Category: DJF

Source: Radio New Zealand

The larva of a stripey fish could be the key to preventing a chronic and painful swelling condition that’s a common side effect of some breast cancer treatment.

Lymphoedema usually affected the arms or legs and could be caused by cancer treatments that remove or damage the lymph nodes. There was currently no cure.

The condition could be congenital or caused by an injury, but it mostly occurred as an unintended consequence following breast-cancer treatment.

Auckland University scientists discovered a molecule in zebrafish larva that offered hope of eventually treating or preventing the condition.

Lead researcher Dr Jonathan Astin, told Checkpoint, the larva of zebrafish were often used to answer scientific questions as the larva was almost completely transparent, making it easy to fluorescently label any organ system.

Astin said the way a human embryo developed was initially almost identical to a fish embryo – so the hope was what was discovered using zebrafish could be directly translated into understanding human development and disease.

In Astin’s lab, the lympahtics of the fish were tagged to help understand how lymphatics form and how lymphatic diseases could be treated.

The scientists discovered a growth-promoting molecule, known as ‘insulin-like growth factor’, or IGF, accelerated the growth of lymphatic vessels in zebrafish, so it had the potential to repair damaged vessels.

“What we’ve done subsequently is grown human lymphatics in a dish and put this human IGF on and that has been able to stimulate human lymphatic growth,” Astin said.

“Finding the molecule in fish allowed us to identify it might be therapeutic and find the human version.”

Astin said lymphoedema was often seen in breast cancer patients, with some estimates that around 20 percent of patients who had lymph nodes removed as part of breast cancer treatment having lymphoedema develop in one of their arms.

The condition was very difficult to cure once a person had it, Aston said, because the fluid build up caused tissue damage which could be hard to reverse, but the hope was it could be prevented.

“The plan would really be prevent it form occurring in the first place, so we hope by identifying this new IGF, it may be part of a treatment cocktail where we might be able to provide these lymphatic stimulating growth factors to patients who have lymph nodes removed in order to prevent the onset or the incidents of lymphoedema.”

Any possible treatment would still be many years off, Astin said, as work was still being done to understand whether it could stimulate repair and the it would need to be tested for safety.

“But this is the first new lymphatic growth factor we’ve identified in many years.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/19/how-a-tiny-fish-could-lead-to-treatment-for-a-painful-chronic-condition/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The lawyer for convicted sex offender and former Gloriavale leader Howard Temple claims jailing the 85-year-old was excessive.

Temple was sentenced to 26 months’ jail in December for indecencies on multiple girls and young women.

He immediately appealed and has been on bail.

His lawyer, Michael Vesty, argues the sentence is excessive given Temple’s age, bail conditions and cognitive impairment.

Vesty said it should be reduced to two years or less to allow for home detention.

The Crown said the offending spanned many years, despite a previous police warning, and affected a large number of victims.

Justice Paulsen reserved his decision.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/19/gloriavale-leader-howard-temple-appeals-excessive-jail-sentence/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Thames Coromandel District Council says a sinkhole has formed near the Onemana Wastewater Treatment Plant.

In a post online the council says it suspects treated wastewater may have entered a local wetland, potentially entering a stream that flows to the beach.

It says the sinkhole is on private property near the wastewater treatment plant’s subsurface irrigation field.

Onemana is a coastal community on the Coromandel Peninsula, north of Whangamata.

“As a proactive step, we are erecting signage by the Onemana Drive Carpark advising people not to swim, fish or collect shellfish in the area around where the stream discharges until further notice,” it said.

The council said it was turning off the irrigation disposal that is closest to the sinkhole, carrying out water sampling and would monitor the site to ensure no further deterioration or land movement.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/19/wastewater-may-be-flowing-to-a-coromandel-beach-after-sinkhole-forms/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Courts will have to grapple more and more with AI fakes and it might take law changes to keep them out of trials, the government’s chief legal advisers say.

Crown Law’s long-term insights briefing to a parliamentary select committee on Thursday morning turned quickly to questions around the reliability of evidence in the age of deep fakes.

The ability of generative artificial intelligence (such as large-language models that generate text, or image generating AI) “to facilitate the production of fake evidence will increase and could challenge evidential integrity in the justice system”, said its long-term briefing report.

It was a growing global problem, it said.

“Is it what the Crown or the Defence say it is? Does it have the truth that the particular photo or text purports to have, or is it fake?” Deputy Solicitor-General Madeleine Laracy told the select committee.

“These create really tangible problems during trials” that they only had the normal tools of admissability to try to deal with.

The briefing suggested two ways to tackle it but both had big implications; for instance, lawmakers could bring in a new “admissability threshold” but if that meant all digital evidence was checked for reliability that would “impose a significant additional burden” on both sides in criminal trials – and this in an already log-jammed system.

MPs asked: “Have we seen fake evidence from AI in courts today?”

Laracy noted one case she was familiar with, where the defence challenged the metadata that sat behind Crown evidence. This went back to asking what other “human evidence” there was to support that the evidence was reliable.

When RNZ asked Crown Law for more details, it said the case was still before the courts which had ordered broad suppression.

The briefing said there were numerous examples overseas where counsel and self-represented defendants had been reprimanded for using cases that had been “hallucinated” (made up) by AI.

It referred to a case in London in 2025 that cited a New Zealand commercial case where a draft about “apparently non-existent cases” led to a challenge.

Solicitor-General Una Jagose KC said the fake in a case presumably could be anything – “it could look like an email … It could look like a recording of a person who makes an admission”.

Crown Law’s 31-page briefing said current cases suggested this was not widespread but Crown prosecutors told them about the “early signs … [that] signal that authenticity challenges will become more common as technology advances”.

“In one case there was an allegation during cross-examination of a Crown witness that Crown evidence was doctored in some way. In another, a Crown prosecutor was questioned (without basis) about using GenAI to write submissions.

“Media reports also indicate a self-represented defendant in a murder trial claimed that CCTV footage relied on by the Crown was fake.

“The Crown challenged the evidence given by the accused and he in turn alleged the Crown had produced false CCTV and other evidence.”

The question became how to adapt – prosecutors, for instance, would have to become adept at recognising what defence evidence to challenge, and to respond to defence AI challenges, said the briefing.

“If the problem of fake evidence becomes widespread, it could become standard police procedure to analyse any evidence that will be relied on by a Crown witness, to enable assurances to be made to a future jury of its authenticity,” said the briefing.

It was also anticipated they would need more experts who could testify about the integrity of metadata, said Jagose.

“The real challenge” was around defence evidence because it did not have to give the Crown a heads-up on it to allow time to check it, Laracy said.

“Verification procedures could delay trials which would not be desirable,” said the briefing.

The courts are already log-jammed and backed-up.

The committee discussed if that might require law changes for notification periods around evidence that might pose AI questions-of-origin.

The briefing discussed that, and a second “high level strategic” of the “admissability threshold”.

Labour MP Vanushi Walters asked about the reliability of the advice that prosecutors might be getting from AI.

The Solicitor-General imposes a two-part test that has to be met to go ahead and prosecute, around if the evidence is sufficient and the public interest.

Jagoes said so far, there were no guidelines on that and there might come a time that AI made those decisions more efficient.

“I suspect that, well, I’m the Solicitor-General till next Friday, but I suspect that the Solicitor-General will always be anxious that criminal prosecution decisions are being made by a human because of the judgment and all the requirements and all the balancing of the public interest that needs to go into it.

“Maybe machines will be able to do that in the future but that’s a very long way away I’d say,” said Jagose.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/19/ai-and-deep-fakes-becoming-problematic-for-courts/

Source: Radio New Zealand

A person has died after being pulled out of the water at St Clair Beach in Dunedin.

Police say they were called to the beach at the south of the city just before midday on Thursday.

The person was unresponsive after being pulled from the water and could not be revived despite medical treatment.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/19/person-dies-after-being-pulled-from-water-at-dunedin-beach/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The chair of Wellington’s new water entity will not promise the Moa Point wastewater treatment plant will be fully fixed by July, when it takes over.

Tiaki Wai board chair Will Peet also will not give “absolute confidence” that people will be able to swim on south coast beaches next summer, but says he will provide updates about that in the coming months.

But he says the entity has a good shot at significantly improving Wellington’s water infrastructure, despite having to deal with serious problems.

Directors of the water entity met on Thursday in central Wellington.

Tiaki Wai is replacing Wellington Water and inheriting the region’s assets – providing drinking water, wastewater, and piped stormwater services from July.

It is also in line to inherit the extensively damaged Moa Point, which after a major failure earlier this month was sending millions of litres of raw sewage into Cook Strait every day.

Officials are currently tight-lipped about the cause of the delay, or when the plant will be fixed, citing an independent Crown review and insurance processes.

But Wellington Water chief executive Pat Dougherty previously said 80 percent of the electronics were damaged and some equipment parts may need to be brought in from overseas.

Peet said he expected to get an “operating plant of-sorts” by July, doubted it would be fully-fixed.

“There’s a lot of work to do with the plant, I think they’re still discovering what the state of things are. We will be getting some updates over the next while – I wouldn’t be making commitments that all things will be in and done in 90 days – not at all.”

He said he was working through the specific details of the transfer agreement with Wellington City Council, including making sure the plant was able to do what it needed to.

“If there are any changes we’ll come back and let people know about what that is, but right now the focus is not about the legal agreements and the funds – it has to be on the recovery and minimising the amount of sewage going into the south coast.”

Peet said he would not comment on what caused the plant’s failure while an investigation was underway, though he said he was “interested” to find out like everyone else.

Asked whether he could give absolute confidence people would be able to swim at the beaches next year, once the entity had controlled the plant for months, Peet said he would provide updates on that in the future.

“I don’t think anybody in my position should give you something that says absolute confidence because that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I’ll be able to give you more of an update on that in the coming weeks and months, as we know more as we get closer to taking over.”

(h) ‘A lot to be done’ before July – officials

During the Tiaki Wai board meeting, establishment director Dougal List said progress had been made in the asset transfer agreements, but there was “a lot of work still to go” before day one.

The complex paperwork and financial arrangements were currently being worked through with councils, List said.

Peet agreed, saying there was “a lot of work to be done”.

Wellingtonians – those living in Wellington City, Porirua, Hutt City, and Upper Hutt – would receive a separate water bill from 1 July for water services.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Peet said the organisation was “well in train” with being ready from July.

New chief executive Michael Brewster, who previously led Tasmania’s water utility, would start at the organisation on 2 March.

“Look, Moa point is a significant issue, but I don’t want to take away from all the other stuff that’s going on… there’s still Seaview, Titahi Bay, Karori wastewater treatment plants operating.”

The new entity had been promising more investment in Wellington’s chronically underfunded water infrastructure – but warned it may come at a higher cost.

Asked whether he was confident Wellington’s water infrastructure would improve, Peet said: “It will, but it will take some time.”

“I am confident that things will improve, we have got a very different makeup to what Wellington Water and the councils have had – we have got a good shot at making this significantly better.”

But he said there was 800 kilometres of the network where pipes had passed the end of their life, and “serious problems” to deal with.

“It didn’t take five minutes to get like this, it’s going to take longer than five minutes to fix.”

He said it was likely water bills would increase, but expected Wellingtonians to ask what improvements they were getting for that higher cost.

Already people are paying about 30 – 40 percent of their rates on water services, a spokesperson said.

On 25 March Tiaki Wai will release its water services strategy, which would give people a pricing strategy for their water bills, which will be different, depending on where they live in the region.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/19/no-guarantee-moa-point-will-be-fixed-soon-water-chair/