Australia & Pacific

Race Relations in New Zealand
Chris Ford - 4/24/2006
New Zealand is widely considered to have the best race relations in the world. Yet, 2004 has been the year of race politics in the country. That epithet has been challenged in the past six months to devastating effect. The right-wing National Party opposition, under the new leadership of former central bank governor Don Brash, has indulged in some populist 'wedge' politics as a means of shoring up his party's and the centre-right's poll numbers. Prior to January they had been falling and it seemed inevitable that a centre-left Labour-led government would win the next general election in 2005. Test

New Zealand's Stranger Than Fiction Governing Arrangements
Chris Ford - 10/26/2005
New Zealand's general election outcome on September 17 was the closest in over a decade and has resulted in some of the most constitutionally bizarre governing arrangements seen in the nation's post-war history.

Ties That Bind: Compact Agreement Between Palau and US
Renita Brooks, RN, BSN - 1/18/2005
As the heads of CBS begin to market their new version of its hit TV series "Survivor," I thought it may be interesting to explore this tiny island community's political background and investigate its history, in particular its ties to the U.S. Many mainlanders are unaware of the political and social backgrounds of countries we have free-hold pacts with, the nation of Palau being just one.