New Zealand

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — Conservative former businessman Christopher Luxon will be New Zealand’s next prime minister after winning a decisive election victory Saturday.

People voted for change after six years of a liberal government led for most of that time by Jacinda Ardern.

The exact makeup of Luxon’s government is still to be determined as ballots continued to be counted.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — From Sunday, workers at the main United States base in Antarctica will no longer be able to walk into a bar and order a beer, after the federal agency that oversees the research program decided to stop serving alcohol.

McMurdo Station will not be going entirely dry, the National Science Foundation confirmed. Researchers and support staff will still be able to buy a weekly ration of alcohol from the station store. But the policy shift could prove significant because the bars have been central to social life in the isolated environment.

WELLINGTON, Aug 16 (NNN-XINHUA) – New Zealand continues to crack down on organised crime with the largest ever meth bust, seizing nearly three-quarters of a tonne of methamphetamine.

Police Minister, Ginny Andersen, said today that, it was possibly the largest ever meth bust in New Zealand, with a provisional total of 746.9 kg seized during the search warrant in Manukau, Auckland, in March.

“Methamphetamine destroys lives and wreaks havoc on our communities,” she said, adding that, this will also deal a significant financial blow to gangs and organised criminals.

WELLINGTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese citizen was injured in Thursday's deadly shooting in New Zealand's Auckland, a spokesman for the Chinese Consulate General in Auckland said on Friday.

The conditions of the Chinese are stable, the spokesman told Xinhua.

The Auckland police Friday afternoon informed the consulate on the injured person, following which, consulate officials went to the hospital to learn about the conditions, said the spokesman.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Sarah Leslie thought she was witnessing a stunt when she saw an American soldier start sprinting toward North Korea.

Leslie and her father, tourists from New Zealand, were part of a group that left Tuesday morning from Seoul to visit the Demilitarized Zone that divides South and North Korea.

Private 2nd Class Travis King was among the group of 43 tourists, Leslie told The Associated Press, although he was casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and she had no idea at the time that he was a soldier, or in legal trouble.

WELLINGTON, July 18 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand scientists have called for releasing a national food strategy to promote a healthy, environment-friendly diet following the release of new international dietary guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

"We urgently need a National Food Strategy for New Zealand, which has the potential to ensure a secure, sustainable food supply with less detrimental effects on the environment and climate, and which would provide a much greater benefit to human health than is the case at present," they said.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Britain on Sunday officially joined an Asia-Pacific trade group that includes Japan and 10 other nations during a meeting in New Zealand.

The trade bloc covers more than 500 million people and 15% of the world’s economy. For Britain, it represents the largest trade deal it has struck since leaving the European Union more than three years ago.

WELLINGTON, Jun 30 (NNN-XINHUA) – New Zealand’s major supermarkets have been preparing for the second phase of the national plastics ban, starting from tomorrow, which will see the phase-out of more single-use plastics.

The second round will ban plastic produce bags and stickers, plates, bowls, cutlery, and straws, according to the Ministry for Environment’s website, released today.

Those plastics will be taken off the shelves from tomorrow, with businesses to be possibly fined up to 100,000 NZ dollars (60,853 U.S. dollars) if they do not comply.

WELLINGTON, Jun 12 (NNN-XINHUA) – Marine heatwaves have become longer, stronger, and more frequent across coastal New Zealand since 1982, especially over the last 10 years, according to a research today.

Different regions experienced more marine heatwaves in different seasons, with the greatest increases observed in the Chatham islands in winter, central New Zealand in autumn, north-eastern New Zealand in summer and autumn, and Bounty and Antipodes Islands in spring, according to the research published on the New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research.

WELLINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - New Zealand's national radio broadcaster has launched an investigation and put a staff member on leave after it said a series of news stories on its website about Russia's invasion of Ukraine had been edited to present "a false account of events".

Radio New Zealand (RNZ), which is government-funded but has editorial independence, had by Sunday corrected 15 stories on its website dating back to April 2022 because of what it termed "inappropriate editing".