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With New Zealand voting under MMP on November 7, Andy Loader argues that centre-right voters should think strategically about their two votes. Challenging calls from Christopher Luxon and John Key to give both votes to National, Loader contends that voters should back National electorate candidates while giving their party vote to ACT or NZ First, arguing that securing a centre-right parliamentary majority must come before protecting individual…

Britain is confronting an extraordinary surge in bluetongue, with confirmed cases in the first three months of the current season already four times higher than the previous three seasons combined. The outbreak carries no known risk to humans or food safety, but its scale raises questions for livestock-producing countries such as New Zealand about changing patterns of vector-borne animal disease INR Report: Based on reporting by RT HERE ·…

Russia’s Defence Ministry says it is stepping up strikes on Ukrainian military sites in response to Vladimir Zelensky’s threats against Russian oil refineries. Yemen’s Saudi-backed authorities announce plans to retake Houthi-held territory, as the Sanaa-based group claims a strike on a major Riyadh oil refinery complex. Iran says it will resist further aggression but remains open to diplomacy, offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if…

WikiLeaks transformed the relationship between governments, whistleblowers and the public by publishing primary-source documents on wars, surveillance, diplomacy and intelligence operations. Twenty years later, its legacy is inseparable from Julian Assange's prosecution and a question democracies have still not resolved: when classified information exposes wrongdoing, who should be punished, those who reveal it or those responsible for what it…

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu almost two years ago, yet he remains free to travel to countries prepared to receive him. The deeper issue is no longer simply Netanyahu's case, but whether international law can retain credibility when enforcement ultimately depends upon political decisions by individual states. INR Report: Based on reporting by RT HERE · American…

After years of extraordinary Western support for Ukraine, a former Polish prime minister is asking a question increasingly difficult to dismiss: where did all the money and equipment go? Leszek Miller's claim that Ukrainian officials are embezzling foreign assistance goes beyond what available evidence establishes, but documented corruption cases and acknowledged weaknesses in aid oversight make demands for greater accountability legitimate. INR…

Russia's Valdai forum presented a world in which Western dominance is giving way to a more contested international system centred on sovereign states, competing power centres and institutions such as BRICS. That is Russia's interpretation of the transition, not an established historical verdict, but the underlying shift matters greatly to New Zealand INR Report: Based on analysis by Timofey Bordachev for RT HERE · For most New Zealanders,…

Labour says its 2026 election promises are fully funded and independently reviewed. But New Zealand enters the election with weak productivity, rising debt, a falling dollar, high living costs and an economy dangerously exposed to imported energy and geopolitical shocks. Report by eLocal · Labour says its election programme is paid for. · Its fiscal plan contains about $24.5 billion of spending over five years, partly funded through almost $11…

Europe is rearming, NATO is reinforcing its eastern flank and Russia is warning that confrontation could escalate into nuclear war. Yet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says there is currently “no imminent threat to NATO territory.” As military preparations intensify on both sides, the critical question is whether Europe is deterring a future war, or creating the conditions in which miscalculation could start one. For New Zealand, already…

New Zealand's environmental policies are facing an unprecedented test under its free trade agreement with the European Union, after a Dutch environmental organisation lodged the first climate-related complaint through the EU's trade enforcement mechanism. The Government rejects the allegation, but the dispute raises a wider question for New Zealand: how much control over domestic environmental and energy policy was effectively constrained when…