New Zealand

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30... April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The Viet Cong , a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S.
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The Tet Offensive was a military campaign during the Vietnam War that was launched on January 30, 1968. Regular and irregular forces of the People's... Army of Vietnam fought against the forces of the Republic of Vietnam , the United States, and their allies. The purpose of the offensive was to utilize the element of surprise and strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam, during a period when no attacks were supposed take place. The operations are referred to as the Tet Offensive because there was a prior agreement to "cease fire" during the Tet festivities , but the Viet Cong broke the agreement, and launched an attack campaign that began during the early morning hours of 30 January 1968, Tết Nguyên Đán the day that was Tet based on the newly enacted calendar adopted by North Vietnam 5 months prior to the event. The main wave of attacks was carried out the next morning; the day that Tet landed on based on the old lunar calendar that has been used for hundreds of years by China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
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The Battle of Coral–Balmoral was a series of actions fought during the Vietnam War between the 1st Australian Task Force and the North... Vietnamese 7th Division and Viet Cong, 40 kilometres north-east of Saigon. Following the defeat of the communist Tet offensive in January and February, in late April two Australian infantry battalions—the 1st and 3rd Battalions, Royal Australian Regiment —with supporting arms, were again deployed from their base at Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy province to positions astride infiltration routes leading to Saigon, in order to interdict renewed movement against the capital. Part of the wider allied Operation Toan Thang I, it was launched in response to intelligence reports of another impending communist offensive; however, the Australians experienced little fighting during this period. Meanwhile, the Viet Cong successfully penetrated the capital on 5 May, plunging Saigon into chaos during the May Offensive in an attempt to influence the upcoming Paris peace talks scheduled to begin on the 13th.
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The Battle of Long Tân was fought between the Australian Army and Viet Cong forces in a rubber plantation near the village of Long Tân,... about 27 kilometres north east of Vũng Tàu, South Vietnam. The action occurred when D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment , part of the 1st Australian Task Force , encountered the Viet Cong 275th Regiment and elements of the D445 Local Forces Battalion. D Company was supported by other Australian units, as well as New Zealand and United States artillery. During the battle D Company 6 RAR, despite being heavily outnumbered, fought off a large Viet Cong assault of regimental strength. Eighteen Australians were killed and 24 wounded, while at least 245 Viet Cong were killed. It was a decisive Australian victory and is often cited as an example of the importance of combining and coordinating infantry, artillery, armour and military aviation.
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Template:Country data Secretariat of the Pacific Community The Secretariat of the Pacific Community, or SPC , is a regional intergovernmental... organisation whose membership includes both nations and territories. It aims to "develop the technical, professional, scientific, research, planning and management capability of Pacific Island people and directly provide information and advice, to enable them to make informed decisions about their future development and well-being." The SPC headquarters is in Nouméa, New Caledonia. SPC was founded in 1947 as the South Pacific Commission by six developed countries with an interest in the region: For reasons either of reduced development interest in the Pacific Islands region or a desire to concentrate assistance in other areas of greater poverty, two founding members have since withdrawn from the SPC: the Netherlands and the United Kingdom . SPC's founding charter is the Canberra Agreement. In the aftermath of World War II, the six colonial powers which created the SPC, arguably intended it to secure Western political and military interests in the postwar Pacific.
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Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation is a forum for 21 Pacific Rim countries that seeks to promote free trade and economic cooperation throughout the... Asia-Pacific region. Established in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence of Asia-Pacific economies and the advent of regional economic blocs in other parts of the world, APEC works to raise living standards and education levels through sustainable economic growth and to foster a sense of community and an appreciation of shared interests among Asia-Pacific countries. Members account for approximately 40% of the world's population, approximately 54% of the world's gross domestic product and about 44% of world trade. An annual APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting is attended by the heads of government of all APEC members except the Republic of China , which is represented under the name Chinese Taipei by a ministerial-level official. The location of the meeting rotates annually among the member economies, and until 2011, a famous tradition involved the attending leaders dressing in a national costume of the host member.
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The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia. The... bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and non-regional developed countries. From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members - of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside. ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with member's capital subscriptions. At present, both the United States and Japan hold 552,210 shares, the largest proportion of shares at 12.756% each. China holds 228,000 shares , India holds 224,010 shares , the 2nd and 3rd largest proportion of shares respectively. The highest policy-making body of the bank is the Board of Governors composed of one representative from each member state. The Board of Governors, in turn, elect among themselves the 12 members of the Board of Directors and their deputy.
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The South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement is a nonreciprocal trade agreement in which Australia and New Zealand offer... duty-free and unrestricted access for specified products originating from the developing island member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum. Signed in 1981 and subject to Rules of Origin regulations, the agreement was designed to address the unequal trade relationships between the two groups. The textiles, clothing and footwear industry has been a major beneficiary of SPARTECA through the preferential access to Australian and New Zealand markets. The local Textiles, Clothing and Footwear industry has grown over the last 10 years and is now one of the major industries in Fiji. In 1997 the TCF industry accounted for 26% of Fiji’s total domestic exports; it contributed to some 3.5% of GDP and provided employment for about 18,000 people that account for 16% of those in total paid employment.
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Massey University is one of New Zealand's largest universities with approximately 36,000 students, 20,000 of whom are extramural students. The... University has campuses in Palmerston North , Wellington and Auckland , with the largest in terms of student numbers being the Turitea site. Massey offers most of its degrees extramurally within New Zealand and internationally. It has the nation's largest business college. Research is undertaken on all three campuses. Massey University is the only university in New Zealand offering degrees in aviation, dispute resolution, veterinary medicine and nanoscience. Having been accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Association, Massey's veterinary school now has the distinction of having its degree recognised not only by New Zealand, but also the United States, Australia, Canada, and Britain, as well as most other countries in the world. This is an honour shared by only a handful of other institutions.
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The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010. The university has New... Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it employs. It topped the New Zealand Performance Based Research Fund evaluation in 2006. Founded in 1869 by a committee including Thomas Burns, the university opened in July 1871. Its motto is "Sapere aude" . The Otago University Students' Association answers this with its own motto, "Audeamus" . The university's graduation song Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus acknowledges students will continue to live up to the challenge if not always in the way intended. Between 1874 and 1961 the University of Otago was a part of the University of New Zealand, and issued degrees in its name.
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The University of Canterbury was initiated and founded by some scholars from the University of Oxford in 1873 and is New Zealand's second-oldest... university, operates its main campus in the suburb of Ilam in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. It offers degrees in Arts, Commerce, Education , Engineering, Fine Arts, Forestry, Law, Music, Social Work, Speech and Language Therapy, Science, Sports Coaching and Teaching. The University has a main campus of 76 hectares at Ilam, a suburb of Christchurch: about 5 km from the centre of the city. Adjacent to the main campus stands the University's College of Education, with its own sports-fields and grounds. The University maintains five libraries, with the Central Library housed in the tallest building on campus, the 11-storey James Hight building. The University's College of Education maintains additional small campuses in Nelson, Tauranga and Timaru, and "teaching centres" in Greymouth, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Timaru.
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Alan Hugh Dale is a New Zealand actor. As a child, Dale developed a love of theatre and also became a rugby player. After retiring from the sport he... took on a number of professions to support his family, before deciding to become a professional actor at the age of 27. With work limited in New Zealand, Dale moved to Australia, where he played Dr. John Forrest in The Young Doctors from 1979 to 1982. He later appeared as Jim Robinson in Neighbours, a part he played for eight years. The character is the role Dale is most associated with in Australia and the United Kingdom. He left the series when he fell out with the producers over the pay he and the rest of the cast received. After leaving Neighbours, Dale became typecast as Robinson in Australia and struggled to find work. His career was revitalised after he relocated to the United States in 2000. Since then he has had roles in many American series including prominent parts in The O.C. and Ugly Betty , as well as recurring and guest roles in Lost, 24, NCIS, ER, The West Wing, The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen.
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Michael van Wijk , is a professional sportsman, bodybuilder, actor and TV presenter in the United Kingdom. van Wijk is most well known for his role... as Wolf on British TV endurance sports game show Gladiators, a role he held for seven years, eight series . Van Wijk now owns a gym in Henderson, Auckland, New Zealand called "Wolf's Gym," where he now resides. Before his rise to fame he owned several gyms until he secured his first contract with his long term employer 'Gladiators'.. According to a Sky One interview, producers refused to allow van Wijk to be mean as a Gladiator, but he soon persuaded them to let him try it. This distinctive persona led him to be the most popular Gladiator in the history of the show, although he courted controversy. He was also known to video game players for appearing on the cover of the computer game Barbarian. Michael van Wijk was spotted by a member of the Gladiators production team shortly before filming began on the first television series in 1992. He once stated on Gladiators that his favourite television show was Star Trek.
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Rachel Hunter is a New Zealand born model, actress and reality TV show host, who is a naturalised citizen on the United States. She is best known... for her appearance in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues and her marriage to singer Rod Stewart, which ended in 2006. Born in Glenfield, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, her parents divorced when she was still a child. Wanting to be a ballet dancer, she was diagnosed with a rare blood disease as a teenager, which curtailed her dancing ambitions. As a result, Hunter began modelling by age 17 in 1986, and turned down the same year posing for Playboy magazine. Resultantly persuaded by her aunt to fly to the United States, she signed for the Ford Models agency of New York, landing the Cover Girl cosmetics contract and becoming the spokesperson for the company. But Hunter rose to global prominence after posing as a Sports Illustrated model in 1989. She subsequently appeared on magazine covers, including Cosmopolitan and on the 1994 "Dream Team" cover of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue. She posed naked for a cover-featured Playboy pictorial published in 2004.
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Michael Barker is a New Zealand percussion musician best known for performing with many Australasian acts, including The John Butler Trio and Split... Enz. Inspired by his older brother Douglas, Michael began playing the drums around age 10. As a teen, he played with various bands in Rotorua New Zealand until 1985 when he moved to Melbourne, Australia to learn orchestral percussion. His studies began at Box Hill College of Tafe, where he completed 2 years of drum and percussion tuition under Bruce Barber. From here Barker went on to study Orchestral and solo percussion at The Victorian College of the Arts under Barry Quinn. In Barker's final year at the VCA he performed ' Pssapha ' by Xenakis, ' The I Ching ' by Per Norgard and ' The Black Page ' by Zappa.
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Vanuatu vah-noo-ah-too or /vænˈwɑːtuː/ van-wah-too, officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the... South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some 1,750 kilometres east of northern Australia, 500 kilometres northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea. Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were the members of a Spanish expedition led by Fernandes de Queirós who arrived in Espiritu Santo in 1605. In the 1880s France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the country, and in 1906 they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through a British-French Condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was created in 1980. The nation's name was derived from the word vanua , which occurs in several Austronesian languages, and the word tu .
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