Arlene Paredes

Opposition against the publicised U.S. anti-piracy laws is also active in New Zealand, as Internet NZ and the Creative Freedom Foundation have joined Wikipedia in its English page blackout on Wednesday. A number of New Zealand websites are planning similar protests, Newstalk ZB reported.

In Fonterra’s latest online auction, where the average price increased and the winning price also hiked at US$3701 a tonne, the results bolstered the optimism of NZ economists.

Health authorities in Auckland have proposed a smoking ban in all public outdoor areas in the city saying the move will prevent the spread of the ill effects of second hand smoke, as well as the influence among children who are likely to pick up the habit.

There is only a 'vague possibility' that New Zealand would escape a recession considering Europe's worsening debt crisis, according to the country's analysts.

A 24-year-old university undergraduate was detained for police questioning after posting a status on Facebook about bombing Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's helicopter, according to a Malaysian news website.

Cavalier Corp.'s chief executive and managing director, Wayne Chung, is set to retire from his executive role at the company, while operations manager Colin McKenzie has been tapped to take on the lead role.

Robert William Brockbank and his instructor Sam La Bruna were found dead at the scene when their light aircraft crashed in a paddock after taking off from Mangalore Airport, 120km north of Melbourne on Saturday afternoon, APNZ reported.

Ports of Auckland workers warned against contracting jobs lest they will be compelled to leave the country, the Maritime Union says.

With a new CEO and a quadrupled budget, the New Zealand oil and gas industry is moving forward against growing opposition to modernized oil exploration, such as deep-sea drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

An 18-month-old boy was trapped in an elevator and survived the surreal ordeal. The toddler fell down a lift shaft, but held on to life by clinging to the side of the lift for 15 minutes as it continued to move up and down a building in Melbourne's southeast.

An Adelaide pathologist calls on mothers to let their babies sleep in their cribs and avoid couches as well as other soft surfaces. In an editorial published in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA), University of Adelaide forensic pathologist Professor Roger Byard said research confirmed adults sleeping beside a baby could increase risk of infant suffocation.

The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) has named twenty-seven companies from various industries as finalists in the 2012 New Zealand International Business Awards. NZTE Chief Executive Peter Chrisp expressed satisfaction over having 27 businesses representing a wide variety of industries and regions as finalists.

Over fifteen years since pinning infant epilepsy to a chromosome but failing to identify the gene responsible, Adelaide researchers have finally solved the mystery of the condition in infants. Infant epilepsy is caused by a single mutation in one gene, the scientists confirmed.

A Melbourne schoolgirl who was about to turn 15 years old next week had killed herself over intolerable bullying at school and online social networks. Sheniz Erkan, a Taylors Lakes Secondary College student, took her life on Monday after having suffered from schoolyard and cyberspace bullies. Her funeral is scheduled today.

When an emotional injury strikes, you feel your heart ache, but what does it mean to your physiological well-being? A recent study published on January 9 in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association has confirmed that a metaphorical broken heart is actually bad for the health.

The human brain naturally tends to maintain a more positive outlook, and that is the scientific explanation behind seeing the silver lining in every dark cloud. While this understanding leaves more questions unanswered, it does provide more awareness on the concept of “prediction error” and its role in a person’s optimism.

"Something snapped in me," says shamed chef Antony Worrall Thompson, who had gone on a shoplifting spree over the Christmas period, and arrested by the police on Friday based on evidence by a Tesco supermarket.

A leopard wandered off into a residential neighborhood in an Indian city and attacked people, killing a lawyer and injuring at least three others including a man who even tried to save the wild animal from getting killed.

Fertility treatments are seen as the main reason for the steady increase in twin births in New Zealand from 1980 until recent years, when the numbers have leveled off as treatments have presumably become more refined to reduce the probability of conceiving twins.

“What if the prophecies are true?” asks a Californian businessman known in the web for selling nuclear bomb and asteroid-proof clandestine bunkers.

It’s like watching Lucy and Aslan in the modern day Narnia, except it would not seem right to see Aslan the lion paw against a glass in any fictional Narnia. Three-year-old Sofia Walker was caught on video making friends with a roaring male lion more than thrice her size in New Zealand’s Wellington Zoo.

Woman spends a holiday in Ibiza, meets a man she finds interesting, shares a kiss with him, gives him her number, and begins talking to friends about him, but they never meet again. She begins to believe she may have given her a wrong number. Is it a subplot in a movie? No, it’s the real deal in the publicized love story of Julia Cross, a 33-year-old PR consultant who now lives in Clapham, South-West London.

What was supposed to be an exhilarating scenic trip up in the air turned into a tragedy when an ill-fated hot air balloon crashed at Carterton in New Zealand. The Cameron A-210 flight struck powerlines, resulting in a blaze that made the balloon plummet to the ground. Five couples were on board with pilot Lance Hopping, and they were all killed in the tragedy.

The ill-fated MV Rena has further split in two pieces in a bout of bad weather over the weekend, and the salvors estimate that only 20 per cent of its 200 to 300 containers could be saved now that the cargoes have been washed overboard.

Poisonous death cap mushrooms claimed the lives of two people at a New Year’s Eve party, said reports.

Drowning has claimed a third life in a matter of two days. A Perth toddler has died in a hospital after drowning in a backyard pool on New Year's Day. The 23-month-old toddler died several days after she was found partially submerged and unconscious in the family pool's skimmer box at about 11am on New Year's Day.

Three Australian soldiers have been wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan, reports said. The attack unfolded against the soldiers from Mentoring Task Force 3 during an operational mission on January 2, about 60 kilometres north-west of the Multi-National Base at Tarin Kowt in Oruzgan Province, the Australian Defence Force revealed in a statement on Thursday.

Many Kiwis are frustrated over the weather, as their summer holiday plans were not made with rain showers in mind. New Zealand is experiencing a rainy summer, and it is turning out to be one of the wettest summers the country has seen in recent years. In fact, more heavy rains are forecast to hit parts of the North Island this weekend.

Bay of Plenty is forecast to experience another episode of harsh weather over the weekend, making salvors worry about the fate of MV Rena, which is still stuck on a reef despite being split in two on the surface. Maritime officials, however, said they are prepared for the worst.