Author: Geoffrey Miller

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Jacinda Ardern’s outsized New Zealand foreign policy legacy

Jacinda Ardern had an outsized impact on New Zealand’s international relations. While all Prime Ministers travel internationally, Ardern’s calendar was fuller than most. Ardern’s first major foreign trip came within weeks of her election in 2017, to the APEC summit in Vietnam. The meeting gave Ardern her first in-person encounter with Donald Trump, who she told ‘no-one marched when I was elected’ after Trump suggested she had ‘caused a lot of upset’ in New Zealand. Ardern was often cast as the ‘anti-Trump’ figure by commentators during the first years of her premiership, and her comments at her first UN General...

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What Japan’s foreign policy shifts mean for New Zealand

Japan is a country on the move. Since World War II, Tokyo has largely been happy to outsource its security needs to Washington. But this is now changing to a more equal partnership. On Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called his country’s alliance with the United States ‘stronger than ever’. For his part, US President Joe Biden, who hosted Kishida at the White House, said the United States was ‘fully, thoroughly, completely committed to the alliance’ with Japan. The words from Kishida and Biden might seem like the usual diplomatic niceties, but behind the smiles from the two leaders...

Podcast: Russian – summer fruits – летние фрукты

In this podcast, I talk in Russian about summer fruits Летние фрукты Добро пожаловать, друзья, на второй выпуск моего подкаста для практики на русском языке. Мне зовут Джеффри Миллер. Кстати, я писал текст для сегодняшнего подкаста заранее, прежде чем я записал его, я надеюсь, что это мне поможет также улучшить мои навыки письма. Итак, у нас в Новой Зеландии сейчас летом и внезапно очень много сезонных фруктов и овощей доступны. Вчера я купил, например, свежие вишни – они очень сладкие и вкусные! Вишни выращивают здесь на юге Новой Зеландии и много экспортируют в Азию, например в Японию и в Китай....

Podcast: How I learned Arabic – كيف تعلمت اللغة العربية

اهلا وسهلا ومرحبا بكم! انا اسمي جيفري ميلر وأنتم تستمعون الى الحلقة الثانية من بودكاستي الجديد وفيه أمارس مهاراتي في اللغة العربية واللغة الروسية. اليوم أريد أن اتكلم عن موضوع بسيط جدا وهو: كيف تعلمت اللغة العربية، وكيف اتعلمها؟ طيب، بدأت هنا في نيوزيلاندا في 2007 عندما ذهبت الى دورة ليلة في مدينتي. ولكن في 2008 انتقلت إلى المانيا وفي حقيقة كان ليس لدي كثير من وقت الفراغ. ولكن في 2013 ذهبت الى دورة ليلة ثانية وبدأت رحلتي باللغة العربية من جديد. خطوة فخطوة درست هذه اللغة الجميلة ولكن ألصعبة جدا في المانيا. وفي 2017 قررت أن أذهب الى مصر،...

New Arabic/Russian practice podcast

Happy New Year! I’ve created a new audio podcast for practising my Arabic and Russian skills. The aim is simply to help me improve my speaking skills by having a goal to work towards (i.e. publishing). In the past I’ve made short videos in both Arabic and Russian (which you can view on my YouTube channel). This was fun, but creating and uploading even fairly simple videos is significantly more work than an audio-only project – hence the podcast. If I can keep things simple, hopefully I’ll record podcasts more often which will help me to improve. The first two...

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What to expect from Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to the New Zealand Parliament

As New Zealand’s foreign policy year draws to a close, it seems fitting that Volodymyr Zelensky will have the final word. Ukraine’s President is scheduled to address the New Zealand Parliament in Wellington by video link early on Wednesday morning, local time. New Zealand is something of a latecomer when it comes to inviting Zelensky to speak to its legislature in 2022. Zelensky did the rounds of most Western countries during the first half of the year, especially in March and April. Parliaments in the United Kingdom, United States and EU countries were first in line, but Australia took its...

Impressions from the Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi

Recently I had the privilege to attend the Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi. This was a wonderful opportunity and I was really lucky to be invited to attend the event as a guest of the Emirates News Agency, upon the recommendation of the UAE Embassy in Wellington. It was a great chance to use and practise my Arabic and I was surprised by just how much Arabic I was able to speak and use, both with attendees at the Global Media Congress and generally with Arabic speakers on the street in the UAE. This was hugely encouraging and motivating,...

رحلة جاسيندا أرديرن إلى آسيا تعيد إحياء السياسة الخارجية المستقلة لنيوزيلندا

This is an Arabic translation of my article ‘Jacinda Ardern’s Asia trip rekindles New Zealand’s independent foreign policy’ by Yousef Abou Ammar, a freelance journalist based in Sydney. My thanks to Yousef for both translating the article and for allowing me to share it here: رأي – عودة السياسة الخارجية المستقلة لنيوزيلندا.رسالة أساسية أساسية من رحلة جاسيندا أرديرن Jacinda Ardern إلى جنوب شرق آسيا هذا الأسبوع. حضرت رئيسة الوزراء النيوزيلندية قمة شرق آسيا في كمبوديا في نهاية الأسبوع. وستتوجه إلى تايلاند لحضور اجتماع قادة الأبيك في وقت لاحق من الأسبوع. وتقوم أرديرن Ardern أيضًا بزيارة مفاجئة لفيتنام تستغرق أربعة أيام....

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Does New Zealand need to up its game with World Cup host Qatar?

As the FIFA World Cup gets underway in Qatar, it is worth looking at the state of New Zealand’s wider relationship with the host nation. While New Zealand often likes to think of itself as a small country, it comfortably outranks Qatar in both size and population. In terms of area, Qatar is just over twice the size of the greater Auckland region. And the Gulf state’s population – at just under 3 million – makes New Zealand’s own 5 million figure seem generous. But as the World Cup shows, size is no obstacle to Doha’s ambitions. By some estimates,...

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Jacinda Ardern’s Asia trip rekindles New Zealand’s independent foreign policy

New Zealand’s independent foreign policy is back. That’s a key underlying message from Jacinda Ardern’s trip this week to Southeast Asia. The New Zealand Prime Minister attended the East Asia Summit in Cambodia over the weekend. She will head to Thailand for the APEC leaders’ meeting later in the week. In between, Ardern is also making a surprise four-day bilateral visit to Vietnam. As has become customary for much of Ardern’s foreign travel, the Vietnam portion of this week’s trip is being branded as a ‘trade mission’, a strategy deployed in part to deflect potential domestic criticism of the PM...

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