An investigation has revealed a culture of fear at the world's leading accounting firms. Photo / 123RF
An investigation has revealed a culture of fear at the world's leading accounting firms. Photo / 123RF
Welcome to the weekend.
New Zealand made headlines around the world this week when it emerged Fox News had made a trademark application for 'OK Boomer', the quip Green MP Chloe Swarbrick made in Parliament earlier this month.
There's been a wealth of other content from around the globe this week so while you're relaxing over the weekend check out some of the best journalism from our international premium syndicators.
Betrayed by the Big Four: Whistleblowers speak out
Lucy was trying to jump into a black cab to escape from an overly familiar boss. He got in too, followed her as she left the taxi and, eventually, physically shook her while she tearfully refused to go for a drink with him.
Mary will only tell her story in a hushed voice from the bottom of the garden. She is worried about her children overhearing how a partner at her firm sexually assaulted her, kick-starting a process that led to her eventual redundancy.
John recalls weeks sitting at home in his pyjamas, depressed and staring at a blank computer screen. He was told to stop coming into work shortly after reporting several incidents involving sexist and homophobic abuse to human resources.
Julia felt ostracised by colleagues at the Tokyo branch of her firm because she was not ethnically Japanese, and says she was subjected to a form of bullying known as mushi in Japan, in which the victim is completely ignored by co-workers.
These individuals have spoken out about their experience of harassment, bullying and discrimination at four of the most renowned names in the business world: EY, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC.
Former employees from EY, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC have spoken about their experiences in the workplace. Photo / Getty Images
Tobias Menzies on playing Prince Philip: 'My mother would be ashamed of me'
Tobias Menzies has the kind of face you recognise but can't quite place — which, for an actor, usually means a career spent playing solid supporting roles rather than star turns.
"I quite like being incognito," he says. Unfortunately for him, all this is about to change. as he makes his debut in one of the world's biggest television dramas, The Crown, taking over from Matt Smith as Prince Philip.
His portrayal of the Duke of Edinburgh has been hailed as the stand-out performance of season 3 - but his anti‑monarchist mother would be ashamed.
Tobias Menzies at the World premiere of The Crown season 3. Photo / AP
Saving the Amazon: Fighting fires and illegal loggers
Swathes of the Amazon rainforest have been burning at a rate not seen in a decade.
The struggle to protect the world's largest tropical rainforest seems at times like a war against well-organised jungle insurgents, who strike and then vanish into the emerald wilderness.
Recently these insurgents, in the Jamari National Forest in the northwestern state of Rondonia, have become more brazen, threatening and insulting their pursuers over the radio.
Fire consumes an area near Porto Velho, Brazil. Photo / AP
The affair that rocked Google: 'It's never the men who get slut-shamed'
This week former Google executive Amanda Rosenberg published her memoir, That's Mental: Painfully Funny Things That Drive Me Crazy About Being Mentally Ill, in which she details the psychological breakdown she suffered while working at the tech giant's Californian HQ.
"It was so bleak," she says of her time there. "Because on the outside I was like, 'Look at me winning, succeeding, and being everything my mother wanted me to be,' and inside just dying and confused and scared and alone."
Rosenberg's experience, was, of course, more extreme than most. For what she doesn't mention in the book – and is reluctant to discuss in person except in the most oblique terms – is that her breakdown was precipitated by what she admits was a "toxic" relationship with multi-billionaire Google president Sergey Brin.
Amanda Rosenberg, the face of Google Glass, was blamed for breaking up Google co-founder Sergey Brin's marriage. Photo / Supplied
Walmart shooting: How a girls' soccer team healed a broken coach
It was a Saturday morning outside a Walmart in El Paso, and the soccer team Luis Calvillo leads was selling snacks to raise money for an out-of-state tournament.
One moment he was chatting with a fellow coach; the next, a man was spraying the outside of the store with gunfire, and Calvillo was on the ground, blood pouring from his leg.
Several soccer parents were also shot. His father, Jorge Calvillo García was killed.
Mass shooting stories are usually told at funerals and candlelight vigils, catalogued by the number of dead left to bury when the gunfire stops. Surviving is a much longer story, often left unrecorded.
Luis Calvillo walks alongside his daughter, Emylee. Photo / Tamir Kalifa, The New York Times
This Tom Hanks story will help you feel less bad
Tom Hanks is as nice as you think he is and exactly what you hope him to be, which is great unless you are someone trying to tell a good story about him, with elements like an arc and narrative tension.
"Saintly Actor Playing Saintly Public Television Children's Host Mister Rogers Is Saintly" is not a great story. But what am I supposed to do? He sat facing me, cheerful and focused and willing.
Maybe this could just be a story that makes you feel better.
Tom Hanks is playing Mister Rogers in a new movie and is just as nice as you think he is. Photo / Daniel Dorsa, The New York Times
Why we fall for cons: Inside the art of the scam
Fraudsters using the playbook of Wilhelm Voigt trick people every day. First, they get the appearances right. Maybe it's a text message that looks like it's from your bank — the phone number is right, after all. Maybe the doorbell rings and the man is standing there with an official-looking ID; he wants to come and check your electricity meter.
Second, fraudsters put people into what psychologists call a "hot state". We don't think so clearly when we're hungry, or angry, or afraid.
Third, they pull the heist one small step at a time. They start with the request for information: You are Ms Jane Doe, aren't you? I'm sorry to report that your bank account has been compromised, Ms Doe. Just enter your password and username — just like you usually do — and we'll sort it out for you.
Yes, we fall for cons. But we fall for all kinds of other superficial things that shouldn't matter, like a nice uniform, and those superficial things are constantly influencing our decisions — including decisions that we may later come to regret.
What is thought to be a portrait of fraudster Wilhelm Voigt, dressed in the military uniform that helped deceive his victims. Photo / Getty Images
Prince Andrew's friendship with Epstein joins a list of royal scandals
The British monarchy has survived public crises before — religious schisms, revolutions, murderous kings — but this week the royal family scrambled to confront a relatively new opponent: the embarrassing televised interview.
The Duke of York, better known as Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, struggled to defend himself during a 50-minute interview with the BBC as he talked about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier accused of sex trafficking.
Prince Andrew struggled to defend himself in a BBC interview as he talked about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Photo / AP
The Iran cables: Secret documents show how Tehran wields power in Iraq
In mid-October, with unrest swirling in Baghdad, a familiar visitor slipped quietly into the Iraqi capital. The city had been under siege for weeks, as protesters marched in the streets, demanding an end to corruption and calling for the ouster of the prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi.
The visitor was there to restore order, but his presence highlighted the protesters' biggest grievance: He was Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran's powerful Quds Force, and he had come to persuade an ally in the Iraqi parliament to help the prime minister hold onto his job.
It was not the first time Soleimani had been dispatched to Baghdad to do damage control. Tehran's efforts to prop up Mahdi are part of its long campaign to maintain Iraq as a pliable client state.
Hundreds of leaked intelligence reports shed light on a shadow war for regional influence - and show how Tehran wields power in Iraq. Photo / The New York Times
Yoga is finally facing consent and unwanted touch
Rachel Brathen had no idea of the deluge headed her way when she asked her Instagram followers if they ever had experienced touch that felt inappropriate in yoga.
This was nearly two years ago. Brathen, 31 and a yoga studio owner in Aruba, heard from hundreds.
The letters described a constellation of abuses of power and influence, including being propositioned after class and on yoga retreats, forcibly kissed during private meditation sessions and assaulted on post-yoga massage tables.
Yoga studios have remained a place where the simple act of unfurling a mat signals to many teachers that they can touch you as they see fit. Photo / 123RF
'Absolutely no mercy': Leaked files expose how China organised mass detentions of Muslims
The students booked their tickets home at the end of the semester, hoping for a relaxing break after exams and a summer of happy reunions with family in China's far west.
Instead, they would soon be told that their parents were gone, relatives had vanished and neighbours were missing — all of them locked up in an expanding network of detention camps built to hold Muslim ethnic minorities.
Authorities in the Xinjiang region worried the situation was a powder keg. And so they prepared.
Leadership distributed a classified directive advising local officials to corner returning students as soon as they arrived and keep them quiet. It included a chillingly bureaucratic guide for how to handle their anguished questions, beginning with the most obvious: Where is my family?
"They're in a training school set up by the government," the prescribed answer began. If pressed, officials were to tell students that their relatives were not criminals — yet could not leave these "schools."
The question-and-answer script also included a barely concealed threat: Students were to be told that their behaviour could either shorten or extend the detention of their relatives.
