Peters dismisses North Korea’s ‘rhetoric’ over UN sanction monitoring
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has dismissed North Korea’s “aggressive rhetoric” over New Zealand’s role in the monitoring of United Nations sanctions on the nuclear-armed dictatorship.
“North Korea would better serve its people by meaningfully re-engaging with the international community through diplomacy rather than threats,” Peters said yesterday.
The North Korean foreign ministry on Monday issued a statement criticising the
United States and its “allies”, including New Zealand, for dispatching “warships and warplanes” to the region under the “pretext” of monitoring sanctions. It said North Korea would “take necessary measures to firmly defend the sovereignty and security of the state”.
“Such allies of the US as Germany, France and New Zealand have also dispatched their warships and warplanes to the Asia-Pacific region including the waters around the Korean peninsula one after another this year, encroaching upon the security interests of regional countries and escalating the military tension in the region.”
Peters, in response, said New Zealand stood proudly with the international community in upholding the sanctions on North Korea through monitoring and surveillance.
The UN Security council has passed 10 resolutions placing sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear-weapons and ballistic missile programme, sanctions which restrict its exports and imports of certain resources, including limiting the amount of petrol it can import.
Since 2018, New Zealand has sent aircraft to the region to assist with monitoring the sanctions. In a 2019 briefing on the first such deployment, officials said New Zealand surveillance aircraft had spent a month in the region and “successfully captured relevance intelligence and assisted in the detection and deterrence of illicit [North Korean] activity”, such as ship-to-ship transfers.
“North Korea continues to defy UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions. The UNSC sanctions regime is a key element of the global effort to peacefully apply pressure on North Korea to denuclearise and abandon its ballistic missile programme,” Peters said.
He said, as foreign minister in the mid-2000s, he travelled to the North Korean capital Pyongyang for six-party talks with the hope of ending the country’s nuclear programme.
“The window existed then for a diplomatic solution that had the potential to see North Korea abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. If it had taken that sensible step then, North Korea and its citizens would today be a more secure and prosperous nation.
“It is never too late for diplomacy to achieve what Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes never will, namely the reintegration of North Korea into the peaceful community of nations. Only then will its people have the full opportunity for the security and prosperity that a stable and peaceful region can offer.”
The Government will no longer support the running of the Christchurch Call, an international effort to stop extremist content circulating online sparked by the Christchurch mosque terror attack.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon jointly announced, with French President Emmanuel Macron, the creation of a Wellington-based not-for-profit Christchurch Call Foundation to continue the work, which was started by former prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Macron after the 2019 terror attack.
Ardern, who will become the patron of the call, has supported the move. She said in an Instagram post she had wanted to continue working on the Call but its day-to-day operations needed to move out of the New Zealand Government for it to become a “truly multi-stakeholder body”.
“I have advised the prime minister that it makes sense for my role to change,” she said. Ardern had been appointed “special envoy” to the call after leaving Parliament – both the
A young father has been found guilty of murder after his 3-month-old son died from a severe brain bleed.
Tipene Te Ahuru had pleaded not guilty to murder, with his defence team saying the jury could not rule out a tragic accident when the young dad dropped his 3-month-old.
The Crown said dropping the 3-monthold could not have caused the injuries and this was child abuse and murder.
In her summing up yesterday, Justice Jane Anderson told the jury they had to consider whether Te Ahuru was guilty of manslaughter, murder or acquit him.
In the end, after just over two hours of envoy and the patron role were unpaid.
The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand said it welcomed the move. Abdur Razzaq, a spokesperson for the group, said officials in New Zealand and France should be given credit for creating a recognised international body.
“We thank the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for the ongoing support for this legacy project after the tragedy of 15 March.”
Luxon, in the statement with Macron, said the Christchurch Call had curtailed violent extremism content online, and he wished both Ardern and the call well as “they evolve in the next phase of their development”.
The Government has funded a Christchurch Call unit since 2019, which has helped to run the initiative’s work from inside the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC). It had a budget of $2.1 million in 2022-23, and as of yesterday was staffed by 9.3 fulltime equivalent jobs, according to DPMC.
Funding will end on June 30, when the foundation will take over. deliberations, the jury agreed with the Crown and found the young father guilty of murder. Te Ahuru looked stunned after the verdict was read out with a lone tear running down his cheek.
Justice Anderson convicted him and remanded him in custody to appear for sentencing in July.
Amaziah Te Ahuru was born five weeks early, spending time in hospital. He died at Starship Hospital barely 100 days old after his life support was turned off.
Amaziah died from a brain bleed after a lack of oxygen. But that was not the only injury. The 3-month-old had bleeding around the spinal cord, ligament damage to the neck, rib fractures, trauma to the abdominal area, bleeding of the eyes and a fractured arm.