SINGAPORE: New Zealand is seeking to expand Asia-Pacific military deployments in its quest to show it was now “pulling our weight” with increased spending on its armed forces, the South Pacific nation’s defense minister said in Singapore on Friday.

Defense minister Judith Collins raised the prospect of welcoming increased warship visits to the country, deepening joint training and other cooperative efforts with its traditional defense partners including ally Australia, the United States, Singapore, Japan, Britain and the Philippines.

“So we’re open for business, we’re back in the world and we’re pulling our weight,” Collins said on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue defense meeting in Singapore.

The New Zealand government announced in April that it would boost defense spending by NZ$9 billion ($5 billion) over the next four years, with the aim of nearly doubling spending to 2 percent as a share of gross domestic product in the next eight years amid growing international tensions.

The new spending is a significant boost to the defense budget of just under NZ$5 billion in 2024/25, and follows its first national security review in 2023.

The review called for more military spending and stronger ties with Indo-Pacific nations to tackle issues of climate change and strategic competition between the West, and China and Russia.

The USS Blue Ridge, the command ship of the US Pacific Fleet, visited Wellington earlier this month and further visits from partners could be expected, Collins said. The ship was just the third US warship to visit in 40 years.

When asked about Chinese concerns at New Zealand’s more assertive military posture, she said Beijing realized Wellington had “actually got a spine,” but “I don’t think China stays awake at night worrying about us.”

“I don’t think we’re any threat to China, or anyone else really,” Collins said, describing relations with China, an important trading partner, as “very mature.”

Regional military attaches and analysts say that after years of relative neglect, New Zealand still had to improve its ability to sustainably project power given its small, aging navy and air force but supporting its traditional relationships were key.

Nuclear-free since the 1980s, New Zealand maintains an independent foreign policy but remains part of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network with the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada.

Deployments of its four new Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft are being closely watched, given how they can help other countries plug gaps in the hunt for Chinese submarines, analysts say.

Collins said New Zealand and Australian pilots now had the ability to fly each other’s P-8 and transport planes — a sign of growing “interoperability” in action.

Collins said the P-8s had already flown up toward Canada and she expected further patrols in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. “I think you’ll see quite a lot of that,” she said. “We go everywhere. Everywhere where we’re wanted we go, if we can.”

WASHINGTON: Half the global population endured an additional month of extreme heat over the past year because of manmade climate change, a new study found Friday.
The findings underscore how the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming health and well-being on every continent, with the effects especially under-recognized in developing countries, the authors said.
“With every barrel of oil burned, every ton of carbon dioxide released, and every fraction of a degree of warming, heat waves will affect more people,” said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-author of the report.
The analysis — conducted by scientists at World Weather Attribution, Climate Central, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center — was released ahead of global Heat Action Day on June 2, which this year spotlights the dangers of heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
To assess the influence of global warming, researchers analyzed the period from May 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025.
They defined “extreme heat days” as those hotter than 90 percent of temperatures recorded at a given location between 1991 and 2020.
Using a peer-reviewed modeling approach, they then compared the number of such days to a simulated world without human-caused warming.
The results were stark: roughly four billion people — 49 percent of the global population — experienced at least 30 more days of extreme heat than they would have otherwise.
The team identified 67 extreme heat events during the year and found the fingerprint of climate change on all of them.
The Caribbean island of Aruba was the worst affected, recording 187 extreme heat days — 45 more than expected in a world without climate change.
The study follows a year of unprecedented global temperatures. 2024 was the hottest year on record, surpassing 2023, while January 2025 marked the hottest January ever.
On a five-year average, global temperatures are now 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and in 2024 alone, they exceeded 1.5C, the symbolic ceiling set by the Paris climate accord.
The report also highlights a critical lack of data on heat-related health impacts in lower-income regions.
While Europe recorded more than 61,000 heat-related deaths in the summer of 2022, comparable figures are sparse elsewhere, with many heat-related fatalities mizattributed to underlying conditions such as heart or lung disease.
The authors emphasized the need for early warning systems, public education, and heat action plans tailored to cities.
Better building design — including shading and ventilation — and behavioral adjustments like avoiding strenuous activity during peak heat are also essential.
Still, adaptation alone will not be enough. The only way to halt the rising severity and frequency of extreme heat, the authors warned, is to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.