Napier house fire
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.
A section of Hamilton's Clyde St has been closed due to a gas leak.
A bus has smashed into a tree in South Auckland with ambulance officers treating passengers at the scene.
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Scoop
25 minutes ago
- Scoop
US Vetoes Security Council Resolution Demanding Permanent Ceasefire In Gaza
4 June 2025 The text, co-sponsored by Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia – collectively known as the E-10 – received 14 votes in favour, with the US casting the lone vote against. As one of the council's five permanent members, the US holds veto power – a negative vote that automatically blocks any resolution from going forward. Had it been adopted, the draft would have demanded 'an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza' to be respected by all parties. Release all hostages The text reaffirmed the Council's earlier call for the ' immediate, dignified and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.' The draft also expressed grave concern over the ' catastrophic humanitarian situation ' in Gaza – following months of almost total Israeli aid blockade – including the risk of famine, highlighted by recent assessments by international food security experts. It reaffirmed the obligation of all parties to comply with international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law. Resume flow of aid In addition to a ceasefire, the draft resolution demanded the ' immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions ' on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza, calling for safe and unhindered access for UN and humanitarian partners across the enclave. It also urged the restoration of essential services, in accordance with humanitarian principles and prior Security Council resolutions. The text voiced support for ongoing mediation efforts led by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States to revive the phased ceasefire framework outlined in resolution 2735 (2024), which envisions a permanent cessation of hostilities, the release of all hostages, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners, the return of all remains, full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza, and the start of a long-term reconstruction plan. Draft resolution unacceptable: United States Speaking ahead of the vote, acting US Representative Dorothy Shea described the draft resolution as 'unacceptable'. 'US opposition to this resolution should come as no surprise – it is unacceptable for what it does say, it is unacceptable for what it does not say, and it is unacceptable for the manner in which it has been advanced,' she said. 'The United States has been clear,' she continued, 'we would not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza.' She added that Hamas has rejected numerous ceasefire proposals, including one over the weekend that would have provided a pathway to end the conflict and release the remaining hostages. 'We cannot allow the Security Council to award Hamas' intransigence,' Ms. Shea said, stressing, 'Hamas and other terrorists must have no future in Gaza. As Secretary [Marco] Rubio has said: 'If an ember survives, it will spark again into a fire'.' 'The world is watching' The failure of the resolution comes as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens, with UN agencies warning of the total collapse of health services, growing displacement, and a rising death toll around the new privatized US-Israel led aid distribution system which bypasses established agencies. 'The world is watching, day after day, horrifying scenes of Palestinians being shot, wounded or killed in Gazawhile simply trying to eat,' said UN relief chief Tom Fletcher earlier on Wednesday.
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- RNZ News
Russian attack on Ukraine's Kharkiv kills three, wounds 22
Rescuers carry a wounded person out of the ruins of a civilian plant following Russian attacks on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early on 7 June 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: Sergey Bobok / AFP Russia attacked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv at night with drones, missiles and guided bombs, killing at least three people and injuring 22, including a one-and-a-half-month-old baby, according to the city mayor, Ihor Terekhov. One of Ukraine's largest cities, Kharkiv, is located just a few dozen kilometres from the Russian border and has been under constant Russian shelling during more than three years of war. "Kharkiv is currently experiencing the most powerful attack since the start of the full-scale war," Terekhov said on the Telegram messenger early on Saturday (local time). Dozens of explosions were heard in the city through the night, and Russian troops were striking simultaneously with missiles, drones and guided aerial bombs, he said. Multi-storey and private residential buildings, educational and infrastructure facilities were attacked, Terekhov noted. Photos by local authorities and Reuters showed burnt and partially destroyed houses and vehicles, and rescuers carrying those injured to safety and removing debris. Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said that one of the city's civilian industrial facilities was attacked by 40 drones, one missile and four bombs, causing a fire, adding there may still be people under the rubble. The Ukrainian military said Russia launched 206 drones, two ballistic and seven other missiles against Ukraine overnight. It said its air defence units shot down 87 drones while another 80 drones were lost - in reference to the Ukrainian military using electronic warfare to redirect them, or they were drone simulators that did not carry warheads. Ten locations were hit, the military said. - Reuters
Scoop
19 hours ago
- Scoop
Bad Old Habits: Israel Backs Palestinian Militias In Gaza
It is one of those things that should be recorded and replayed for eternity: Israel, in order to guard some misplaced sense of security, happily backs Palestinian groups in order to divide themselves. Hamas, seen now as an existential monster, was tolerated and even supported for lengthy stints in efforts to undermine the various factions in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation represented by Fatah. In his 2008 work, Hamas vs. Fatah, Jonathan Schanzer, writes how the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the inspirational font for Hamas, was seen as an opportunity by the Israelis when taking root in Gaza. 'By the late 1970s, the Israelis believed that they had found Fatah's Achilles' heel.' Israeli strategy permitted the Brotherhood to thrive, going so far as to allow the cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yassin to operate a network of welfare, medical and education services. These had been sorely neglected by Fatah in the Gaza Strip. This approach effectively licensed the emergence of fundamentalism, seen, curiously enough, as more manageable than the military adventurism of the PLO. The First Intifada in 1987 spurred on the creation by Yassin and his followers of Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya ('Islamic Resistance Movement'). The 1988 charter of the organisation we know as Hamas, more youthful, and leaner, and hungrier than their Fatah rivals, made its purpose clear: 'There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad'. In 2009, while surveying the ruins of a neighbour's bungalow in Moshav Tekuma, the retired Israeli officer Avner Cohen, who had served in Gaza for over two decades, was rueful. 'Hamas, to my regret,' he told the Wall Street Journal, 'is Israel's creation.' Sustenance and encouragement from the Jewish state had effectively emboldened a mortal enemy. Such a record should chasten wise legislators and leaders. But the only lesson history teaches is that its grave lessons are left unlearned, with disastrous, inimical mistakes made anew. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is proof of that contention. His various governments proudly backed the policy of division between the Gaza Strip and West Bank, defanging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the latter while propping up Hamas in the former. Every now and then, the Israeli Defense Forces would keep Hamas in bloody check, a strategy that came to be called 'mowing the grass'. Israel's support for Hamas has come in the form of work permits (up to 3,000 granted to Gazans in 2021, rising to 10,000 during the Bennett-Lapid government), and suitcases, heavy with Qatari cash, entering the Strip through crossings since 2018. In 2019, Netanyahu was quoted as telling a Likud faction meeting that opponents of a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Hamas. Five years prior, Bezalel Smotrich, the current firebrand, pro-ethnic cleansing Finance Minister, declared with candour that 'The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset.' With Hamas now the target and sworn enemy, the PM feels that the same, failed experiment adopted at stages since the 1970s can be replicated: backing and encouraging yet another group of Palestinians to undermine any sovereign cause. The central figure and beneficiary of this latest folly is the shady Yasser Abu Shabab, a Rafah resident from a Bedouin family known for a spotty criminal record. Calling itself the 'Anti-Terror Service' or the Popular Forces, and possessing assault rifles and equipment seized from Hamas, his 'clan', as reports have described it, has a committed record of looting humanitarian aid in Gaza. In Netanyahu's eyes, these rapacious poachers have turned into opportunistic game keepers, partially guarding the paltry aid that is currently being sent into Gaza under the supervision of the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Georgios Petropoulos, a senior United Nations official based in Gaza last year, calls Abu Shabab 'the self-styled power broker of east Rafah.' For his part, Abu Shabab admits to looting aid trucks, but only 'so we can eat, not so we can sell.' The looting proclivities of such groups is well noted, with the head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in occupied Palestinian territories, Jonathan Whittall, making a damning accusation on May 28: 'The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point in Gaza.' On May 21, Abu Shabab's group posted on Facebook that '92 trucks were secured and entered areas under the protection of our popular forces, and exited safely under our supervision.' Details on which organisation was behind hiring the transporting vehicles were not given. With rumours bubbling that the Israeli government had embarked on this latest course of action, Netanyahu came clean. 'On the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas,' he announced in a posted video with usual, glowing cynicism. 'What's wrong with that?' The strategy 'only saves the lives of Israeli soldiers and publicising this only benefits Hamas.' The advice purportedly given by Shin Bet to Netanyahu to arm Gaza militias opposed to Hamas was an expedient measure, largely occasioned by the PM's continued refusal to involve the Palestinian Authority in the strip. Not all Israeli lawmakers were impressed by Netanyahu's latest effort at supposed cleverness. Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats in the Knesset, condemned him as a threat to Israeli security. 'Instead of bringing about a deal, making arrangements with the moderate Sunni axis, and returning the hostages and security of Israeli citizens, he is creating a new ticking bomb in Gaza.' The leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Avigdor Lieberman, is of the view that the transfer of weapons to Abu Shabab's outfit was done unilaterally. 'The Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with the Islamic State group,' he told the public broadcaster Kan. 'To my knowledge, this did not go through approval by the cabinet.' With humanitarian aid now at the mercy of a group scorned by UN officials, humanitarian workers and certain Israeli politicians – a rare coming together of minds – the next round of errors is playing out with rich, quixotic stupidity. Israel further adds to its own insecurity, while Abu Shabab knows all too well the views of his family, expressed in chilling statement: 'We affirm that we will not accept Yasser's return to the family. We have no objection to those around him liquidating him immediately, and we tell you that his blood is forfeit.'
