New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark called elections for Nov. 8, tying her claim to a historic fourth term in New Zealand to strong environmental credentials amid a faltering economy and rising support for the conservative opposition.
Already among the longest-serving elected women leaders in the world, Clark is hoping she can extend her nine years in office for another three years and equal the record for New Zealand’s longest-serving leader in a century.
“I do believe the future of New Zealand is at stake,” Clark told a news conference yesterday at which she announced the election date. “I believe that Labour has shown through its record in office that we can be trusted with the future of New Zealand.”
Clark, 58, faces an uphill battle, with recent opinion polls showing that the conservative National Party has its best chance in a decade of winning the elections in the South Pacific nation of about 4.3 million people.
John Key, the 47-year-old head of the National Party, is a multimillionaire former investment banker and currency trader with a fresh team that includes only a few former ministers from its time in government in the 1990s.
Trailing the National Party by 10 points in recent polls, Clark’s center-left government is suffering from voter fatigue after nine years in power, amid a widespread feeling that change is needed.
Despite presiding over the longest period of growth in a generation, Labour is going into the election with the economy in recession and facing “a difficult” next two years, the nation’s central bank said.
Clark’s government is being blamed in part for the economic downturn, and has been hit by scandals including campaign finance investigations into Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who leads a party that supports the ruling coalition.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese