Auckland Lantern Festival is being celebrated online this year after the physical version was cancelled due to New Zealand’s move to the red traffic light setting. The online programme, to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Tiger, is being launched today, which also happens to be Chinese New Year. The festival makes its online debut […]

Many have heard of Chinese New Year, but this is only part of an umbrella of Lunar New Year festivities celebrated by several East Asian and Southeast Asian communities across the country. Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the lunar calendar and this year, it falls on February 1. Tết Nguyên Đán, is the […]

Wang Xiaolong, the new Chinese ambassador to New Zealand, previously worked on his country’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Wang Xiaolong, who replaced former ambassador Wu Xi, previously served as director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s department of international economic affairs. In that role, Wang helped oversee the BRI – which seeks to deepen economic […]

About 5000 people have become residents under a fast-track government scheme launched last month, with migrants from India, South Africa, and Philippines topping the approvals. Britons were the next most common nationality – and a UK family-of-four are among those celebrating their permanent status. Michelle Shaw, her husband, Mic, and two children – Scarlett, 14, […]

The National Party says ordinary New Zealanders are bearing the brunt of the government’s extension to the bright-line test. In a bid to cool the housing market, the government doubled the length of time investors have to hold on to additional property to avoid paying tax when they sell. National’s revenue spokesperson Andrew Bayly says […]

A falling New Zealand dollar may bring more costs than benefits to the economy. The currency has fallen more than 8 percent over the past three months against the US dollar, and has been settling around a 15-month low at 65.3 US cents. The Reserve Bank’s preferred currency measure, the trade weighted index – a […]

The Labour leader’s approval has dropped to 35% as the country wrestles with the Omicron Covid variant and rising inflation While Ardern remains New Zealand’s preferred prime minister by a significant margin, her support had dropped four points in the latest 1 News Kantor poll, to 35%. The result is her lowest since just before […]

A leading epidemiologist says managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) is serving its purpose. The system has come under increasing criticism recently as people struggle to return to New Zealand through the MIQ lottery or on emergency grounds. Professor Michael Baker said while MIQ had done its job, it had come with some tough trade-offs. New […]

There are 91 new cases of Covid-19 in the community today, with the Ministry of Health saying Omicron is now the “dominant” variant in NZ. Ten people are in hospital with the virus – the average age of patients is 54. There are no cases in ICU or HDU. The Ministry of Health said because […]

A Covid-19 modeller is forecasting 200 community cases a day of the coronavirus by Wednesday and 400 daily cases by the end of the week. Te Pūnaha Matatini modeller Dr Dion O’Neale said because Omicron was in the mix, this week would mark a shift from the previous relatively low case numbers. “Almost every other […]