&w=3840&q=100)
‘Netanyahu has lost the plot': New Zealand PM Luxon says Gaza attacks ‘utterly unacceptable'
As New Zealand weighs up whether to recognise a Palestinian state, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Wednesday said that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had 'lost the plot'.
Luxon condemned the lack of humanitarian aid, the forced displacement of civilians, and the annexation of Gaza as deeply appalling, stating that Netanyahu had gone far beyond acceptable limits.
'I think he has lost the plot,' Reuters quoted Luxon, who heads the centre-right coalition government, as saying.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'What we are seeing overnight, the attack on Gaza City, is utterly, utterly unacceptable,' he added.
Earlier this week, Luxon said New Zealand was considering whether to formally recognise a Palestinian state. On Monday, close ally Australia announced it would support recognition at a UN conference in September, joining Canada, the UK, and France.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached what several Western nations described as 'unimaginable levels.'
In a joint statement on Tuesday, Britain, Canada, Australia, and several European allies urged Israel to allow unrestricted humanitarian aid into the conflict-ravaged enclave.
Israel has rejected blame for the worsening hunger in Gaza, accusing Hamas of diverting aid shipments, an allegation Hamas denies.
Meanwhile, ahead of Wednesday's parliamentary session, a small group of protesters gathered outside the national parliament, banging pots and pans in a show of dissent.
According to local outlet Stuff, demonstrators chanted, 'MPs grow a spine, recognise Palestine.'
Tensions inside the chamber were also high. On Tuesday, Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick was ejected from Parliament after refusing to apologise for a remark suggesting government MPs lacked courage for not backing a bill to sanction Israel over alleged war crimes.
Swarbrick was again ordered to leave the chamber on Wednesday for repeating her refusal to apologise. When she declined to comply, the government moved to formally suspend her.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'Sixty-eight members of this House were accused of being spineless," House speaker Gerry Brownlee said. 'There has never been a time where personal insults like that delivered inside a speech were accepted by this House and I'm not going to start accepting it.'
As Swarbrick left, she called out 'free Palestine.'
With inputs from agencies
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
19 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Meet Sayadaw U Ottama, a Buddhist monk who fought for Burma's independence
Much has been written about Mahatma Gandhi and his pivotal role in India's struggle for independence. While Gandhi's philosophy of non-violent resistance and Swadeshi inspired millions across the world, it also had a profound impact on a Buddhist monk in neighbouring Burma (present-day Myanmar), who would go on to ignite the country's independence movement. This is the story of Sayadaw U Ottama, and how he came to be known as the 'Gandhi of Burma'. Born in 1879 near Akyab in northwestern Burma, Sayadaw U Ottama attended an Anglo-Burmese school and became a novice at the age of 15. A year later, with the help of a wealthy family, he visited Calcutta and pursued three years of Western education. For the next decade, he travelled between India, Burma and Japan as well as other parts of Asia. 'During these travels, his encounters with other variants of Buddhism as well as other religions led him to reflect deeply on his own tradition,' writes anthropologist Charles F Keyes in Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance (1993). A scholar of Pali and Sanskrit, U Ottama had a pluralistic worldview. Keyes notes that in India, he became involved in the Indian nationalist movement, which later inspired his fight for Burmese independence. After his return to Burma in 1919, U Ottama began travelling extensively, preaching patriotism and organising Wunthanu Athins (Nationalist Societies) across the country. According to U Ottama, it was possible to be a monk alongside being a political activist. 'On the contrary,' says Keyes, 'he argued that for people to attain the ultimate goal of nibbana [nirvana] they must first free themselves from enslavement by an alien government.' U Ottama's followers preached his framework of nationalism and spread his vision to villages across Burma. 'The movement by U Ottama was fundamentalist not only in its opposition to an 'evil' political order but also in its critique of traditional religious practice,' Keyes adds. In the 1920s, U Ottama and his followers initiated a series of demonstrations of civil disobedience, modelled along the lines of Gandhi's movement in India. The movement aimed to boycott foreign goods, detest undue government taxes, protest against colonial institutions such as courts and encourage the formation of schools run by Burmese Buddhists rather than foreign Christians. Keyes notes that his campaigns paid particular focus on the abstinence from liquor, as per the norms of Buddhist morality. The monk was also fond of yoga, much like Gandhi. In Burma In Revolt: Opium And Insurgency Since 1948 (1994), author Bertil Lintner writes, 'In the Gandhian way, he transformed a basically political issue—nationalism and independence for Burma—into a religious one which appealed even to those who had not received British education.' However, the imperial government responded to U Ottama's demonstrations with force and suppression. His detentions, interestingly, were also similar to those of Gandhi. In 1921, he was arrested for an infamous speech known as 'Craddock, Get Out!', a harangue against Sir Reginald Craddock, then the governor of British Burma, and his repressive policies. 'It was the first time a nationalist had been charged with sedition and, adding insult to injury, he was a Buddhist monk of the eminence of a sayadaw, or great teacher. It was a challenge to the dignity of the entire nation,' notes Lintner. In 1924, he was arrested again for three years. Less than a year after his release, U Ottama was back in jail, where he died in 1939. 'Although he had an immense influence on the nationalist movement in the 1920s, by the 1930s leadership of the movement had shifted from political monks to lay people,' argues Keyes. Burma would later attain independence in 1948. Today, U Ottama is remembered by some as a Buddhist saint, and by others as the 'Gandhi of Burma'
News18
28 minutes ago
- News18
Trump And Putin Could Shape Political Map Of Ukraine, Europe Without Its Leaders At The Table
When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet at the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in Alaska, it will be their first face-to-face encounter since Osaka, 2019. On paper, the White House is calling it a "listening exercise" to discuss ending the Ukraine war. But there is growing concern that two global heavyweights, neither of them European, could potentially shape the political map of Europe without its own leaders at the table. This is exactly what happened in February 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin gathered in the Crimean resort of Yalta. The war in Europe was nearly over, but the conference's legacy is complicated: Poland's borders were redrawn, Eastern Europe fell into the Soviet sphere, and entire nations found their futures decided without representation. n18oc_world n18oc_crux
India Today
32 minutes ago
- India Today
Trump-Putin Alaska meet: What each player wants in Ukraine endgame
The US and Russian presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are to meet at a US air base in Alaska on Friday for talks on the Ukraine are high for the first summit between sitting US and Russian presidents in more than four years, but Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart in their visions on how to end the will be Putin's first trip to a Western country since launching his invasion in February 2022, as well as his first US visit in 10 years. Here is a look at what each side hopes to achieve from the talks:RUSSIAFor Putin, who has faced years of isolation from the West since the invasion, the summit is an opportunity to press Russia's hardline demands for ending the a draft peace plan published in June, Russia called on Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions that Moscow claimed to annex in 2022. Ukraine has rejected the has also called on Ukraine to halt its military mobilisation, abandon its NATO ambitions, and for Western countries to immediately stop weapon supplies — something critics say amounts to addition to territory, Russia wants Ukraine to ensure the "rights and freedoms" of the Russian-speaking population and to prohibit what it calls the "glorification of Nazism".It also wants Western sanctions says Russia's allegations of Nazism are absurd and that it already guarantees rights to Russian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not scheduled to take part in the summit, but has said there could be no peace deal without its involvement. He has called the meeting a "personal victory" for has called for an unconditional ceasefire on land, sea and sky as a prerequisite to peace wants both sides to release all prisoners of war and demands the return of Ukrainian children it says Russia illegally says Russia has forcibly transferred thousands of Ukrainian children into areas under its control since the war began, often adopting them into Russian families and assigning them Russian rejects the kidnapping allegations but acknowledges that thousands of children are on its says any deal must include security guarantees to prevent Russia from attacking again, and that there should be no restrictions on the number of troops it can deploy on its says sanctions on Russia can only be lifted gradually and that there should be a way of reimposing them if STATESTrump promised he would end the war within "24 hours" after taking office in January. But eight months on, and even after repeated calls with Putin and several visits to Russia by US envoy Steve Witkoff, he has failed to extract any major concessions from the summit is his first opportunity to broker a deal in US president, author of the book "Trump: The Art of the Deal" said on Wednesday that Russia would face "very severe consequences" if it did not halt its US leader initially said there would be some "land-swapping going on" at the talks, but appeared to walk back after speaking with European leaders on has said he would "like to see a ceasefire very, very quickly".But the White House has played down expectations of a breakthrough, describing it as a "listening exercise" for the former reality TV star."If the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick second one," Trump said, hinting Zelensky could take part in a subsequent providing military support for Ukraine and hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees, European leaders have been sidelined from the peace talks that may affect the region's security architecture in the representatives were neither invited to the past three meetings between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul, nor to the Russia-US talks in Riyadh in a statement last week, the leaders of Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the EU Commission warned there could be no meaningful peace without Ukraine's participation."Territorial questions concerning Ukraine can be, and will be, negotiated only by the Ukrainian president," French President Emmanuel Macron said after speaking with Trump on and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer have signalled they are willing to deploy peacekeepers in Ukraine once the fighting ends, an idea Russia has vehemently rejected.- EndsTune InMust Watch IN THIS STORY#Russia#Ukraine#United States of America#Donald Trump#Vladmir Putin#Volodymyr Zelenskyy
