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Labour, National quizzed on savings from pay equity changes

Labour, National quizzed on savings from pay equity changes

NZ Herald22-05-2025

Donald Trump ambushes South Africa's president during a White House meeting by playing a video alleging 'genocide' of white people in South Africa. Video / The White House
The Halberg Games isn't just a fun event for kids Gemma and Jemma, it's also an exciting reunion! Reporter Zoe catches up with the besties as they compete for their 3rd year.
Cameron Emerson has displayed plenty of courage and dedication on his way to reaching the 100-cap milestone. Video / Neil Reid
A large crowd packed Trust Stadium for the Runit event last night. Video / Mike Scott / Benjamin Plummer
The incident was caught on dashcam.
New Zealand Rugby Player of the Year Jorja Miller speaks about transferring to the Black Ferns from the sevens side and her future goals. Video / Alyse Wright
The Bachelor NZ winner said the "only way" she knows how to read books set overseas is by changing the character's voice in her head. Video / The Hits Drive
On Newstalk ZB Mike Hosking Breakfast Winston Peters addresses the Heckler at train station stand up.
NZ retail demand surges, hospital EDs divert patients with costly vouchers, UK halts Israel trade talks, Christchurch debates dumped trolleys.
Reporter Lachie is at Hokonui Pioneer Village where tamariki are stepping back in time to find out how schoolkids lived at the turn of the century.
Recorded phone calls capture the moment TSB staff help customer Steven Fan send $1m to scammers.
StarJam's collapse in November 2024 affected over 60 young people in Hawke's Bay. HB Jammers was formed three months later to continue the music workshops.
Te Pāti Māori MPs emerge from Parliament, following the adjourned debate on the suspension of three of them, to be greeted by their supporters. Video / Audrey Young
Deputy Prime Minister was asked to leave the chamber by Speaker Gerry Brownlee after he asked a question deemed not to be in order.

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Happy Birthday, Mr President: Trump's special day to coincide with a day of protests
Happy Birthday, Mr President: Trump's special day to coincide with a day of protests

NZ Herald

time2 hours ago

  • NZ Herald

Happy Birthday, Mr President: Trump's special day to coincide with a day of protests

Traditional resistance seems futile in the face of Trump Mark II. But a loose coalition within the US is beginning to gain traction – and a gauge of opposition will come on June 14. Donald Trump's second shot at governing the US – or third if you include his dominance of political discussion during the Biden interregnum – began with a blitzkrieg of authoritarian measures so scattershot and rapid fire that to list them all here would leave room

Troops sent by Trump reach protest-hit Los Angeles, against governor's wishes
Troops sent by Trump reach protest-hit Los Angeles, against governor's wishes

RNZ News

time2 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Troops sent by Trump reach protest-hit Los Angeles, against governor's wishes

By Bastien Inafpzaurralde and Gilles Clarenne , AFP A protester waves the Palestinian flag (R) as law enforcement clashes with demonstrators during a protest following federal immigration operations, in the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on June 7, 2025. US President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 troops on June 7, 2025 to handle escalating protests against immigration enforcement raids in the Los Angeles area, a move the state's governor termed "purposefully inflammatory." Federal agents clashed with angry crowds in a Los Angeles suburb as protests stretched into a second night Saturday, shooting flash-bang grenades and shutting part of a freeway amid raids on undocumented migrants, reports said. Photo: RINGO CHIU / AFP National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles early on Sunday (local time) after being ordered there by US President Donald Trump, a rare deployment against the state governor's wishes after sometimes violent protests against immigration enforcement raids. Trump took federal control of California's state military to push soldiers into the country's second-biggest city, an extraordinary move not seen for decades and deemed "purposefully inflammatory" by California Governor Gavin Newsom. Helmeted troops carrying automatic weapons and with camouflaged vehicles could be seen in the Compton neighbourhood of the California city early Sunday, ahead of more protests, including a call by organisers for a "mass mobilisation" at City Hall at 2pm local time (9am Monday NZT). The development came after two days of confrontations during which federal agents fired flash-bang grenades and tear gas toward crowds angry at the arrests of dozens of migrants in a city with a large Latino population. Republicans lined up behind Trump on Sunday to dismiss warnings by Newsom and other local officials that the protests had been largely peaceful, and that the deployment was against their wishes and would exacerbate tensions. "I have no concern about that at all," Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told ABC's This Week when asked, adding that Newsom "has shown an inability or unwillingness to do what is necessary there, so the president stepped in". As for threats by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday to send in active-duty Marines on top of the Guard troops, Johnson said he did not see that as "heavy-handed". "We have to be prepared to do what is necessary," he argued. Federal authorities "want a spectacle. Don't give them one. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully," Newsom had posted on X late on Saturday. He branded Hegseth's threat "deranged". Members of the National Guard stand guard outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, MDC in downtown Los Angeles, California. Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP "We agree that if you're being violent, you should be arrested ... But this is not what's happening," California Congresswoman Nanette Barragan told CNN Sunday. "We are having an administration that's targeting peaceful protests ... The president is sending the National Guard because he doesn't like the scenes," the Democrat said. Overnight, an AFP photographer saw fires and fireworks light up the streets during clashes, while a protester holding a Mexican flag stood in front of a burnt-out car that had been sprayed with a slogan against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. "It's up to us to stand up for our people," said a Los Angeles resident whose parents are immigrants, declining to give her name as emergency services lights flashed in the distance. Trump had signed a memorandum sending 2000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, the White House said on Saturday. The National Guard - a reserve military - is frequently used in natural disasters, and occasionally in instances of civil unrest, but almost always with the consent of local authorities. It is the first time since 1965 that a president has deployed a National Guard without a request by a state governor, the former head of Human Rights Watch, US activist Kenneth Roth, posted on X, accusing Trump of "creating a spectacle so he can continue his immigration raids". Members of the National Guard stand guard outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, MDC in downtown Los Angeles, California. Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP But the National Guard are "specifically trained for this type of crowd situation", Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, refusing to divulge where in Los Angeles they would be deployed. Trump has delivered on a promise to crack down hard on the entry and presence of undocumented migrants - who he has likened to "monsters" and "animals" - since taking office in January. ICE raids in other US cities have triggered small-scale protests in recent months, but the Los Angeles unrest is the biggest and most sustained against the Trump administration's policies so far. A CBS News poll taken before the Los Angeles protests showed a slight majority of Americans still approved of the immigration crackdown. Masked and armed immigration agents carried out high-profile workplace raids in separate parts of Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday, attracting angry crowds and setting off hours-long standoffs. Fernando Delgado, a 24-year-old resident, said the raids were "injustices" and those detained were "human beings just like any". The stand-off demonstrated "Trump's authoritarianism in real time", Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders posted on X on Sunday. Trump's authoritarianism in real time: ▪️Conduct massive illegal raids. ▪️Provoke a counter-response. ▪️Declare a state of emergency. ▪️Call in the troops. Unacceptable. "Conduct massive illegal raids. Provoke a counter-response. Declare a state of emergency. Call in the troops," he wrote, adding: "Unacceptable." - AFP

Where, oh where shall we put the Palestinians?
Where, oh where shall we put the Palestinians?

Otago Daily Times

time3 hours ago

  • Otago Daily Times

Where, oh where shall we put the Palestinians?

Reckless people fling accusations of attempted genocide in Gaza at the Israeli coalition government and the Israel Defence Force (IDF) every day, but the scale of the operation is not remotely big enough to justify that word. IDF snipers and/or civilian American gunmen of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) pick off dozens of the starving Palestinians who show at the food distribution points in southern Gaza almost every day. However, barely a hundred of them were killed outright at the feeding stations in the whole first week. A far larger number of Palestinians are killed by bombs or shells in their own homes (also known as "Hamas command and control centres" by IDF spokespersons), but even that much bigger death toll does not currently amount to as much as a thousand a week. At that rate it would take 42 years to "clear" all the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. Donald Trump will be dead much sooner than that, so that's clearly not what he had in mind when he talked about clearing all the Palestinians out of the Strip. Indeed, we can go further and say that he wasn't thinking of starving them all to death either, even though that would be much quicker. No food at all went into the Gaza Strip for 11 weeks before the four IDF/GHF feeding centres set up shop about 10 days ago, so some people (mostly very old or very young) will have starved to death already. Their bodies are not riddled with bullets or shell fragments, they won't be brought to hospitals, and most of them will not be counted. The number who starve to death will now go up steeply, because Israel has only opened four feeding centres where there used to be 400. Someone from each family has to make a dangerous journey on foot (up to 10km) and wait in a queue of hundreds of thousands of others each time to collect maybe a week's rations. (Actually, they're too desperate to queue.) As Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently pointed out to his colleagues, the problem with starving people is that the country's allies cannot tolerate "images of mass famine". But just a little bit short of that is probably OK and will put just as much pressure on the Palestinians of Gaza to abandon their wrecked homes and leave. That is the current Israeli strategy, but it cannot work unless there is also somewhere else for the Palestinians to go. None of Israel's immediate neighbours would dream of accepting 2 million Palestinians, even if they didn't care about "betraying the cause". Jordan and Lebanon in particular have had huge problems with similar populations of Palestinian refugees. The destination has to be farther away and confident that it can control a big Palestinian minority even over the long run. Very large bribes would also be needed. Only two places spring to mind, and both have reportedly already been contacted by US and Israeli emissaries. (Such contacts are routinely denied by all the parties involved.) The first candidate is Libya, more than 1000km west of Gaza, where two rival governments have long been mired in a stalemated civil war. The weaker side, based in the east of the country, is more in need of money and arms, but either side could probably be bought if the bribes and other inducements were big enough. The other is Somaliland, about 1000km in the other direction, whose biggest problem is that it is not recognised as legitimate by any other country. It is a poor but reasonably well-run democratic country that was once a British colony, but it was swept into a union with the former Italian colony of Somalia in the heady first days of independence. The Somalilanders have regretted their choice ever since and Somalia has no real power over them, but they are still legally trapped into the union. If the United States recognised Somaliland's independence, everything else would follow. The price would be accepting 2 million Palestinians. (Somaliland's current population is about 6 million.) There was a time when I would not have believed such a deal possible, but those times are gone and I no longer say never. I do say it would be a terrible mistake for either Somaliland or Libya to make that deal, but ancient empires shuffled ethnic groups around like this all the time. And you know what? If Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, et al, manage to do this they would still technically not be guilty of genocide; just of a crime against humanity. With good behaviour, 10 or 20 years and they would be out on the street again. — Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.

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