GRANT ROBERTSON

Months before an election, New Zealand’s government is offering some modest financial relief to many people by making most prescription medicines free and increasing subsidies for childcare and public transportation.

Asian shares are mostly lower as investors weigh oil prices, inflation worries and corporate earnings.

New Zealand’s government says it will hand out an extra few hundred dollars to more than 2 million lower-income adults to help them navigate what it describes as “the peak of the global inflation storm.”.

A pregnant New Zealand journalist who was stranded in Afghanistan by her home country’s COVID-19 border policy says she will return home after her government offered her a pathway back.

The Islamic State-inspired extremist who attacked shoppers in a New Zealand supermarket had been fighting deportation for immigration fraud, leaving the nation’s leader expressing frustration at the process.

New Zealand has reported its first coronavirus death in more than six months, while the number of new cases continued to trend downward.

New Zealand plans to rebuild its Antarctic base and spend billions more on welfare payments and infrastructure to lift its economy out of a coronavirus slump.

New Zealand's government on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021 made the first of several promised moves to rein in skyrocketing house prices by ordering the nation's Reserve Bank to consider the impact on housing when making decisions. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File)WELLINGTON – New Zealand's success in battling the coronavirus has unleashed an unanticipated problem: skyrocketing house prices. When the pandemic first hit, most experts predicted house prices would fall. Ad“It's very pleasing to see movement in the right direction,” said Shamubeel Eaqub, an economist with Sense Partners who has written extensively about New Zealand's housing problems. But, he added, he expects house prices to “keep going up at a great rate of knots” without further strong intervention.

FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2020, file photo, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gestures as she gives her victory speech to Labour Party members at an event in Auckland, New Zealand. Ardern announced her new Cabinet lineup Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, after her liberal Labour Party won reelection in a landslide victory last month. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File)

Women wearing face masks as a precaution against coronavirus get henna designs on their hands on the eve of Karva Chauth festival in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. Even as India's overall coronavirus cases continue to fall, health officials say that New Delhi is in the grip of its third and worst wave of infections yet. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Even as India's overall coronavirus cases continue to fall, health officials say that New Delhi is in the grip of its third and worst wave of infections yet. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Wednesday reported 118 new cases of COVID-19, most of them in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area. In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:— India’s capital reported a record high 6,725 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, hit by its worst wave of coronavirus infections since March. New Delhi has averaged more than 5,200 cases a day this past week, a spike the Health Ministry attributes to the festival season. Authorities have also closed schools and key public offices, banned public gatherings and restricted public transport.

WELLINGTON New Zealands government and its foreign spy agency are getting involved after cyber attacks disrupted trading on the nations stock market several times this week. The attacks have affected the private company NZX which hosts the market, halting trading for up to several hours at a time. Finance Minister Grant Robertson said Friday that ministers had asked the Government Communications Security Bureau intelligence agency to help stop the attacks. Neither the NZX nor Robertson said if the attackers sought a ransom, as some have speculated. The security bureau declined to comment.

Spectators react ahead of the Super Rugby Aotearoa rugby game between the Highlanders and Chiefs in Dunedin, New Zealand, Saturday, June 13, 2020. As countries try to reopen after lockdowns, the evening rugby match marked a milestone of sorts, and its importance wasnt lost on fans. Anyone whos a fan of live sport or even live music knows that if you're there, its totally different, he said. German exchange student Johanna Lindner said she'd never watched a rugby match before, and people back home were both curious and perhaps a little envious. As the final hooter sounded and the Highlanders kicked out the ball to win 28-27, the fans screamed and hugged.