EU

Privacy Shield: White House makes EU spying promise

The agreement is designed to replace the Safe Harbour pact, which the EU Court of Justice ruled invalid in 2015.

One key change is a commitment from the White House regarding bulk collection of data sent from the EU to the US.

The UK's Information Commissioner said a post-Brexit UK may have to adopt EU data protection rules to trade with it.

If approved by the EU member states, the pact could take effect in July.

The EU-US Privacy shield is designed to make it easy for organisations to transfer data across the Atlantic.

Whirlwind NZ/EU Pacific tour underway today

Led by Foreign Minister Murray McCully and the European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica, the joint mission will travel briefly to Papua New Guinea, then Vanuatu, Kiribati and Tuvalu.

RNZI reports New Zealand's Climate Change Minister, Paula Bennett, is also on the trip, which will look closely at renewable energy projects that New Zealand and the EU have worked on together.

Cooks opposition MPs seek EU lobbying over 'bad' fish deal

The government is set to sign a deal with the EU that would allow Spanish vessels to fish in its exclusive economic zone for at least eight years.

About 4,000 people have signed a petition against the move.

The opposition's finance and economy spokesman, James Beer, has written to Sweden's minister for International Development Cooperation, Isabella Lovin, to lobby the EU.

Ms Lovin is a former member of the EU parliament and experienced in fisheries.

EU will provide FJ$10 million through SPC towards recovery and rehabilitation after Cyclone Winston

The funds will immediately be made available from EU-SPC projects for communities and businesses in the most severely affected regions of Fiji.

Pacific countries in alliance with EU at climate talks

The new alliance has agreed a common position on some of the most divisive aspects of the proposed deal.

However, the EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete says talks are still ongoing on how to accommodate a 1.5 degrees warming limit within the agreement.

UK minister rejects EU migration pact, vows tighter borders

Home Secretary Theresa May, the U.K.'s interior minister, told an audience at the Conservative Party conference that Britain should tighten control of its borders, admitting vulnerable refugees but keeping out those who simply want a better life.

She said other European countries should also toughen up their border controls, arguing that in the last few years more people had applied for asylum in the EU from Balkan countries — which have not seen war for years — than from war-torn Syria.

EU urges G20 countries to make climate goals public

Top EU climate official Miguel Arias Canete called Thursday on Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey to submit goals to the United Nations.

He said it is important "to assess the level of ambition globally and to see whether we are on target" to keep the average global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) compared with pre-industrial times.