An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
07/31/2025 18:13
In accordance with the Methodology for determining the risk parameters of the stock market and the deposit market of PJSC Moscow Exchange by NCO NCC (JSC) on July 31, 2025, 18-13 (Moscow time), the values of the upper limit of the price corridor (up to 109.83) and the range of market risk assessment (up to 1177.42 rubles, equivalent to a rate of 8.75%) of the security RU000A109916 (Rostel P10R) were changed
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
ABB has been named as Exporter of the Year at the 2025 ExportNZ ASB Hawke’s Bay Export Awards
The supreme winner was crowned in Hawke’s Bay at the Toitoi Hawke’s Bay Arts and Event Centre at a sold-out gala dinner.
MC Matt Chisholm opened the event – followed by a virtual address from Trade and Investment Minister Hon Todd McClay, in front of a sold-out crowd.
The longstanding and highly successful awards are presented by ExportNZ in partnership with ASB to reward and recognise the region’s outstanding exporters.
ASB Head of International Trade Mike Atkins, who presented the Exporter of the Year award, said the quality of entries this year underscored the spirit and purpose of the awards.
“We uncovered a rock star in ABB while both Starboard Bio and Ovenden Seeds have potential to make a meaningful difference in the world.
“At ASB, we are passionate about enabling exporters to scale up, be it through working capital funding or other advisory initiatives across clean tech, food & fibre, productivity, and sustainability.
“Our partnership with ExportNZ in celebrating these awards continues our commitment to the region’s exporters.”
ASB Exporter of the Year ABB Napier is a largely autonomous company specialising in power systems design in production, says the judges.
“Originally VecTek in Onekawa, they have retained their engineering skills, and through a strong focus on innovation and quality produced a unique world leading UPS product. All these products are designed, built and tested to exceptional quality right here in Hawke’s Bay.
“All the winners and finalists are truly exceptional, and we as judges felt spoilt for choice – congratulations to all involved”
Winners and nominees alike across all categories were celebrated by judges and the audience.
ExportNZ Hawke’s Bay Regional Manager Amanda Liddle said “It is outstanding to see another cohort of such amazing finalists and winners.
“Going global is a tough business – more so than ever, but tonight’s exporters show the best of what our region has to offer.
“Congratulations to ASB Exporter of the Year ABB, who also picked up the Ziwi Excellence in Innovation award, your products and clarity of vision were awe inspiring and the win is well deserved.
“All of us at ExportNZ would also like to give our special congratulations to Stephen Jacobi, this year’s NZME Service to Export Award winner. Stephen’s tireless advocacy has unlocked many opportunities for New Zealand exporters and businesses the world over, and his tenure on the ExportNZ Advisory Board has been invaluable to the organisation.”
Winners of each category will now go on to the final stage of the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) International Business Awards, held in Auckland on November 27 th for a night of national celebration and international recognition.
The full list of winners:
2025 ASB Exporter of the Year: ABB – ABB Napier designs and manufactures innovative solutions to make AI-driven data centres more affordable and energy efficient, addressing AI’s high-power demands. Operating in New Zealand for over 90 years, ABB has invested around $34 million in Napier since 2020 and employs 145 people locally, with plans to expand by up to 50 more as production grows.
T&G Global Best Established Business Award:Starboard Bio – Starboard Bio produces and exports animal-derived pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and functional food ingredients, supplying frozen raw materials and powdered ingredients for encapsulation to the EU and US markets. The company operates with a team passionate about their products, the New Zealand brand, and enhancing value within the NZ red meat industry.
ContainerCo Best Emerging Business: Ovenden Seeds – Ovenden Seeds is a specialist seed multiplication company growing, processing, and exporting herb and vegetable seeds, particularly smaller, hard-to-handle varieties. Seeds are dried, cleaned, and packed at a custom facility near Waipawa. With farms in Hawke’s Bay and grower partners in Canterbury, Ovenden focuses on growth and exports to the UK, EU, and US
Judges’ Choice Award: Haumako – Haumako is the Tātau Tātau Trust’s commercial entity and develops and grows horticultural products for the export market. Tātau invests directly in horticulture to further diversify their economy, foster sustainable regional growth, and create valuable local jobs. By expanding the horticulture industry in Wairoa, Tātau encourages better use of Māori-owned land by sharing opportunities, learning, knowledge gained in their own orchards.
Ziwi Excellence in Innovation Award: ABB
NZME Service to Export Award: Stephen Jacobi
Napier Port Unsung Heroes Award: Tamsyn Illston, Natural Pet Foods & Nick Elliot, ABB.
Notes:
ExportNZ Hawke’s Bay is overseen by Business Central, which represents around 3,500 organisations across the lower North Island. Business Central offers advice, learning, advocacy, and support to a wide range of organisations across Central New Zealand. Business Central is part of the BusinessNZ Network.
A new poll shows strong public support – especially in Auckland – for cutting green tape to boost agricultural exports and help grow the economy.
The independent poll asked 1000 New Zealanders if regulations, including environmental regulations, should be reduced to allow increases in agricultural production, in line with the Government’s ambition to double exports over the next decade.
Nationwide, 47% of respondents said yes, 35% said no, and 18% were unsure – but the biggest surprise came from Auckland.
“In Auckland, 62% of people backed cutting regulation to enable export growth. Only 23% were opposed,” Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says.
“That’s a huge vote of confidence from New Zealand’s largest city – and from the block of voters who often decide elections.”
The poll results should challenge some of the old assumptions about urban-rural divisions, Langford says.
“Sometimes we hear people in the provinces grumbling about the ‘JAFAs’ not understanding farming, but these numbers tell a different story.
“It turns out Aucklanders do understand where their bread is buttered, quite literally.”
Anti-malware tool Thorium makes it easier for users to combat evolving threats, another breakthrough tool from CISA
WASHINGTON – Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the release of Thorium, an automated platform that allows cyber defenders at lightning speed to assess and combat malware threats in a way that has not been possible before. Created in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories, this tool is available through CISA at no cost.
When malware threats arise, users in the public and private sector have to react quickly to protect their systems. Thorium allows users to set up a customized and automated platform that is able to quickly analyze the threats and then add or remove tools based on the evolving needs presented by each new threat. Thorium is capable of scheduling over 1,700 jobs per second, and then processing 10 million files per hour for each user.
“President Trump and Secretary Noem are getting CISA back on-mission, and the release of CISA’s new anti-malware tool Thorium is the next step towards that goal. Just like individual tools in a toolbox, certain anti-malware systems are meant to be combat specific,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Thorium creates a customizable and automated system that streamlines the analysis and combatting of malware with the proper tools. This new CISA tool optimizes the collaboration between the public sector and the private sector.”
Under the Trump Administration, CISA is returning to its core mission of protecting the American homeland in cyberspace. Tools like Thorium, and the processes that develop them, are examples of what the nation’s premiere cybersecurity agency is capable of.
For more information and installation instructions, visit Thorium on CISA.gov.
Headline: Panasonic Energy Announces Executive Officer Personnel
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Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry
Today we are releasing the agenda for the government’s Economic Reform Roundtable.
This is all about bringing people together and building consensus around the big challenges and opportunities in our economy.
The Roundtable agenda released today reflects the government’s agenda for long term economic reform, with a focus on resilience, productivity and budget sustainability.
It’s a packed schedule.
From competition to capital attraction, AI to approvals, innovation to better regulation – there’s a lot to cover.
Each day will be divided into three sessions, and the core group of 23 attendees will participate in all sessions over the 3 days. More invitations will soon be issued for participants to attend specific sessions.
This is a targeted agenda that has been deliberately designed to give us the best possible chance of building consensus on the direction of economic reform.
Economic Reform Roundtable agenda:
Day 1 – Resilience
Presentation – Some perspectives on productivity trends by RBA Governor Michele Bullock
Session 1 – International risks, opportunities and trade
Session 2 – Skills attraction, development and mobility
Session 3 – Capital attraction and business investment
Day 2 – Productivity
Presentation – Productivity and reform by Productivity Commission Chair Danielle Wood
Session 1 – Better regulation and approvals
Session 2 – Competition and dynamism across the federation
Session 3 – AI and innovation
Day 3 – Budget sustainability and tax reform
Presentation – Role of budget sustainability by Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson PSM
Session 1 – Efficient and high-quality government services, spending and care
Presentation – A better tax system by Grattan Institute CEO Dr Aruna Sathanapally
Consumer Affairs Victoria is continuing to crack down on dodgy builders and tradies to protect Victorians from getting ripped off.
Our latest legal action is against Austin Bongart, 27, of Ballan. Bongart traded as Aussie’s Concrete and Fencing Solutions when he allegedly committed building work-related offences between April 2022 and January 2024.
Consumer Affairs Victoria alleges he:
accepted excessive deposits
failed to provide the agreed services within a reasonable time
entered into a major domestic building contract while unregistered, and
failed to provide an information statement to a customer as required.
Bongart advertised his services online. He was investigated after consumers made complaints that Bongart had taken up-front payments from them – often for several thousand dollars – for fencing or concreting. They reported he never returned to start the work or only started minimal work and failed to finish the job.
Bongart is due to face the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for a committal mention on 4 August 2025.
This prosecution – under the Australian Consumer Law and the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 – follows action we’ve taken for poor conduct on other residential renovations and builds:
Unregistered builder Mark (Najy) Rayes was recently convicted and fined for taking more than $100,000 in payments from customers for services he did not provide.
The director of a ‘tiny home’ kit business entered a plea of guilty last November to charges of accepting $1.3 million in payments from customers, without supplying any products.
Builders must be registered with the Building and Plumbing Commission to do building works valued at over $10,000.
Electricians and plumbers must also be licensed or registered while people doing plastering, painting, tiling or fencing do not need a registration.
Consumer Affairs Victoria advises Victorians looking to hire a tradie to:
get more than one written quote
ask friends and family for references
research the business before going ahead.
Be wary of anyone pressuring you to sign up and hand over a large deposit.
Late in the evening, the Antarctic sky flushes pink. The male leopard seal wakes and slips from the ice into the water. There, he’ll spend the night singing underwater amongst the floating ice floes.
For the next two months he sings every night. He will sing so loudly, the ice around him vibrates. Each song is a sequence of trills and hoots, performed in a particular pattern.
In a world first, we analysed leopard seal songs and found the predictability of their patterns was remarkably similar to the nursery rhymes humans sing.
We think this is a deliberate strategy. While leopard seals are solitary animals, the males need their call to carry clearly across vast stretches of icy ocean, to woo a mate.
Solitary leopard seals want their call to carry. Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Leopard seals are especially vocal during breeding season, which lasts from late October to early January. A female leopard seal sings for a few hours on the days she is in heat. But the males are the real showstoppers.
Each night, the males perform underwater solos for up to 13 hours. They dive into the sea, singing underwater for about two minutes before returning to the water’s surface to breathe and rest. This demanding routine continues for weeks.
Within a leopard seal population, the sounds themselves don’t vary much in pitch or duration. But the order and pattern in which the sounds are produced varies considerably between individuals.
Our research examined these individual songs. We compared them to that of other vocal animals, and to human music.
Listening to songs from the sea
The data used in the study was collected by one author of this article, Tracey Rogers, in the 1990s.
Rogers rode her quad bike across the Antarctic ice to the edge of the sea and marked 26 individual male seals with dye as they slept. Then she returned to record their songs at night.
The new research involved analysing these recordings, to better understand their structure and patterns. We did this by measuring the “entropy” of their sequences. Entropy measures how predictable or random a sequence is.
What stood out was the similarity between the predictability of human nursery rhymes and leopard seal calls. Nursery rhymes are simple, repetitive and easy to remember — and that’s what we heard in the leopard seal songs.
The range of “entropy” was similar to the 39 nursery rhymes from the Golden Song Book, a collection of words and sheet music for classic children’s songs, which was first published in 1945. It includes classics such:
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
Frère Jacques
Ring Around a Rosy
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
Humpty Dumpty
Three Blind Mice
Rockabye Baby.
For humans, the predictable structure of a nursery rhyme melody helps make it simple enough for a child to learn. For a leopard seal, this predictability may enable the individual to learn its song and keep singing it over multiple days. This consistency is important, because changes in pitch or frequency can create miscommunication.
Like sperm whales, leopard seals may also use song to set themselves apart from others and signal their fitness to reproduce. The greater structure in the songs helps ensure listeners accurately receive the message and identify who is singing.
Male leopard seals produce high-pitched cricket-like trills.
An evolving song?
Leopard seals sound very different to humans. But our research shows the complexity and structure of their songs is remarkably similar to our own nursery rhymes.
Communication through song is a very common animal behaviour. However, structure and predictability in mammal song has only been studied in a handful of species. We know very little about what drives it.
Understanding animal communication is important. It can improve conservation efforts and animal welfare, and provide important information about animal cognition and evolution.
Technology has advanced rapidly since our recordings were made in the 1990s. In future, we hope to revisit Antarctica to record and study further, to better understand if new call types have emerged, and if patterns of leopard seal song evolve from generation to generation.
Tracey Rogers receives funding from ARC.
Lucinda Chambers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Jason Momoa’s historical epic Chief of War, launching August 1 on Apple TV+, is a triumph of Hawaiians telling their own stories – despite the fact their film and TV production industry now struggles to be viable.
The series stars Momoa (Aquaman, Game of Thrones) as Kaʻaina, an ali’i (chief) who fights for – and later rises against – King Kamehameha I during the bloody reunification of Hawaii.
Already receiving advance praise, the nine-episode first season co-stars New Zealand actors Temeura Morrison, Cliff Curtis and Luciane Buchanan, alongside Hawaiian actors Kaina Makua, Brandon Finn and Moses Goods.
A passion project for Momoa, the Hawaiian star co-created the series with writer Thomas Pa’a Sibbett after years in development. With a reported budget of US$340 million, it is one of the most expensive television series ever produced.
It is also a milestone in Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) representation onscreen. Controversially, however, the production only spent a month in Hawaiʻi, and was mostly shot in New Zealand with non-Hawaiian crews.
Momoa has even expressed an interest in New Zealand citizenship, but the choice of location is more a reflection of the troubled state of the film industry in Hawaiʻi. On the other hand, it is a measure of the success of the New Zealand screen industry, with potential lessons for other countries in the Pacific.
Ea o Moʻolelo – story sovereignty
Set at the turn of the 19th century, Chief of War tells the moʻolelo (story, history) of King Kamehameha I’s conquest of the archipelago.
Hawaiʻi was historically governed by aliʻi nui (high chiefs), and each island was ruled independently. Motivated by the threat of European colonisation and empowered by Western weaponry, Kamehameha established the Hawaiian Kingdom, culminating in full unification in 1810.
The series is an important example of what authors Dean Hamer and Kumu Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu have called “Ea o Moʻolelo”, or story sovereignty, which emphasises Indigenous peoples’ right to control their own narrative by respecting the “the inalienable right of a story to its own unique contents, style and purpose”.
Chief of War is also the biggest Hawaiian television series ever produced. Although Hawaiʻi remains a popular setting onscreen, these productions have rarely involved Hawaiians in key decision-making roles.
Sea of troubles
The series hits screens at a time of major disruption in Hollywood, with streaming services upending established business models.
“Linear” network television faces declining viewership and advertising revenue. Movie studios struggle to draw audiences to theatres. The consequences for workers in the the industry have been severe, as the 2023 writers strike showed.
Those changes have had a catastrophic impact on the Hawaiʻi film industry, too.
Long a popular location – Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980, 2010-2020), Magnum P.I. (1980-1988, 2018-2024) and Lost (2004-2010) were all shot on location in Hawaiʻi – it is an expensive place to film.
Actors, crew and production equipment often have to be flown in from the continental United States, and producers compete with tourism for costly accommodation.
Kaina Makua as King Kamehameha and New Zealand actor Luciane Buchanan as Ka’ahumanu in Chief of War. Apple TV+
An industry in transition
These are not uncommon problems in distant locations, and many governments try to attract screen productions through tax incentives and rebates on portions of the production costs.
New Zealand, for example, offers a 20-25% rebate for international productions and 40% for local productions. Hawaiʻi offers a 22-27% rebate.
But this is less than other US states offer, such as Georgia (30%), Louisiana (40%) and New Mexico (40%). Hawaiʻi also has an annual cap of US$50 million on rebates.
To make things even harder, Hawaiʻi offers only limited support for Indigenous filmmakers. Governments in Australia and New Zealand provide targeted funding and support for Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Māori filmmakers.
By contrast, the Hawaiʻi Film Commission doesn’t provide direct grants to local filmmakers or producers (Indigenous or otherwise). Small amounts of government funding have been administered through the Public Broadcasting Service, but this is now in jeopardy after US President Donald Trump recently cut federal funding.
The Hawaiʻi screen industry faces a perfect storm. For the first time since 2004, film and TV production has ground to a halt. Many workers now doubt the long-term sustainability of their careers.
Lessons from Aotearoa NZ
While there are lessons Hawaiʻi legislators and industry leaders could learn from New Zealand’s example, there should also be a measure of caution.
The Hawaiʻi tax credit system is out of date. But despite industry lobbying, legislation to update it failed to reach the floor of the legislature earlier this year. New tax settings would help make local production viable again.
Secondly, decades of investment in Māori cinema have seen it become diverse, engaging and creatively accomplished. Hawaiʻi could benefit from greater direct investment in Hawaiian storytelling, respecting its cultural value even if it doesn’t turn a commercial profit.
On the other hand, New Zealand has a favourable currency exchange rate with the US which can’t be replicated in Hawaiʻi. And New Zealand film production workers have seen their rights to unionise watered down compared to their American peers.
But if Hawaiʻi can get its settings right, a possible second season of Chief of War may yet be filmed there, which could mark a genuine rejuvenation of its own film industry.
Duncan Caillard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Without even realising it, your world sometimes gradually gets smaller: less walking, fewer days in the office, cancelling on friends. Watching plans disintegrate on the chat as friends struggle to settle on a date or place for a catch-up.
You might start to feel a bit flat or disconnected. Subtle changes in habit and mood take hold. Could you be … lonely?
It’s not a label many of us identify with easily, especially if you know you’ve got friends, or are in a happy relationship.
But loneliness can happen to us all from time to time – and identifying it is the first step to fixing it.
So, what is loneliness?
Loneliness is the distress we feel when our relationships don’t meet our needs – in quality or quantity.
It’s not the same as being objectively alone (otherwise known as “social isolation”).
You can feel deeply lonely even while surrounded by friends, or totally content on your own.
Loneliness is subjective; many people don’t realise they’re lonely until the feeling becomes persistent.
What are some of the signs to look for?
You may feel a physicalcoldness, emptiness or hollowness (I’ve heard it described as feeling like you are missing an organ). Some research shows social pain is experienced similarly in the brain to physical pain.
In the past, being separated from your tribe meant danger and risk from predators, so our brains developed a way to push us back towards connection.
The pain of loneliness is designed to keep us connected and safe.
Why is it often hard to recognise loneliness?
Sadly, there’s still a lot of stigma around admitting loneliness, especially for men.
Many people resist identifying as lonely, or feel this marks them as a “loser”.
But this silence can make the problem worse.
When no one talks about it, it becomes harder to break the cycle of loneliness, and the stigma remains.
While passing loneliness is normal, chronic or persistent loneliness can hurt our health.
Research shows chronic loneliness is associated with:
depression
anxiety
weakened immunity
heart disease
earlier death.
Loneliness can also become self-reinforcing. When loneliness feels normal, it can start to shape how you see the world: you expect rejection, withdraw more and the cycle deepens.
The earlier you notice you’re lonely, the easier it is to break.
But I’m in a relationship, have loads of friends and a rewarding job
Yes, but you can still be lonely.
Most of us need different kinds of relationships to thrive. It’s not about how many people you know, but whether you feel connected and have a meaningful role in these relationships.
You may feel lonely even with strong friendships if you are lacking deeper connection, shared identity or a sense of community.
This doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful, or a bad friend.
It just means you need more or different kinds of connection.
OK, I’ve realised I am lonely. Now what?
Start by asking yourself: what kind of connection am I missing?
Is it one-to-one friendships? A partner? Casual social interactions? A shared purpose or community?
Then reflect on what’s helped you feel more connected in the past. For some, it’s joining a choir, a book club or a sports group. For others, it may be volunteering or just saying “yes” to small social moments, like chatting with your local barista or learning the name of the local butcher.
If you’re still struggling, a psychologist can help with tailored strategies for building connection.
The structural causes of loneliness
It’s also important to remember loneliness is often not because of personal failings or overall mental health.
We are also learning more about how climate change can disrupt social connection and worsen loneliness due to, for example, higher temperatures or bushfires.
Loneliness is normal, common, human and completely solvable.
Start by noticing it in yourself and reach out if you can.
Let’s start talking about it more, so others can feel less alone too.
Marlee Bower receives funding from the Henry Halloran Urban and Regional Research Initiative, the BHP Foundation, AHURI and NHMRC. She is affiliated with the University of Sydney Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use and Australia’s Mental Health Think Tank.
The money is easy to trace. Scroll back through tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s political donations and you’ll soon hit US$15 million worth of transfers sent to Protect Ohio Values, JD Vance’s campaign fund. The donations, made in 2022, are a staggering contribution to an individual senate race, and helped put Vance (Thiel’s former employee at tech fund Mithril Capital) on a winning trajectory.
But if money matters, so do ideas. Scroll back through Vance’s speeches, and you’ll hear echoes of Thiel’s voice. The decline of US elites (and by extension, the nation) is supposedly a result of technological stagnation: declining innovation, trivial distractions, broken infrastructure. To make the nation great again, Thiel believes, tech should come first, corporates should be unshackled, and the state should resemble the startup. For Vance, who has now risen to the office of US vice-president, a Thiel talk on these topics at Yale Law was “the most significant moment” of his time there.
Thiel’s influence on politics is at once financial, technical and ideological. In the New York Times, he was recently described as the “most influential right-wing intellectual of the last 20 years”. And his potent cocktail of networks, money, strategy and support exerts a rightward force on the political landscape. It establishes a powerful pattern for up-and-coming figures to follow.
To “hedge fund investor” and “tech entrepreneur”, Thiel has recently added a new label: Republican kingmaker.
Who is Peter Thiel?
Thiel was born in Germany but grew up in the United States, with a childhood sojourn in apartheid South Africa. Max Chafkin’s critical but balanced biography, The Contrarian, claims Thiel was bullied growing up and protected himself by becoming resolutely “disdainful”. He studied philosophy and then law at Stanford, where he founded The Stanford Review, a libertarian–conservative student paper that signalled his early interest in controversial politics and culture wars.
While difficult to pin down precisely, Thiel’s Christianity shapes his belief in a declining or even apocalyptic world that can only be countered with unapologetic interventions and technological innovations. God helps those who help themselves – but could always use additional help from ambitious tech elites.
In 1998, Thiel cofounded his first tech company, Confinity, which launched its flagship product PayPal in 1999 and merged with Elon Musk’s X.com in 2000. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion and Thiel became a multimillionaire. He invested in several startups, including Facebook, and established his hedge fund, Clarium, and his venture capital firm, Founders Fund.
In their own ways, each of these developments is a response to Thiel’s thesis that the world is stuck. In his 2011 essay The End of the Future, he decries the “soft totalitarianism of political correctness in media and academia” and the “sordid world” of entertainment. The result is “50 years of stagnation” that has transformed humanity “into this more docile kind of a species”.
Thiel’s answer is more risk, more tech and more ambition. It’s exemplified most clearly by Palantir Technologies, the data analytics firm he cofounded in 2004.
Palantir has worked closely with US armed forces and intelligence agencies for 14 years. It is currently working closely with the Trump administration to create a “super-database” of combined data from all federal agencies, and building a platform for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “to track migrant movements in real time”.
Investing in right-wing politics
Thiel’s political interventions have ramped up over time. Libertarianism generally takes an arms-length approach to politics in favour of individual freedom and market determination. But even in “purely” financial spaces, politics creeps in.
Clarium’s macroeconomic approach meant the political landscape had to be factored in: “high-conviction, directional investments based on key drivers of the global economy and fundamental themes underappreciated by the marketplace”.
If politics, like technology, had stagnated – into a non-choice between similar parties – how could it be “disrupted”? Thiel began making political donations in December 2011, with contributions totalling at least $2.6 million, to the third presidential campaign of Ron Paul, a longstanding conservative congressman in Texas.
While Paul would ultimately be unsuccessful, Thiel recognised something others had missed. Voters had not been attracted to some idealistic libertarian, as the media portrayed him, but to the old Ron Paul, a neoconservative whose newsletters published in his name in the 1980s and ‘90s suggested 95% of Black men in Washington DC were criminals. (He denied writing them in 2011, calling the statements “terrible”.) His appeal was never “merely” about economic freedom, but about race and class, fear and grievance.
Donald Trump took this dark undercurrent, a strain that has always underpinned parts of US politics, and ran with it. Dog-whistles were dispensed with in favour of overt claims that most illegal immigrants were rapists, certain Latin American countries were shitholes, women were bitches, and white supremacists were “very fine people”. Trump, noted one article, was “weaponizing the conservative id”.
In these visions, multiculturalism and progressivism are not just cultural threats, but economic ones. They undermine the ability of company founders to exploit labour, blow past regulations, and obey the brutal logic of the market.
“A world safe for capitalism is presumably one of monopoly companies and patriarchal networks,” note media scholars Ben Little and Alison Winch in their profile of Thiel. It’s a world “where ‘the multiculture’ has been transformed into racialised domination”.
Thiel has certainly contributed to the rise of Trump and the new breed of right-wing politicians through his vast wealth. In 2016, Thiel contributed $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign, thinking “he had a 50-50 chance of winning”. This earned him a speaking slot at the Republican convention. But his influence extends beyond mere money.
Thiel’s endorsement of Trump at the 2016 Republican convention was hugely significant for garnering support. So was his famous declaration there that he was proud to be gay, Republican and American. After Trump won his first term, Thiel continued to be involved. He joined the transition team and recommended aligned individuals for key positions, such as Michael Kratsios, who would become chief technology officer.
So, Thiel’s support of Trump should be understood as an investment, just like his early investments in PayPal and Facebook. As Chafkin notes, Thiel’s bet on Trump is a wager with high upsides and low risk. Thiel’s outspoken views in favour of “seasteading” (floating independent city-states) and against immigration and women’s emancipation had already alienated the more progressive sectors of Silicon Valley.
If the bet paid off, Thiel and his empire could benefit handsomely. And this is exactly what has played out. Since Trump has taken office in his second term, Palantir has already netted more than $113 million in federal government spending.
Palantir: from information to domination
Palantir’s origin story reflects its blend of technical expertise and political ambition. To combat rising fraud, members of PayPal developed a software tool that could mine vast amounts of transactions and find the connections between them, homing in on a handful of culprits in a deluge of data.
Thiel was prescient in spinning this core idea from finance to intelligence, where analysts were searching for patterns and anomalies amid the noise – a needle in a haystack. Palantir commercialised and expanded this concept, bringing a leaner, data-driven Silicon Valley approach to a sector dominated by established Washington incumbents.
Thiel and Palantir chief executive Alex Karp believe Silicon Valley has lost its way, frittering away its vast talents and ingenuity on trivial pursuits: advertising, gaming, social media. For them, the era of ambitious scientific projects and unapologetic military industrial collaborations – the Manhattan Project, the Moon landing — needs to be revived.
In his book, the Technological Republic, Karp calls for a state that looks more like a startup – lean, technology-driven, and led authoritatively by a founder-like figure who is not afraid to “move fast and break stuff” (the Silicon Valley motto), especially when it comes to dominating enemies and ensuring the safety of a nation’s citizens.
Palantir, of course, answers this call. It combines machine learning with military spending, data-driven “intelligence” with naked violence. This is most clear in its longstanding collaboration with ICE, which is now carrying out notorious immigration raids at the behest of the Trump administration. “On the factory floor, in the operating room, on the battlefield,” states a recent Palantir recruitment ad placed across US college campuses, “we build to dominate.”
Palantir’s blueprint has been emulated by a growing array of others. Anduril, Skydio and Shield AI are all founded on developing information technologies for military and intelligence use. Last week, Rune Technologies closed a $24 million Series A round of funding to move warfare logistics away from the “Excel era” and towards AI-augmented tools.
Answering Karp’s call, these startups are unapologetic in leveraging engineering expertise for more substantial, authoritarian and historically controversial areas.
Playing the scapegoat
One of the clearest outlines of Thiel’s political philosophy is laid out in the Straussian Moment, a 30-page essay he published in 2007.
For Thiel, the spectacular violence of the September 11 terrorist attacks was a wake-up call, rousing the citizenry from that “very long and profitable period of intellectual slumber and amnesia that is so misleadingly called the Enlightenment”.
In Thiel’s view, the Enlightenment project – to advance knowledge, cultivate tolerance, and elevate humanity as a whole – rested on a naive understanding of human nature. Like Curtis Yarvin and other influential Silicon Valley political thinkers, he asserts that humanity is brutal and a shift from Enlightenment optimism to Dark Enlightenment pessimism is required.
It is unsurprising, then, that Thiel looks to René Girard (once called “the new Darwin of the human sciences”) for inspiration; he even organised a symposium at Stanford with Girard in attendance. Girard begins from a bleak view of human nature, a Hobbesian world where life is nasty, brutish and short. For Girard, mimesis or imitation is at the heart of the human. This mirroring quality means violence is always threatening to escalate, to constantly ramp up with no inherent limit.
To corral this violence, ancient cultures created the scapegoat, a sacrificial system where all-against-all was replaced by all-against-one. Yet the scapegoat is no longer viable – the revelation of Christ is that the scapegoat is an innocent victim.
Thiel takes Girard’s insights and twists them to his own ends. First, Thiel asserts that even if violence begets more violence, nonviolence is not an option. Enemies must not be allowed to prevail. In the face of uncompromising adversaries, such as the 9/11 attackers, who threaten to dismantle some idealised way of life, preemptively responding to violence is “urgently demanded”.
Second, Thiel takes the concept of the scapegoat and flips it. In this judo-like manoeuvre, the real victims are not the marginalised or the minority, but the hegemonic class (whites, males, liberals, conservatives), who are being pressured by cancel culture, political correctness, diversity initiatives and so on.
Shortly after graduating, Thiel coauthored a book, The Diversity Myth, about alleged political intolerance at Stanford. In it, he rails against a rampant multiculturalism that he claims stifles freedom of speech and derails education and entrepreneurialism. Here, scapegoating is weaponised. It’s mobilised toward a conservative advance in the ongoing cultural wars, which are always also political wars.
Contradiction or evolution?
Thiel is a walking paradox. He bemoans cancel culture and political correctness, while waging a highly expensive and clearly personal war to bankrupt a media outlet that offended him. (After Gawker printed the “open secret” of Thiel’s gay status in 2007, Thiel funded lawsuits against them until they were shut down.)
He calls himself a libertarian, but has founded a company that derives millions in contracts from the bloated budgets of the many military agencies (the National Security Agency, the FBI, the US Army) that now comprise the sprawling state.
He celebrates capitalism and the free hand of the market, but always stresses that the path to business success rests on establishing monopolies with no real competition. He is a German-born immigrant who actively supports technologies (Palantir) and candidates (Trump) that establish xenophobic environments and seek to deport those deemed “other”. And, most personally, he is both a conservative Republican and an openly gay man.
At a purely logical level, these elements are incompatible. There is a perceived gap between Thiel’s words and actions, a gulf between his ideologies and his activities. For staunch libertarians at Thiel’s companies, his manoeuvrings at the state level make no sense. For queer scholars, Thiel’s exclusionary rather than liberatory politics mean he is a man who has sex with other men, rather than being gay.
For these critics, both things cannot be true; therefore, some labels, identities and activities are fake, marginal or impossible. Yet one of Thiel’s many lessons is that contradiction is a strength rather than a weakness.
Thiel’s philosophy, which journalists have called techno-fascism, recalls philosopher Umberto Eco, who described fascism as a “beehive of contradictions” and “a collage of different philosophical and political ideas”. The radical right, in particular, has no problem mashing together many views that at face value should not fit: scavenger ideologies that are opportunistic in grabbing elements that work for them.
Instead of contradictions, these hybrid forms need to be understood as evolutions. They are tensions, held within the body and the mind of the subject, that push monolithic frameworks like conservatism beyond their existing limits. Thiel’s power – and his political blueprint for others – is insisting you can be a philosophical entrepreneur, an illiberal patriot, and a queer conservative.
Luke Munn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: United States Senator for New Mexico Martin Heinrich
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary (USDA) Brooke Rollins and U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Doug Burgum following reports that staff reductions have required the deployment of fire personnel to fill administrative gaps, leaving fire crews understaffed and overwhelmed.
“Wildfire season is well underway, particularly across the Western United States. Much of the West is predicted to experience higher-than-normal fire behavior through October, and 44 large fires are currently uncontained. With wildfire season likely to continue for several more months, I am extremely concerned by reports that staff reductions have required the deployment of fire personnel to fill administrative gaps, leaving fire crews understaffed and overwhelmed,” Heinrich began.
“According to recent reports, firings, buyouts, and other personnel changes have led to gross understaffing at both the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior responsible for fire prevention and response, forcing firefighters to wear multiple hats,” Heinrich continued. “In addition to carrying out their own duties, firefighters reportedly have been thrown into serving in administrative and janitorial roles—ranging from cleaning campground bathrooms to answering front desk calls to mowing lawns.”
Highlighting the impacts of the Trump Administration’s Deferred Resignation Program on firefighting preparedness, Heinrich wrote, “As you know, thousands of staff with red cards left the agencies this year due to the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). If those personnel roles and responsibilities now must be filled by firefighters at the height of fire season, then the DRP was not only inefficient but has materially threatened public safety.”
In light of these concerns, Heinrich requested information from the Administration on firefighter staffing levels and support personnel since January 2025—including assessments of staffing gaps, data comparing current firefighting levels to the 10-year average, the impact of reassignments, and the number of firefighters serving in administrative or custodial roles. Heinrich concluded the letter by noting the Secretaries’Joint Memorandumcommitting to work together to “ensure that wildland fire personnel have the resources, training, and support to work under safe conditions and to effectively carry out their wildland fire management mission.”
“Since then, you have made assurances that you have the appropriate staff to meet current and future wildfire challenges. However, these recent news reports cast doubt on those assurances,” noted Heinrich.
Read the full letter here and below:
Dear Secretary Rollins and Secretary Burgum:
Wildfire season is well underway, particularly across the Western United States. Much of the West is predicted to experience higher-than-normal fire behavior through October, and 44 large fires are currently uncontained. With wildfire season likely to continue for several more months, I am extremely concerned by reports that staff reductions have required the deployment of fire personnel to fill administrative gaps, leaving fire crews understaffed and overwhelmed.
According to recent reports, firings, buyouts, and other personnel changes have led to gross understaffing at both the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior responsible for fire prevention and response, forcing firefighters to wear multiple hats. In addition to carrying out their own duties, firefighters reportedly have been thrown into serving in administrative and janitorial roles—ranging from cleaning campground bathrooms to answering front desk calls to mowing lawns.
This situation is the opposite to that described by Chief Tom Schultz in his “Wildfire Priority” memorandum, dated July 16, 2025, relating to making staff with ‘red card’ qualifications available for firefighting duties. As you know, thousands of staff with red cards left the agencies this year due to the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). If those personnel roles and responsibilities now must be filled by firefighters at the height of fire season, then the DRP was not only inefficient but has materially threatened public safety.
In light of these concerns, please provide responses to the following questions by August 14, 2025:
1. Since January 20, 2025, have your Departments conducted a review or assessment to understand the extent to which staffing gaps exist for firefighting personnel positions? Have you conducted a similar review or assessment on the staffing gaps for firefighting support staff, such as aircraft inspectors, dispatchers, or public information officers? If so, please provide a copy of those reviews or assessments.
2. You both have noted that your Departments are on pace to achieve their firefighter staffing goals for 2025, but multiple reports indicate extreme gaps in the staffing levels of firefighters, particularly those with enough experience to lead a crew or direct incident response. Please describe the number of firefighters at each General Schedule pay category for this fire year compared with the 10-year average.
3. To what extent has the Department of the Interior Secretarial Order 3426 “Ensuring National Parks Are Open and Accessible” contributed to the need to assign wildland firefighters to administrative or custodial roles?
4. Please provide the following data:
a. The total number of firefighters who have been assigned to administrative or support roles since January 20, 2025. In responding this question, please provide a listing of all non-fire related roles firefighters have been assigned to carry out.
b. The total number of firefighters who have been assigned to serve in maintenance roles since January 20, 2025.
c. The total number of fire team support staff who have departed the Department or have agreed to early retirement or entered into a DRP since January 20, 2025. In responding to this question, provide information for each category listed and for each agency.
In March, you signed a Joint Memorandum committing to work together to “ensure that wildland fire personnel have the resources, training, and support to work under safe conditions and to effectively carry out their wildland fire management mission.” Since then, you have made assurances that you have the appropriate staff to meet current and future wildfire challenges. However, these recent news reports cast doubt on those assurances.
We look forward to your timely responses to these important questions. Should you have any questions about this request, please contact my staff at (202) 224-4971.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Jianai Yumcuo Lake, located in Jiali County, Nagchu City, Xizang Autonomous Region, was listed as a national wetland park in 2016. The total planned area of the park is 3,504.9 hectares, and its altitude reaches about 4,500 meters.
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
On July 25, the film “Nanjing Photo Studio”, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, was released simultaneously in Macao and inland China, becoming a general cinematic event.
Based on a true story, the film follows the ordinary workers of the Jixiang Photo Studio as they continue their work in Japanese-occupied Nanjing in 1937. Forced to develop photographs for the Japanese army, they discover under the red light of the darkroom negatives that depict the horrific atrocities of the invaders. The workers of the photo studio go from struggling to survive to awakening their conscience, and ultimately, risking their own lives, preserve this irrefutable evidence that reveals the whole truth. Using a unique approach, the film reveals “big history through a small slice” and exposes the crimes of the aggressors, and also praises the courage and spirit of resistance of ordinary people.
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Backed by the new Awaza Programme of Action, the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries or LLDC3 will push for freer transit, smarter trade corridors, stronger economic resilience and fresh financing to lift development prospects for the 570 million people living in those countries.
For landlocked nations, geography has long dictated destiny.
Trade costs are up to 74 per cent higher than the global average and it can take twice as long to move goods across borders compared to coastal countries. As a result, landlocked nations are left with just 1.2 per cent of world trade.
UN Video | What to expect from LLDC3 in Awaza, Turkmenistan
And amid global economic shifts, these countries face the huge risk of being left behind.
“LLDC3 is a pivotal opportunity to reverse this trajectory,” said Rabab Fatima, UN High Representative for Landlocked Developing Countries.
“At its heart, this conference is about people – it is about the millions of children who lack internet or digital tools, the farmers who cannot get their goods to market because of poor roads, and the entrepreneurs whose dreams are held back by border delays and limited access to funding.”
Broad engagement
The four-day event, from 5 to 8, August will feature plenary sessions, five high-level roundtables, and a Private Sector Forum focused on building partnerships and boosting investment.
Dedicated forums with parliamentarians, women leaders, civil society and youth will bring voices from across society into the heart of the discussions.
Many landlocked countries, such as Botswana (pictured) are also on the frontlines of the impact of climate change, highlighting their vulnerability.
The Awaza Programme of Action
Central to the conference is the Awaza Programme of Action for 2024-2034, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December.
It lays out five priority areas – structural transformation, infrastructure and connectivity, trade facilitation, regional integration, and resilience building – supported by five flagship initiatives.
These include:
A global infrastructure investment facility to close financing gaps.
Regional agricultural research hubs to boost food security.
A high-level UN panel on freedom of transit, ensuring smoother cross-border flows.
Digital connectivity initiatives to bridge the digital divide.
A dedicated landlocked developing countries trade work programme at the WTO.
Women shop at a vegetable market in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. Boosting food security is one of the priority areas of the Awaza Programme of Action.
Turkmenistan
For Turkmenistan, hosting LLDC3 is both a diplomatic milestone and a statement of intent.
“We are proud to host it on the Caspian Sea coast in Turkmenistan,” said Aksoltan Ataeva, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN.
“We look forward to welcoming [everyone] to Awaza for a transformative, action-oriented conference that puts landlocked countries at the heart of global partnerships.”
Organizers promise state-of-the-art facilities, cultural showcases and networking spaces designed to spur collaboration. Delegates will also experience Turkmen heritage firsthand, from local art to Caspian cuisine.
UN Photo/Jawad Jalali
Cross-border infrastructure, such as these power lines, are crucial connections linking LLDCs with the regional and global electric grids.
The bigger picture
For the landlocked developing countries, the stakes are existential.
These countries are among the most climate-vulnerable, least connected and furthest from global value chains. Without bold action, progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will remain out of reach.
“The destiny of humanity is inseparably linked to the destiny of these countries,” said Diego Pacheco, Ambassador of Bolivia, who currently chairs the LLDC Group at the UN.
“Together, we can unlock the potential of landlocked developing countries – not just for the benefit of our nations, but for the shared future of all humanity and the Mother Earth.”
As the countdown to Awaza begins, expectations are high – not about whether geography matters (it does), but whether global solidarity can transcend its limits.
LLDC3 aims to prove that it can.
There are 32 landlocked developing countries, of which 16 are also least developed.
Workers First Union members who worked at Victoria Park New World, which was severely damaged by a fire in mid-June, say that Foodstuffs North Island managers appear to be reneging on their commitment to rehire all supermarket staff who are losing jobs and income as a result of the fire, with final paycheques due on Monday 4 August and around 40% of workers still without job offers.
Union members say that of the 80 new positions available at New World Point Chevalier, only around half have been filled by staff from New World Victoria Park, with many workers left in the dark and seeming not to have been rehired by other Foodstuffs stores, as was initially suggested to union representatives. The brand-new New World Point Chevalier was due to open in September but was brought forward to 19 August as a result of the fire at Victoria Park.
One worker from the New World Victoria Park store alleged that in particular, many workers aged 40 or older and those with disabilities and learning difficulties have not yet received offers of employment from Point Chevalier or other Foodstuffs stores in Auckland, while younger workers appeared to have been more likely to be recruited.
Workers First Union is calling for Foodstuffs North Island – the cooperative comprised of New World and Pak’N’Save stores in the North Island – to prioritise hiring all displaced workers from Victoria Park and live up to their commitments to the union that no worker would lose income as a result of the fire.
“They coordinate on pricing, stock, advertising and specials – why the hell can’t they coordinate rehiring experienced staff who’ve lost their jobs as a result of a fire?” said Jas Giri, Workers First Organiser.
“We’re really concerned that the apparent indifference by Foodstuffs store managers in the region means an estimated 40% of Victoria Park workers will be without any income from Monday, when their final paycheques arrive.”
“It’s unnecessary, disheartening and confusing behaviour from a company that many of these workers have given decades of their lives to and believed they would be looked after by when the worst happened.”
“There is no defensible reason to leave a group of vulnerable workers without income during a cost-of-living crisis in the middle of winter under an austerity government – it’s Dickensian stuff.”
Mr Giri said Workers First was urging the Foodstuffs North Island cooperative to “get their act together” and urgently confirm or arrange practicable roles for these workers in nearby New World and Pak’N’Save supermarkets. He said it was particularly difficult for workers to seek comparable roles in Woolworths stores because there was a “de facto” hiring freeze in place at the Australasian chain.
Lindsay Rowles, Foodstuffs North Island retail and property general manager, told media in July that “it’s been great to see how the co-op pulls together and looks after its own” and that over 100 of the 189 staff who worked at Victoria Park had already been “engaged in employment”.
One worker, who has worked at New World Victoria Park for more than a decade and has not yet been re-hired at another Foodstuffs store, said there were implications of “ageism” and workers were “in turmoil” ahead of their last paycheque on August 4th.
“They went to the press, they said they look after their team, they said they’ll make sure everyone has a job, but many of us feel hopeless now with our last pay day coming up on Monday and no job to go into,” said the worker, commenting anonymously for their own protection.
“I’m happy for the ones who have been rehired, but some of us have worked at Victoria Park for 26 years, since the store opened its doors, and do not have jobs lined up.”
“We want to work but we don’t know where to go from here. Lots of people are feeling let down after working so many years for a company and being loyal for so long.”
The Retirement Commission’s annual Sorted Money Month campaign starts today and is putting the spotlight on emergency savings.
Research has found that 64% of people who had set up an emergency savings fund in the last three months felt confident about their future (almost identical to those with established funds at 65%) in comparison to only 22% of those without a fund. However, 44% of New Zealanders do not have an emergency savings fund, which threatens their financial resilience.
Sorted Personal Financial Lead Tom Hartmann says, “Building up your emergency savings this Sorted Money Month will help you to deal with financial challenges when they arise.”
“Having emergency savings in place can be the difference from feeling stressed or sorted when the unexpected happens. It can then be used for a variety of situations, such as trips to the vet, urgent home repairs, car breakdowns, or sudden job loss. Having this financial cushion ensures that you are prepared for life’s uncertainties and can handle them without undue stress.”
Alongside the national marketing activity which includes billboards, radio ads and social media, the financial services sector involved with the National Strategy for Financial Capability are hosting events, workshops, and sharing resources aimed at promoting emergency savings and encouraging saving habits. Details of what’s taking place can be found on the Sorted event calendar.
Sorted is also hosting two free webinars during Money Month providing independent financial information on starting an emergency savings fund. The first one, ‘Stressed to Sorted – Emergency Savings 101,’ is on 12 August. Then, on 26 August, there’s
‘How an Emergency Fund Can Save Your Life,’ featuring a panel of experts from community and financial organisations sharing their tips on building and keeping emergency savings.
There’s also a range of in-person events to choose from, including in Auckland Vaiola Pacific Island Budgeting Service: Empowering Pasifika mums event; Tamaki Budgeting: Beating the emergency event, (an Amazing Race-style experience with stations providing information on a range of common emergencies) and Ngā Tāngata Microfinance Trust’s Build Your Buffer event.
Waikato events include Kainga Aroha Community House is giving away the chance to win free butter as part of its Money Month event and Waihi Budget Services is offering free pork buns and a chat with a financial mentor every Tuesday in August. Tom Hartmann knows that economic conditions are tough for many people.
“But if you can take one action today to protect your future, open an emergency savings account and start regularly putting aside money to help deal with the unexpected,” he says.
“Having your own emergency money at the ready keeps you from sliding into debt and paying heaps in interest and fees. The more you have saved for the unexpected, the easier it is when things go wrong.”
About Sorted
Sorted is a free service run by Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission, the government-funded, independent agency dedicated to helping New Zealanders get ahead financially.
As New Zealand’s trusted personal finance site, Sorted has the information needed to tackle debt, plan and budget, save and invest, dial up your KiwiSaver, plan for retirement, protect what’s important, and manage a mortgage. Providing tools, guides and blogs, Sorted can help no matter where you are at when it comes to money.
About Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission
Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission aims to help New Zealanders to retire with confidence. Retiring with confidence means New Zealanders feel secure they’ll have resources to live and the know-how to make
Three instances of people attempting to remove flaming objects from their homes is prompting a stark warning from firefighters.
In recent weeks, people have been badly burned after attempting to remove a dryer, a mattress and a burning pot of oil from their homes in three separate incidents in Dunedin.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand Otago Risk Reduction Advisor Matt Jones says each incident had the potential to end in tragedy.
“These people have sustained serious injuries, but we were fortunate to not be responding to fatal fires,” he says.
“Let this be a reminder to people that if a fire is bigger than a football, then you can’t put it out. You must get out and stay out.
“That means closing the door to the room if safe to do so, getting everyone out of the house and calling 111. Let the firefighters do their job and put the fire out safely.”
Matt says the mattress fire was caused by a vape’s lithium-ion battery overheating while charging on the bed.
“That caused a very intense, hot fire inside the mattress,” he says.
“The person attempted to remove the mattress three times, but this put themselves and others in danger, not only from the fire, but from the toxic smoke being emitted.
“Everything in that house can be replaced, except for the people inside. People should never risk their lives to save their property – it’s just not worth it.”
Matt says to complicate matters further, the property also did not have working smoke alarms.
“It was just fortunate the person arrived home when they did as there was another person asleep inside the house at the time,” Matt says.
The greyhound racing industry has ended its 2024/25 season with yet another dog killed – bringing the season’s death toll to 17; the deadliest year for greyhounds since 2021.
The final fatality was Opawa Justin, a two-year-old greyhound who won his race at Addington Raceway in Christchurch on 31 July before suffering a catastrophic injury. He fell at the lure and fractured his left elbow. Veterinarians determined the injury was too severe to treat, and he was euthanised.
SAFE says the circumstances surrounding his death expose the brutal nature of racing, where even a winning dog isn’t safe.
“This young dog gave everything on the track, and it cost him his life. No matter how fast they run or how many races they win, greyhounds are always one fall away from tragedy,” says Campaign Manager Emma Brodie.
The total number of dogs killed has increased compared to last season, rising from 13 to 17. Over the course of the season, more than 800 dogs suffered race-related injuries, including 114 broken bones. SAFE says the scale of harm is staggering – and disturbingly routine.
“The death toll is going up, not down. If anything proves the failure of self-regulation, this is it,” says Brodie.
The Government was right to call time on this industry, and the rising body count only reinforces that.”
Racing Minister Winston Peters announced a phase-out of the industry in December 2024, with a full ban to come into effect by July 2026. The next season will be greyhound racing’s last.
SAFE is urging GRNZ to take immediate steps to slow the pace of racing and pour every resource into rehoming efforts.
“This is GRNZ’s last opportunity to show they care about the dogs they’ve profited from. They can either wind down with dignity or be remembered for prolonging suffering until the very end.”
Earth Sciences New Zealand (formerly NIWA) SeasonalOutlook Climate August to October 2025suggests warm, damp weather, with La Niña’s possible return
Parts of New Zealand are likely to experience more wet, warm weather over the next three-month period, with shifting ocean conditions hinting at a possible return to La Niña by the end of the year, according to the latest Earth Sciences New Zealand (formerly NIWA) Seasonal Climate Outlook for August to October 2025.
More frequent northeasterly to easterly air flows are expected over the next three months as winter turns into spring, says meteorologist Chris Brandolino, principal scientist at Earth Sciences New Zealand. “The likelihood of tropical and subtropical systems influencing New Zealand remains elevated, and this is associated with an increased risk of heavy rainfall events, including those linked to atmospheric rivers, and flooding.”
Above normal rainfall is expected in the north and east of the North Island. “These anticipated rainfall patterns are driven by circulation anomalies that heighten the risk of heavy rainfall events in the north and east of the North Island. Conversely, a shift toward more persistent easterly flow anomalies is expected as the season progresses, increasing the likelihood of dry conditions in the southwest of the South Island.”
Above average seasonal air temperatures are expected across most of the country, except the east of the South Island, for which above average or near average temperatures are about equally likely, says Brandolino. “Cold snaps and frosts may still occur, but less often than usual.”
Soil moisture levels and river flows are expected to be near normal in the north and west of the North Island, and near normal or below normal in the east of the North Island. Near normal or above normal soil moisture levels and river flows are forecast for the South Island.
While conditions in the tropical Pacific remain officially ENSO-neutral, oceanic tr
Federated Farmers is deeply concerned by a proposal to shut down rural police stations across Canterbury, calling it a major blow to the safety and wellbeing of farming families.
According to The Press, Canterbury Police intend to reduce personnel at a number of rural stations and disestablish some roles in favour of larger 24/7 hubs based in Rolleston and Rangiora.
Bex Green, North Canterbury Federated Farmers president, says the plan has left rural communities reeling.
“This is not good enough – our community is extremely angry and disappointed about what’s being proposed.
“Farming families rely on local police stations to feel safe and supported. Closing them down s
The appalling and deliberate behaviour of key Ministers, operating in secret, to rip up pay equity rules and stop thousands of women getting the pay rise they deserve has been exposed by the document dump of official advice.
“We knew it was constitutional vandalism and wage theft, now we know the Government actively suppressed human rights and went to extraordinary lengths to hush it up in the Beehive,” said Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi.
“This was a treacherous betrayal from the get-go – conceived in secret, rushed through in indecent haste without consultation – all to save money at the expense of women – shame on the Government.
“The official papers spell out a deliberate campaign of secrecy – a clear plan to do this under urgency without consulting the very people impacted by their decisions.
“They knew they were riding roughshod over democracy, and they knew ripping up the rules violated basic human rights protected under the Bill or Rights. But they didn’t care.
“This was a carefully orchestrated, deceitful, and anti-democratic plan to deprive women of the pay they deserve.
“The Government will be hearing the voices of women loud and clear on this betrayal every day until election day when it must be punished for this appalling wage theft.”
The Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahiis Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest trade union, representing and supporting more than 95,000 workers across central government, state-owned enterprises, local councils, health boards and community groups.
National stock levels drop by almost 2,000 listings for third consecutive month Around 60% of new listings on realestate.co.nz priced below the national average asking price
Latest data from realestate.co.nz shows a steady drain on housing stock is tightening the property pool for buyers across Aotearoa. Stock has fallen by almost 2,000 properties for the third month in a row to 30,430, a 0.4% decline on July last year.
Vanessa Williams, spokesperson for realestate.co.nz, says despite the seasonal slowdown, buyer demand remains steady, and opportunities are waiting for those ready to act.
“Although we’re seeing fewer homes coming onto the market, that doesn’t mean buyers have disappeared,” says Williams. “The real estate industry is telling us that vendors who are realistic with their price expectations are selling, and with less competition, it can actually be a smart time to list your property if you’re ready.”
First home buyers in with a chance
During July, 58.5% of all properties listed on realestate.co.nz were under $850,000 – well clear of the national average asking price for July of $858,189. Williams says for first home buyers and investors, this represents a window of opportunity before the traditional spring surge.
“First home buyers have a prime opportunity to look at their options with a solid band of homes listed for under $850,000,” says Williams. “For buyers who have their finances in order and a clear idea of what they’re after, now is a great time to secure a foothold before competition heats up again.”
Price variation in the regions
The national average asking price was up 0.6% year-on-year and while this marks continued price stability, several regions showed a different story.
Asking prices in the West Coast rose 25.3% year-on-year, reaching $500,000 for the first time since January 2025. It is one of just three regions to record growth month-on-month and year-on-year alongside Nelson & Bays, which rose to $874,818 (up 2.6% YoY and 1.0% MoM), and Northland, which increased to $843,362 (up 9.8% YoY and 9.2% MoM).
In contrast, four regions saw declines both month-on-month and year-on-year, a notable drop from seven regions last month. These included:
Central Otago/Lakes District $1,437,577 – down 8.5% YoY and 2.3% MoM
Marlborough, $725,377 – down 13.6% YoY and 1.4% MoM
Wairarapa $711,778 – down 3.2% YoY and 1.5% MoM
Wellington $807,503 – down 3.0% YoY and 2.7% MoM.
“Nationally, prices are holding steady, but when you zoom in, the picture becomes more dynamic,” says Williams “We’re seeing some standout regional growth which is a clear reminder that every region has its own rhythm, and local conditions matter more than ever.”
Buyers encouraged to act while stock remains tight
Despite a decline in total stock there were pockets of the motu to buck the trend. Gisborne (up 35.5% with 123 properties listed) and the West Coast (up 20.6% with 316 properties listed) topped the leaderboard for year-on-year stock growth.
“We have just 31 days until spring, and traditionally we see a surge of properties come to the market at that time,” says Williams. “For buyers who are ready now, there’s a window of opportunity, especially with so many homes priced below the national average.”
New listings down year-on-year but realistic pricing gets results
While the total number of new listings nationally (7,737) was down 4.2% year-on-year, Northland, Gisborne, and Taranaki all showed year-on-year increases of 26.3%, 54.5%, and 34.3%, respectively.
Williams says while the number of new listings coming onto the market has slowed, vendors who align their price expectations with buyers are more likely to get their sale across the line.
“As spring approaches, our attention will turn to whether sellers come to the market in greater numbers and how buyers respond. For now, buyers remain active, and the market continues to reward those ready to move, but it will be interesting to see what happens in September as we move into the expected spring surge.”
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Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services
The NT Police Force has arrested a 32-year-old male in relation to an indecent assault that occurred in Durack this morning.
Around 7:10am, the Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre received reports that a female had allegedly been indecently assaulted by a male unknown to her while walking through the golf course grounds in Palmerston.
It is alleged that a male approached the victim and indecently assaulted her before she screamed, and he fled the scene on foot.
A short time later, Strike Force Trident members located the alleged offender nearby. During the attempted arrest, he allegedly threw a bottle at officers before being taken into custody.
He remains in police custody with charges expected to follow.
Police urge anyone with information about the incident to make contact on 131 444, quoting reference number P25204673. Anonymous reports can be made through Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or via https://crimestoppersnt.com.au/.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samara McPhedran, Principal Research Fellow, Violence Research and Prevention Program, Griffith University
Almost every day, it seems we read or hear reports another family is grieving the murder of a loved one in a street brawl, another business owner is hospitalised after trying to fend off armed robbers, or shoppers simply going about their business are confronted by knife-wielding thugs.
The way media and politicians talk, it seems as if we are in the middle of an unprecedented violent crime crisis.
But are we?
The short answer is: no.
Comparing today with the past
Although the numbers fluctuate from year to year, Australia is less violent today than in previous years.
It is difficult to make direct comparisons over decades, because the way crimes are defined and recorded changes (especially for assault).
Weapons and violence are rarely out of the media cycle in Australia, leading many to fear this country is becoming less safe for everyday people. Is that really the case, though? This is the first story in a four-part series.
For crimes like domestic violence, the statistics are extremely hard to compare over time but even so, prevalence appears to have declined (although only about half of all women who experience physical and/or sexual violence from their partners seek advice or support).
However, if we consider homicide and robbery (which have been categorised much the same way over time), the numbers have been falling for decades.
Interestingly, this seems to have nothing to do with the weapons themselves. For instance, armed robbery and unarmed robbery both rise and fall in about the same way, at about the same time. Homicide follows a similar pattern.
Relative to ten years ago, Australians now are less likely to say they have experienced physical or threatened face-to-face assault in the previous 12 months.
Places with greater socioeconomic disadvantage typically experience more violence. In Queensland, for instance, Mt Isa has higher violent crime rates than affluent areas of Brisbane.
Despite differences between places, there is generally less violence than there used to be.
Why is violence declining?
Nobody knows quite why violence is decreasing. This is not just happening in Australia butacross many developednations.
Suggestions include better social welfare, strong economies, improved education, low unemployment, women’s rights and stable governance. Also, new avenues have opened up that carry less risk than violent crime – such as cyberfraud instead of robbing a bank.
Evidence shows these types of reactions achieve little, but in an environment of endless “crisis” it is almost impossible to make good decisions. This is made even harder in circumstances where victims and activists push politicians to implement “feel-good” policies, regardless of how ultimately fruitless those will be.
Who are the people being violent?
One thing remains the same: violent crime is primarily committed by younger men (who are also likely to be victims).
Ethnicity/migration history data is not always recorded in crime statistics, but the information we do have suggests a more complex picture.
Factors such as exposure to warfare and civil strife can certainly play a role in people’s use of violence.
However, unemployment, poverty, poor education and involvement with drugs and/or gangs tend to play a much larger part.
Reactions versus reality
If society is less violent, why are public reactions to violence seemingly becoming more intense?
Incidents that would have received little attention a decade ago now dominate public debate and single incidents – no matter how rare or isolated – are enough to provoke sweeping legislative and policy changes.
This is also about psychology: the better things get, the more sensitive people tend to be to whatever ills remain and resilience can crumble when something bad does happen.
Pandering to this by rushing to make people feel safer – while politically irresistible – has unintended consequences. When another incident occurs, as it always does, people feel even more vulnerable because they were led to believe the problem had been “fixed”.
This creates a never-ending cycle of superficial responses while underlying issues are ignored.
We cannot legislate or politicise our way out of violence. The best responses are ones that identify and address actual root causes and look at the circumstances that surround violence – rather than fixating on the violence itself.
This means moving away from emotional reactions and taking a clear look at why violence occurs in the first place.
Until this happens, any further reductions in violence are more likely to be good luck than good management.
Samara McPhedran has received funding from various Australian and international government grant programs, including the Australian Research Council and Criminology Research Council, for a number of projects relating to violence. She has been appointed to various advisory panels and committees, including as a member of the Queensland Ministerial Advisory Panel on Weapons. She does not receive any financial remuneration or other reward for these activities. She is the Executive Director (Analysis, Policy and Strategy) of the Violence Prevention Institute Australia. She is not, and has never been, a member of any political party. The views expressed are those of the author alone.
Source: United States Senator for Arkansas Tom Cotton
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Caroline Tabler or Patrick McCann (202) 224-2353 July 31, 2025
Cotton Introduces Bill to End H-1B Visa Loophole for Universities
Washington, DC — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today introduced the Colleges for the American People (CAP Act), which would remove the H1-B visa cap exemption for foreigners employed by colleges and universities.
Under current law, foreign professors hired by colleges and universities are exempt from the Department of State’s permitted 65,000 H-1B specialty-occupation visas—allowing them to hire an unlimited number of foreign workers. The CAP Act would require all prospective university hires to compete for an H-1B visa under the standard 65,000-visa cap. Congressman Tom Tiffany (Wisconsin-07) introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
“College and universities shouldn’t get special treatment to bring in more woke administrators and professors from around the world. In addition to securing our southern border, it’s also past time to fix our broken legal immigration system. Getting rid of this loophole is a good place to start,” said Senator Cotton.
“Instead of importing foreign labor, American universities need to invest in developing their own students for roles in leadership and teaching. The CAP Act makes sure American graduates get those opportunities,” said Congressman Tom Tiffany.
Text of the bill can be found here.
The Colleges for American People Act would:
This legislation would remove the H-1B visa cap exemption for institutions of higher education.
Under today’s Immigration and Nationality Act, the Department of State may issue 65,000 H-1B specialty-occupation visas each year. However, employees of higher-education institutions are exempt from that limit, which allows universities to hire unlimited foreign workers. The CAP Act would require all prospective university hires—from administrative staff to professors—to compete for an H-1B visa under the standard 65,000-visa cap.
The CAP Act eliminates the current exemption that allows colleges and universities to bypass the H-1B visa cap. Under this legislation, nonimmigrants seeking employment at higher education institutions would be required to go through the standard H-1B visa application process, just like applicants in other industries.
The bill does not retroactively affect current visa holders. Extensions for existing H-1B employees at universities will not count against the cap and may continue until the normal six-year limit, after which the standard rules would apply. This commonsense reform ensures schools prioritize training and hiring Americans first.
Source: People’s Republic of China – Ministry of National Defense
BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun on Thursday said that the Chinese military is always ready to pursue the goal of China’s complete reunification, pledging resolute efforts to thwart any separatist attempts seeking “Taiwan independence” and foil any military interference by external forces.
Dong made the remarks at a large reception that the Ministry of National Defense held in Beijing to celebrate the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which will be observed on Aug. 1.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, as well as the 80th anniversary of Taiwan’s restoration and the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Dong said.
On Sept. 3, China will hold a military parade in Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square to celebrate the anniversary of victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.
Dong said the parade will demonstrate to the Party and the Chinese people that the PLA is a force that safeguards peace and justice, and that excels in military strength.
He also noted that the Chinese military is willing to work with its counterparts in all countries around the world to achieve the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity and the three major global initiatives, address risks and challenges, and build a world with lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusivity, and a clean and beautiful environment.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Scenery of grassland in Zeku County, China’s Qinghai
Updated: August 1, 2025 09:05Xinhua
Sheep graze on a grassland in Zeku County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China’s Qinghai Province, July 30, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]A herdsman looks after his flock on a grassland in Zeku County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China’s Qinghai Province, July 30, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]An aerial drone photo taken on July 30, 2025 shows the scenery on a grassland in Zeku County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China’s Qinghai Province. [Photo/Xinhua]
Making the most of Auckland’s port and waterfront is a step closer with formal approval of a Tripartite Accord between Auckland Council, the Port of Auckland Limited and port workers represented by the Maritime Union of New Zealand.
The groundbreaking accord got the green light at Thursday’s Governing Body meeting, cementing the relationship between the three partners and setting a foundation for good faith, co-operation and long-term strategic alignment.
“The Accord will support how the Make the Most of Auckland’s Port and Waterfront (the Port Plan) is delivered and reflects our commitment to get better value and returns from our strategic assets, and improve outcomes for Aucklanders, port workers and the port,” says Mayor Wayne Brown.
“The plan was the result of a collaborative process I initiated during the development of the Long-Term Plan 2024-2034 so getting the Accord in place to underpin the plan, is an achievement.”
Under the plan, Auckland’s port land, assets and operations are retained under council ownership, with the port contributing $1.1 billion in profits to Auckland Council over the next 10 years.
“The Plan and Accord provide the port, unions and council a clear direction, shared goals and an agreed way to work collaboratively together. This Accord acknowledges the needs of our owner Auckland city, our workforce and unions, whilst maintaining port operational reliability and security for our customers. We believe strong relationships between all parties will lead to better outcomes for everyone,” says Port of Auckland General Manager People and Legal, Phil Doak
Maritime Union of New Zealand Local 13 Auckland Secretary Grant Williams congratulates Mayor Wayne Brown and Auckland Councillors for their vision in reaching this Tripartite Accord.
“This is the right decision going forward, ensuring the Port of Auckland remains under local control contributing to the city’s prosperity and working for the benefit of our community. We look forward to working together to keep Auckland moving.”
Developed by a working group of delegates from all three partners, the Accord includes agreed commitments around health and safety, transparency and collaboration.
It also enables the establishment of the Tripartite Forum to support conversations, coordination and joint oversight. It will meet regularly, forming working groups to address specific issues collectively.
The Mayor will formally sign the Tripartite Accord on behalf of Auckland Council at the first tripartite forum.
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