WELLINGTON: When recently returned New Zealander Lara Barclay talked to fellow Kiwi expatriates in Australia, it was her country’s success in tackling coronavirus that came up again and again and the crisis role of prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
Support from New Zealand’s million-strong diaspora — equal to a fifth of the country’s resident population — could prove a surprise boost for Ardern as the Labour Party leader seeks re-election at an Oct. 17 poll.
“They thought New Zealand’s response was fantastic,” said Barclay, a victim support worker. “Every New Zealander I knew in Australia bar one ... were super impressed by New Zealand’s response and by Jacinda.”
Labour is widely expected to retain power next month and hopes to rule without the support of a coalition partner, although the opposition National Party has been clawing back support in recent polls.
Overseas polling began on Wednesday, but a big unknown is how many expatriates will actually vote.
Just 10% of eligible overseas voters cast their vote in the last election in 2017, but analysts say Ardern’s global profile from her promotion of issues such as social justice and equality, may draw more support.
“Ardern’s got on to the front pages of world media and has been covered in way that no other New Zealand prime minister has been before,” said Geoffrey Miller, analyst at the political website Democracy Project.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if more New Zealanders living overseas decide to vote for Ardern, or may be just decide to vote in general,” he said.
Tough restrictions to contain coronavirus limited New Zealand’s total cases to less than 1,500 and just 25 deaths, far fewer than other developed nations, and the virus is largely contained.
The quick crisis response follows plaudits for 40-year-old Ardern’s compassionate and inclusive response to an attack by a white supremacist at two mosques as well as a fatal volcanic eruption.
She is even tipped as a front runner to win the Nobel Peace prize, according to a UK betting agency.
DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES
Ardern won’t have it all her own way. Analysts say Labour has largely failed on its big ticket policy promises like providing affordable housing, reforming tax and building key infrastructure.
She faces National Party leader Judith Collins, known as “Crusher Collins’ for her tough-talking personality, who took over as leader in July.
Collins, 61, is a seasoned politician well known to the electorate, who is mostly associated with issues such as law and order, and infrastructure.
She has made efforts to connect more strongly with the farming community, but her appeal remains local while Ardern is known for how she portrays New Zealand to the world, said Richard Shaw, of Massey University.
“Ardern has turned that feeling right up to maximum volume, while Collins does not get any play in that space,” Shaw said.
About 67,000 New Zealand voters have so far enrolled overseas, election officials said. This compares with about 61,000 who voted in the 2017 election, out of about 2.6 million votes in total.
Voters still have until mid-October to register and referendums on legalizing cannabis and euthanasia could encourage more to take part. The majority of those enrolled are in Australia, at nearly 60%, followed by the UK at 17% and more than 6% in the United States.
With the latest polls showing support for Labour at 47%, Ardern has urged New Zealanders in Australia to vote.
“Every single vote counts, including those Kiwis in Australia,” she told broadcaster Channel Nine. “They’re almost the equivalent to a seat.”
Expatriate New Zealanders seen boosting Ardern’s election bid
Expatriate New Zealanders seen boosting Ardern’s election bid
Pakistan test fires ballistic missile as tensions with India spike after Kashmir gun massacre
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan test-fired Saturday a ballistic missile as tensions with India spiked over last week’s deadly attack on tourists in the disputed Kashmir region.
The surface-to-surface missile has a range of 450 kilometers (about 280 miles), the Pakistani military said.
The launch of the Abdali Weapon System was aimed at ensuring the “operational readiness of troops and validating key technical parameters,” including the missile’s advanced navigation system and enhanced manoeuvrability features, according to a statement from the military.
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated the scientists, engineers and those behind the successful missile test.
Russia declares state of emergency at port after Ukrainian drone attack on Novorossiysk
- There was no immediate comment from Ukraine
MOSCOW: The mayor of the Russian port city of Novorossiysk declared a state of emergency on Saturday after he said a Ukrainian drone attack had damaged residential buildings and injured at least five people, including two children.
Andrei Kravchenko, the mayor, announced his decision on his official Telegram account which showed him inspecting the damage to apartment buildings and giving orders to officials.
Kravchenko said one of the injured people, a woman, was in hospital in a serious situation.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, whose air force said Russia had attacked Ukraine overnight with 183 drones and two ballistic missiles.
US worker safety agency notifies employees of firings
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration sent termination notices late on Friday to employees of a worker health and safety agency that provides research and services for coal miners, firefighters and others, despite appeals by a lawmaker from Trump’s Republican Party to preserve its programs.
Employees of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health received reduction-in-force notices that said the job losses were necessary to reshape the workforce of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a copy of the notices reviewed by Reuters.
Nearly all NIOSH employees were placed on administrative leave in February but around 40 who worked on coal-mining and firefighter safety were asked to return temporarily to work several days ago, the union for the agency’s employees said. At least two of those employees have now been notified of termination.
US Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, had lobbied Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore the programs, including the coal-focused work of its Morgantown, West Virginia, office.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIOSH, did not immediately respond to a request for comment after regular business hours. A spokesperson earlier this week said NIOSH’s functions would join the new Administration for a Healthy America, alongside multiple agencies. It was not clear whether any of the terminated employees would be transferred elsewhere.
Reuters reported last month that the halting of NIOSH’s key services ended vital health and safety programs for coal miners, such as mobile health and lung screenings, and a program to relocate miners afflicted with black lung disease to less dusty parts of a mine.
There has been a resurgence of black lung disease in the last decade, including among young coal miners. At the same time, President Donald Trump has led a high-profile campaign to revive coal mining and use, which had been declining in the US.
Lives on hold in India’s border villages with Pakistan
- Relations between the neighbors have plummeted after India accused Pakistan of backing an attack in disputed Kashmir region
- Islamabad has rejected the charge of aiding gunmen who killed 26 people, with both countries since exchanging diplomatic barbs
SAINTH: On India’s heavily fortified border with arch-rival Pakistan, residents of farming villages have sent families back from the frontier, recalling the terror of the last major conflict between the rival armies.
Those who remain in the farming settlement of Sainth, home to some 1,500 people along the banks of the broad Chenab river, stare across the natural division between the nuclear-armed rivals fearing the future.
“Our people can’t plan too far ahead,” said Sukhdev Kumar, 60, the village’s elected headman.
“Most villagers here don’t invest beyond a very basic house,” he added.
“For who knows when a misdirected shell may fall from the other side and ruin everything?”
Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors have plummeted after India accused Pakistan of backing the worst attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir in years.
Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men accused of carrying out the April 22 attack at Pahalgam — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organization.
Islamabad has rejected the charge of aiding gunmen who killed 26 people, with both countries since exchanging diplomatic barbs including expelling each other’s citizens.
India’s army said Saturday its troops had exchanged gunfire with Pakistani soldiers overnight along the de facto border with contested Kashmir — which it says has taken place every night since April 24.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, with both governing part of the disputed territory separately and claiming it in its entirety.
Sainth, with its open and lush green fields, is in the Hindu-majority part of Indian-run Jammu and Kashmir.
Security is omnipresent.
Large military camps dot the main road, with watchtowers among thick bushes.
Kumar said most families had saved up for a home “elsewhere as a backup,” saying that only around a third of those with fields remained in the village.
“Most others have moved,” he said.
The region was hit hard during the last major conflict with Pakistan, when the two sides clashed in 1999 in the high-altitude Himalayan mountains further north at Kargil.
Vikram Singh, 40, who runs a local school, was a teenager at the time.
He remembers the “intense mortar shelling” that flew over their heads in the village — with some exploding close by.
“It was tense then, and it is tense now,” Singh told AFP.
“There is a lot to worry since the attack at Pahalgam... The children are scared, the elderly are scared — everyone is living in fear.”
International pressure has been piled on both New Delhi and Islamabad to settle their differences through talks.
The United States has called for leaders to “de-escalate tensions,” neighboring China urged “restraint,” with the European Union warning Friday that the situation was “alarming.
On the ground, Singh seemed resigned that there would be some fighting.
“At times, we feel that war must break out now because, for us, it is already an everyday reality,” he said.
“We anyways live under the constant threat of shelling, so, maybe if it happens, we’d get to live peacefully for a decade or two afterwards.”
There has been a flurry of activity in Trewa, another small frontier village in Jammu.
“So far, the situation is calm — the last cross-border firing episode was in 2023,” said Balbir Kaur, 36, the former village head.
But the villagers are preparing, clearing out concrete shelters ready for use, just in case.
“There were several casualties due to mortar shelling from Pakistan in the past,” she said.
“We’ve spent the last few days checking our bunkers, conducting drills, and going over our emergency protocols, in case the situation worsens,” she added.
Kaur said she backed New Delhi’s stand, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing “to punish every terrorist and their backer” and to “pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”
Dwarka Das, 65, a farmer and the head of a seven-member family, has lived through multiple India-Pakistan conflicts.
“We’re used to such a situation,” Das said.
“During the earlier conflicts, we fled to school shelters and nearby cities. It won’t be any different for us now.”
Woman dies when a bomb she is carrying explodes in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, police say
ATHENS: A woman was killed early Saturday in the northern Greek city of Thessaoloniki when a bomb she was carrying exploded in her hands, police said.
The 38-year-old woman was apparently was carrying the bomb to place it outside a nearby bank around 5 a.m., police said.
Several storefronts and vehicles were damaged by the explosion.
The woman was known to authorities after taking part in several past robberies, according to police, who said they are investigating her possible ties to extreme leftist groups.
