For most of us, it's a tough ask to draw a link between somewhere as warm as Bangladesh and as chilly as Antarctica.

It may well be that NZ on the Security Council has to pick its battles, or choose the lesser of two evils when it is deciding who to support, writes Dita De Boni.

Every country should play a part in confronting extremism, Prime Minister John Key said at a peace conference in Istanbul today.

Prime Minister John Key reaffirmed New Zealand's role in fighting terror threats in the Middle East at the International Peace Summit in Istanbul overnight.

The Ministry for the Environment has released figures showing that carbon pollution, which New Zealand is adding to, increased 42 per cent globally.

A former New Zealand hockey player has been appointed to help head Government efforts to manage the environment and natural resources.

Previous experience has been positive and benefits would outweigh the costs.

China has placed on the record - ever so diplomatically - its displeasure at the latest Edward Snowden revelations, Fran O' Sullivan writes.

Every political party laid claim to the moral high ground in the argument over sending a team of army training personnel to Iraq, John Armstrong writes.

Modern warfare is vastly different today. Those going to Iraq will not be in the frontline - at least not yet, Fran O'Sullivan writes.

The decision to commit NZ military contingent to Iraq is a case of misguided foreign policy.

Edmund Burke once said political decisions often involve a choice between intolerable and disagreeable options.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully told the UN Security Council that its future credibility and effectiveness depended on its permanent members making progress on reform.

Jim McLay, New Zealand's representative at the United Nations in New York, will be replaced in May by career diplomat Gerard van Bohemen after Mr McLay's second term ends, Foreign Minister Murray McCully has announced.

A team of Kiwi nurses working as part of the international Red Cross Ebola response team in Sierra Leone got to meet Helen Clark this week.

More than 200 boat people were missing early today after their overcrowded dinghies sank in the frigid waters of the Mediterranean.

A child soldier who became an infamous commander in Joseph Kony's militia is before the International Criminal Court.

Former National MP Michael Cox says Anzus conflict in 1984 will hurt chances of Helen Clark becoming United Nations secretary general.

Nick Sheppard writes: "Due to factors including nationality, gender and timing, Helen Clark may be the front runner" for the top United Nations post.

New Zealand has taken its seat at the heart of international decision-making for the next two years.

Yesterday we saw how progress has been made on matters where both language versions of the Treaty say the same thing. Those areas are predominantly natural resources and cultural treasures.

The possibility of former Prime Minister Helen Clark leading the United Nations is a common subject of speculation.

United Nations Ambassador Jim McLay dismisses suggestions that New Zealand will be in the pocket of the United States on the Security Council.

192 nations have pledged to agree a global treaty at a two-week negotiating marathon in Paris at the end of 2015 - the most ambitious political task in history.

NZ's UN Ambassador Jim McLay says there are heavy expectations on New Zealand's shoulders when it takes Security Council seat.

The war is officially over, victory secured. And Afghanistan, once again, has been rebuilt. But for many, life in the restive provinces is much as it ever was.

Assumptions that President Barack Obama was a lame duck, counting down his last quarter after Republicans seized Congress, were confounded by several White House coups.