The Wire with Alex

Aotearoa Justice Watch is a new initiative designed to allow individuals that have experienced the prison system to tell their stories of human rights abuse. The initiative has been driven by various organisations as a response to the harms caused in the current criminal justice space.

Trishil spoke with Amnesty NZ Campaign Director Lisa Woods about the initiative to learn more about it's potential use. 

Stats NZ recently released GDP figures for the last quarter, which showed a 0.2% decline in the New Zealand economy compared to the previous quarter’s 3% rise.

However, this decline is not unique to New Zealand and has been identified in many developed economies across the world which have reported either a drop in GDP or a slow in growth.

Many top New Zealand economists, referencing this number and other cruical recent developments in the world economy, are now predicting an economic recession in the next year.

To get a better idea of what the numbers mean, and what an economic recession entails, Casper spoke to Dr Murat Üngör from the department of economics at the University of Otago.

On the Seventeenth of June, 1972, a group of burglars working underneath staff of the Nixon administration broke into the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate Complex.

This began the defining political scandal of the 20th century, as Richard Nixon and his colleagues continuously tried to cover up their involvement. 

This led to Nixon's impeachment and subsequent resignation in 1974, marking a major event in US history that set a precedent for how we can hold politicians to account across the world. 

On the fiftieth anniversary, Liam spoke to University Of Canterbury Professor in American History, Peter FIeld, on the impact of Watergate and its presence in the current conversations on the January Sixth Capitol Riots. 

After eight years of research, a rare manta-ray nursery has been confirmed in the Raja Ampat islands in Indonesia by a team of researchers at the University of Auckland. The team’s research is the most comprehensive description to date of the manta ray anywhere and is prompting the Indonesian government to take extra measures to protect the area. The species has a special link with manta rays that hang out in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland. On the Wire this week, guest producer Frances Wright chatted to Edy Setyawan about the rays, Steve Irwin, and his work on this research project.