Journalist Charlotte Bellis Questions Taliban
New Zealander Charlotte Bellis was the only female journalist at the Taliban’s first official press conference in Afghanistan last week and her bold question to the group of armed men who took over the…
Tag Archives: Afghanistan
New Book Questions SAS Raids in Afghanistan
A new book by journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson claims the SAS killing of civilians in raids on two villages amounts to a “dark and guilty secret of New Zealand’s recent history.” A botched…
Pat Deavoll in Training for Tirich Mir Ascent
New Zealand mountaineer Pat Deavoll, 56, is planning ahead to 2017 when she will climb Tirich Mir (7708m), the highest peak in the world outside of the Himalayan/Karakoram chain. Ahead of that, she will…
Pietra Brettkelly’s Doco Premieres in Venice
Multi-award-winning director and producer Pietra Brettkelly’s documentary A Flickering Truth, filmed in Afghanistan, made its premiere at the 2015 Venice International Film Festival. New Zealand-born Brettkelly’s 2008 film The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins…
Paracanoeist Curtis McGrath Awarded in Queensland
Former soldier, New Zealand-born Curtis McGrath, 26, has won the Courier-Mail/McDonald’s Queensland Athlete with a Disability award for paracanoeing. McGrath, a sapper with the Royal Australian Engineers Corps, lost both his legs in Afghanistan in…
Good Kill Andrew Niccol’s Sobering 21st Century Riposte to Top Gun
In Good Kill, which has its world premiere this month at the Venice Film Festival, New Zealand writer-director Andrew Niccol explores the implications of waging war while staying home, a development that – for…
NZ Security Expert – ISIS Positioned to Develop Chemical Weapons
In the course of its Blitzkrieg in northern Iraq, ISIS captured the Al Muthanna complex, which contains remnants of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons stock, buried in underground concrete bunkers and left undestroyed by American…
New Zealand soldiers perform Haka for fallen comrades in Afghanistan
Watch this heart-wrenching and powerful video of The New Zealand Defence Force performing a traditional Maori funeral Haka as a farewell to three of their colleagues who were killed…
NZ Stays in Afghanistan
New Zealand will keep a small team of military personnel in Afghanistan to help coalition forces after it formally withdraws in April 2013, according to The Washington Post. The group of 27 will be…
Farewell to the Brave
“Portraits of the three soldiers killed 19 August in a massive blast from a roadside bomb in northeastern Bamiyan gazed out from the front pages of virtually every New Zealand newspaper, including the…
What Better Role Model
Corporal Willie Apiata, 40, the only living New Zealander to hold the country’s top award for battlefield gallantry, the Victoria Cross, is quitting the military to work with vulnerable youth at Papakura’s High Wire…
If only in Afghanistan
Hamilton doctor Marc Shaw is the first civilian doctor to be deployed with the New Zealand Defence Force in Afghanistan, recently donning a red suit to play Father Christmas at the Banyan camp he…
Gallantry Cross awarded
Wellington-born Rifleman James McKie, 29, a member of the British Forces, has been presented with the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross at Buckingham Palace. McKie was providing security for a new patrol base when a live…
Against the grain
“An act of real political courage by the National Party would be to increase its commitment in the dangerous areas of Afghanistan and to announce that New Zealand was rejoining the ANZUS Alliance, which…
Red Cross Honours NZ Nurse
Aucklander Marianne Whittington has been awarded the Red Cross’s highest nursing honour, the Florence Nightingale Medal. Whittington has undertaken 11 international aid missions for the organisation in the last 17 years, including dangerous assignments to…
Jail Over War
New Zealand doctor Malcolm Kendall-Smith may go to jail for refusing to obey the orders of the British Royal Air force and return to duty in Iraq. After already serving two tours in Iraq and one in…
Healer of Body, Mind and Soul
The Guardian pays tribute to Duncan Forrest, NZ born surgeon and renowned anti-torture campaigner. An “outstanding and innovative paediatric surgeon,” Forrest spent his career at the vanguard of surgical developments in spina bifida, hydrocephalus and cleft palate….
Fallen Treasures May Stand Again
Since September 2004, NZ troops have been stationed in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley to oversee the reconstruction of the area following the US-led war against the Taliban. As well as helping rebuild Bamiyan University, the NZ Army is…
