New Zealand yesterday said it was ready to sign a new cooperation deal with NATO, as the nation rethinks security in the face of regional tensions and growing Chinese military might.
New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said after a two-day visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels that a “partnership program” with the alliance would be agreed “in the coming months.”
Since the center-right coalition was elected in October last year, steadfastly independent New Zealand has looked to deepen military ties with “traditional” Western allies.
Photo: AP
“The coalition government has made clear the strong emphasis it places on cooperation with New Zealand’s traditional partners, and NATO is a big part of that,” Peters said.
New Zealand has had a partnership with NATO since 2012, but the new deal is expected to foster much closer strategic alignment.
Wellington is also looking at joining Australian, US and UK joint research into military use of artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons and other emerging technologies. Since World War II, New Zealand has been a part of the FiveEyes intelligence-sharing alliance with Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, but it has sometimes been an uneasy ally when it comes to military matters. Objections to nuclear weapons caused a decades-long defence pact with the US to be effectively mothballed in the 1980s.
Moreover, the nation’s dependence on trade with China — its largest commercial partner — has forced it to walk a fine diplomatic line between Beijing and Washington.
“New Zealand is playing a dangerous game,” said Geoffrey Miller, a geopolitical analyst at the Victoria University of Wellington.
Miller worries that signing a new tailored deal with NATO or joining AUKUS could be seen as a “red flag” by key trade partner China.
“At some point, China may simply snap back,” he said.
Peters is expected to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
RSS