia, New Zealand, Japan with NATO enlargement,” he said.
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Phillips’ century, Boult’s four power New Zealand past Sri Lanka
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Phillips scores blistering century, Boult takes four to leave Sri Lanka on the brink of elimination.
Glenn Phillips scored a brilliant century to rescue New Zealand after a rocky start and fire them to an emphatic 65-run victory over Sri Lanka at the T20 World Cup.
Saturday’s win also took the Black Caps clear at the top of Group 1.
The muscular right-hander helped resurrect New Zealand’s innings from 15 for three in the fourth over. He eventually fell in the final over having scored 104 with his team finishing the innings at 167 for seven.
With paceman Trent Boult (4-13) to the fore, the New Zealand bowlers took over and gave Sri Lanka an even worse start, reducing the 2014 champions to eight for four in the fourth over and dismissing them for 102 in the 20th.
Boult took four wickets in New Zealand’s dominant win over Sri Lanka [David Gray/AFP] Tied with England, Australia and Ireland at the top of the rain-disrupted Super 12 group at the start of the day, New Zealand moved two points clear of their rivals and improved their already impressive net run rate.
Sri Lanka will now need a remarkable run of results to grab one of the top two spots and a place in the semi-finals.
It all started well for the Asia Cup champions on a balmy spring evening at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Finn Allen took apart Australia’s hallowed pace attack in their opening game during a 16-ball 42, but he managed just three balls and one run this time, confounded by an in-swinger in the opening over.
Devon Conway, who smashed an unbeaten 92 against Australia, fared little better, with spinner Dhananjaya de Silva dismissing him for just one.
Things got worse when skipper Kane Williamson (eight) got an outside edge off pace bowler Kasun Rajitha in the next over.
Phillips and Daryl Mitchell, returning to the side after fracturing his hand, crawled to 54 for three at the halfway point.
But Phillips then flicked a switch and began swinging the bat, with sloppy fielding aiding him, dropped by Pathum Nissanka on 12 and again on 45 by skipper Dasun Shanaka.
An 84-run stand with Mitchell ended when his partner was bowled for 22 by Wanindu Hasaranga. Mitchell Santner was alongside him when he brought up only his second T20 100 in the 19th over before being dismissed.
This was Glenn Phillips’ second T20 century [David Gray/AFP] [ad_2]
