New Zealand has banned most foreigners from buying homes as it tries to tackle runaway housing prices.

Previously the housing market was open to investors worldwide, but the government on Wednesday passed legislation that allows only New Zealand residents to buy homes.

In recent years, there have been many anecdotal stories of wealthy foreigners from Silicon Valley and beyond buying ranches in picturesque rural New Zealand as a "bolt hole" or escape option from a turbulent world.

There have also been stories of wealthy Chinese buyers outbidding New Zealanders on suburban homes in the main city of Auckland.

Statistics indicate about 3 percent of New Zealand homes are being sold to foreigners, but the amount rises to 5 percent in the scenic Queenstown region and 22 percent in central Auckland.

Last month, the directors of the International Monetary Fund executive board said they encouraged New Zealand to reconsider the ban, which they thought would be unlikely to improve housing affordability.

But the government says there is no doubt that foreigners are driving up prices, and the only question that remains is by how much. The new law fulfils a campaign pledge by the liberal-led government which came to power last year.

There are some exceptions. Foreigners with New Zealand residency status will still be able to buy homes, as will people from Australia and Singapore, thanks to existing free-trade agreements.

Foreigners who already own homes in New Zealand won’t be affected. And overseas buyers will still be able to make limited investments in large apartment blocks and hotels.

"We’re here today to take another step toward restoring the great New Zealand dream of home ownership," said David Parker, the associate finance minister.

He said it was the birthright of New Zealanders to buy homes at a fair price.

"This government believes that New Zealanders should not be outbid by wealthier foreign buyers," Mr Parker said. "Whether it’s a beautiful lakeside or oceanfront estate, or a modest suburban house, this law ensures that the market for our homes is set in New Zealand, not on the international market."

Opposition lawmaker Judith Collins said the bill was unnecessary.

"We oppose the bill because we don’t believe that it actually fixes any problem," Ms Collins said. "It is, in fact, nothing more than an attempt to justify some of the policies of the incoming government."

Skyrocketing home prices in Auckland have been of particular concern to New Zealanders, although that market has cooled over the past year. Still, prices there remain among the most expensive in the world when compared with people’s incomes.

Figures released Wednesday by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand indicate the median house price in Auckland is 835,000 New Zealand dollars ($547,000) while the median price across the country is NZ$550,000 ($361,000).

An FBI agent who sent anti-Trump messages while working on the Russia investigation has been fired by the intelligence agency.

The politically charged text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, caused uproar among Republicans who claimed it was proof the investigation into Russian collusion was politically motivated.

Mr Strozk was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after the messages were discovered.

On Monday Aitan Goelman, Mr Strzok’s lawyer, said the FBI’s Deputy Director ordered his client’s dismissal on Friday – despite the fact that the agency’s disciplinary office had ruled Mr Strzok should face a demotion and 60-day suspension. 

Mr Goelman told the Washington Post the firing went against the FBI’s repeated assurances that Mr Strzok would be afforded the normal disciplinary process.

“This isn’t the normal process in any way more than name,” Mr Goelman said.

Mr Strzok and Ms Page sent a series of messages railing against Mr Trump as a candidate and after the 2016 vote – while they both worked on the Russia investigation.

In one exchange in March 2016, Ms Page refers to Mr Trump as a "loathsome human" with Mr Strzok responding, "Yet he may win," later saying, "America will get what the voting public deserves."

In another exchange, in October 2016, Mr Strzok writes to Ms Page: "I am riled up. Trump is a (expletive) idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer… What the f*** happened to our country".

President Donald Trump has frequently cited Mr Strzok when referring to the Russia investigation as a "witch hunt" which is politically motivated. 

In one tweet, Mr Trump wrote: “Will the FBI ever recover it’s once stellar reputation, so badly damaged by Comey, McCabe, Peter S and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, and other top officials now dismissed or fired?  

"So many of the great men and women of the FBI have been hurt by these clowns and losers!”

Mr Strzok was removed from the team as soon as the allegations were brought to the Special Counsel’s attention and Ms Page returned to the FBI.

Mr Strzok had investigated Russian spies, defense officials accused of selling secrets to China and a number of other important cases during his 22-year career at the FBI. 

In the last two years he had worked on the agency’s two most high-profile investigations – the Russia probe and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.

He has repeatedly denied he allowed his political views to impact his work for the agency.

Thieves snatched priceless treasures belonging to the Swedish crown jewels on Tuesday night in a daring raid on a cathedral, before fleeing and escaping by motorboat.

Their haul included two royal crowns of King Karl IX and Queen Kristina, as well as an orb.

Police said there had not yet been any arrests following the theft from Strängnäs Cathedral in southeastern Sweden, where the items were on public display.

A witness told Aftonbladet, a Swedish evening newspaper: "One of my friends saw two people running. I saw the boat just there, a white little boat, with a motor on the back.

"The two men hurriedly jumped on board. We contacted the police and they told us they had taken something from the Cathedral."

The police hunt included helicopters and motorboats, according to Thomas Agnevik, a spokesman for the police, who said the lost jewels were priceless.

“It’s 1-0 to them right now,” he told Aftonbladet.

“I have talked to someone at the county administrative board that says it is not possible to put an economic value on them – these are invaluable objects of national interest.”

Christofer Lundgren, dean of the cathedral, said: “This is part of the national cultural heritage – this is a theft from Swedish society.”

The stolen items date to the reign of Karl IX – youngest son of King Gustav I – who was king from 1604 until 1611.

His wife Queen Kristina became Queen Regent on his death in October 1611.

But her reign was short-lived. She held the throne for just two before her son reached the legal age to take over and become King Gustav II Adolf.

Georgia has accused Moscow of building up its forces and holding “unprecedented” war games in disputed territories as Russia warned of a "terrible conflict" if Nato allows the former Soviet republic to join. 

The sabre-rattling came on the 10th anniversary of the Russian invasion, which deprived Georgia of one-fifth of its territory.

The foreign affairs ministry in Tbilisi said Russia was conducting large-scale military drills involving thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. 

It called the operations an “unprecedented attempt by Russia to demonstrate its military power” and threaten Georgia, a tiny Caucasian country sandwiched between Russia and Turkey on the Black Sea.

In the decade since the conflict, Moscow has failed to implement the ceasefire agreement brokered by the EU and “has further reinforced its illegal military presence on the ground”, it said. 

The five-day war began when Georgia shelled separatists in South Ossetia, giving Russian forces a pretext to pour over the border and cement control of the two breakaway regions, which seceded in the 1990s. 

Allies including the United States refrained from intervening. Only Russia and a handful of countries recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. 

“We shouldn’t be afraid to call things by their names. What Russia did and is doing against a sovereign government is a war between Russia Georgia, it’s aggression, it’s an occupation and it’s a violation of all international norms,” president Giorgi Margvelashvili told ministers from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine at a meeting in the capital Tbilisi.

“The aggressor’s appetite has only increased after the invasion,” he said.

Tensions have been running high in the region as the Western alliance holds its own competing war games in Georgia. Some 1,300 Georgian soldiers, 1,170 from the United States and several hundred from Britain and other Nato members are taking part in the two weeks of exercise. 

Nato has promised that Georgia will one day be able to join the alliance, the expansion of which has been a constant bone of contention with Vladimir Putin. 

Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev, who was president when Russia launched its 2008 operation, on Monday called the reaffirmation of this pledge at last month’s Nato summit an “absolutely irresponsible position” and a “threat to peace”. 

“There’s an unregulated territorial conflict no matter which position you take. And they’re going to admit such a country, such a government, into a military bloc?” Mr Medvedev said. “This could provoke a terrible conflict.” 

His comments echoed those of Mr Putin, who last month said Russia would “respond appropriately” to the “direct threat” of any new Nato military infrastructure near its borders.

He warned that Nato should think about the “possible consequences” of accepting Ukraine or Georgia into the alliance.

Russia’s angry rhetoric has prompted statements of support from Georgia’s allies in the West. 

Alan Duncan, the British foreign office minister, said in a video address it was a “tragedy that Georgia remains divided” and called on Russia to withdraw its forces from the country’s territory.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a call to Mr Margvelashvili that the United States supports Georgia’s attempts at a peaceful resolution of the conflict. 

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said the EU was “unwavering in our support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Mikheil Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia during the 2008 war, told independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta on Tuesday that “Putin didn’t achieve two-thirds of his goals in Georgia” after the conflict. 

“Georgia is continuing to slowly move toward Euro-Atlantic integration,” he said. 

A South Korean woman who was meant to be sleeping in a coffin as part of a spiritual ritual intended to bring her good fortune was found dead after suffocating in the sealed casket.

The woman, who has not been identified but was reportedly in her 40s, was taking part in a theraputic ceremony of what police described as a ‘pseudo religion’.

The ritual took place overnight and required three women to sleep in wooden coffins, under the belief that spending the night enclosed in the boxes would rid them of bad spirits and ensure they had better luck in the future.

The women got into the coffins at around 8pm on Thursday, in an apartment in the the city of Gumi, in the central region of South Korea, local police told the Yonhap news agency.

The two survivors told police that the woman who died tried to get out of her coffin after about two hours, complaining that she could not breathe and that it was too hot. She was convinced to carry on with the rite by her friends, who told her to endure the discomfort.

At around 6.30am the following morning, one of the other women woke and lifted the lids of the coffins to find one of her friends sleeping soundly but the other woman dead.

A police officer investigating the case told The Korea Times that the coffin was airtight and that the woman had apparently not noticed before she suffocated.

Investigators also said the women were members of a “pseudo religion”, one of a remarkable number of such cults that have popped up in South Korea in recent years promising to solve all sorts of personal, spiritual or financial problems through unconventional forms of worship.

Police said that an autopsy would be carried out but the results have not yet been released. An official said that the extreme heat affecting the entire Korean Peninsula in recent weeks – daytime temperatures have been hovering around 40C and nights only a few degrees cooler – may have contributed to the woman’s death.

Donald Trump on Tuesday urged tough action against the "animals" behind the suspected terror attack in Westminster.

The US president said on Tuesday morning in a tweet: "Another terrorist attack in London…These animals are crazy and must be dealt with through toughness and strength!"

A driver was arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after a car crashed into security barriers outside the Houses of Parliament at high speed on Tuesday morning.

At least three people were injured when the silver Ford Fiesta hit a group of cyclists and pedestrians waiting for traffic lights to change. Witnesses said the car mounted the pavement on the wrong side of the road at up to 50mph and travelled around 40 metres (130ft) before hitting a bollard.

Armed officers swooped in to arrest the driver, removing him from the vehicle at gunpoint.

Later images showed police holding the man, dressed in jeans and a black puffer jacket, in handcuffs as roads and Underground stations around parliament were sealed off.

"The driver of the car, a man in his late 20s… was arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences," said police.

"There was nobody else in the vehicle, which remains at the scene and is being searched. No weapons have been recovered at this stage."

Police have yet to identify the suspect, who was not cooperating with detectives, said Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu.

Mr Trump’s comments follow controversial remarks in the past surrounding terrorism and crime in London.

In July Mr Trump used a newspaper interview ahead of his visit to the UK to blame Sidiq Khan, the mayor of London, for terror attacks in the capital.

"Take a look at the terrorism that is taking place. Look at what is going on in London. I think he has done a very bad job on terrorism," he said.

Following the release of official figures in October last year, showing an increase in recorded crime, Mr Trump controversially linked the rise with the "spread of radical Islamic terror".

His interpretation of the statistics, which included offences ranging from burglary to fraud, prompted politicians to describe his comments as "inflammatory" and "ignorant".