New Zealand’s Māori king dies after 18-year reign

New Zealand’s Māori king dies after 18-year reign
Maori King Tuheitia at Turangawaewae Marae is pictured in Ngaruawahia, south of Auckland, New Zealand, on November 8, 2015. (REUTERS/Pool)
Short Url
Updated 30 August 2024
Follow

New Zealand’s Māori king dies after 18-year reign

New Zealand’s Māori king dies after 18-year reign
  • Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, 69, died in hospital after heart surgery
  • He was the 7th to hold the position created in 1858 to unite indigenous Māori tribes in the face of British colonization

NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga: New Zealand’s Māori King, Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, died Friday at age 69, days after the celebration of his 18th year on the throne.
He was the seventh monarch in the Kiingitanga movement, holding a position created in 1858 to unite New Zealand’s Indigenous Māori tribes in the face of British colonization.
Tuheitia died in hospital after heart surgery, said Rahui Papa, a spokesperson for the Kiingitanga, the Māori King Movement, in a post on Instagram.
The movement’s primary goals were to end the sale of land to non-Indigenous people, stop inter-tribal warfare, and provide a springboard for the preservation of Māori culture, the Waikato-Tainui tribe website said. The monarch has a largely ceremonial but still consequential role in New Zealand, where Māori make up close to 20 percent of the population.
“The death of King Tuheitia is a moment of great sadness for followers of Kiingitanga, Maaoridom and the entire nation,” Papa wrote on social media.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon paid tribute to Tuheitia, saying his “unwavering commitment to his people and his tireless efforts to uphold the values and traditions of the Kiingitanga have left an indelible mark on our nation.”
“I will remember his dedication to Aotearoa New Zealand,” Luxon said, using the country’s Māori and English names, “his commitment to mokopuna (young people), his passion for te ao Māori (the Māori world), and his vision for a future where all people are treated with dignity and respect.”
In recent months, Tuheitia has coordinated national unity talks for Māori in response to policies of Luxon’s center-right government. Critics accuse the government of being anti-Māori in its efforts to reverse policies favoring Indigenous people and language.
King Charles III, New Zealand’s constitutional head of state, and his wife, Queen Camilla, were “profoundly saddened” by Tuheitia’s death.
“I had the greatest pleasure of knowing Kiingi Tuheitia for decades. He was deeply committed to forging a strong future for Māori and Aotearoa New Zealand founded upon culture, traditions and healing, which he carried out with wisdom and compassion,” Charles said in a statement.
The week before Tuheitia’s death, thousands traveled to Turangawaewae Marae, the Māori King Movement headquarters in the town of Ngāruawāhia, for annual celebrations of the king’s ascension to the throne.
The seat of the king is held by the Tainui tribes in the Waikato region, and it was not yet clear who will take the throne.
“It is expected that Kiingi Tuheitia will lie in state at Turangawaewae Marae for five days before he is taken to his final resting place on Taupiri Mountain,” Papa said.


Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling

Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling
Updated 08 October 2024
Follow

Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling

Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling
  • The Netflix series tells the story of Dump Matsumoto, a real-life wrestling legend from the 1980s who grew up poor with an abusive father

TOKYO: “The Queen of Villains” is a typical coming-of-age tale about a young woman’s road to empowerment and self-discovery — except it all takes place in the body-slamming, arm-twisting world of Japanese professional wrestling.
The Netflix series, which began airing last month, tells the story of Dump Matsumoto, a real-life wrestling legend from the 1980s who grew up poor with a father who was often absent or abusive.
Matsumoto grew up angry, she said, and went on to create in her wrestling persona a ferocious, almost camp villain character, known in the sport as a “heel,” complete with outlandish Kabuki-like facial makeup, chains, sticks and a grotesque scowl. She loomed large as a symbol of fearless and defiant womanhood.
“I gave it my all to be evil,” Matsumoto said.
A hefty woman with a friendly smile, Matsumoto makes a point even now to adamantly deny that she was ever a nice person or acknowledge that many people in Japan, especially women, love her.
“I still beat people up in matches. I stuck forks in them and made them bleed,” she said, adding, “All the people who pretend to be good are the truly evil ones.”
“The Queen of Villains” follows the friendship between Matsumoto and Chigusa Nagayo of the popular wrestling tag team known as the Crush Gals. Nagayo served as an adviser, trainer and choreographer for the series’ dramatized wrestling scenes.
Japanese professional wrestling fans still talk about the matches between Matsumoto and the Crush Gals, including the ones they fought in the US
The actresses in the series spent two years training for their roles. They gained weight and muscle, and learned techniques like the “giant swing,” in which a wrestler grabs her opponent’s legs and moves in a dizzying circle, or the “flying knee kick,” which involves a jump and kick to the body while airborne.
The trick in professional wrestling is to execute the punches and body slams convincingly but in a controlled way to avoid serious injuries. A wrestler also must know how to fall properly.
One key fight scene took a month to film as the actors went over each move, again and again.
“Dump played a role to be hated by the entire nation,” said Yuriyan Retriever, a professional comedian who stars as Matsumoto in the series.
“Previously, there was a limit, maybe even unintentionally, beyond which I couldn’t go. But when I played Dump, all those emotions had to come out and be expressed,” she said.
She felt like she was no longer playing a role, she said, but that she had become Dump Matsumoto.
“It’s frightening to be hated, and I don’t think anyone wants to be hated,” Retriever said.
“When I finished a cut, I was crying. And my body was shaking. I can’t express it in words, but I understood all the pressures Dump must have felt.”
The series not only presents a women-beating-the-odds story against a backdrop of sexism and abusive management but it also captures the postwar period of the Showa-era in a way that feels authentic. The scenes used thousands of extras, many of them serious wrestling fans.
Some viewers say the real-life wrestling was more intense than the dramatized version in the new series.
Rionne McAvoy, an Australian filmmaker who as a professional wrestler was hit with a stick by Matsumoto, said: “The actors often fail to capture the intensity, grit and charisma required for these roles.”
But for most viewers, it’s real enough and heartbreaking.
“This is an eternal but emotional story portraying ordinary girls who passionately pursued a dream, found friendship and also themselves,” director Kazuya Shiraishi said.
“It gave me a chance to reflect on my own 15-year filmmaking career, what I truly want to be, what kind of films I want to make. I just wanted to tell their story, which is also everyone’s story.”


Police chase koala through Sydney train station

Police chase koala through Sydney train station
Updated 08 October 2024
Follow

Police chase koala through Sydney train station

Police chase koala through Sydney train station

SYDNEY: A wayward koala led police on a low-speed, early morning chase through a Sydney train station, video released on Tuesday showed, surprising commuters in the city.
Video provided by Transport for New South Wales showed the koala ambling through Casula station on Friday, around 34 km (21 miles) south-west of the city’s central business district.
The video showed the koala checking out an elevator before opting to descend a stairway.
Trains in the area were ordered to slow as the koala — a normally reclusive species and one of Australia’s best-loved animals — came dangerously close to the platform edge.
The marsupial eventually hopped the station fence after police officers were dispatched to chase it away from the tracks.
“All passengers, great and small, are reminded to stay behind the yellow line,” Transport for New South Wales said in a statement.
Koala are listed as vulnerable to extinction in the state.


Don’t expect human life expectancy to grow much more, researcher says

Don’t expect human life expectancy to grow much more, researcher says
Updated 08 October 2024
Follow

Don’t expect human life expectancy to grow much more, researcher says

Don’t expect human life expectancy to grow much more, researcher says
  • Women continue to live longer than men and life expectancy improvements are still occurring — but at a slowing pace, the researchers found
  • The researchers focused on eight of the places in the world where people live the longest — Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland

NEW YORK: Humanity is hitting the upper limit of life expectancy, according to a new study.
Advances in medical technology and genetic research — not to mention larger numbers of people making it to age 100 — are not translating into marked jumps in lifespan overall, according to researchers who found shrinking longevity increases in countries with the longest-living populations.
“We have to recognize there’s a limit” and perhaps reassess assumptions about when people should retire and how much money they’ll need to live out their lives, said S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago researcher who was lead author of the study published Monday by the journal Nature Aging.
Mark Hayward, a University of Texas researcher not involved in the study, called it “a valuable addition to the mortality literature.”
“We are reaching a plateau” in life expectancy, he agreed. It’s always possible some breakthrough could push survival to greater heights, “but we don’t have that now,” Hayward said.
What is life expectancy?
Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, assuming death rates at that time hold constant. It is one of the world’s most important health measures, but it is also imperfect: It is a snapshot estimate that cannot account for deadly pandemics, miracle cures or other unforeseen developments that might kill or save millions of people.
In the new research, Olshansky and his research partners tracked life expectancy estimates for the years 1990 to 2019, drawn from a database administered by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. The researchers focused on eight of the places in the world where people live the longest — Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland.
The US doesn’t even rank in the top 40. But is also was included “because we live here” and because of past, bold estimates that life expectancy in the US might surge dramatically in this century, Olshansky said.
Who lives the longest?
Women continue to live longer than men and life expectancy improvements are still occurring — but at a slowing pace, the researchers found. In 1990, the average amount of improvement was about 2 1/2 years per decade. In the 2010s, it was 1 1/2 years — and almost zero in the US
The US is more problematic because it is harder hit by a range of issues that kill people even before they hit old age, including drug overdoses, shootings, obesity and inequities that make it hard for some people to get sufficient medical care.
But in one calculation, the researchers estimated what would happen in all nine places if all deaths before age 50 were eliminated. The increase at best was still only 1 1/2 years, Olshansky said.
Eileen Crimmins, a University of Southern California gerontology expert, said in an email that she agrees with the study’s findings. She added: “For me personally, the most important issue is the dismal and declining relative position of the United States.”
Why life expectancy may not be able to rise forever
The study suggests that there’s a limit to how long most people live, and we’ve about hit it, Olshansky said.
“We’re squeezing less and less life out of these life-extending technologies. And the reason is, aging gets in the way,” he said.
It may seem common to hear of a person living to 100 — former US President Jimmy Carter hit that milestone last week. In 2019, a little over 2 percent of Americans made it to 100, compared with about 5 percent in Japan and 9 percent in Hong Kong, Olshansky said.
It’s likely that the ranks of centenarians will grow in the decades ahead, experts say, but that’s because of population growth. The percentage of people hitting 100 will remain limited, likely with fewer than 15 percent of women and 5 percent of men making it that long in most countries, Olshansky said.
 

 


Nobel Prize in medicine honors two Americans for discovery of microRNA

Nobel Prize in medicine honors two Americans for discovery of microRNA
Updated 07 October 2024
Follow

Nobel Prize in medicine honors two Americans for discovery of microRNA

Nobel Prize in medicine honors two Americans for discovery of microRNA
  • The Nobel Assembly said Monday that their discovery is “proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function”

STOCKHOLM: The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA, a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated.
The Nobel Assembly said that their discovery is “proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.”
Ambros performed the research that led to his prize at Harvard University. He is currently a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Ruvkun’s research was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School, where he’s a professor of genetics, said Thomas Perlmann, Secretary-General of the Nobel Committee.
Perlmann said he spoke to Ruvkun by phone shortly before the announcement.
“It took a long time before he came to the phone and sounded very tired, but he quite rapidly, was quite excited and happy, when he understood what, it was all about,” Perlmann said.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman for discoveries that enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 that were critical in slowing the pandemic.
The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.
The announcement launched this year’s Nobel prizes award season.
Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Oct. 14.
The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.


Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms

Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms
Updated 07 October 2024
Follow

Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms

Sardinia’s sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms
  • Some 20,000 sheep have died so far this year on the island, which is home to nearly half Italy’s flock and plays an important role in the production of famed Italian cheeses such as Pecorino

ARBUS: The sheep huddle together, bleeding from the nose, aborting lambs or suffocating on saliva as they succumb to bluetongue, a virus sweeping through flocks on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Some 20,000 sheep have died so far this year on the island, which is home to nearly half Italy’s flock and plays an important role in the production of famed Italian cheeses such as Pecorino.
It is another blow for farmers in a region already battered by a drought aggravated by man-made climate change — which experts say is also fueling the spread of bluetongue and longer outbreaks.
“The virus hit about two and a half months earlier than usual,” 39-year-old farmer Michela Dessi told AFP as she scanned her flock for panting or limping sheep in her fields in Arbus in western Sardinia.
Bluetongue does not present any risks to humans but in animals it causes swollen heads, high fevers, mouth ulcers, difficulty swallowing and breathing, and can turn an infected animal’s tongue blue.
It is transmitted between animals by biting midges.
While cattle, goats and deer can get it too, sheep are the most severely affected, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).
Infected and pregnant ewes abort or their lambs are born deformed, and survivors can lose their wool.
Sunken sides are a sign the ewes are carrying dead fetuses. The sick animals struggle to expel them.
The infection rate this year on Dessi’s farm is about 60 percent, and some 30 percent of her sheep have aborted.
Around 50 of her 650 sheep have died — and in a way she said was “horrible to watch.”
With high fevers, “they refuse food and water and some suffocate or drown in their own saliva,” she said, adding that it is illegal to euthanize them.
Nearly 3,000 outbreaks have been recorded so far this year in Sardinia, compared to 371 last year — and the end is not yet in sight.
Bluetongue used to peak in Sardinia in August but has done so as late as November in recent years, according to the region’s veterinary research institute (IZS).
“Climatic conditions heavily influence midge populations,” the animal health division at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome told AFP.
They affect “their biting behavior and the speed of development of the virus, with climate change likely driving the virus’s expansion... and contributing to larger outbreaks.”
Cases have been reported this year in other European countries, from neighboring France to Portugal, Spain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Bluetongue has been present in Sardinia since 2000 but Italy’s farming lobby Coldiretti says authorities are too slow each year to vaccinate the island’s flocks.
The costs of failing to rein it in are high.
A University of Bologna study last year found the 2017 outbreak, which killed 34,500 sheep, cost an estimated 30 million euros ($33 million).
That included damages suffered by farms — deaths, reduced milk yields, infertility, abortions — costs to animal health authorities and subventions paid by the region to affected farms.
“The first outbreaks occur in the same at-risk areas each year,” meaning highly targeted measures could theoretically prevent outbreaks, said Stefano Cappai from research institute IZS.
There are three variants on the island this year, two of which can be vaccinated against, with mortality rates twice as high among unvaccinated sheep.
Flocks should be vaccinated in March or April, Cappai said, but vaccines were only issued by the region in mid-June this year.
By that point, the virus had begun to spread unchecked.
Even if the vaccines had been made available earlier, some farmers fear to use them.
Others only vaccinate part of their flock, which means they fail to reach herd immunity, Cappai said.
And some farmers — like Dessi — vaccinated her flock, only for the sheep to catch the variant for which there is no vaccine yet.
Battista Cualbu, head of Coldiretti in Sardinia, who also has an outbreak on his farm, said vaccines are not enough and authorities must disinfect areas and provide midge repellents.
“It would certainly save public money because the region has to pay compensation for dead livestock (and) lost income,” he said, including less milk sold and fewer lambs for the slaughterhouse.
Compensation is set at 150 euros per sheep killed by bluetongue — a figure Coldiretti is battling to increase, although the region has failed to pay up over the past three years, Dessi said.
As temperatures fall, the case numbers are expected to decline but Dessi said the end was weeks away.
“I’ve dug three mass graves already and I fear the worst is still to come,” she said.