RIP Pope Francis
Pope Francis has died aged 88. He was Pope for 12 years, a Cardinal for 24 years, Archbishop for 27 years and a Bishop for 32 years. He was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio and was the first Jesuit Pope. He was also the first non European Pope in 1300 years.
The 115th papal conclave to elect the 267th pope will convene in the next few days with 135 cardinal electors, so 90 votes needed to elect the new Pope. The first papal conclave was in 1276.
The Dean of the College of Cardinals would normally preside over the papal conclave but Cardinal Re is 91 years and Cardinal Sandri the vice Dean is 81 years old so the presiding Cardinal may be Cardinal Prevost from Chicago.

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Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Polish nationalist wins presidency in setback for pro-EU government
Nationalist opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki narrowly won Poland's presidential election, results showed on Monday, delivering a major blow to the centrist government's efforts to cement Warsaw's pro-European orientation. In a victory for European conservatives inspired by US President Donald Trump, Nawrocki secured 50.89% of the vote, election commission data showed, an outcome that presages more political gridlock as he is likely to use his presidential veto to thwart Prime Minister Donald Tusk's liberal policy agenda. Tusk's government has been seeking to reverse judicial reforms made by the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government, but current President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, has blocked its efforts - a pattern Nawrocki is likely to continue. Nawrocki's rival, Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal Warsaw mayor who was standing for Tusk's ruling Civic Coalition (KO), got 49.11%, the data showed. Both candidates had declared victory immediately after the publication of an exit poll late on Sunday that showed the result would be very close. Nawrocki, a conservative historian and amateur boxer who was backed by PiS, had presented the vote as a referendum on Tusk's 18-month-old government. "The referendum on the dismissal of the Tusk government has been won," PiS lawmaker Jacek Sasin wrote on X. Poland's blue-chip stock index shed more than 2% in early trade on Monday as investors anticipated more political paralysis. The zloty currency also fell versus the euro. Nawrocki, like his predecessor Duda, is expected to block any attempts by the Tusk government to liberalise abortion or reform the judiciary. The EU took the previous PiS government to court over its judical reforms, saying they undermined the rule of law and democratic standards. EUROSCEPTIC Sunday's run-off vote in Poland came just two weeks after Romania's centrist Bucharest mayor, Nicusor Dan, had dealt a blow to hard-right and nationalist forces in central Europe by winning that country's presidential contest. Congratulations poured in from other nationalist and eurosceptic politicians in the region. The defeated hard-right candidate in Romania's election, George Simion, wrote on X "Poland WON", while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hailed a "fantastic victory". European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was convinced the EU could continue its "very good cooperation" with Poland. Nawrocki, 42, a newcomer to politics who previously ran a national remembrance institute, campaigned on a promise to ensure economic and social policies favour Poles over other nationalities, including refugees from neighbouring Ukraine. He vowed to protect Poland's sovereignty and railed against what he said was excessive interference in the country's affairs from Brussels. While Poland's parliament holds most power, the president can veto legislation, and the vote was being watched closely in Ukraine as well as Russia, the United States and the EU. Borys Budka, a KO Member of the European Parliament, said he believed PiS now sought to "overthrow the legal government". "This may be a big challenge for the government, which will be blocked when it comes to good initiatives," he told state news channel TVP Info. Nawrocki won despite his past dominating the last days of the presidential campaign - from questions over his acquisition of a flat from a pensioner to an admission that he took part in orchestrated brawls. Turnout was 71.31%, the electoral commission said, a record for the second round of a presidential election.


Scoop
6 days ago
- Scoop
'I've Had A Wonderful Life': 90 Years Of Jim Bolger
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Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Russia, Ukraine step up the war on eve of peace talks
On the eve of peace talks, Ukraine and Russia sharply ramped up the war with one of the biggest drone battles of their conflict. A Russian highway bridge was blown up over a passenger train and an ambitious attack was carried out on nuclear-capable bombers deep in Siberia. After days of uncertainty over whether or not Ukraine would even attend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Defence Minister Rustem Umerov would sit down with Russian officials at the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war - but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting. Amid talk of peace, though, there was much war. At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge in Russia's Bryansk region, neighbouring Ukraine, was blown up over a passenger train heading to Moscow with 388 people on board. No-one has yet claimed responsibility. Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base deep in Siberia on Sunday (local time), a Ukrainian intelligence official said, the first such attack so far from the front lines more than 4300km away. The official said the operation involved hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds and loading them onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of the air bases. A total of 41 Russian warplanes were hit, the official said. RUSSIA ACKNOWLEDGES AIR BASE ATTACKS, SAYS FIRES PUT OUT Ukraine did not tell the Trump administration about the attack in advance, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official. Russia's Defence Ministry acknowledged on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine had launched drone strikes against Russian military airfields across five regions on Sunday. It said the attacks repelled the assaults in all but two regions — Murmansk in the far north and Irkutsk in Siberia - where "the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire". The fires were extinguished without casualties. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the ministry said. Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine's air force said, the highest nightly total of the war so far. Russia had also launched seven missiles, the air force said. Russia said it had advanced deeper into the Sumy region of Ukraine, and open source pro-Ukrainian maps showed Russia took 450sq km of Ukrainian land in May, its fastest monthly advance in at least six months. US President Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace and he has threatened to walk away if they do not - potentially pushing responsibility for supporting Ukraine onto the shoulders of European powers - which have far less cash and much smaller stocks of weapons than the United States. According to Trump envoy Keith Kellogg, the two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, though it is clear that after three years of intense war, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart. Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022. Trump has called Putin "crazy" and berated Zelenskyy in public in the Oval Office, but the US president has also said that he thinks peace is achievable and that if Putin delays then he could impose tough sanctions on Russia. In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia. Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters. According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine's military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations for Ukraine. The document also stated that the current location of the front line will be the starting point for negotiations about territory. Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100sq km, about the same size as the US state of Ohio.