The Wire with Caeden

The International Court of Justice has issued an advisory opinion that nations can be held legally accountable for greenhouse-gas emissions. 

The Court found that those who are harmed by human-caused climate change could be entitled to reparations.

The case was spearheaded by Pacific island students and the government of Vanuatu, and then backed by 105 sponsor countries.

For International Desk, News and Editorial Director Joel spoke to Justin Sobion, a University of Auckland Senior Tutor in Law who also acted as counsel for Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Here is that interview.

According to outreach providers, Auckland has had a 90% increase in homelessness since September last year.

Auckland Council’s Community Committee Chair Angela Dalton says government policy changes have “made it harder for people to access emergency housing.”

The committee has called for the government to work with frontline agencies to address the issue.

Yesterday, nearly 36,000 nurses, midwives, and healthcare workers went on strike for 24 hours.

This followed the breakdown of mediation talks between the nurses' union and Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand.

The union says they are striking because of the ‘dire’ staffing situation.

And the government has announced a series of electoral law changes, including the end to same-day voter enrollment. 

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, News and Editorial Director Joel spoke to Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni about all of these issues.

They started by asking about the increase in homelessness in Auckland.

On Monday, Auckland Council staff were sighted taking belongings such as tents and sleeping bags from rough sleepers at the Grafton United Cricket Club ground. 

This is happening at a time where the amount of rough sleepers on Auckland’s streets has increased 90 percent since last September and 15 percent of those leaving emergency housing are going straight to homelessness. 

On Tuesday, Auckland Council’s Community Committee received updates on the state of homelessness in the city and discussed what the Council’s response will be. 

For City Counselling this week Producer Sanat spoke to Councillor Julie Fairey about the worsening homelessness in the city. 

Sanat started by asking about the incident on Monday and whether Auckland Council is doing enough to respond to homelessness.

About 70,000 people are currently affected by dementia in New Zealand. Because of this, the healthcare cost of the neurological condition is around $274 million per year and is expected to double by 2050. But what if we could predict who was most at risk, years before obvious symptoms appear?

At the moment, health professionals can struggle to assess whether a person is likely to get dementia, based on reports of their memory loss and ability to function from patients and families. As a result, a $4 million project, which includes a team of experts from the University of Auckland and Singapore, has begun to create an AI tool that can identify a person’s dementia risk.

To talk about how this new AI tool would work, as well as how it might impact the future of prevention and treatment of the neurological condition, Producer Max to Dr Catherine Morgan, a senior research fellow from the University of Auckland.