Rivers Casino hotel makes strides, new zoo CEO, fly cheap to Phoenix and more in ETC. – NEXTpittsburgh

Construction advances on Rivers Casino hotel

Rivers Casino and The Landing Hotel just made a connection.

On Aug. 20, construction crews placed a ceremonial beam that joins the seven-story, 219-room hotel with the North Shore casinos east faade facing the Carnegie Science Center.

The literal connection of the two facilities is fundamental for integrating the casinos gaming and entertainment complex with the new hospitality venue, says Steven Massaro, president of Massaro Corp.

The hotel project was reactivated this summer after a 15-month construction shutdown due to Covid. The Landing will open in 2022 creating approximately 128 jobs.

Klai Juba Wald, the interior designer and architect for the hotel, created a color palette of deep blues and rich golds and tactile finishes. Artwork in each room will feature local themes.

Casino visitors can see a life-size model guest room located just off of the gaming floor.

Photo courtesy of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

Pittsburgh Zoo gets a new president and CEO

Dr. Jeremy Goodman is the next president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

On Oct. 1, Goodman will succeed Dr. Barbara Baker, who has been the organizations president and CEO for 31 years. She will hold the honorary title of president emeritus.

Goodman, a veterinarian who serves as executive director of the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island, will be the Pittsburgh Zoos eighth director since it opened in 1898.

The new CEO worked as a private practice vet after earning a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Tufts University. For nine years, Goodman was director of the Turtle Back Zoo in New Jersey, where he turned around the finances of the municipal zoo and achieved its first national accreditation by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums.

Im excited about the opportunity to become the new chief executive of the well-regarded Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, Goodman says. My family and I have visited Pittsburgh and the zoo and we are happy that we will be calling Pittsburgh our new home.

New direct flight to Arizona

Low-cost carrier Allegiant has started its nonstop flights to Phoenix from Pittsburgh International Airport.

The flight to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport (AZA) will operate twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays with introductory one-way fares as low as $69.

The Phoenix-Mesa area is a popular destination for our customers, Drew Wells, senior vice president with Allegiant, said in a press release.

Pittsburgh Hospitality Workforce Celebration Day

Pittsburgh Hospitality Workforce Celebration Day will be launched on Tuesday, Aug. 24. The inaugural event will take place from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at the Allegheny Overlook pop-up park on Ft. Duquesne Blvd.

Organized by VisitPITTSBURGH, the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Associations Western Chapter, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, the Greater Pittsburgh Hotel Association and Partner4Work, the day will honor the important contributions the local hospitality workforce makes to the community while also calling attention to the expansive job opportunities and career growth available in Allegheny Countys hospitality industry.

Allegheny Overlook Pop-up ParkMassaro CorporationNonstop flightsPittsburgh International AirportPittsburgh Zoo & PPG AquariumRivers CasinoThe Landing Hotel

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Rivers Casino hotel makes strides, new zoo CEO, fly cheap to Phoenix and more in ETC. - NEXTpittsburgh

Chile regulator reaches agreement to boost casino industry transparency – SBC Americas

The Superintendency of Gambling Casinos (SCJ) of Chile has updated an agreement with the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) to promote new measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing in local casinos.

The signature of the UAF Director Javier Cruz and Superintendent Vivien Villagrn renews a Framework Collaboration Agreement initially started in 2009, which follows international standards.

The agreement includes specific inspection programs to be carried out for Chilean gambling establishments, as well as training for UAF and SCJ officials in regards to common interest issues and promotion activities.

The new agreement consolidates coordination between both entities. For example, it works to carry out activities to verify compliance with rules and regulations, and reinforces the information exchange related to administrative sanctioning procedures initiated at gambling casinos, the SCJ explained.

Javier Cruz warned that as participants in the national anti-money laundering and terrorism financing system, casinos must implement policies and procedures to prevent and detect suspicious operations related to those crimes.

To do this, they must not only know the risks to which theyre exposed, but also the warning signs that they should look for. Hence the importance of the collaboration, training and supervision activities that we can develop with the SCJ and the entities that it regulates and supervises, he added.

Villagrn echoed the view, saying that international standards require us to strengthen inter-institutional coordination in order to protect the economy and the country from the serious damage caused by the money laundering crimes and terrorist financing.

After updating the agreement, the SCJ will be able to formalize actions from the Action Plan of the National Strategy to prevent and fight these problems. Additionally, the joint work provides the opportunity to exchange knowledge and good practices and will allow the establishment of joint strategies that reduce the threats and vulnerabilities of the casino industry when it comes to money laundering, terrorist financing and corruption.

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Chile regulator reaches agreement to boost casino industry transparency - SBC Americas

Try Your Luck at These Bossier Parish Casinos – Be Bossier

Try Your Luck at These Bossier Parish Casinos

Since 1994,Bossier Parishhas been home to some world-class casinos.

Our local casinos have provided a steady stream of visitors from other states with restaurants, all-you-can-eat buffets, hotels, spas, shopping, concerts, and gaming. In addition, casino bus tours are a common sight in Bossier Parish, and the visitors are always welcome!

The non-stop thrill of 24-hour gambling keeps hopeful visitors coming back over and over to try their luck at the plentiful slot machines and table games.

Each Bossier Parish casino offers a unique atmosphere and experience. Have you tried your luck at one of these local landmarks?

TheHorseshoe Bossier Cityis part of the Caesars Entertainment family. The casino features a Poker Room, table games and claims to be the Home of the Loosest Slots & Biggest Jackpots. And dont forget the free drinks!

Horseshoe has provided the stage for big-name musicians, comedians, magicians, and fighters inThe Riverdome.

The 24-story hotel has more than 600 luxury rooms and suites to make your stay memorable.

On-site meeting rooms, party rooms, and ballrooms provide the perfect setting for business conferences and gatherings or even weddings.

Enjoy the Dare Day Club and Pool or Dare After Dark at the pool deck during summer weekend evenings.

Indulge in spa services, or spend some time in the Red Star Room, a high-end bar and lounge or hang out at the Whiskey Roadhouse for some live music while you enjoy a drink or two.

With all the excitement, youre going to get hungry! So make a reservation at Jack Binions Steak House for an elegant evening, and enjoy prime steaks, pork chops, and seafood. If you prefer something more casual, visit Jasmines Noodle Bar, or drop by the 8 Oz. Burger Bar. Then, after an enjoyable meal, head back to the casino for more fun and games.

Walk intoBoomtown, and youll immediately sense an Old West vibe.

Stop by the Sundance Cantina for one of their famous Boomaritas before you head into the casino.

Once inside, youll be mesmerized by the 1,100 slot machines and 16 table games. If you watch for a few minutes, you might witness a big win at one of their exciting games or grab a free drink and try your hand at video poker or one of the many quick-play slot machines. There are so many you can literally slot till you drop!

When youre ready for a dinner break, you can enjoy 1800 Prime or check out Cattlemans Buffet or Boomers Caf.

The Boomtown Hotel features luxury accommodations at affordable rates. In addition, available meeting rooms make Boomtown a great place to host a corporate getaway.

If you love an island vacation vibe, you cant missMargaritaville Resort Casino.The luxury hotel features tropical elegance in the 295 guest rooms. Relax and be pampered in the elegant spa, or hand out at the beautiful tropical pool.

Dining and drinking options are plentiful at Margaritaville. Stop by and grab a bite at Banyan Tree Caf or enjoy a great dinner at Jimmys Steak & Seafood. But dont forget about theRiverview Restaurant & Brewhouseor the Bamboo Asian Caf. Drop by 5 OClock Somewhere or The Busted Coconut on your way to enjoy world-famous entertainers in concert. And of course, theres the gambling. Special promotions have made the Margaritaville Casino a favorite among returning visitors.

For a completely different experience, youll want to check outHarrahs Louisiana Downs. Home of theSuper Derby, Louisiana Downs is a world-class track where you can watch live quarter horse and thoroughbred racing. In addition to the horse racing, the casino section features slots from penny games to $100 high limit action.

Restaurants include Harrahs Club & Clubhouse, Pepper Rose Too, andFuddruckers(home of the worlds greatest hamburgers).

No matter where you choose to play, these local landmarks will provide a great getaway or just a fun evening. Try your luck at these Bossier Parish Casinos. Who knows, you just may hit the jackpot!

More Bossier Info

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Perfect the Pokies with PlayCroco Online Casino – Yahoo Finance

Take a look at these tasty tips

SYDNEY, August 23, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Now its no secret that PlayCroco is Australias best online casino, but theres some things that arent quite as well known. Like how to increase your chances of winning online.

Why would PlayCroco give out that info? Its simple we want you to have fun, we want you to win, we want to celebrate it. Theres a bunch of brilliant benefits to being part of the PlayCroco party and its time to shout about them.

Loyalty Program

This kicks into life from the moment you log in and deposit. Rise through the ranks to RoyalCroco level, picking up perks along the way. Benefits include cashback rising from 25% to 40%, increasing weekly withdrawal limits, daily bonuses, free spins and more.

Promotions

PlayCroco promotions are on the go all year round. Daily Free Spins, the Lucky Loco Draw, a weekly CrocoBoost, Pokie of the Month. Thats not even the half of it swing by and check out these awesome offers.

Pokie Tournaments

Now available on mobile, these online events are heaps of fun and some are totally free. Play against your fellow pokie players, prove youre the best of the best and reap the rewards!

Progressive Pokies

Also known as jackpot slots, the top prizes just get bigger until theyre finally triggered. Unlike fixed jackpot slots, the prize pot can rise to epic and potentially life-changing proportions, awarding tens of thousands of dollars (and sometimes even millions) in prize money. Cha-ching!

Comp Points

Complimentary points are rewards given to regular players. Simply deposit and bet to rack em up. The more you play, the more you collect and it doesnt matter whether you win or lose! These points can then be cashed in for credit once youve reached 100 and beyond.

Welcome Offer

Theres also a warm welcome offer where new players can sign up and grab a 200% bonus up to $5,000 using the code PLAYCROCO plus $50 extra following the deposit using the code PLAYCOOL. So if you havent already, sign up today and share the fun with the thousands of happy snappers.

Story continues

New Games

This isnt a tip we just wanted to bring you some good news! PlayCroco releases exciting new games every month with Legend of Helios and Princess Warrior coming to PlayCroco in September. Princess Warrior is packed full of powerful features that help players as they do battle for some potentially big wins. This includes Wilds, Multipliers and not one, not two but FOUR different Free Spins bonuses to choose from. In Legend of Helios players will come face to face with Helios and the other gods as they spin the reels in search of beautiful treasures and big wins.

Dont miss out on this incoming pokie perfection!

Banking Options

And theres a whole host of banking options; players can deposit and withdraw using a variety of methods Visa, Mastercard, Neosurf, POLi, Bitcoin eZee Wallet and CashtoCode. And if you need a hand with anything, the PlayCroco customer support team are on hand 24/7 to provide you with expert assistance.

Good luck!

Bruce Fern, Casino Manager at PlayCroco, said: "Theres awesome stuff going on all year round at PlayCroco and we want to make sure everyone knows about it.

"There are so many ways to win with tournaments, promotions, progressive pokies and more. The more our players know, the better experience theyll have and thats exactly what we want."

ENDS

Editors notes:

About PlayCroco:

PlayCroco is an online casino for Australian pokie lovers. With hundreds of pokies, generous offers and promos and a wide range of payment methods, PlayCroco is all about having fun and winning big. A level-up loyalty schemes also see players unlock incredible perks with each level they clear.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210823005242/en/

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MGM Springfield to welcome poker back to casino by end of year – The Patriot Ledger

Colin A. Young| State House News Service

MGM Springfield made the stateGaming Commission's planned discussion on Thursday about the absence of poker at the western Massachusetts casino an easy one.

"So, really, I think our first statement is that poker will be returning to MGM Springfield," Daniel Miller, the casino's compliance director, said. "We have plans that it will come back in Q4 of this year."

The state's two casinos MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor were freed of nearly all COVID-19 restrictions and resumed mostly normal operations in late May without offering poker, which had been prohibited by the commission when regulators first allowed the casinos to reopen under health and safety restrictions last year. This spring, the Gaming Commission began to take notice of the 10-fold increase in complaints about the lack of legal poker in the Bay State.

Both casinos said they would make decisions about the future of poker by the end of the year.

"Where previously we had made the statement that we would make a decision on it by the end of the year, we have at least made that decision and we will move forward with a plan on how to return it within that quarter," Miller said, rounding out what ended up being a discussion of less than two minutes.

More: Players complain about absence of poker at Massachusetts casinos

More: Massachusetts state representatives approve sports betting

Players can expect about 10 to 12 tables instead of the 28 that used to populate the casino's poker room, Miller said.

Encore Boston Harbor told the Gaming Commission in late July that a reintroduction of poker would require the casino to close other table games because it cannot find enough people to hire as dealers. An Encore executive also said the former poker room is now filled with "some of our highest-performing slot machines."

Poker is different from many other games in that gamblers play against (and win money from or lose it to) each other rather than the casino. Instead of the casino generating revenue by winning a game, as it usually does, casinos generally profit off poker by claiming a rake, or a percentage of cash game pots and tournament entry fees.

Poker rooms at casinos are "somewhat notorious for their inability to produce competitive levels of profit per square foot," researcher Anthony Lucas wrote in a paper published in the UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal in 2013. Around the country, other operators have decided not to offer poker, Bruce Band, the assistant director of the commission's Investigations and Enforcement Bureau and chief of the Gaming Agents Division, told commissioners last month.

Even without poker, Encore Boston Harbor raked in a record-high $59million in gambling revenue in July and MGM Springfield had its best month since before Encore opened in June 2019, counting $23.71 million in gambling revenue. Combined with $12.95 million in monthly revenue at Plainridge Park Casino, July produced a record $27 million in gambling taxes and fees for the state.

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Fresnos Club One Casino allowed to move with one stipulation – YourCentralValley.com

FRESNO, Calif. (KGPE) Fresnos Club One Casino got the green light to move to its new home in Granite Park on Thursday, but Fresno City Council allowed it to go ahead with a restriction in place.

Councilmembers are allowing owner Kyle Kirkland just 31 of his proposed 51 tables for the first 90 days, at which point theyll consider granting the additional 20. The decision comes after surrounding residents raised concerns of increased traffic, crime and alcohol consumption.

I told the team hey listen, lets just get going weve got to prove ourselves over the next 90 days to this community. I think weve proved ourselves to Fresno generally. Heard a lot of nice positive things from folks and you know were going to show it to Granite Park as well, Kirkland said.

Kirkland said not being able to launch his full operation will hinder their nonprofit work, and hell only be able to bring back about 170 employees of 300.

Councilmember Garry Bredefeld was the lone no vote on the proposal. He said this was because he wanted the card room to get the full 51 tables.

Once again this council has delayed potentially 130 people coming back to work 90 days more on a whim, to see if basically (Kirkland is) a good actor. What an outrage, he said.

Mayor Jerry Dyer vouched for Kirklands downtown location, saying police never had issues. But several councilmembers wanted to make sure the same will be true for the businesss new home.

We respect the fact that maybe this neighborhood they dont know us as well and we take that as a challenge, Kirkland said.

Club One Casino needs to go through a few more inspections to officially reopen. Kirkland doesnt have a set date but said it will be in the next few weeks.

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Fresnos Club One Casino allowed to move with one stipulation - YourCentralValley.com

Monarch Casino hiring 300 workers; Jobs offered on the spot – 9News.com KUSA

Monarch offers shuttle service to Black Hawk from points around the Denver metro area.

BLACK HAWK, Colo. Monarch Casino Resort Spa is looking to fill more than 300 openings at a job fair this week.

The Black Hawk casino said many workers could get hired on the spot at its job fair, which runs through Saturday.

Interested applicants can visit Monarch Casino Resort Spas Crystal Ballroom (5th floor from hotel lobby) from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday or Saturday.

Monarch Casino is offering new workers competitive wages, a 401K+ match, two weeks PTO and holidays as well as health, life, dental, vision and short-term disability insurance.

Monarch said applicants don't need a car to get a job. Monarch offers a discounted shuttle with pick-up and drop-off locations all over the Denver area.

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Will Jacinda Ardern Suffer Churchills Fate Once The (Covid) War Is Over? – Forbes

Humanity is at war with a virus. Jacinda Ardern, New Zealands Prime Minister and possibly the globes most successful Covid general, is this week leading another battle. Ardern placed the entire country into lockdown on Tuesday after the discovery of a single Delta variant infection in Auckland. Her goal is the same now as its been since the pandemic began - identify, isolate and eliminate Covid from day-to-day New Zealand life.

Ive been witnessing this firsthand from my wifes hometown of Ohope, in New Zealands Bay of Plenty, where weve lived since January after moving from California. Watching Ardern perform in daily press conferences this week I couldnt help thinking about Winston Churchill. I know, I know - older white guys always seem to think of Churchill. But loan me three more minutes of your time and you may glimpse a surprising future.

Comparing the two prime ministers fascinates me because, despite being almost unimaginably different people - Churchill was a round, aristocratic conservative with a deep belief in the British Empire while Ardern is a fresh-faced former youth socialist who still gets a packed lunch from her Mum - both have been very effective wartime leaders. And, perhaps strangely, their messages are ultimately very similar.

Churchills speeches used vivid imagery and waves of sound to tap into patriotism and an absolute refusal to quit. Ardern asks Kiwis to be kind and talks of a team of five million in a manner that manages to be both friendly and assertive. Their metaphors and styles reflect very different times and messengers, yet share the same core idea- togetherness and resilience will prevail.

But could these two leaders also share a less triumphant fate?

Just two months after leading Britain to victory over Nazi Germany, Churchill was swept out of office. His Conservative party lost the popular vote for the first time in four decades and suffered its worst vote swing since 1800. The decisive leader and inspiring communicator who helped save his country from an existential threat was gone. Why?

18th June 1945: William Waldorf Astor (1907 - 1966), later 3rd Viscount Astor, with his first wife, ... [+] Sarah Norton and a poster of Winston Churchill during the general election campaign, in which he stood as a Conservative candidate. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

After the horror, trauma and destruction of the War, Britain was looking to the future. Its priorities were domestic and largely focused on creating a more equal and fair economy. Churchill had proven wildly ineffective in dealing with those problems in the 1920s and so he was sent packing.

New Zealands Covid war is far from over, but so far Arderns strategy has been successful- only 25 deaths and a better economic growth rate than the U.S., despite the lockdowns. Do New Zealanders recognize this?

Yes. My experience has been that most people here are supportive of her strategy and grateful for its success. I played in a local tennis tournament on Sunday and before the first match someone marched up to me and said, What a great day to be a Kiwi, eh mate!. Noticing my slight pause, he added, Wait, youre not Aussie are you?. When I confessed to being American, he said, Ah, sorry. ..bet youre happy to be here. I really was.

And yet. Over the last eight months as Ive quietly listened to (eavesdropped on?) conversations, read the press and chatted to people here I sense the potential for Ardern to experience a post-pandemic moment similar to Churchill. New Zealand has a lot going for it, but it has important problems too. These problems are being subordinated to the Covid war now, but they could very rapidly lead to dissatisfaction once that battle is seen as over.

Foremost among these is the least affordable housing market in the developed world. It baffles and frustrates Kiwis that a country with vast amounts of open land and massive timber resources should have a housing shortage, but it does. My sister-in-law Sharon Brettkelly, whose podcast The Detail is one of New Zealands most popular, has done a series of fascinating shows looking at both causes and possible solutions. My take - this problem will not be solved soon. Electorates and people being who they are, Id expect Ardern to take a lot of the blame for this, even though the problem has deep roots.

Then there is China, where New Zealand must navigate an exquisitely complicated relationship. China consumes about 30% of New Zealands exports and is the largest destination for its ultra-profitable SunGold kiwi fruit. But of course its not shy about exercising power. For example, Chinese growers ignored New Zealands patent on the SunGold varietal and may now be growing 10,000 acres of the fruit domestically. Does New Zealand challenge this and risk killing the goose that laid the golden kiwi fruit? Or does it look the other way? Similar quandaries exist in both timber and dairy markets. Layer in human rights concerns that matter a lot to Arderns progressive base and one can easily see her falling off this narrow and wobbly policy tightrope.

Finally, like all modern leaders, Ardern faces criticism about immigration. Her strict border controls have kept Covid out but created a huge issue for agricultural and construction industries that depend on labor from the Pacific Islands. Meanwhile, while in opposition Arderns party was outraged about billionaires like Peter Thiel purchasing citizenship, but last year it essentially sold residency to Google co-founder Larry Page. Storm in a tea cup perhaps, but values-centric politicians like Ardern can find these emotive issues difficult to shake.

Ardern has two years until she must face the electorate again. Can she use this time to win final victory against Covid and turn her skills to these other difficult battles? You can be sure she will run a much better campaign than Churchill in 1945 who, out of touch with his people, lamented at one point I have no message for them. But its not assured that in 2023 post-war New Zealand, like Britain two generations ago, wont look for a fresh start.

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Will Jacinda Ardern Suffer Churchills Fate Once The (Covid) War Is Over? - Forbes

Graham Adams: Is Jacinda Ardern the Messiah? Or just a very crafty politician? – New Zealand Herald

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Pool

OPINION: The Prime Minister's politics including her stance towards the Mongrel Mob and the Taliban can be baffling. Graham Adams reckons answers lie in her past as a Mormon.

Whether it is from politeness or a lack of curiosity, it is rare for journalists or commentators to dwell on Jacinda Ardern's religious history and how it might have shaped her politics.

When the Prime Minister is occasionally asked, she bats the question away with a stock answer: she rejected religion in her mid-20s and never looked back. As far as the public knows, the Prime Minister was brought up as a Mormon but renounced her faith in 2005 and that was that.

This view was encapsulated in her response to a question about whether she had smoked marijuana: "I was once a Mormon and then I wasn't that's how I'll put that."

Ardern has famously described her divorce from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a result of the impossibility of reconciling its anti-homosexual stance with her loyalty to her own gay friends and flatmates.

"There are always going to be things you can't reconcile, but I could never reconcile what I saw as discrimination in a religion that was otherwise very focused on tolerance and kindness," she said.

Now, she says she is "agnostic" and doubts she will ever belong to an "organised religion" again. Nevertheless, she didn't leave the Church until she was in her mid-20s, which means that more than half of her 41 years on Earth was spent in its embrace.

Anyone familiar with the Jesuits' adage "Give me a child until the age of 7 and I will give you the man" will be deeply sceptical about her eagerness to downplay the role of religion in her approach to politics given she spent more than 20 years immersed in it.

Put on the spot during a leaders' debate before the general election last October, she looked uncomfortable when the MC asked both her and Judith Collins: "Will your faith play a role in governance?"

Answering first, Collins bizarrely referred twice to her "sense of humour" but she willingly admitted her faith played a role in her job: "It already does I've always been a liberal Anglican."

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Ardern gave a garbled answer: "I don't subscribe to any particular religion but I was raised in one. And I hope what people can see is that I respect people no matter their belief, no matter their upbringing because I had a similar start in my life so that has shaped the way I treat people of faith One of the reasons I am agnostic now is because I wanted to make sure that my religious beliefs didn't get in the way of anyone else practising what they choose to believe themselves."

The idea that her having personal religious beliefs might get in the way of anyone else's faith is nonsensical. However, she succeeded in dismissing the influence of religion on her politics, passing it off as little more than an early formative experience a "start in my life" which presumably was the point of her answer.

And stating that this experience gave her the ability to empathise with religious believers was presumably intended as a reference to her role in consoling the Muslim community after the mosque attacks in 2019 that catapulted her to international fame with the most celebrated images showing her wearing a hijab.

There are very obvious reasons, of course, why she might have wanted to be cagey about her religious background. After all, Mormons are associated in the popular imagination with magic glasses used to translate divine golden plates into the Book of Mormon, special underwear, and for older generations pairs of clean-cut, bicycle-riding missionaries who would arrive at your door to spread the Word from Salt Lake City, Utah, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is based.

Yet, despite Ardern minimising her religious upbringing, the evidence that she is a pseudo-religious leader for a secular age is everywhere.

Her assertion last year that when she and Dr Ashley Bloomfield speak to media they are the "single source of truth" recalls an ex-cathedra pronouncement by the Pope.

Ardern may have rejected the formal observances of organised religion but she certainly hasn't shucked off the religious impulse to guide the faithful from the prime ministerial pulpit on matters of moral and ethical behaviour.

Her oft-repeated mantra of "Be kind!" recently updated to "Be kind, be courteous!" with regard to panic-buying is an exhortation that would be roundly jeered at if it were uttered by nearly any other New Zealand politician.

That role comes so naturally to her that she was obviously happy for the Ministry of Health to reflect her exhortatory stance. During lockdown last year, there were flashing signs above motorways and along suburban streets encouraging drivers to "Be kind!".

You don't have to look very far to find evidence of where the Prime Minister's inspiration comes from. If you Google "kindness" and "Mormon" you'll have eight million links at your fingertips.

The importance of kindness ranks highly among Mormon precepts. Even the message of the irreverent musical The Book of Mormon was summed up by one reviewer as "a belief in kindness reigns above being a part of any religion".

In fact, Mormon theology is so intrinsically kind it offers the chance of redemption to even the likes of Adolf Hitler and Vlad the Impaler if they are willing to accept Mormonism in the afterlife. And anyone who is baptised by Mormons even after death as Hitler and Vlad have been retrospectively can be released from Spirit Prison, which is the equivalent of Catholicism's Purgatory. If they accept Mormonism, they are eligible to enter God's blessed realm.

In such a theological framework, very few people are deemed to be inherently evil. The vast majority only need to be shown a better way.

We see shadows of this extremely magnanimous view of humanity repeatedly in Ardern's attempts to appeal to the better natures of groups as diverse as property investors and gang members.

In February, as the housing market was spiralling out of control, Ardern had a recommendation for property investors: "What we want them to think about is: 'How can you contribute to the productive economy in New Zealand?' By going into an overheated housing market, it makes it so much worse for others and you won't necessarily get the long-term benefits that we'd like you to get."

Only a politician detached from worldly reality would imagine this advice might help deter an investor from buying another dwelling in a sizzling market.

The same month, she was quizzed in Parliament by Act leader David Seymour about why the police programme to combat gangs was labelled "Operation Tauwhiro". He pointed out "tauwhiro" means "to tend or care for" and asked the Prime Minister if she actually believed "that violent criminals who sell P need to be tended and cared for".

Ardern replied: "If we want to make a difference to the young people who join gangs in New Zealand we have to demonstrate that there are alternatives for them that they can find a place to grow their potential without joining criminal organisations."

These responses reflect a belief in redemption that often appears hopelessly naive in a politician. Ardern sees the potential for good in everyone which is no doubt a large part of her appeal but the flipside is a reluctance to acknowledge the worst in people.

Consequently, she seemed surprised by public outrage at her personally approving $2.75 million for a drugs programme run by Mongrel Mob members.

Her unrealpolitik caught the eye of the Spectator, which mocked Ardern for offering one of the "Nine Worst Responses to Afghanistan's Fall" from around the world after the Taliban's victory:

"New Zealand's Prime Minister has 'implored' Taliban leaders to uphold human rights, telling a press conference: 'What we want to see is women and girls being able to access work and education' which she insightfully noted 'are things that have traditionally not been available to them where there has been governance by the Taliban.'"

The writer added: "The Taliban's response is as yet unknown."

As another wag put it: "Ardern asks water to stop being wet."

Another unmistakable sign of her otherworldliness can be detected in her dismissing opponents' criticisms as "politicking" or "playing politics" over issues such as Maori co-governance or the management of Covid. This is an extraordinary stance for a politician to take towards other politicians debating policy but Ardern positions herself as floating above the cut-and-thrust of politics.

Consequently, she is very keen not to be seen to be beset by common human frailties such as dishonesty, arrogance or vanity.

When asked during one of the leaders' debates in 2017, "Is it possible to survive in politics without lying?", she not only said it was but claimed she'd "never told a lie in politics".

Only someone determined to convince people she is preternaturally saintly would have so outrageously denied political reality and human nature. Bill English, a devout Catholic who wasn't nearly as ready to bend the truth out of shape as she was, couldn't in all honesty agree.

Humility is also essential to "brand Jacinda". In May last year, a memo from her office suggested ministers need not agree to be interviewed given how popular the Government's Covid measures had been. John Campbell, who interviewed the Prime Minister, said he at first thought it could be a sign of "arrogance" but decided it was more likely that she simply didn't have confidence in her ministers.

Ardern's reaction showed she was more sensitive to a suggestion she might be arrogant than a question about her ministers' competence. She made a point of addressing that issue even though Campbell had dismissed it.

"Arrogance is just, I hope, something people would see as not in my nature," she said plaintively.

She mostly keeps her vanity under wraps not least because she casts herself as a humble servant of the people but slip-ups are perhaps inevitable for a woman from Morrinsville who has been internationally canonised for her crisis management and lauded as "the world's most effective leader".

Addressing the UN in September 2019, she made the extraordinary admission that she saw herself carrying the nation's burdens on her shoulders single-handedly. In her speech she mentioned a young Muslim boy who asked her to keep him safe after the mosque massacres. "My fear is, that as a leader of a proudly independent nation, this is one thing I cannot achieve alone. Not anymore."

The fact she very capably handles the quotidian tasks of a prime minister such as explaining vaccination rollout figures while also wearing the mantle of a secular saint makes her an extremely difficult target for her political opponents to get a fix on.

If she is caught out, she often switches to what she probably imagines is "going high", as Michelle Obama put it, however absurd that might be.

When David Seymour asked Ardern in late June in Parliament if she ever thought she would be reduced to saying "Hey, we're doing better than Africa" in terms of vaccinations, she replied: "When it comes to global health and wellbeing in a global pandemic, how countries like those in Africa are performing is relevant to us. And, as a country who has a stake in the wellbeing of all nations, including developing ones, I imagine that's a consideration most New Zealanders would be proud to take."

In fact, the vast majority of New Zealanders would think her overwhelming responsibility is to advance the interests of those who pay her salary.

Despite her butter-wouldn't-melt image of kindness and care and concern for others, Ardern is a ruthless politician who is cunning as a fox and quick to change tack in response to public criticism.

She is also shameless at stage-managing her public appearances for maximum effect whether it is showcasing her Government's actions at her 1pm press conferences or being covered by a Polynesian ceremonial mat during an official apology for the dawn raids in a highly choreographed piece of political theatre.

The fact she is willing to exploit her status as a pseudo-religious leader was vividly apparent in the Labour manifesto published before last year's election. The cover photo, which was taken at the party's campaign launch at the Auckland Town Hall, shows Ardern in profile gazing towards the heavens while behind her in the choir stalls sits a sea of clapping supporters. A white light illuminates her face. The deliberate religious undertones are unmistakable.

How long the melding of a religious persona with that of a secular prime minister will preserve her position as the nation's most dominant politician is anyone's guess.

However, reaching the Promised Land can't be delayed forever. The poor will always be with us, as Jesus said, but no one would have imagined in 2017 when Ardern promised her "transformational" policies would wash away tears that by 2021 so many more would have joined their ranks.

Eventually her adherents no matter how fervently they believe in their leader's righteousness will come to see that the fabled destination will always remain out of reach. They are steadily drifting away as it becomes more and more apparent her Government is seriously incompetent in battling the scourges that afflict New Zealand including overburdened infrastructure, crippling house prices and children living in poverty.

While the most recent polls showed support moving to National and Act, the outbreak of Delta may have tipped polling figures more in her favour again, if only temporarily. Certainly, she will be hoping that the revival of her 1pm briefings on Covid from the "podium of truth" where she can reprise her role as New Zealand's saviour will reverse the decline.

However, it looks like it will be a much harder sell than last year. As Judith Collins said, echoing a widespread sentiment: "It is not enough for the Prime Minister to lock us in our homes and speak from the podium once a day. New Zealanders don't need sermons we need vaccines in arms right now."

First published by the Democracy Project.Graham Adams is a journalist, columnist and reviewer who has written for many of the country's media outlets including Metro, North & South, Noted, The Spinoff and Newsroom.

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Graham Adams: Is Jacinda Ardern the Messiah? Or just a very crafty politician? - New Zealand Herald

Jacinda Ardern asks the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women – The Spectator Australia

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has come out and asked the Taliban to be nice to women during this period of upheaval.

Of course!

The Taliban have been brutalising women since their founding in 1994. Why didnt anyone think toaskthem to stop? We dont need armies or weapons just a timely press conference from a socialist dictator presiding over her prison state at the arse-end of the world.

The international community is calling on the Taliban to demonstrate a willingness to allow people to leave, that includes foreign nationals,said Ardern, giving the bearded desert terrorists her sternest glare.

Demonstrate that you are going to be an administration that takes into account the wellbeing of women and girls. The whole world will be watching. Its not a matter of trust, its going to be all about the actions, not the words.

Presumably the actions Ardern is referring to are the Taliban fighters going door-to-door, dragging families onto the street where they are massacred as a warning to others.

Religious zealots acting on the belief that God will reward them for violence and slavery are not interested in the distant bleating of a woman theyve never heard of. Ardern wouldnt last five minutes in Taliban-held Afghanistan, and yet the New Zealand leader appears to be under the impression that the world can do business with a pack of terrorists.

She has probably come to this conclusion because China is moving in to take control of the region.

Afghanistan, which is in a transitional process from a republic into a pre-Stone Age theocracy, is about to become the latest autonomous region under Xi Jinpings command.

Plenty of commentators in the West are cheering on Chinas ambition to occupy Afghanistan, mistakenly thinking that it will tie the empires resources up for decades as it did to Europe and America.

That is an unlikely conclusion.

China has many dubious brides, and the Taliban will make a great arranged marriage. Xi Jinping has endless pockets and zero interest in human rights.

Instead of trying to impose globally recognised morality on the Taliban, China will encourage their depravity so long as they keep the blood and explosions away from their infrastructure projects.

The world can expect China to adorn the Taliban with riches beyond their wildest dreams, leaving the world with a well-resourced religious terror group raining havoc across the globe and destabilising Western democracies while China rapes Afghanistans resources.

The region is home to one of the worlds largest Lithium deposits as well as rich veins of Cobalt, Copper, and Gold. So who knows? Maybe allowing the Taliban to slaughter their way to power is in service of the greater good Net-Zero UN Climate Change goals.

It is doubtful that this alliance will break down until China is finished taking what they want. Then, theyll leave the warring tribes of Islam to continue what theyve always done fight over the scraps of empire.

I would just again implore those who made these moves in recent days to acknowledge what the international community has called for human rights and the safety of their people,continued Ardern, who has obviously missed a lot of memos regarding the Taliban.What we want to see is women and girls being able to access work and education. These things have traditionally not been available to them where there has been governance by Taliban.

Its another one of Arderns detached-from-reality statements. Ardern has been known to don a headscarf to win brownie points with the international socialist diversity and inclusion movement, while actual women under oppressive Islamic rule burn theirs on camera in protest.

While it is safe to say that Ardern is a standard-issue idiot, the Biden administration in the US is not. I say administration because its tough to argue that Biden himself knows whats going on in his own mind, let alone the rest of the world.

The fall of Afghanistan is a favour to China, just as the lifting of sanctions on Tehran was a gift to Xi Jinpings Belt and Road oil pipelines.

Officially, the Talibans allies have included China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and a scattering of the stans. Many of these also happen to be signatories to Chinas dangerous Shanghai Cooperation Organisation pact of non-interference.

If there is a global conflict on the horizon, a well-armed force of unscrupulous murders with no interest in the rules of engagement would be invaluable to China.

While we watch thousands ofciviliansrush at military jets, desperate to escape the rise of a religious dictatorship, it would be prudent to remember that this is bigger than one nation.

The United Nations is of no use. Their votes were bought over the last decade by Chinas debt-trap diplomacy flipping leaders from Africa to the Pacific. The West might have set it up to prevent socialist dictators from pursuing dreams of global power, but it has become a tool to silence dissent against exactly that goal.

Perhaps Ardern imagines that if she says all the right things, the new world order will give her a little throne to sit on?

A trip to meet the new Taliban administration in person would clear up any confusion she has over their adherence to woke ideology.

Alexandra Marshall is an independent writer. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over atKo-Fi.

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Jacinda Ardern asks the Taliban to be 'nice' to women - The Spectator Australia

COVID-19: Jacinda Ardern defends pace locations of interest are released to public after Wellington Mayor criticism – Newshub

"It's going all over the place," said another. "It obviously sucks but we're in level 4 - I think that's the right thing to do."

Kilbirnie's Asian Food Specialist and Pak'nSave are also on the list, plus Air New Zealand flight NZ443 from Auckland to Wellington on Thursday afternoon.

Delta has got people on edge, but it's not too scary for Mayor Andy Foster, who's holding his breath.

"So far it's not too bad, but obviously time is going to tell," he said.

At least one of the positive cases travelled from Auckland to Wellington in a private car. They stopped four times along the way - in Tokoroa, Waiouru's service station and public toilets, and Bulls.

Contact tracers have their work cut out for them.

"The majority of those contacts are located in the Auckland and Waikato regions, with small proportion in other areas of the rest of North Island and South Island," said Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay.

The Director-General of Health was alerted to the first Wellington cases before 9am on Friday, but there were no locations of interest on the Ministry of Health website until after 6pm that night.

"It's been very frustrating waiting for these additional locations to be made public," says Mayor Foster.

But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says getting those locations of interest can be "iterative", and says it's a balancing act of putting out information accurately and quickly.

One of the locations is Countdown in Johnsonville, where last night shoppers were told to leave immediately so it could close for a deep clean.

"We were told to drop what we had and start walking out, and yeah, I was in a bit of a shock afterwards," said shopper Daniel Borrie.

Johnsonville's 1841 bar is another location of interest.

"A 400-gram sirloin [steak] and a beer for $25 has proven too much of a lure for some people - here we are," said owner Jono.

Testing sites were busy on Saturday, as people scrambled to get swabbed in the hopes they can wave goodbye to the virus in this region soon.

Queues were under control though as more pop-up testing centres were set up, including at Te Papa, Sky Stadium and in Hataitai.

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COVID-19: Jacinda Ardern defends pace locations of interest are released to public after Wellington Mayor criticism - Newshub

Should we be wearing masks while exercising? Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield respond to confusion – Newshub

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Wednesday compulsory mask use for New Zealanders aged 12 and over while visiting essential services currently open during alert level 4 like supermarkets, pharmacies and service stations.

But some confusion has reigned over whether we should be donning masks while exercising outdoors on walks and runs, especially if practising social distancing from others.

Now we know: You don't have to wear a face mask during strenuous outdoor exercise, but you must practice physical distancing of at least 2m from others during these times.

In Thursday's press conference, Ardern and Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield addressed the uncertainty.

"We have not mandated mask use for exercise outdoors in level 4 - our general advice is when you go out, wear a mask," said Ardern.

"But we also want to be practical about [it]... someone, for instance, may be engaging in a very strenuous run where wearing a mask might become difficult - I couldn't speak to personal experience [on that]."

Ardern said in "those circumstances" practising "good, decent social distancing" is a must.

"We know from other countries with Delta that just walking past someone is a risk," she said.

"So generally when you leave the house, wear a mask...but we will be practical there."

Bloomfield pointed to the recent investigation into a case of COVID-19 transmission at Auckland's Jet Park quarantine facility, which was likely caused by room doors being opened simultaneously for just seconds at the same time.

"So we know it can be a very transient exposure," he added.

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Should we be wearing masks while exercising? Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield respond to confusion - Newshub

Lockdowns or Vaccines? 3 Pacific Nations Try Diverging Paths – VOA Asia

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND - Cheryl Simpson was supposed to be celebrating her 60th birthday over lunch with friends but instead found herself confined to her Auckland home.

The discovery of a single local COVID-19 case in New Zealand was enough for the government to put the entire country into strict lockdown this past week. While others might see that as draconian, New Zealanders generally support such measures because they worked so well in the past.

"I'm happy to go into lockdown, even though I don't like it," said Simpson, owner of a day care center for dogs that is now closed because of the precautions. She said she wants the country to crush the latest outbreak: "I'd like to knock the bloody thing on the head."

Elsewhere around the Pacific, though, Japan is resisting such measures in the face of a record-breaking surge, instead emphasizing its accelerating vaccine program. And Australia has fallen somewhere in the middle.

All three countries got through the first year of the pandemic in relatively good shape but are now taking diverging paths in dealing with outbreaks of the delta variant, the highly contagious form that has contributed to a growing sense that the coronavirus cannot be stamped out, just managed.

Professor Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at New Zealand's University of Otago, said countries around the world are struggling to adapt to the latest threat: "With the delta variant, the old rules just don't work."

The differing emphasis on lockdowns versus vaccines and how effective such strategies prove to be in beating back the delta variant could have far-reaching consequences for the three countries' economies and the health of their citizens.

Japan has never imposed lockdowns against the coronavirus. The public is wary of government overreach after the country's fascist period before and during World War II, and Japan's postwar constitution lays out strict protections for civil liberties.

Before the delta variant, the country managed to keep a lid on coronavirus outbreaks in part because many people in Japan were already used to wearing surgical masks for protection from spring allergies or when they caught colds.

Now, almost everyone on public transportation wears a mask during commuting hours. But late at night, people tend to uncover in restaurants and bars, which has allowed the variant to spread. Hosting the Tokyo Olympic Games didn't help either.

While strict protocols kept infections inside the games to a minimum, experts such as Dr. Shigeru Omi, a key medical adviser to the government, say the Olympics created a festive air that led people in Japan to lower their guard.

New cases in Japan have this month leaped to 25,000 each day, more than triple the highest previous peak. Omi considers that a disaster.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Friday expanded and extended a state of emergency covering Tokyo and other areas until at least mid-September, though most of the restrictions aren't legally enforceable.

Many governors are urging the prime minister to consider much tougher restrictions. But Suga said lockdowns have been flouted around the world, and vaccines are "the way to go."

Daily vaccinations in Japan increased tenfold from May to June as thousands of worksites and colleges began offering shots, but a slow start has left the nation playing catch-up. Only about 40% of people are fully vaccinated.

In Australia, a delta outbreak hit Sydney in June, after an unvaccinated limousine driver became infected while transporting a U.S. cargo air crew from the Sydney Airport. State authorities hesitated for 10 days before imposing lockdown measures across Sydney that have now dragged on for two months.

Early in the pandemic, Australia's federal government imposed just one nationwide lockdown. Now, amid the delta outbreak, it is pursuing a strategy it calls aggressive suppression including strict controls on Australians leaving the country and foreigners entering but is essentially letting state leaders call the shots.

New infections in Sydney have climbed from just a few each week before the latest outbreak to more than 800 a day.

"It's not possible to eliminate it completely. We have to learn to live with it," Gladys Berejiklian, premier of Sydney's New South Wales state, said in what many interpreted as a significant retreat from the determination state leaders have previously shown to crush outbreaks entirely.

"That is why we have a dual strategy in New South Wales," Berejiklian said. "Get those case numbers down, vaccination rates up. We have to achieve bothin order forus to live freely into the future."

The outbreak in Sydney has spilled over into the capital, Canberra, which has also gone into lockdown. Government worker Matina Carbone wore a mask while shopping on Friday.

"I don't know that anyone's ever going to really beat delta," she said. "I think we just have to try and increase our rates of vaccinations and slowly open things up when we think it's safe to do so."

But Australia lags far behind even Japan in getting people inoculated, with just 23% of people fully vaccinated.

Last year, soon after the pandemic first hit, neighboring New Zealand imposed a strict, nationwide lockdown and closed its border to non-residents. That wiped out the virus completely. The country of 5 millionhasbeen able to vanquish each outbreak since, recording just 26 virus deaths.

It went six months without a single locally spread case, allowing people to go about their daily lives much as they had before the pandemic.

But this month, the Sydney outbreak spread to New Zealand, carried by a returning traveler.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promptly imposed the strictest form of lockdown.

By Sunday, the number of locally spread cases in New Zealand had grown to 72, and the virus had reached the capital, Wellington. Officials raced to track 10,000 more people who might have been exposed.

Ardern has been steadfast.

"We have been here before. We know the elimination strategy works. Cases rise, and then they fall, until we have none," she said. "It's tried and true. We just need to stick it out."

Baker, the epidemiologist, said he believes it is still possible for New Zealand to wipe out the virus again by pursuing the "burning ember" approach of taking drastic measures to stamp out the first sign of an outbreak.

That remains to be seen.

New Zealand doesn't have much of a Plan B. A recent report by expert advisers to the government noted the nation has comparatively few intensive care hospital beds and said an outbreak could quickly overwhelm the health system.

And New Zealand has been the slowest developed nation to put shots in arms, with just 20% of people fully vaccinated.

Excerpt from:

Lockdowns or Vaccines? 3 Pacific Nations Try Diverging Paths - VOA Asia

Fall of Afghanistan: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says NZ unlikely to rescue ‘everyone we want to’ – New Zealand Herald

An RNZAF Hercules at Whenuapai Airbase prepared for a mercy flight to Afghanistan. Photo / Michael Craig

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warns a mercy dash to Kabul to rescue New Zealanders and Afghan allies might not be able to evacuate everyone they want to.

It comes as the situation in the Afghanistan capital worsens, just days after the Taliban reclaimed control of the country after a 20-year war.

"I am concerned that because of the situation on the ground, that we do need to start working on what the next stage will be, because it does not look like we're going to get everyone out that we want to get out," Ardern said on Saturday.

"There is a certain window everyone is using, to use the secure space available at Kabul airport, but it is an entirely separate issue people's ability to connect safely with the airport."

On Friday it was confirmed the first New Zealanders trapped in Afghanistan since the Taliban dramatically took power have been whisked out of the country on a mercy dash.

American soldiers and other Nato allies are in control of security inside the airport.

But with the Taliban controlling checkpoints in and out of Kabul airport, access has been "extremely difficult", the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade acknowledges.

As disturbing images continue to come in from outside Kabul airport, where thousands of desperate Afghans have been trying to flocking to since the Taliban took control of the war-torn country on Sunday, the New Zealand Government made the urgent decision to send help.

Officials have been contacting individuals stuck in Afghanistan and making arrangements to try to get them out.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) C-130 Hercules aircraft flew out of RNZAF Base Auckland Thursday morning on a mercy dash to Kabul to rescue New Zealanders, interpreters, and others who worked with Kiwi troops fighting the Taliban.

20 Aug, 2021 10:18 PMQuick Read

20 Aug, 2021 08:02 PMQuick Read

20 Aug, 2021 04:49 AMQuick Read

20 Aug, 2021 04:01 AMQuick Read

MFAT says it is aware of 161 New Zealanders and their families in Afghanistan who are eligible to enter New Zealand, "many of whom we are providing consular support".

Staff are also assisting a small number of people who the Government has determined as having worked alongside NZDF, including interpreters, and those who materially assisted in the Operation Burnham inquiry and on police and aid missions.

Ardern said on Saturday New Zealand was working with its partners who were assisting the New Zealand effort now, and New Zealand staff would assist others once they arrived.

"I don't believe we arrived too late. It is an international effort, not just uplifting our people. We are working closely together to pick up one another's citizens and Afghani nationals."

According to the United Nations' refugee agency, about 250,000 Afghans have been forced to flee their homes since late May, most of them women and children.

Both Canada and the United Kingdom have pledged to take in 20,000 Afghan refugees, but Ardern said New Zealand would not yet be making a decision on that.

New Zealand was looking to further increase its refugee quota, but it was too soon to say what the Afghani makeup would be, she said.

"This will be an area where there will be a large number of refugees in the future and that is something we will work through."

Per head of population, New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of refugee acceptance in the world even after the current Government increased the annual refugee quota by 500.

It accepts 1500 refugees a year - or about 0.3 refugees per 1000 people. This ranks New Zealand 95th in the world.

Similar-sized countries like Norway and Ireland accept 11.29 and 1.22 refugees per 1000 residents, ranking them 15th and 69th respectively.

National Party foreign affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee said it was a "chaotic situation" and not fair to say if anybody should have acted sooner.

"Intelligence clearly was that Kabul would not fall and there would be time for an arrangement with the Taliban.

"It is a horrible situation. I do not think we are able to say anything should have been done sooner, it is just a mess."

On refugees, Brownlee said it would be "some time" before agencies were able to figure out where Afghan people would fall in the international refugee programme.

There were already about 20 million people displaced around the world.

"If you just go to the latest hotspot then you are leaving out others who have been in that situation longer."

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Fall of Afghanistan: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says NZ unlikely to rescue 'everyone we want to' - New Zealand Herald

Jacinda Ardern fury as NZ in lockdown after ONE Covid case: ‘Never-ending nightmare’ – Daily Express

The whole of New Zealand will be plunged into a three-day lockdown from Wednesday after one case of COVID-19 was detected in Auckland.The largest city in New Zealand and the coastal town of Coromandel, where the case was found, will be placed under lockdown for an extended seven days.

The drastic response comes despite it being the first positive case of coronavirus in the community since February.

Ms Ardern will close schools, businesses and vaccination centres, with only essential shops being allowed to open.

GB News presenter Dan Wootton has condemned the decision and accused Ms Ardern of adopting a strategy of Zero Covid fantasy.

The New Zealander tweeted: New Zealand has just been plunged into a nationwide lockdown with all vaccinations cancelled because of one Covid case.

Thats right, ONE case of a virus we all know we have to learn to live with.

Jacinda Arderns Zero Covid fantasy is nothing short of a never ending nightmare.

Political commentator and senior UK parliamentary assistant, Bella Wallersteiner, urged the people of New Zealand to reject the draconian measures.

She tweeted: All of New Zealand is going into a lockdown because of ONE Covid case Sanctimonious Jacinda Ardern has lost the plot.

Zero Covid is an authoritarian fantasy. If lockdown were the answer, Covid would have been eliminated 17 months ago.

New Zealanders should resist this madness!

Meanwhile, another disgruntled user on the platform simply wrote: Confirmation she completely lost the plot.

New Zealand's Ardern locks down nation over single COVID-19 case. One. Single. Case. Lockdown.

READ MORE:Brexit LIVE: Boris handed six-point blueprint by expert

"While we know that Delta is a more dangerous enemy to combat, the same actions that overcome the virus last year can be applied to beat it again."

Restrictions in New Zealand come into force at level 4 the highest level in the country.

Ms Ardern added: We have made decisions on the basis that it is better to start high and go down levels rather than start too low, not contain the virus and see it move quickly.

"We've seen overseas, particularly in Sydney, unnecessary trips outdoors have spread the virus and communities have not been able to get on top of it.

So I ask New Zealanders to please follow the rules to the letter."

New Zealand has reported around 2,500 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 26 related deaths since the start of the global Covid crisis.

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Jacinda Ardern fury as NZ in lockdown after ONE Covid case: 'Never-ending nightmare' - Daily Express

What the Critics Get Wrong About Atlas Shrugged | Nate Russell – Foundation for Economic Education

Ive just begun to re-read Ayn Rands 1,200-page behemoth Atlas Shrugged. The book left such a positive impression on me six years ago when I read it for the first time that I vowed to re-read it every five years or so to keep picking up on new things.

In the meantime, I became a little curious to see what other people online had to say about the book. Ive long heard the rumor that Atlas critics give such undue hostility to the book that its plausible to imagine that most of them never read it in the first place!

Atlas Shrugged is a vast and complex forest but Hartmann is peering only at a couple of the trees.

Thom Hartmanns Distortions of Atlas

It didnt take long before I came across a couple of videos and articles from Thom Hartmann, a popular far left-wing commentator, and I knew my suspicions were justified. As youll see shortly, his descriptions of Rand's classic novelare so extremely caricatured and unfounded that you really have to doubt his claim that hes actually read the book.

(In fairness, he claims to have read the book in high school, which would have been more than 40 years ago. Perhaps the following is a fault of memory)

Atlas Shrugged Is about the Importance of CEOs

Hartmann: "Do you really think if all the CEOs went on strike that society would collapse? This is the basic premise of the book.

Yes, exactly! Atlas Shrugged: the tale of a societys downfall when its CEOs skip work for the golf course!

This, of course, isnt what the book is about. It is true that some of Rands protagonistsHank Rearden and Ellis Wyatt, for examplewere heads of large and important companies. And yes, these innovative corporate leaders did eventually go on strike, but it is also true that some of Rands villainsJames Taggart and Orren Boyle, for examplewere presidents of large and important companies as well.

So, what actually caused the strike and ensuing collapse in Atlas? Altruism.

Any conscientious reader would have observed at least somewhere between page 1 and 1,200 that had the latter, and not the former, gone on strike, society would never have collapsed. This explodes the idea that Atlas was some sort of apologia for CEOs in specific and the rich in general.

Atlas Shrugged Is about Billionaires Who Don't Want to Pay Taxes

Hartmann: "So, in Atlas Shrugged, when the billionaires, tired of paying taxes and complying with government regulation, go on strike, Ayn Rand writes that the American economy promptly collapsed.

Atlas Shrugged is such a vast and complex forest, yet Hartmann is peering like a hawk at only a couple of the trees. Taxation and regulation are both separate elements in the books periodic table, but together they are not enough to cause the explosion of society.

So, what actually caused the strike and ensuing collapse in Atlas? To answer this question is to get to the basic theme of the book, a theme that is present on every single page: altruism.

Its absurd to think Rand labeled anybody over a certain income threshold as a producer.

Atlas Shruggedhas to do with the differences between a society based on altruismin which the masses are told that their noblest deed is to sacrifice for othersand a society based on individualismwhere individuals are respected as ends in themselves and free to pursue their own interests.

Through policies such as the Equalization of Opportunity Act and the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule, people who embody altruism treat the individualists as mere pieces on a chessboard, to be manipulated and harassed as the altruists please (since its in the name of others).

Eventually, a mysterious man named John Galt persuades the most innovative and oppressed individualists to simply go on strike. This puts society in the hands of the Altruists, who know nothing of how to produce wealth, only how to redistribute it and that is why society collapses.

As Galt lays out:

Weve heard so much about strikes, and about the dependence of the uncommon man upon the common. Weve heard it shouted that the industrialist is a parasite, that his workers support him, create his wealth, make his luxury possibleand what would happen to him if they walked out? Very well. I propose to show to the world who depends on whom, who supports whom, who is the source of wealth, who makes whose livelihood possible, and what happens to whom when who walks out.

Atlas Shrugged Is about the Rich Producers vs. The Poor Looters

Hartmann: "On one side are the billionaires and the industrialists. People like Dagny Taggart, a railroad tycoon, and Hank Rearden, a steel magnate On the other side are the looters, or everyone else who isnt as rich or privileged, or who believed in a democratic government to provide basic services, empower labor unions, and regulate the economy.

Once again, any detailed reading of the book would quickly reveal the sloth resting in this cartoonish summary. First of all, based on the fact that many of the villains in Atlas are wealthy, its absurd to think that Rand indiscriminately labeled anybody over a certain income threshold as a producer.

Secondly, Rand had nice words for the middle class, which she termed as the heart, the lifeblood, the energy source of a free, industrial economy So this idea that Rand would have considered you a moocher if you werent a rich industrialist is just plain old propaganda.

Conclusion

Hartmann and similar critics of AtlasShrugged seem to be so wrapped up in a class-conflict outlook that they struggle to comprehend an author who judged individuals with standards having nothing to do with their current economic status.

Atlas Shrugged is many pages long, but well worth the effort. All sorts of themes exist within its pages, just waiting to challenge the readers understanding of himself and the rest of the world.

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What the Critics Get Wrong About Atlas Shrugged | Nate Russell - Foundation for Economic Education

On the frontier, trains brought progress. They still do. – Kansas Reflector

When the first passenger train to Wichita arrived the night of Thursday, May 16, 1872, it seemed the entire town had waited up to meet it. Rolling up to the wooden depot on Douglas, the steam train and its 44 occupants were met by a cowboy brass band.

Jubilation is not a strong enough word to describe the mood in the city.

Regular through trains reached our depot yesterday, wrote Marshall Murdock, the usually sober frontier editor, in the next days paper. The bosom of our valley heaved and sot with ecstatic emotion. All is joy and many, very many, are too full for utterance. We are exhausted, bewildered and can say no more. It is enough.

Such was the relief, as Murdock put it, of being within the bounds of civilization. You could board the train one day in Wichita and be in St. Louis the next, and Chicago the day after. By May 1872, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway had already crossed most of Kansas and was nearing the Colorado border. It had already reached Emporia in 1870 and Newton in 1871. It did not veer south to Wichita, but continued its westward journey, generally following the old Santa Fe Trail, which had been scouted half a century before. It took a spur line, the Wichita and Southwestern Railway Co., to bring passenger service to the city, but that line was soon absorbed by the Santa Fe.

I dont know exactly what old mutton chopped Murdock meant when he said the Ark Valleys bosom was sot drunk with joy, perhaps? But I am reminded of the rich history of passenger rail in Kansas nearly every summer when my wife, Kim, boards the Southwest Chief in the middle of the night at Newton for points west. Shes typically bound for some location La Junta, Colorado, or Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Las Vegas, Nevada (which requires a bus ride) to meet me at the Western Writers of America convention, which drifts about the mountains and the plains. I will go on ahead and road trip with my New York editor, and after a week in which said editor and I alternately pledge our undying friendship and plot to kill one another, rendezvous with Kim a week or so later at whatever station is closest to the convention hotel. She alights from the train, sometimes after a day or more, suffering delays and fools, with her eyes like saucers and craving coffee and roadhouse food.

Such were the spirits too, perhaps, of the first passengers that alighted that giddy night in 1872. The depot was near the location of what is now the railway viaduct over Douglas. In 1914, Union Station which would serve three major railways, the Santa Fe, the Frisco and the Rock Island would be built on an impressive elevated platform overlooking downtown. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers would leave for World War I and World War II from this platform, and one can only imagine the tearful, and sometimes final, farewells.

In 1971, as passenger rail service declined nationally in favor of air travel, the federal government stepped in by founding Amtrak, a quasi-public corporation to operate passenger rail routes. Amtrak served more than 30 million passengers annually before the pandemic, and about half that currently. It depends on a combination of state and federal subsidies. In comparison, U.S. airlines carry about 2.9 million passengers every month.

Amtrak typically incurs heavy losses on its long-distance lines, such as the Southwest Chief, and received $1.8 billion in federal subsidies in the last fiscal year. Past cost-cutting measures typically have been reflected in reduced service or routes, and Amtrak service to Wichita ended early in the national passenger rail experiment.

The last Amtrak train left Union Station in Wichita on Oct. 6, 1979, bringing an end to passenger rail service that had begun in 1872. There are still great hulking steam and diesel locomotives on the elevated platform above Douglas, poised as if to pull into the station, but theyre mostly displays of the Great Plains Transportation Museum. Freight trains still rattle over the tracks on the west side of the viaduct, however. The Union Station building remains, but has been repurposed as commercial office space.

As with most things in our pandemic world, answers to our most pressing problems may be found in the past. From masks to social distancing, we have returned to what works best. For mass transportation as most modern nations know rail works exceedingly well. But the most important reason for Americans to again embrace passenger rail is that its better for the environment. With the world at a code red point for climate change, according to a recent United Nations report, we should be employing every strategy available to reduce our carbon emissions. Rail travel produces 84% fewer carbon emissions than driving and up to 73% fewer emissions than flying, according to Amtrak. The rail service may be using the best possible scenario here, but other sources generally agree, with a 2020 report showing, per passenger, rail has fewer CO2 emissions for trips less than 700 miles.

The problem with Amtrak in Kansas is there are only six places to board, limited to the same route the Santa Fe forged across the state in 1870-72. Thats great if you live in one of the towns with an Amtrak station and want to go to Kansas City, Missouri, or Lamar, Colorado. Its not so good if you dont live where the Southwest Chief stops or if youd rather go, say, to Oklahoma City. The stations in Kansas are Topeka, Lawrence, Newton, Hutchinson, Dodge City, and Garden City.

Although the Southwest Chief passes through Emporia, it hasnt stopped since 1997, when service was eliminated because the existing bus shelter style stop was insufficient. The old train depot, built in the 1880s, later burned down, and the city was uninterested in building something new. In 2017, there was community interest in bringing Amtrak back, but the cost seemed prohibitive to city officials, according to the Emporia Gazette.

Bashing Amtrak for a failure to turn a profit is a kind of sport among conservatives, and the service is often held up as an example of government inefficiency. Yet, the fact that we continue to have a national rail passenger service at all is an accomplishment, and a vital part of our infrastructure that should not just be maintained, but expanded.

The thing the Ayn Randos dont get is that not every damned thing is transactional. There are some things, like education and safety and national passenger rail service, that contribute to the public good and which must not be treated as businesses. We have seen, over and over, how privatization poisons everything, from prisons to the DMV. Atlas Shrugged, Rands 1957 manifesto disguised as a novel (with passenger rail!), is not just wrong, but morally corrupt. Its the stuff of dreaming oligarchs. It should be abundantly clear at this inflection point in history as it was in the Great Depression that it takes a strong central government (and yes, federal money) to meet the challenges of a hostile world. Only by sustained and coordinated effort, aimed at the public good, and not private profit, can we transcend the plagues upon us.

The bipartisan, $1 trillion infrastructure bill that recently passed the Senate would give Amtrak $66 billion, the most since the services founding. It would also change Amtraks legal mandate, from satisfying a performance level sufficient to justify expending public money to meeting the intercity passenger rail needs of the United States.

Amtraks plans for increased service, thanks to the prospect of the infrastructure bill, may bring passenger rail back to Wichita, via the Heartland Flyer. The Flyer currently connects Oklahoma City and Fort Worth, but a proposal calls for an extension to Wichita and Newton.

Now is the time for communities to create the infrastructure necessary to provide Amtrak stops or stations. Emporia, in particular, should reconsider the long-term benefits of providing a stop for the Southwest Chief. Not only is it the green thing to do, but its the practical thing to do; as home to a state university, a station would be convenient for students and become a point of civic pride.

The deeper we go into the successive waves of the pandemic, and the greater a toll is taken on our institutions, the more important our infrastructure becomes. We have forgotten, as a nation, how much we rely on what the government provides, from schools to rail service. There will always be the myopic who complain the future is unclear, the selfish who are against anything that doesnt enrich themselves, the ignorant who decry the inefficiency of government.

Somehow, we must find our enthusiasm again for real progress.

When passenger rail returns to Wichita, it would be fitting to meet that first Heartland Flyer with a cowboy brass band.

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On the frontier, trains brought progress. They still do. - Kansas Reflector

Private Firms Are the Key to Space Exploration – National Review

Computer-generated view depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight(REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via Reuters)

To kick-start Mars exploration, use a money prize to incentivize enterprise.

Americas public-sector space program recently had a rough couple of weeks that perfectly exemplify why it desperately needs a free-market overhaul.

On July 29, the International Space Station (ISS) suffered a serious loss of control after a Russian spacecraft docked with it, accidentally causing the station to make a full 540-degree rotation and a half before coming to a stop upside down, when the astronauts got it under control.

Like most NASA programs, the ISS is massively over budget. Costs were initially projected at $12.2 billion, but the bill ultimately reached a stunning $150 billion. American taxpayers paid around 84 percent of that. What happened to the American dream of human space exploration? Put simply, the government happened. NASA devolved into a jobs program to bring home the space bacon.

Then, on August 10, NASAs inspector general released a report deeming plans to send astronauts back to the moon in 2024 unfeasible because of significant delays in developing the missions spacesuits. Right now the suits are being built by 27 different companies that successfully lobbied the government for a piece of the action. SpaceXs Elon Musk has rightly noted that NASA has too many cooks in the kitchen. The difference between NASAs cumbersome designed-by-committee suits and SpaceXs suits created by a single contractor is remarkable, even to the naked eye.

The report unconvincingly blames NASAs failure to develop a new spacesuit over the last 14 years solely on shifting technical requirements. It recommends ensuring technical requirements for the next-generation suits are solidified before selecting the acquisition strategy to procure suits for the ISS and Artemis programs.

Instead of dealing with the problem, the Biden administration is trying to distract attention from the space agencys mismanagement by announcing plans to land the first person of color on the moon . . . even though NASA has been incapable of sending astronauts of any color into space under its own power since July 2011. NASA has been reduced to begging the Russians for a ride. The agencys troubled Constellation program, meant to replace the Space Shuttle fleet, was canceled after tens of billions of dollars had already been spent.

But NASAs troubles are, depressingly, likely to get even worse.

In November the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally launch, after taxpayers have forked over $9.7 billion. It was originally supposed to launch in 2007 on a budget of $500 million. That means the project is over a decade behind schedule and costing almost 20 times its initial budget. Perhaps the telescope, meant to locate potentially habitable planets around other stars and perhaps even extraterrestrial life, could instead search for a calendar . . . or fiscal sanity . . . in the stars?

JWST isnt the first NASA space telescope to suffer cost overruns and setbacks. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was originally intended to launch in 1983, but technical issues delayed the launch until 1990 because the main mirror was incorrectly manufactured.

JWST is very likely to fail because it is supposed to unfold itself origami style in space in an extremely technically complicated process. If difficulties arise, JWST lacks HSTs generous margin for error because of its location far beyond earths orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 LaGrange point. NASA currently lacks the capability to send a team of astronauts out that far to fix any problems. Even if NASA could get out to JWST, the telescope doesnt have a grappling ring for an astronaut to grab onto and thus could potentially kill astronauts attempting to fix it.

It is hard to imagine a better example of the private sectors amazing ability to outcompete government bureaucracy and mismanagement than NASAs planned Shuttle replacement, the Space Launch System. It is estimated to cost more than $2 billion per flight. Thats on top of the $20 billion and nine years the agency has already spent developing the vehicle. Contrast that with the comparatively inexpensive $300 million spent by SpaceX to develop the Falcon 9 in a little over four years, and the fact that each Falcon 9 costs around $62 million. One SLS launch could pay for over 32 SpaceX launches.

Private ventures such as SpaceX are more efficient because they have a lot more incentive to avoid excessive costs and focus on solutions: Their own money is at stake, and people spend their own money more carefully than they spend taxpayer dollars collected from others. Multiple private American space firms are currently pursuing accomplishments beyond those of NASA, and they are more advanced and ambitious than the entire government space programs of China and the European Union combined. So one possible solution to NASAs woes would be to greatly increase its reliance on commercial launch providers. And one way to do that would be to return to the system that made civil aviation great: prizes to reward private-sector innovation.

Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean in pursuit of the privately funded Orteig prize, valued at almost $395,000 in todays money. Another famous example was the X Prize, which rewarded Burt Rutans company Scaled Composites with over $14 million in todays money for becoming the first nongovernmental organization to launch a reusable and manned space vehicle, SpaceShipOne. The X Prize succeeded in creating over $100 million in investment by private corporations and individuals.

Aerospace experts expect that establishing a $10 billion prize for successfully landing a crew on Mars and returning it safely to earth could very well lead to a successful landing. Thats a bargain compared with the $500 billion cost estimates NASA puts out for the same objective. And of course in the worst-case failure scenario for a prize program, taxpayers would pay nothing until the mission was complete. A system based on private enterprise incentivized by a fixed prize would end government cost overruns and waste.

The cause of space exploration is simply too important to leave to the public sector.

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Private Firms Are the Key to Space Exploration - National Review

SpaceX’s Starship could be ready for 1st orbital test flight ‘in a few weeks,’ Elon Musk says – Space.com

The biggest rocket ever built may be ready to fly surprisingly soon.

The first full-size prototype of SpaceX's Starship vehicle should be ready to launch on an orbital test flight "in a few weeks," company founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter on Saturday (Aug. 14).

That target seems very soon, given that SpaceX has yet to run the 395-foot-tall (120 meters) rocket through its usual battery of preflight tests. And there's a big logistical hurdle to overcome as well: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is conducting an environmental assessment of SpaceX's South Texas orbital launch site, where Starship will lift off.

Related: SpaceX's Starship becomes the world's tallest rocketPhotos: SpaceX lifts huge Super Heavy rocket onto launch stand

The FAA has not yet released its draft review, and the agency will accept public comments about the report for 30 days after it comes out. So Starship's orbital jaunt cannot feasibly happen just a few weeks from now a reality that Musk acknowledged in his Saturday tweet, which ended with the words "pending regulatory approval."

In fact, Musk's tweet may have been designed to put a little pressure on the FAA to pick up the pace. After all, he has expressed frustration with FAA regulations in the past, stressing that such rules need to be streamlined if humanity is ever going to achieve game-changing launch frequencies.

And SpaceX intends Starship to be a game changer. The vehicle, which consists of a huge first-stage booster known as Super Heavy and a spacecraft called Starship, is designed to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations.

Related: See the Evolution of SpaceX's Rockets in Pictures

SpaceX has conducted test flights of previous Starship prototypes, sending the spacecraft 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) into the sky from the South Texas site, which is near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica. But the upcoming test flight will mark the first time a fully stacked Starship a Super Heavy topped with a Starship spacecraft takes flight, and the first time the system reaches orbit.

If all goes according to plan, Super Heavy will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after liftoff. Starship, meanwhile, will power its way to orbit, loop around our planet once and come down in the Pacific Ocean, near the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

SpaceX has already taken some steps toward this landmark flight. On Aug. 6, for example, the company stacked the two Starship components a 29-engine Super Heavy called Booster 4 and a six-engine Starship prototype known as SN20 atop the South Texas orbital launch mount for the first time ever. But the duo was de-stacked later that day so technicians could perform some more work on each element.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SpaceX's Starship could be ready for 1st orbital test flight 'in a few weeks,' Elon Musk says - Space.com