New Zealand foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta (above) says she she fears a ‘storm’ of anger from China amid rising Pacific-Asia tensions

China claims to be a nation
That just wants more cooperation
To make a big pie
And cannot see why
New Zealanders show hesitation

John Moynes

Getty

“I once lived a normal life but something happened that changed my future forever. It was something simple. I got a job on a milk round. I was 12 and nothing was ever the same again. The journey I’ve been on since has brought me into a darkness I didn’t even know existed. I’ve seen things I don’t want to remember but can never forget. I’ve been scared, silenced and brought to the brink of death. But I’m here. I survived.”

Joseph O’Callaghan.

The Witness: In His Own Words.

A new documentary podcast series based on Nicola Tallant’s best-selling book (top) and produced by Yellow Path productions, the team behind the The Stand with Eamon Dunphy.

Aged 20, Joseph O’Callaghan was the youngest person to go into the Witness Protection Programme in Ireland – his testimony helped convict two drug-dealing gangsters for murder – and over the 10 episode series he tells his own story.

Yellow Path Productions write:

It’s a story of Dublin gangland but most significant is that it’s a story about a child being groomed into that world and the remarkable courage it took for him to escape and give evidence against two men who’d murdered.

Now, as the men he put away agitate for release, he tells his extraordinary life story in his own words for the first time.

First episode available now at @ApplePodcasts, @SpotifyPodcasts and @Acast.

The Witness: In His Own Words

Behold: Messier 13, aka, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. To wit:

In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Of course, M13 is now less modestly recognised as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky. Sharp telescopic views like this one reveal the spectacular cluster’s hundreds of thousands of stars. At a distance of 25,000 light-years, the cluster stars crowd into a region 150 light-years in diameter. Approaching the cluster core upwards of 100 stars could be contained in a cube just 3 light-years on a side. For comparison, the closest star to the Sun is over 4 light-years away. The remarkable range of brightness recorded in this image follows stars into the dense cluster core. Distant background galaxies in the medium-wide field of view include NGC 6207 at the lower right.]

(Image: Martin Dufour)

apod

This afternoon.

Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu and Solidarity–People Before Profit TD Brid Smith with protestors from the Repeal the 8th movement outside Leinster House, as they call on Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly to ensure that the National Maternity Hospital will be fully secular, and will be under no Church control.

Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

Update:

Hmm.

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