New Pope celebrated as Auckland War Memorial Museum closes
Christopher Luxon pre-Budget speech to BusinessNZ
Nic Martin and Sophie-Maude rock out and jam together in an interview with NZME in Pāpāmoa.Video / Tom Eley
Black smoke, signifying no pope, has emerged from the Sistine Chapel in the first decision of the conclave to elect a new pope.
The Glen Innes Ministry of Social Development building on Mayfair Pl went up in smoke around 7am this morning. Video / Buhay Pinoy Sa New Zealand
A woman has been arrested after her pet raccoon was found with a crack pipe in her car.
Greg Foran talks leaving the airline and the state of the company and sector with Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking.
Voting under way for new pope, high demand for New Zealand red meat and the labour market remains in sorry state.
Emily Mains organises a free Tuesday evening run club each week in Clive, Hastings, for women runners to feel safe while they exercise.
George won't let a wheelchair keep him from the climbing wall! Reporter Angelina is at the Halberg Games, where kids with disabilities are taking adaptive sports by storm.
14 years on from the earthquakes, Christchurch city prepares to open a first-class stadium while the Cathedral sits unfinished in an empty Square.
A group of at least 100 gang members were monitored by police travelling to a function at a bar at Botany Junction. Video / Supplied
Banana-clad mayoral hopeful Graham Bloxham talks about his arrest and plans for Wellington. Video / Marty Melville
Rescuers search for survivors in the wreckage of the UNWRA school, where civil defence authorities say an Israeli airstrike killed nine people. Video / AFP
At least three civilians, including a child, were killed after India fired missiles at Pakistani territory early today. VIdeo / AFP
A 24-hour indoor golf fundraiser on May 23 will help raise funds and awareness for Remi Henderson who suffers from Rhett Syndrome.
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RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Migrant communities celebrate parent visa, amid concerns it'll lock many out
Parents and their sponsor will need to meet a range of health and income requirements to qualify for the new visa. Photo: RNZ Migrant communities are hailing a new visa which will allow parents of New Zealand citizens and residents to visit multiple times over a five-year period. Applications for the visa - announced by the government yesterday - will open from 29 September, with parents and their sponsor needing to meet a range of health and income requirements. But the Green Party has concerns it would lock out all but the most wealthy. The Parent Boost visa allows migrants to sponsor their parents to visit and stay in New Zealand for up to five years, with the option to extend for five more. The prime minister said it would mean a lot for many families. "Many, many other countries around the world have started to back off from visas like this. But it's so important to our migrant community, when we know how hard they work, and what they're doing to try and raise their families and strengthen their communities, and we want to be able to support them in this way," Christopher Luxon said. To get the visa, parents will need to have an eligible sponsor, meet acceptable character and health standards, and have at least one year of health insurance coverage providing emergency medical cover, repatriation, return of remains, and cancer treatment. While offshore during the third year of their visa, the parent would need to complete a new medical assessment and demonstrate they had maintained their insurance. The sponsor must also earn the median wage to sponsor one parent, or one and a half times the median wage for both parents. Otherwise, the parent or parents must have an ongoing income aligning with the superannuation rate, or have available funds of $160,000 for a single parent or $250,000 for both, to see them through the duration of their visa. Both National and ACT campaigned on a parent visitor visa in 2023. The policy was secured in the coalition agreement, although ACT wanted an annual $3500 fee, which would go into a public health fund, and ensure the visa was self-funding. ACT immigration spokesperson Parmjeet Parmar was at the announcement and while she was celebrating it, she said she did not want to see any situations where migrants were forced to remortgage their house to pay for emergency hospital bills. "Having a health insurance component is helpful, but sometimes it can also be a risk if the health insurance co-pay doesn't cover the cost, because I don't want to see any sponsor in any kind of debt," she said. Immigration minister Erica Stanford said the insurance component was necessary. "When you come to New Zealand on a visitor visa, there is no ability for you to go into the public service and receive healthcare. That's why, when you're here for five years, there needs to be that insurance component," she said. Insurance from an overseas provider would also be eligible. Luxon was confident the right balance had been struck. "We have to find the balance where you've got visitors from overseas who then want to access public services in New Zealand, but yet they haven't been taxpayers for 40 years, and that's not fair on New Zealanders who are here. But equally, we don't want it to be so onerous and unachievable," Luxon said. Ethnic and Faith Communities Network convenor Abdur Razzaq said the announcement was a long time coming, and was a significant step towards ensuring ethnic minorities in New Zealand would feel like they were part of New Zealand's fabric. "What we have got now is families who can be actually families," he said. He said many doctors, engineers, and IT professionals had been leaving New Zealand because their parents could not come. "Canada has had this for a long time, and it's worked." Razzaq believed it struck the right balance so there would not be burdens on the health and housing sectors. Daljit Singh from the Supreme Sikh Society said he had been lobbying Parliament for this kind of visa for years. "It's a benefit to every migrant in this country. It is the opportunity for parents to stay with their children," he said. But Singh continued to have concerns about the income thresholds. "There is still a gap between rich and poor. Everybody wants, actually, to stay with their parents." The Green Party's immigration spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March said the income requirements would lock out thousands of migrant families. "Low-waged workers that National called essential during the pandemic will be missing out on being able to have their parents living with them in their new homeland," he said. Menéndez March had concerns that when the visas expired, migrants would end up sending more money offshore instead of in New Zealand, and using up weeks of leave to see their ageing parents. The visa is not a pathway to residency. Parents would not be able to work in New Zealand, but would be able to do remote work for their offshore employer. Luxon said checks and balances would be in place to ensure parents and their sponsors met their obligations. "I know people will respect it, but it's really important that people meet their obligations, and so there will be stronger enforcement as well associated to make sure that people are not abusing the system or taking advantage of the system," he said. The existing $441 Parent and Grandparent visitor visa allows relatives to stay for six months at a time, for a maximum of 18 months over a three year period. A separate Parent Resident visa lets parents live in New Zealand indefinitely, but comes with English language requirements, costs $5810, and needs an expression of interest before being invited to apply. They can apply for permanent residence after ten years. There is also a Parent Retirement Resident visa which costs $12,850, and requires parents to have an adult child who is a New Zealand citizen or resident living in New Zealand, have at least $1 million to invest in New Zealand for four years and at least $500,000 for settlement, and an annual income of at least $60,000. After the four years, the parent can apply for permanent residence. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
2 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.
1News
2 hours ago
- 1News
Israel retrieves body of Thai hostage as 95 reported killed in Gaza
Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage abducted into the Gaza Strip during the Hamas-led attack that sparked the war, as Israel's military continued its offensive, killing at least 95 people in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza's health ministry. Nattapong Pinta had come to Israel to work in agriculture. Israel's government said he was seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed early in the war, which began on October 7, 2023. Thailand's foreign ministry said the bodies of two other citizens were yet to be retrieved. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive. Many lived on the outskirts of southern Israeli kibbutzim and towns, the first places overrun in the attack. Forty-six Thais have been killed during the war, according to the foreign ministry. Israel's defence minister said Pinta's body was retrieved from the Rafah area in southern Gaza. The army said he was seized by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that also took two Israeli-American hostages, Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai, whose bodies were retrieved on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT Israel's military later said it killed the head of the Mujahideen Brigades, As'ad Aby Sharaiya, in Gaza City on Saturday. Fifty-five hostages remain in Gaza. Israel says more than half are dead. Families rallied again Saturday evening in Israel, calling for a ceasefire deal to bring everyone home. Hamas issued an unusual warning about another hostage, Matan Zangauker, saying Israel's military had surrounded the area where he's held and that any harm that came to him during a rescue attempt would be Israel's responsibility. Israel's military didn't immediately comment. 'The decision to expand the (military) ground manoeuvre is at the cost of Matan's life and the lives of all the hostages,' Zangauker's mother, Einav, told the rally in Tel Aviv. Israel continues its military offensive A strike in Gaza City killed six members of a family, including two children, according to the Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals. Israel's military said the strike targeted the Mujahideen Brigades leader. Displaced Palestinians carrying their belongings in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, June 7, 2025. (Source: Associated Press) ADVERTISEMENT 'This is the real destruction,' a man said as he carried the body of a small boy from the scene. Four Israeli strikes hit the Muwasi area in southern Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis. In northern Gaza, a strike hit an apartment, killing seven people, including a mother and five children. Their bodies were taken to Shifa hospital. 'Stand up, my love,' one weeping woman said, touching the shrouded bodies. Israel said it was responding to Hamas' 'barbaric attacks' and dismantling its capabilities. It said it takes all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Reports say some of the dead tried to get food aid Staff at Nasser hospital, which received the bodies of six people over the past 24 hours, said they were killed while on their way to get food aid. Much of Gaza's population of over 2 million relies on aid after widespread destruction of agriculture as well as a recent Israeli blockade. Experts have warned of famine. ADVERTISEMENT Israel's army has warned that the aid distribution area is an active combat zone during nighttime hours. It said several suspects attempted to approach troops operating in the Tel al-Sultan area overnight 'in a manner that posed a threat." The army said troops called out, then fired warning shots as the suspects advanced. An army official who couldn't be named in line with military procedures said the shots were fired about a kilometre from the distribution site. Over the past two weeks, shootings have occurred frequently near the new hubs where thousands of desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed, according to Gaza hospital officials. Israel's military has said it fired warning shots or, in some instances, at individuals approaching. The hubs are run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a new group of mainly American contractors. Israel wants it to replace a system coordinated by the United Nations and aid groups. A GHF spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with the group's rules, said it didn't feed Gaza residents on Saturday and blamed Hamas threats. There was no immediate Hamas response. Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid under the UN-led system. ADVERTISEMENT The UN and aid groups deny there's significant diversion of aid to militants and say the new system — which they have rejected — allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and won't be effective. The UN says it has been unable to distribute much aid under its system because of Israeli military restrictions on movements and insecurity. Separately, Palestinians lined up at a soup kitchen in Gaza City for handouts on the second day of Eid al-Adha. 'I have been standing here for more than an hour and a half. I feel I have a sunstroke, and I am in need,' said Farida al-Sayed, who said she had six people to feed. 'I only had lentils, and I ran out of them.' Death tolls since the war began Hamas-led militants killed around 1200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 hostages. Most were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered dozens of bodies. Israel's military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Hamas-run Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.
