Australia & Pacifics

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s embattled prime minister on Sunday officially launched his conservative party’s campaign less than a week before elections, highlighting the nation’s early success in containing the pandemic and its strong economic recovery.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s coalition trails the center-left Labor Party opposition in most opinion polls as the administration seeks a rare fourth three-year term in elections on Saturday.

CANBERRA, May 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Australia’s opposition Labour Party still maintains the lead, as the federal election campaign entered its final week.

According to the latest edition of Newspoll, published last night, the Labour Party holds a comfortable 54-46 lead, over the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis.

It marks the 20th consecutive Newspoll, where the Coalition has trailed the Labour since Nov, 2020.

Significantly, the Coalition has not been able to make any inroads, since Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, called the election on Apr 10.

May 14 (Reuters) - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tested positive for COVID-19 with moderate symptoms, her office said in a statement on Saturday.

She will not be in parliament for the government's emissions reduction plan on Monday and the budget on Thursday, but "travel arrangements for her trade mission to the United States are unaffected at this stage," the statement said.

Ardern had been symptomatic since Friday evening, returning a weak positive at night and a clear positive on Saturday morning on a rapid antigen test, it said.

SYDNEY, May 13 (Reuters) - A Chinese intelligence ship was tracked off Australia's west coast within 50 nautical miles of a sensitive defence facility, Australia said on Friday, raising concern amid an election campaign about China's behaviour in the region.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Chinese navy vessel was not in Australian territorial waters but its presence was "concerning".

"It is clearly an intelligence ship and they are looking at us and we're keeping a close eye on them," he told reporters.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s defense minister said Friday that a Chinese warship with spying capabilities had been hugging the nation’s western coastline in what amounted to an “aggressive act.”

Minister Peter Dutton said the ship was sighted Friday morning heading north about 250 nautical miles from Broome in Western Australia, and had been tracked along the coastline for the past week.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A Chinese ambassador says China’s engagement with South Pacific island countries poses no threat to Australia, responding to fears that Beijing will establish a military foothold in the Solomon Islands.

China’s envoy to Australia, Xiao Qian, attempted to reassure his host nation in a newspaper opinion piece published Thursday as reports emerged of a planned trip by a high-level Chinese delegation to the Solomons following the completion of a bilateral security pact.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand will reopen its borders to tourists from all countries by July, allow back cruise ships and make it easier for skilled workers to immigrate as it looks outward to the world again following the COVID-19 pandemic, the government said Wednesday.

New Zealand imposed some of the world’s strictest border controls when COVID-19 first hit more than two years ago. That allowed the nation of 5 million to eliminate several virus outbreaks and get vaccination rates up before the omicron variant swept through this year.

07 May 2022; MEMO: In further indication of the growing support for Palestine in campuses across the world, Melbourne University Students' Union (UMSU) recently passed a resolution -10 to 6- endorsing the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

SYDNEY, May 4. /TASS/: Australia’s government introduced targeted economic sanctions against 110 citizens of Russia, the LPR and DPR over the situation in Ukraine, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne said in a statement published on Wednesday on the ministry’s website.

SYDNEY, May 3 (Reuters) - A Fiji court ruled on Tuesday that the United States can seize a Russian-owned superyacht, 21 days after it arrived and was impounded by police, as the United States and its allies press Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. authorities assert that the luxury vessel, the Amadea, is ultimately owned by Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, who has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union.