World News

By Luke Goodsell of the ABC John Travolta, Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Photo: AFP In a year that gave us Nancy Kerrigan's shattered grimace, Kurt Cobain's lifeless sneakers and OJ Simpson leading the world's slowest police chase, 1994's most unforgettable image might just be Samuel L. Jackson's jheri-curled hitman in Pulp Fiction, savouring a slow, sinister slurp from a Big Kahuna soda as he prepares to lay his vengeance upon some unlucky kids. When the second film from writer-director Quentin Tarantino hit cinemas 30 years ago, it was more than just a critical and commercial smash - it was an instant cultural sensation, arguably the defining American movie of its decade. An LA story of garrulous thugs, twist contests, prize fighters and gimps, it was a fresh, funny, irresistibly qu...

Navy divers preparing to head out to area the HMNZS Manawanui now lies, off the Southern Coast of Upulo. Photo: Supplied / New Zealand Defence Force Oil seeping from the wreck of the avy's sunken survey ship is not from the ship's main tanks - but removing them is first on the list for the recovery team, the Defence Force says. About 200,000 litres of fuel has escaped from the HMNZS Manawanui into the sea, one week after the survey ship began listing, caught fire and sank off the southern coast of Upolu, Samoa. The ship contains about 950 tonnes of fuel, and is now lying on its side on the sea floor about 30 metres down, in a marine reserve. Navy deputy chief, Commodore Andrew Brown, said that was considered a small quantity of oil and it was being monitored. "The advice from our exper...

Members of the Nihon Hidankyo and atomic bomb suvivors, assistant secretary general Toshiko Hamanaka (left), co-chair Terumi Tanaka, assistant secretary general Masako Wada and assistant secretary general Jiro Hamasumi. Photo: AFP / YUICHI YAMAZAKI Almost eight decades after an atomic bomb devastated her home town of Hiroshima, Teruko Yahata carries the scar on her forehead from when she was knocked over by the force of the blast. The US bombs that laid waste to Hiroshima on the morning of 6 August 1945, and to Nagasaki three days later, changed the course of history and left Yahata and other survivors with deep scars and a sense of responsibility toward disarmament. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Nihon Hidankyo group of atomic bomb survivors, for its work warning of the d...

Photo: 123RF Researchers at Cambridge University have called for beer and cider to be served in smaller glasses in the United Kingdom, after a study found it could reduce alcohol consumption and harm. But Alcohol Healthwatch, an organisation that works to reduce and prevent alcohol-related harm in Aotearoa, said doing the same here would be unlikely to have much of an impact. The study, conducted in England, found beer and cider consumption dropped by about 10 percent in pubs, bars and restaurants where customers were offered a 2/3 pint as the largest serving. Unlike in New Zealand, beer glass sizes are standardised. A UK pint equates to 568ml, while a 2/3 pint is 378ml. "Removing the offer of pints in 13 licensed premises for four weeks reduced the volume of beer sold," the study's auth...

JD Vance. Photo: AFP Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said the way he phrased his criticism of "childless cat ladies" - comments that took on new life when Donald Trump tapped the Ohio senator as his running mate - was "dumb". "I certainly wish that I had said it differently," Vance said in an interview with The New York Times published Saturday. But Vance said he stood by the point he made as a US Senate candidate in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson discussing leaders of the Democratic Party, including Vice President Kamala Harris. He said he did not intend to criticise those who couldn't have children "for medical reasons, for social reasons - like set that to the side; we're not talking about folks like that". "What I was definitely trying to illustrate ultimately in...

By Brad Brooks, Reuters Aerial view of destroyed houses in Port St Lucie, Florida, after a tornado hit the area and caused severe damage as Hurricane Milton swept through Florida on 11 October, 2024. Photo: MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO / AFP Chris Fiore was supposed to be accepting delivery of new household appliances and furniture, replacing items that were swamped by Hurricane Helene just a few weeks ago. Instead, the resident of Siesta Key, the Florida barrier island town where Hurricane Milton made landfall this week, was using a broom to push muck and seawater out of her ground-floor condo, a dream home she purchased just four years ago. "There is no chance I'm pulling up stakes," Fiore said on Friday, pointing out the waterline where ocean water earlier this week was 60cm up a ...

By David Brunnstrom, Reuters Attendees take part in the 19th East Asia Summit during the 44th and 45th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Vientiane on 11 October, 2024. Photo: NHAC NGUYEN / AFP Russia and China blocked a proposed consensus statement for the East Asia Summit drafted by Southeast Asian countries, mainly over objections to language on the contested South China Sea, a US official told Reuters on Saturday. A draft statement arrived at by consensus by the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations was put to the 18-nation East Asia Summit meeting in Laos on Thursday evening, the official said. "ASEAN presented this final draft and said that, essentially, this was a take-it-or-leave-it draft," the official said on condition of anonymity. The Uni...

By Papua New Guinea correspondent Marian Faa for the ABC The Panguna mine in Bougainville. Photo: A large-scale study of social and environmental impacts from Rio Tinto's abandoned Panguna mine in Bougainville has found a plethora of actual and potential human rights violations, including risks to life. It is the first comprehensive assessment of issues stemming from the massive gold and copper mine at the centre of a devastating civil war that claimed up to 15,000 lives between 1988 and 1998. Despite being closed for more than three decades, masses of mine waste and decaying infrastructure continue to impact thousands of people in the area, the study found. At some sites, it revealed violations of indigenous people's rights to water, education and culture. Potential impacts to thei...

West Australian writer Tim Winton braves a barbaric and blistering future in his epic new novel 'Juice'. Photo: Supplied Global warming isn't futuristic, says Tim Winton - it's here already. The "terrifying feeling" of being under the sun at 50 degrees Celsius is something the Australian writer and climate activist knows from personal experience. "We're not built to live like that and we won't. I'm afraid most of us won't live like that." In his epic new novel Juice, the 64-year-old drops his readers into a dystopian desert culture where chaos reigns and life is cheap. "Let's just hold our noses and go into this world for a while and see how it feels and see if there's anything we might learn from it," he tells RNZ's Saturday Morning. For Winton, writing Juice was a way of synthesising...

Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. Photo: AFP Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has died at 69, according to statements from Scotland's main political parties and UK media reports. Salmond was taken ill while in North Macedonia, collapsing after delivering a speech on Saturday, according to British media reports. "I will never be able to thank Alex for all his lessons, advice, guidance, mentorship, love and friendship and for everything he did for Scotland. For many years he was the father of the nation and for several years he has been a father-like figure to me. "All of our thoughts are with all of the family and everyone across Scotland who are in mourning," the general secretary of Alex Salmond's Alba Party Chris McEleny said on Saturday. British Prime Minister K...