WELLINGTON—New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key on Wednesday called a general election for Nov. 26, seeking to avoid letting the outcome of the rugby World Cup get in the way of politics in a country where the game is a national obsession.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said a Royal Commission will probe the causes of deadly explosions at the Pike River Coal Co. mine, while the government is planning a safety audit of other underground pits.

Several earthquakes, the largest with a magnitude of 5.8, hit a rural region of southern Iran on Wednesday, the seismological centre said. State media said there was no word of any fatalities but that 15 people in four villages were hurt. Iran’s...

Two glass phials said to contain the ghosts of an old man and a young girl have sold for NZ$2,000 ($1,395:£935) in an online auction in New Zealand. The auction, which ended on Monday night, attracted more than 200,000 page views on the Trade Me...

The first waves of a tsunami caused by an earthquake in Chile reached New Zealand on Sunday, authorities said, but there were no reports of any injuries or damage.

Some 125 pilot whales died in New Zealand after stranding on beaches over the weekend — but vacationers and conservation workers managed to coax 43 others back out to sea. Rescuers monitored the survivors as they swam away from Colville Beach on...

Vicki Walker, an Auckland (New Zealand) accountant, was sacked for sending supposedly confrontational emails with words in red, in bold and in CAPITAL LETTERS. The Employment Relations Authority in New Zealand ruled that Walker was not fairly...

A policeman in a small New Zealand town did not let the fact that he was naked hold him back from chasing a thief trying to steal his car. The off-duty constable was asleep at his home in Balclutha, in the lower South Island, when his wife woke him in...