Oceania News

Former Pike River Coal boss Peter Whittall has been unemployed for two years, but his lawyer said today she was unsure if he planned to return to Australia now charges against him had been dropped.

Is foreign investment the evil it is made out to be? You'd be surprised at how many companies rely on it for capital raising.

It usually gets a run. This is likely given the ethnicity statistics recently released from our latest census.

The New Zealand Retailers Association has reiterated its call for GST to be applied to all online purchases after the boss of Australasian clothing seller Hallenstein Glasson criticised the "failure" of the tax systems on both sides of the Tasman to collect the consumer tax on sales from overseas websites.

As they emerged from their latest conclave in Singapore, groggy no doubt with fatigue, the trade ministers of the 12 Trans Pacific Partnership countries had no deal to brandish but claimed at least to have identified potential "landing zones" on most of the key outstanding issues.

CAR manufacturer Toyota has been dealt a crushing below to its Australian operations after a court ruling knocked back a bid to put a new pay deal to employees.

Domestically, polls show he's been a popular leader. But during each of his big moments on the international stage, he seems to attract another small insult that feeds into a wider anxiety among New Zealanders that their country just isn't much noticed or taken seriously.

The average price of a home in Metro is expected to jump by $35,000 to $800,000 next year, according to a just-released RE/MAX forecast.

The death of a toddler who was run over by a relative in a Rotorua driveway was a tragic accident, a coroner says.

New Zealand prosecutors have dropped charges against former Pike River Coal boss Peter Whittall over the 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners, including two Australians.

A TOTAL of $57, 034.55 was given to the Sigatoka District Hospital Board by the Coral Coast Fiji Hotels and Tourism Association.

The Australian Capital Territory, which includes the nation's capital of Canberra, legalized marriage equality earlier this year and it finally went into effect this weekend.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of the penal provision making gay sex an offence punishable with upto life imprisonment.

A veteran Waikato police officer who claims he was forced to resign after a pattern of bullying and threatening behaviour has been allowed to take a case against police.

A MURDERED Whyalla woman was sexually assaulted and bashed with a plastic chair by her alleged killer, a court has heard.

A 62-year-old man from Gooseberry Hill in Perth's east has pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material.

The winner of the Hillary portrait, which sold for $5600, says he will just "look at it and enjoy it".

EXCLUSIVE: More than eight in 10 people are not confident about giving first aid for bites or stings by a venomous creature.

Marle and Digger may be small and cute puppies, but make no mistake, warns their handler Matt Williams: these 18-week-old dingoes are wild animals that would never make suitable pets.

The findings were first revealed in the scientific journal Nature Thursday. The authors of the study say there's "mounting evidence" freshwater could be found globally.