New Zealand’s PM Tests Positive for COVID

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. EPA
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. EPA
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New Zealand’s PM Tests Positive for COVID

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. EPA
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. EPA

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tested positive for COVID-19 with moderate symptoms, her office said in a statement on Saturday.

She will not be in parliament for the government's emissions reduction plan on Monday and the budget on Thursday, but "travel arrangements for her trade mission to the United States are unaffected at this stage," the statement said.

Details of the trip are still to be confirmed, although she is scheduled to deliver the commencement address at Harvard University on May 26.

Ardern had been symptomatic since Friday evening, returning a weak positive at night and a clear positive on Saturday morning on a rapid antigen test, it said.

She has been in isolation since Sunday, when her partner Clarke Gayford tested positive, it said.

Due to the positive test, Ardern will be required to isolate until the morning of May 21, undertaking what duties she can remotely.

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson will address media in her place on Monday.

New Zealand enforced one of the world's most restrictive approaches to managing the initial COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, and its death toll of 892 remains among the lowest of developed nations.

However, it has experienced an Omicron surge since restrictions were loosened in March, with Ardern's positive case among more than 50,000 recorded over the last week.



Iran Sentences 3 to Death over Nuclear Scientist Killing

Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)
Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)
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Iran Sentences 3 to Death over Nuclear Scientist Killing

Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)
Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)

Iran has sentenced three people to death over the 2020 assassination of one of the country's top nuclear scientists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the judiciary said on Tuesday.

"The judicial processes of these three people were carried out in the Revolutionary Court of Urmia, and they were sentenced to death in the initial stage, and the case is currently in the appeal stage," judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told a Tehran press conference.

Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020, in an attack Iran blamed on its sworn enemy Israel.

"After some investigations, three people out of eight arrested in West Azarbaijan province, were accused of committing espionage for the occupying regime of Israel," Jahangir said.

He added that the three are also "accused of transporting equipment into Iran for the assassination of martyr Fakhrizadeh under the guise of smuggling alcoholic beverages".

In December 2022, then judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi said nine people had been charged with the capital offence of "corruption on earth" for their suspected collusion with Israel in the assassination.

Fakhrizadeh had been under US sanctions for his role in Iran's nuclear program when he was killed.

Iranian authorities said the attackers used a bomb and a remote-controlled machine gun.

Israel has never commented on the killing.

In 2018, the Israeli government accused Fakhrizadeh of leading Iran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb, a claim Iran has always vehemently denied.