Tag Archives: New Zealand

6.2 Earthquake near New Zealand

Mathew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Important Takeaways:

  • 2 Magnitude Earthquake Detected Off New Zealand Coast
  • Wellington: The US Geological Survey on Wednesday reported a 6.2-magnitude earthquake off New Zealand’s southern coast, near the mostly uninhabited Auckland Islands.
  • New Zealand’s GeoNet monitoring agency said the epicenter was 33 kilometers (21 miles) below the earth’s surface. There was no immediate tsunami warning and no reports of damage on the New Zealand mainland.

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5.7 earthquake strikes near New Zealand after cyclone

Mathew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Important Takeaways:

  • Strong earthquake shakes New Zealand
  • The temblor hit the Cook Strait off the coast of the capital Wellington at 7:38 p.m. local time, the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding it was at a depth of 46 miles.
  • The USGS said it was a 5.7 magnitude strike while its New Zealand counterpart, GeoNet, registered it as a magnitude 6.1.
  • More than 61,000 people reported experiencing the temblor, GeoNet said, explaining that the depth it hit means “it was felt more widely and strongly.”
  • A second earthquake, this one a magnitude 4.0, was registered at 8 p.m. near Taumarunui, which is about 227 miles north of Wellington.
  • No tsunami warning has been issued.
  • The earthquakes hit as New Zealand combats the effects of a cyclone that wreaked havoc on the North Island this week.
  • On Tuesday, the country declared a National State of Emergency for only the third time in its history.
  • “It is already a really stressful time for people

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Volcano near Tonga has erupted eight times in 48 hours as warning levels are raised

  • NEW ZEALAND RAISES ALERT LEVEL ON TAUPO SUPERVOLCANO, WHICH CAUSED THE LARGEST ERUPTION ON EARTH IN THE PAST 5,000 YEARS
  • A volcano north of Tonga’s main island has erupted eight times in the past 48 hours, according to the Pacific nation’s geological service, which has warned mariners to keep their distance Tuesday.
  • The Home Reef volcano has been erupting for the past 10 days, oozing molten lava and shooting steam and ash at least three kilometers (almost two miles) into the air.
  • Home Reef’s eruption currently poses a low risk to “residents of Vava’u and Ha’apai” — two of Tonga’s most populated islands
  • But warning levels were raised by one notch Tuesday as the pace of eruptions quickened.
  • Mariners have been told not to sail closer than four kilometers
  • Pilots have been warned to take caution when flying through airspace near the volcano

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New Zealand to ban cigarette sales for future generations

(Reuters) -New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world’s toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long.

People aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes in the Pacific country of five million, part of proposals unveiled on Thursday that will also curb the number of retailers authorized to sell tobacco and cut nicotine levels in all products.

“We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth,” New Zealand Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall said in a statement.

“If nothing changes, it would be decades till Māori smoking rates fall below 5%, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind.”

Currently, 11.6% of all New Zealanders aged over 15 smoke, a proportion that rises to 29% among indigenous Maori adults, according to government figures.

The government will consult with a Maori health task force in the coming months before introducing legislation into parliament in June next year, with the aim of making it law by the end of 2022.

The restrictions would then be rolled out in stages from 2024, beginning with a sharp reduction in the number of authorized sellers, followed by reduced nicotine requirements in 2025 and the creation of the “smoke-free” generation from 2027.

The package of measures will make New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry one of the most restricted in the world, just behind Bhutan where cigarette sales are banned outright. New Zealand’s neighbor Australia was the first country in the world to mandate plain packaging of cigarettes in 2012.

The New Zealand government said while existing measures like plain packaging and levies on sales had slowed tobacco consumption, the tougher steps were necessary to achieve its goal of fewer than 5% of the population smoking daily by 2025.

The new rules would halve the country’s smoking rates in as few as 10 years from when they take effect, the government said.

Smoking kills about 5,000 people a year in New Zealand, making it one of the country’s top causes of preventable death. Four in five smokers started before age 18, the country’s government said.

Vaping, often seen as a safer alternative to smoking and a useful aid to quitting, is also tightly regulated with sales only allowed to over 18s.

“CRIME WAVE”

Health authorities welcomed the crackdown, while retailers and tobacco companies expressed concern about the impact on their businesses and warned of the emergence of a black market.

“We welcome the New Zealand government’s recognition that excessive excise increases disproportionately impact smokers on lower incomes,” tobacco group Imperial Brands said, adding it was concerned about proposals to reduce nicotine levels and eventually prohibit sales.

“Prohibitions of any kind tend to play into the hands of criminal traders who peddle unregulated illicit products,” it also said.

Dunhill maker British American Tobacco (BAT) and Marlboro maker Philip Morris, which has previously said it would stop sales in the country if required by law, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to brokerage Citi, BAT is the market leader in New Zealand, with a 67% share by volume, while Imperial Brands, which sells JPS, Riverstone and Horizon cigarettes, accounts for 21%, generating about 1-2% of its group earnings before taxes.

The government did not detail how the new rules would be policed or whether they would apply to visitors to the country.

“Cigarette smoking kills 14 New Zealanders every day and two out of three smokers will die as a result of smoking,” said New Zealand Medical Association chair Alistair Humphrey in a statement.

“This action plan offers some hope of realizing our 2025 Smokefree Aotearoa goal, and keeping our tamariki (Maori children) smoke free.”

However, the Dairy and Business Owners Group, a lobby group for local convenience stores, said while it supported a smoke-free country, the government’s plan would destroy many businesses.

“This is all 100 per cent theory and zero per cent substance,” the group’s chairman, Sunny Kaushal, told Stuff.co.nz. “There’s going to be a crime wave. Gangs and criminals will fill the gap with ciggie houses alongside tinnie houses.”

(Reporting by Byron Kaye in Sydney and Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru; editing by Jane Wardell, Kirsten Donovan)

New Zealand should only reopen border in early 2022, panel advises

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand should keep its borders shut until early 2022 and reopen only after the vast majority of its adults have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, a government-appointed panel said on Wednesday.

It said the country, which last reported a local case of COVID-19 transmission in February, needs to stick to its strategy of eliminating the virus to avoid straining its health system, with the virus rapidly mutating overseas.

“The advisory group considers that an elimination strategy is not only viable, but also the best option at this stage of the pandemic,” the panel said in a report.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has won global plaudits for containing local transmission of COVID-19 through tough lockdowns and shutting the border in March 2020. The country has recorded just 2,500 cases and 26 deaths.

The government is set to announce plans this week for reopening, based on the experts’ advice.

“The challenge of dealing with regular importations of the virus through our borders should not be underestimated,” the panel said in a report.

“Hence we support the idea that re-opening of the borders in 2022 should start in a carefully planned, phased way…”

The panel recommended New Zealand’s vaccination program should be completed before reopening. So far only 21% of the country has been fully vaccinated.

“We need to do more to further strengthen our borders and bolster our health defenses, including through the vaccine rollout, before we can safely open the border further, and that will take a little more time to properly prepare,” Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall said in a statement.

She said the panel’s advice had evolved due to the emergence of the highly infectious Delta variant.

Businesses and public sectors facing worker shortages have called for a more rapid opening up, but the panel said that would make the country vulnerable to infection.

Ardern last week opened one-way quarantine-free travel for seasonal workers from Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu to address labor shortages in the horticulture industry.

New Zealand suspended a quarantine-free travel “bubble” with Australia in July following outbreaks of the Delta variant there.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Writing by Sonali Paul; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

U.S. and allies accuse China of global hacking spree

By Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and its allies accused China on Monday of a global cyberespionage campaign, mustering an unusually broad coalition of countries to publicly call out Beijing for hacking.

The United States was joined by NATO, the European Union, Britain, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Canada in condemning the spying, which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said posed “a major threat to our economic and national security.”

Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of Justice charged four Chinese nationals – three security officials and one contract hacker – with targeting dozens of companies, universities and government agencies in the United States and abroad.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chinese officials have previously said China is also a victim of hacking and opposes all forms of cyberattacks.

While a flurry of statements from Western powers represent a broad alliance, cyber experts said the lack of consequences for China beyond the U.S. indictment was conspicuous. Just a month ago, summit statements by G7 and NATO warned China and said it posed threats to the international order.

Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, called Monday’s announcement a “successful effort to get friends and allies to attribute the action to Beijing, but not very useful without any concrete follow-up.”

Some of Monday’s statements even seemed to pull their punches. While Washington and its close allies such as the United Kingdom and Canada held the Chinese state directly responsible for the hacking, others were more circumspect.

NATO merely said that its members “acknowledge” the allegations being leveled against Beijing by the U.S., Canada, and the UK. The European Union said it was urging Chinese officials to rein in “malicious cyber activities undertaken from its territory” – a statement that left open the possibility that the Chinese government was itself innocent of directing the espionage.

The United States was much more specific, formally attributing intrusions such as the one that affected servers running Microsoft Exchange earlier this year to hackers affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security. Microsoft had already blamed China.

U.S. officials said the scope and scale of hacking attributed to China has surprised them, along with China’s use of “criminal contract hackers.”

“The PRC’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) has fostered an ecosystem of criminal contract hackers who carry out both state-sponsored activities and cybercrime for their own financial gain,” Blinken said.

U.S. security and intelligence agencies outlined more than 50 techniques and procedures that “China state-sponsored actors” use against U.S. networks, a senior administration official said.

Washington in recent months has focused heavy attention on Russia in accusing Russian hackers of a string of ransomware attacks in the United States.

The senior administration official said U.S. concerns about Chinese cyber activities have been raised with senior Chinese officials. “We’re not ruling out further action to hold the PRC accountable,” the official said.

The United States and China have already been at loggerheads over trade, China’s military buildup, disputes about the South China Sea, a crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong and treatment of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.

Blinken cited the Justice Department indictments as an example of how the United States will impose consequences.

The defendants and officials in the Hainan State Security Department, a regional state security office, tried to hide the Chinese government’s role in the information theft by using a front company, according to the indictment.

The campaign targeted trade secrets in industries including aviation, defense, education, government, health care, biopharmaceutical and maritime industries, the Justice Department said.

Victims were in Austria, Cambodia, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“These criminal charges once again highlight that China continues to use cyber-enabled attacks to steal what other countries make, in flagrant disregard of its bilateral and multilateral commitments,” Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the statement.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, David Shepardson, Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)

Hundreds evacuated in New Zealand’s Canterbury region floods

By Praveen Menon

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Hundreds of people were evacuated overnight and many more face the risk of abandoning their homes in New Zealand’s Canterbury region as heavy rains raised water levels and caused widespread flooding.

At least 300 homes in Canterbury were evacuated overnight as water levels rose in rivers across the region in a “one-in-100-year deluge,” local media reports said on Monday.

Several highways, schools and offices were closed and New Zealand’s Defense Forces deployed helicopters to rescue some people stranded in floods in the Ashburton area.

Ashburton’s Mayor Neil Brown said “half of Ashburton” would need to be evacuated if the river’s levees broke but there was “still quite a bit of capacity” in the river.

“We need it to stop raining to let those rivers drop,” said Brown, according to the New Zealand Herald.

New Zealand’s MetService had issued a red warning on Sunday for heavy rain for Canterbury and multiple warnings elsewhere.

The government announced NZ$100,000 ($72,500) towards a Mayoral Relief Fund to support Canterbury communities impacted by the flooding, Kris Faafoi, the acting minister for emergency management said in a statement.

“While it is still very early to know the full cost of the damage, we expect it to be significant and this initial contribution will help those communities to start to get back on their feet,” said Faafoi.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; editing by Diane Craft)

New Zealanders urged to evacuate after third earthquake triggers tsunami warnings

By Praveen Menon

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Tsunami warning sirens sounded on Friday and thousands of New Zealanders on the North Island’s east coast evacuated to higher ground after a third earthquake.

Workers, students and residents fled in areas like Northland and Bay of Plenty. Civil defense officials were on the ground to help people evacuate as authorities said tsunami waves could reach three meters (10 feet) above tide levels.

The latest quake had a magnitude of 8.1 and struck the Kermadec Islands, northeast of New Zealand’s North Island. This came shortly after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in the same region. Earlier, a large 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck about 900 kilometers (540 miles) away on the east of the North Island. There were no reports of damage or casualties from the quakes.

New Zealand’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said the first waves would arrive on New Zealand’s north shores by about 9:45 a.m. It said areas under threat were from the Bay of Islands to Whangarei, from Matata to Tolaga Bay including Whakatane and Opotiki, and the Great Barrier Island.

“We want everyone to take this threat seriously. Move to high ground,” Whangarei Mayor Sheryl Mai told state broadcaster TVNZ.

Warnings were also issued for other Pacific islands like Tonga, American Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, Hawaii and others.

Australia issued a marine tsunami threat for Norfolk Island but said there was no threat to the mainland. Chile said it could experience a minor tsunami.

The 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck off the east of New Zealand’s North Island was felt by more than 60,000 people across the country with many describing the shaking as “severe”. Aftershocks were still being recorded in the area.

“People near the coast in the following areas must move immediately to the nearest high ground, out of all tsunami evacuation zones, or as far inland as possible. DO NOT STAY AT HOME,” NEMA said on Twitter.

“The earthquake may not have been felt in some of these areas, but evacuation should be immediate as a damaging tsunami is possible,” it added.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon in Wellington and Byron Kaye in Sydney; Editing by Nick Macfie, Chizu Nomiyama, Daniel Wallis and Cynthia Osterman)

Nearly 100 whales die after mass stranding in New Zealand

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – About 100 pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins have died in a mass stranding on the remote Chatham Islands, about 800 km (497 miles) off New Zealand’s east coast, officials said on Wednesday.

Most of them were stranded during the weekend but rescue efforts have been hampered by the remote location of the island.

New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) said in total 97 pilot whales and three dolphins died in the stranding, adding that they were notified of the incident on Sunday.

“Only 26 of the whales were still alive at this point, the majority of them appearing very weak, and were euthanized due to the rough sea conditions and almost certainty of there being great white sharks in the water which are brought in by a stranding like this,” said DOC Biodiversity Ranger Jemma Welch.

Mass strandings are reasonably common on the Chatham Islands with up to 1,000 animals dying in a single stranding in 1918.

Mass whale strandings have occurred throughout recorded modern history, and why it happens is a question that has puzzled marine biologists for years.

In late September, several hundred whales died in shallow waters off the Australian coast in one of the world’s biggest mass whale strandings.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

Factbox: Latest on the worldwide spread of coronavirus

(Reuters) – Coronavirus infections slowed in Australia and New Zealand, while Britain said it was at a “tipping point” on COVID-19 as European countries mulled tightening restrictions to curb a sharp resurgence in cases.

EUROPE

* Britain is at a tipping point on COVID-19, health minister Matt Hancock said, warning that a second national lockdown could be imposed if people don’t follow government rules designed to stop the spread of the virus.

* The Czech government could declare a state of emergency if a recent spike in cases continues in the coming days, Health Minister Adam Vojtech said.

* Protesters in some poorer areas of Madrid that are facing a lockdown to stem a soaring infection rate took to the streets on Sunday to call for better health provisions, complaining of discrimination by the authorities.

* Russia reported 6,148 new cases on Sunday, the second straight day when the daily number of cases exceeded 6,000.

* French health authorities reported 10,569 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday, down from the previous day’s record increase of 13,498.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Schools in Seoul and nearby areas resumed in-person classes for the first time in almost a month after daily cases dropped to the lowest levels since mid-August.

* Australia’s coronavirus hotspot of Victoria reported on Monday its lowest daily rise in infections in three months, although state Premier Daniel Andrews said there were no plans yet to ease restrictions sooner than expected.

* New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern lifted all coronavirus restrictions across the country, except in second-wave hotspot Auckland, as the number of new infections slowed to a trickle.

AMERICAS

* The United States set a one-day record with over 1 million coronavirus diagnostic tests being performed, but the country needs 6 million to 10 million a day to bring outbreaks under control, according to various experts.

* Brazil and Argentina, Latin American nations seeking more time to commit to the global COVID-19 vaccine facility known as COVAX, said they intend to do so as soon as possible after missing Friday’s deadline.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Morocco signed a deal with Russia’s R-Pharm to buy a COVID-19 vaccine produced under a license from Britain’s AstraZeneca, the health ministry said, as its total number of cases approached 100,000.

* Israel entered a second nationwide lockdown at the onset of the Jewish high-holiday season, forcing residents to stay mostly at home amid a resurgence in new cases.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Moderna Inc said it was on track to produce 20 million doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, while maintaining its goal of readying 500 million to 1 billion doses in 2021.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* British manufacturers see no evidence of a ‘V’-shaped recovery from the pandemic underway and many are planning to slash investment, a business survey showed.

(Compiled by Devika Syamnath and Alex Richardson; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta)