Sunday, February 7, 2021
The New Zealand Government on Thursday announced the creation of a new public holiday, Matariki. Matariki marks the beginning of the M?ori New Year, which coincides with the rising of the star cluster Pleiades, known as Matariki in the M?ori language.
At Waitangi, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said “This will be a day to acknowledge our nation’s unique, shared identity, and the importance of tikanga M?ori. It’s going to be something very special, and something uniquely New Zealand.” Ardern also said the new holiday would break up the over-4 month gap between public holidays in June and October.
The date of the Matariki holiday is not consistent from year to year, as it follows Maramataka, the M?ori lunar calendar, but would likely always fall on a Monday or Friday according to Ardern. A Matariki advisory group has been established, with M?ori Crown Relations — Te Arawhiti — Minister Kelvin Davis explaining that the purpose of the group is “to provide advice on future dates of the public holiday, how it should be celebrated and to support the development of resources to educate the public on Matariki and the celebrations”. The first Matariki holiday is scheduled for Friday, June 24 of next year.
Ardern’s Labour Party made the Matariki holiday an election promise, and won last year’s general election with a majority. This result was the best for any party since New Zealand’s 1996 adoption of a mixed-member proportional system.
This is not the first attempt to make Matariki a public holiday. In 2009, M?ori Party Member of Parliament Rahui Katene introduced legislation to create a Matariki public holiday. While it was supported by the then-opposition Labour Party, the governing National Party did not support it, and it was defeated with 59 votes in favour and 63 votes against.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Cynthia McKinney, one of the candidates for the Green Party nomination for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
McKinney is a former Democratic Congresswoman from Georgia. She was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1992 and held her seat for ten years until being defeated by Denise Majette in 2002. She was the first ever African American woman from her state to be elected to Congress.
We asked her why she made the recent switch to the Green Party. She replied, “Due to the importance of environmental issues, Green issues are the issues of today. The Ten Key Values ofthe Green Party stress us getting along with each other in harmony with the planet that gives us life.”
When asked about how she would handle Iraq she replied, “I would instruct the Joint Chiefs to draw up a plan for the orderly withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the country. I would dismantle our military bases in the area, and I would also demand that U.S. andother international corporations relinquish any claims to Iraqi oil orother resources and withdraw as well.”
McKinney is running for president because, basically, she thinks that “it’s time that the people win”.