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By Max Walden and Fiji reporter Lice Movono, ABC Fiji's coalition government continues to struggle at bringing democratic processes back after 16 years of dictatorship. (Supplied) Photo: ABC/Supplied Even by Fijian standards of high political drama, the arrest of the country's new anti-corruption commissioner on her first day in the job was extraordinary. The government announced Barbara Malimali's appointment as head of the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) in early September. By the next morning, she was being questioned by police after being detained on the direction of her own acting deputy commissioner, Francis Puleiwai. Barbara Malimali says she wants to be able to protect Fiji from corrupt public officials. (X: Fiji Women) Photo: X/Fiji Women Claims ...

Inspector-General Brendan Horsley. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson The spy agency watchdog has rejected a call for an inquiry into whether New Zealand spying is helping Israel's war in Gaza, but is not ruling out one in future. Three lawyers asked the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Brendan Horsleyfor an inquiry last month on the grounds GCSB and SIS may be aiding international crimes. But Horsley said he had already reviewed how the agencies assess human rights risks in their information sharing, which "provide reasonable safeguards". His ongoing tracking of this had found no legal or propriety issues, "for any intelligence sharing that could relate to current international conflicts, including the situation in Israel, Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, and the wider Middle East". H...

Photo: RNZ Explainer - It's a little under a month until the US presidential election, and if you've been paying attention, you'll be hearing an awful lot about the Electoral College. But what exactly is it? RNZ is here with what you need to know. The Electoral College is the key to determining who will be the next US President after the 5 November election - Republican former President Donald Trump or Democrat Vice-President Kamala Harris. What is the Electoral College? When Americans cast votes for Harris or Trump or other presidential candidates, they're also actually voting for 538 electors who, in a system laid out by the US Constitution, comprise the Electoral College - which is actually a process, not a place. Those electors cast their votes for president based on how their state'...

By Julio-Cesar Chavez and Octavio Jones for Reuters Contractors put plywood over windows of a building in Tampa on 8 October 2024 ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall. Photo: AFP Milton expected to grow in size before landfall, affecting hundreds of miles of coastline Evacuations ordered for over 1 million people in Florida's west-coast counties Milton forecast to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday Unusual path and rapid intensification raise concerns for storm-surge impact Huge storm comes less than two weeks after devastating Helene Milton, which exploded on Monday into one of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record, was forecast to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, threatening a stretch of Florida's densely populated west coast that is s...

By Joshua Boscaini for ABC Photo: 123rf.com A new highly transmissible variant of Covid-19 has been detected in Australia, raising questions about whether it will lead to a wave of Covid-19 cases over summer. The XEC strain has been reported in 29 countries including the United States, United Kingdom and China, according to global health data platform GISAID. Here's what we know about the XEC variant and how many cases have been reported in Australia. What do we know about XEC? XEC is a "recombinant" Covid-19 variant, which means it's a mix of two previous Omicron subvariants called KS 1.1 and KP 3.3. A recombinant variant is created when someone is infected with two strains of a virus that go on reproduce and create another strain. There are conflicting reports about where the strain...

By Zachary Handlos and Ali Sarhadi of Photo: AFP / European Space Agency / Handout Hurricane Milton became one of the most rapidly intensifying storms on record as it went from barely hurricane strength to a dangerous Category 5 storm in less than a day on a path across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida. With sustained winds that reached 180 miles per hour (290km/h) on 7 October 2024, and very low pressure, it also became one of the strongest Atlantic storms. Milton's winds dipped to Category 4 strength early on 8 October but forecasters warned that it would still be an extremely dangerous hurricane at landfall. A thunderstorm moving over Tampa, Florida, on 8 October 2014, ahead of Hurricane Milton's expected landfall. Photo: AFP Less than two weeks after Hur...