Reissa Su

New Zealand celebrities joined protests against proposed laws that will remove the requirement of public consultation on applications for deep-sea gas and oil drilling activities. The proposed law will also abolish the right to conduct a protest at sea. Actors and celebrities like Lucy Lawless, Sam Neill, Robyn Malcom and Sir Ted Thomas, a former Supreme Court judge among others, supported the protests by Maori and environmental groups to urge New Zealand's government not to pass the law.

New Zealand's Labour Party has elected David Cunliffe as its new leader to run for the 2014 election and hopefully block Prime Minister John Key's plan to seek a third term in office. Mr Cunliffe won a caucus vote among affiliated unions and party members. The 50-year-old bested Maori Affairs spokesperson Shane Jones and deputy leader Grant Robertson for the position. David Cunliffe replaced David Shearer who left the Labour leadership vacant in August.

New Zealand’s Kakapo, a critically endangered species, has been named the second ugliest animal in the world in an online competition. The blobfish of the Pacific was voted the world’s ugliest animal in a contest organised by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. The winner of the ugliest animal competition was revealed at Newcastle’s British Science Festival.

The UFO allegedly seen over a Canadian baseball game turned out to be another hoax. However, it was said to be an unlikely hoax since it did not come from an individual or a group of geeks flying a remote-controlled object or device. The UFO spotted over a baseball game in Canada was only a drone deployed by a planetarium. The drone flying over Canada was not quite like the typical unmanned and armed military drone.

Australian Labour Party power broker Bill Shorten announced on Sept 12 that he will seek Labor leadership after the party's stinging loss to the Coalition's Tony Abbott in the recently concluded federal polls. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who lost to Mr Abbott in the elections, kept his Parliament seat but declined to become the party's leader. The Coalition's win marked the end of the Labor party's rule in Australia for six years.

Microsoft New Zealand leads TechEd event, the largest technology conference in New Zealand held in Auckland. Paul Muckleston, Microsoft NZ managing director, said the event has 2,500 delegates in attendance. Meanwhile, Microsoft New Zealand has announced it will give charities in New Zealand free software. In the TechEd event, Mr Muckleston revealed that almost 27,000 eligible charities in New Zealand will be given Microsoft Office 365 software as part of the company's Office 365 for Nonpro...

New Zealanders and Australians are among world's happiest people in the world. The United Nations World Happiness Report ranked New Zealand as 13th happiest country out of 156 nations while Australia ranked 10th place. A Kiwi psychologist, Christ Skellet, said that New Zealanders are happy because they have a "pioneering ethic" and a "can-do-attitude. " Most Kiwis also want to be more involved in the community and play a significant role in society. Australians have more reason...

Apple Inc's iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S were not impressive enough for investors as the expectations regarding the price of the new iPhone 5C was too costly for emerging markets even in China, the second largest economy in the world. Investors believed that Apple Inc, the world's most valuable company, had missed its chance to release a low-end or budget iPhone to increase sales in emerging markets particularly in Asia.

World War 3 may have been averted when US President Barack Obama has asked Congress to delay the vote on a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has expressed his intention to surrender all chemical weapons in its arsenal.

Microsoft's Bill Gates is on a mission to change the way history is being taught in high schools around the world. He has teamed up with Professor David Christian, an Australian academic who designed a course named Big History. The Big History course content centres on 14 billion years of Earth's history, from the Big Bang, the Internet and the world beyond. The Australian professor's history course will give students a wider view of the universe and the presence of humans in the cos...

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has vowed to let attackers of the Kiwi and Australian trekkers to face the death penalty. He condemned the PNG attack using knives and machetes in which two local guides were hacked to death.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key will be visiting Her Majesty, the Queen, at Balmoral Castle along with his wife and children. This will be John Key's fifth official visit to the Queen as prime minister of New Zealand. His trip to Balmoral Castle was scheduled for the later part of September.

Apple's Find My iPhone app has allowed its users to recover stolen iPhones, iPads and Macbooks. The app uses the location of the device to help owners track their stolen devices once they connect to the Internet. The Find My iPhone app was once again instrumental in recovering a stolen SUV. Apple's app helped the police know the location of the stolen vehicle with a 5-year-old child inside.

Samsung has overtaken Apple in the latest world Internet usage report. StatCounter has released data that reveal Samsung gaining leadership in mobile Internet browsing. While Apple continues to maintain its leadership as the most popular brand in mobile browsing, Samsung has caught up with Apple and took the lead in South America and Europe.

The United States and New Zealand have agreed to reduce the coverage of a proposed project involving the protection of an area in the Ross Sea of Antarctica. The two countries scaled back their plan to increase the chances of its international acceptance in a meeting on October. Meanwhile, scientists were shocked to discover life in the frozen lakebed of Antarctica. British Antarctic Survey researchers have proven that there is life even in the most extreme environmental conditions. A study pu...

The Australian government has confirmed the attack on a group of Australian trekkers in Papua New Guinea. Initial reports said the guides of the trekkers have been hacked to death. The trekkers were following the Black Cat track when a group of men armed with machetes and bush knives attacked them. Two Papua New Guinean guides were hacked to death and died instantly. The Black Cat track is located in the Morobe province of Papua New Guinea.

Apple Inc. has sent out invitations for its event at the company's Cupertino headquarters on Sept. 10 which is also the same date that Apple is rumoured to release the latest iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. Investors of Apple Inc. may be crossing their fingers since they are hoping the company will launch better and more innovative products than its closest competitor, Samsung Electronics, to boost the stock price to the $700 level.

A new study published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science suggested that men with bigger testicles tend to have poor parenting skills than fathers with smaller testicles. The findings of the study are correlational. Scientists can’t exactly explain why there is a connection with testicles and parenting skills.

Advertising regulators in Australia have banned the release of the Ella Bache ad for featuring naked models minus the smiles. It was not the nudity that offended the Australian regulator but the unsmiling faces of the three models. The regulator believed that the missing smiles make the models look “too arousing.”

A New Zealand baby diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer has been turned over to the New Zealand High Court and placed under its care. The parents of the 10-month old baby refused to get her blood transfusions for her cancer treatment. In August, doctors in New Zealand found a large tumour in the right side of the baby's chest. Doctors said the tumour was cancer and told the parents she had cancer in her bones. If she will be given blood transfusions for her treatment, she has a 90 per cent chance...

New Zealand's Fonterra has received a report that Russia has lifted its temporary ban on its dairy products. The Ministry of Primary Industries in New Zealand said some of Fonterra's milk products were now allowed back to Russia. While the agency was pleased with the news, it said there were some restrictions imposed on Fonterra to protect Russian consumers.

The countdown to World War 3 may happen soon enough as the US Congress prepares to approve or deny President Barack Obama’s proposal to strike Syria. A video posted on Youtube allegedly produced by the residents of Kafranbel, a village in northern Syria, sent a message for the world to see and called on the United States to strike Syria. Despite the possibility of Syria being Ground Zero of World War 3, the Syrian leader has vehemently denied knowledge of chemical weapons use against opposing ...

In a historic win in the recent Australia Elections 2013, Nova Peris has become the first aboriginal woman in the country to become a Parliament member. The former Olympian who also won a gold medal will occupy a place in the Senate as the representative of the Northern Territory with the Australian Labour Party supporting her.

Despite losing to the Coalition's Tony Abbott in Australia's recently concluded Federal Elections, Kevin Rudd and wife, Therese Rein, still found a reason to smile and laugh amidst the crowd of Labour supporters.For a group of Labour supporters who lost to the Opposition, they were not exactly crying because of Mr Rudd's harrowing defeat. It was a night of festivities in Brisbane on election night as what was supposed to be a campaign wake.

Now that Tony Abbott is the new Prime Minister of Australia, the relationship between Australia and New Zealand will remain the same, according to Prime Minister John Key. The New Zealand Labour party had a lot to learn from the Australian Labour party's loss to the Coalition in the recent elections. Shane Jones, David Cunliffe and Grant Robertson who are all in the running to succeed David Shearer after his exit as the party leader, should pay attention to what just happened in Australia.

According to the New Zealand Sovereign Wellbeing Index, most New Zealanders are depressed. The results of the recent study revealed the need to improve the country's mental health and well-being.

It's judgment day for Australians who will be casting their votes on today's federal elections 2013 in a contest between Australian Labor Party's Kevin Rudd, who is hoping for another fresh start, and the Coalition's Tony Abbott who has long sought the position of Prime Minister.

Chobani, the largest Greek yogurt manufacturer in the U.S., announced a recall of some yogurt cups said to contain molds after the company received several complaints of people getting sick after eating its products. According to Chobani, less than 5 per cent of its total yogurt production was discovered to contain molds. The contaminated batch of Chobani yogurt came from the company's facility in Idaho.

It was a miracle no one was killed in a massive vehicle collision involving 100 cars on UK's Sheppey Bridge due to heavy fog. The 100-car pile-up occurred along the Sheppey Crossing bridge on A249 in Kent. The pile up continued for 10 minutes as cars and trucks bumped into each other. Kent Police Chief Inspector Andy Reeves said he has never seen a huge pile of cars involved in a crash in 20 years. He also said everyone was lucky because nobody died from the accident.