Katie is a London-based journalist with a strong interest in national and international political issues.
April 30th, 2009
UPDATED – 2 MAY
As the risk of a Swine Flu pandemic increases, we should think about how it came about, and what we could do to prevent similar crises in the future. The financial meltdown lead politicians to consider systemic changes – will the swine flu outbreak do the same for the food production industry?
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April 23rd, 2009
From the Peru archives
The high life
You don’t see the typical guide book Peruvian – indigenous, dark-skinned and dressed in brightly coloured woven fabrics – at the gym in downtown Lima. Here, the average exerciser looks distinctly European, a combination of natural attributes and money: relatively tall and fair-skinned with an unnaturally high proportion of blondes.
This is where the wealthy come to keep up appearances. Read the rest of this entry »
April 13th, 2009
April 11th, 2009
New revelations about the death of Ian Tomlinson highlight the benefits of this media-saturated society, while Bob Quick’s embarrasing mistake shows its dangers.
When a man died at the anti-G20 protests in London at the beginning of this month, it seemed an open and shut case. Ian Tomlinson died of a heart attack; police had done their best to assist him when he fell to the ground. The Independent Police Complaints Commission let the London police conduct their own investigation, and didn’t look into things much further.
If it hadn’t been for the media doing their own research, that’s where things would have ended.
December 30th, 2008
The cop is in a huff when he pulls over the carload of tourists. He stands in the cold dusk air on the main road into Arequipa scanning the registration and insurance documents. Fernando, riding co-pilot and the only local in the car, answers the questions for the non-Spanish speaking driver. They assume he’ll just nod and wave them on, as other police officers have done so far – the car’s papers are in perfect order. Instead he asks gruffly for the Circulation Card, something they neither have, nor need. The games begin.
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September 4th, 2008
The Auckland City Council wants to clean homeless people out of the city centre.
How could this be done… Perhaps they might provide a new homeless shelter in the city where rough sleepers can crash, get some soup, medical attention, assistance with getting back on their feet and integrated into society.
Maybe that’s a bit too much of a budget-stretcher. Maybe the council could just provide a place to sleep, and skip all the social service trimmings.
But no, even that would be too much, it seems. Read the rest of this entry »
August 24th, 2008
Team New Zealand flittered $130 million on its failure in Valencia last year, and more than a quarter of that came from the Government.
In John Key-ese, that’s equal to about 3,217,350 blocks of cheese the government could have given to hard-working families. Instead they preferred to blow the $33.75 million on a rich white man’s sport.
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August 22nd, 2008
Journalists may be low in public esteem, but I reckon if those surveys asked respondents to rank student reporters, we’d fare even worse.
The general aura of suspicion that often greets journalists is frequently augmented by fear (of being wildly misquoted, I suppose) when our subject hears they’re talking to a student journalist.
Either that, or we’re patronised: patted on the head and asked, “is that all you’ve got?” with a smirk when we get to the end of our questions.
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August 13th, 2008
While New Zealand sleeps, most of the world is busy getting on with life.
Yet, it seems the New Zealand Herald’s foreign editor goes to bed at the same time as the rest of us.
How else could you explain the lack of acknowledgement in today’s world section that Russia had called a halt to the conflict with Georgia?
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August 4th, 2008
There was the woman who wet her pants at work after chomping through three packs of chewing gum a day. And then there was the man who went blind after regularly drinking seven bottles of fizzy a day.
But altogether the most disturbing aspect of What’s Really in Our Food (TV3, Tuesday night) was the attitude of the Food Safety Authority.
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