Māori lawmakers in New Zealand interrupt vote on controversial bill with Haka
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(WELLINGTON, New Zealand) — Māori lawmakers interrupted a New Zealand parliamentary vote with a Haka on Thursday to protest a proposed law that critics say would erode the land and cultural rights of Indigenous New Zealanders.
When asked how her party’s representatives would vote during the session, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of New Zealand’s Māori party stood up and began a soaring Haka, a ceremonial Māori dance that demonstrates pride, strength and unity through a series of intricate movements and facial expressions. She ripped a copy of the bill in half as she did the Haka.
About half of the lawmakers present, including members of the Labour and Green parties, joined in, along with members of the public seated in the gallery, their chants echoing through the chamber.
Gerry Brownlee, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared to roll his eyes as the Haka began. Unable to regain control of the room, he later suspended the House and ordered the gallery to be cleared.
He suspended Maipi-Clarke for one day. Earlier in the session, he ejected veteran Māori lawmaker Willie Jackson for yelling “Shame! Shame!” at the representative who proposed the controversial law.
The Treaty Principles Bill proposes reinterpreting the Treaty of Waitangi, an 1840 agreement guaranteeing the Māori certain land and cultural rights in exchange for allowing the British to govern.
Critics of the bill said it will eliminate dedicated land, government seats, health care initiatives and cultural preservation efforts granted to the Maori people under the Treaty of Waitangi. Together for Te Tiriti, a group that advocates for Maori people, said the bill “clears the way for politicians and corporations to have greater control over our communities.”
David Seymour, a Māori lawmaker who authored the Treaty Principles Bill, argued that the existing laws grant Māori people “different rights from other New Zealanders.”
Under the Treaty of Waitangi, lawmakers set up programs to revitalize the Māori language and tackle poor health metrics through a Māori Health Authority.
Although the Treaty Principles Bill is unlikely to pass, leaders, including Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, voted for it in the first stage as part of a political coalition deal, promising they would not allow it to pass any further.
Thousands of New Zealanders marched toward Wellington on Monday to protest the Treaty Principles Bill. The protest is expected to be the biggest race relations march in the country’s history.
Ukrainian emergency services extinguish a fire in a house, after Russian shelling, in the city of Kostiantynivka, Ukraine on November 13, 2024. (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Russia increased the intensity of its long-range drone attacks on Ukrainian cities by around 44% in the week following President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory, ABC News analysis shows.
The size and complexity of drone attacks by both Russia and Ukraine have been steadily increasing since the full-scale war began in February 2022. The past five weeks have seen around 4,500 UAVs cross the shared border in either direction.
But Trump’s electoral victory — confirmed in the early hours of Nov. 6 — aligned with an uptick in Moscow’s use of Iranian-produced Shahed strike drones to bombard Ukrainian targets nationwide.
The week since Trump’s win saw Russia launch 641 strike drones into Ukraine, per daily figures published by Ukraine’s air force — an average of more than 91 UAVs each day.
Ukraine’s air force recorded 2,286 launched into its territory in the period from Oct. 1 to Nov. 5, at a daily average of less than 64 UAVs.
The daily number of Russian drones surpassed 100 on three of the seven days since the U.S. presidential election, that threshold having been reached only five times in the five weeks previously. The record high of 145 drones was set on Nov. 10.
Russia often also launches ballistic missiles along with its drone barrages, though far fewer. Ukraine’s air force reported 88 missiles fired into the country between Oct. 1 and Nov. 5, and 12 in the week after the election. That meant a daily average of just over 2 Russian missiles in the period before the election and just under 2 after.
The rate of Ukrainian drone attacks has been stable since the start of October, per figures published in real time by the Russian Defense Ministry on its Telegram channels.
Moscow reported downing 1,277 between Oct. 1 and Nov. 5 — an average of just over 35 UAVs each day. The week after the election saw Russian air defenses down 243 drones, the ministry said, for a daily average of just below 35 UAVs.
ABC News cannot independently verify the numbers provided by either defense ministry. The publicly available totals do not include short-range or reconnaissance drones used in front line areas. Both Russia and Ukraine may have reasons to inflate the figures and war conditions mean details can be hard to confirm.
Nonetheless, the general trend is toward larger and more regular drone barrages.
“In the next few months up to Jan. 20, we are expecting a significantly increasing number of launches towards Ukraine,” Ivan Stupak, a former officer in the Security Service of Ukraine, told ABC News.
Stupak said the number of Russian drone attacks has been steadily increasing in recent months. August saw 818 launches, September 1,410 and October 2,072, he said. Moscow’s intention, Stupak suggested, is to cause as much damage to Ukraine as possible before the change in U.S. administration.
Russia’s rising rate of long-range attacks comes alongside its increased intensity of ground assaults, with heavy fighting ongoing in eastern Ukraine, in Russia’s western Kursk region — parts of which Kyiv’s forces have occupied since August — and with Ukrainian commanders bracing for an expected offensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Both sides have a two-month window in which to maneuver before Trump returns to the White House, having promised during the campaign to end the war “in 24 hours” by forcing Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table.
Russia is upping the ante “because they want to put Ukraine in the most difficult situation before Trump is inaugurated,” Oleg Ignatov — the International Crisis Group think tank’s senior Russia analyst — told ABC News. “It’s good for Russia to be as a strong as possible,” he added, though noted that “events on the ground have their own logic” beyond the purely political.
Ukraine will want to continue its own long-range strikes, using its fast-developing and far-reaching drone arsenal. “Ukraine will continue conducting such types of strikes as long as it possible,” Stupak said. “First of all, Ukraine is interested in destroying huge munition depots and oil refineries and facilities.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia sees “positive signals” following Trump’s victory, though added it is unclear “to what extent Trump will adhere to the statements made during his campaign.”
Still, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said any peace talks must be based on the “new territorial realities” of partial Russian occupation and claimed full sovereignty over four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — as well as continued control of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.
The Kremlin has also signaled it will not begin negotiations with Ukraine on ending the war until Ukrainian troops are removed from Kursk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy set out a five-point “victory plan” in October, which included demands for full NATO membership and more long-range Western weapons — plus permission to use them on Russian territory — as key deterrence measures.
Zelenskyy’s victory plan also included three “secret annexes” that were presented to foreign leaders but not made public.
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell and Natalia Popova contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday it defeated a fresh wave of Ukrainian drone attacks over the west of the country.
The ministry wrote on its official Telegram channel that 29 “Ukrainian drones were destroyed by air defense on duty overnight.”
The ministry said that 15 UAVs were downed over Bryansk region, five over the Kursk region, four over the Smolensk region, two over the Orel region and one each over Belgorod, Kaluga and Rostov regions.
On Sunday morning, the ministry said it shot down an additional Ukrainian drone over the Ryazan region.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired two ballistic missiles, one cruise missile and 14 Shahed UAVs into the country on Saturday night. The cruise missile and 10 Shaheds were shot down by air defenses, it wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine did not comment on its alleged overnight drone attack into Russia. Ukrainian leaders and commanders generally do not confirm or deny attacks within Russian borders.
The latest drone and missile exchange followed a large Russian drone assault against Ukrainian cities on Friday night and Saturday morning. Ukraine’s air force said it downed 72 of 76 Shahed drones fired at targets including the capital Kyiv.
Moscow said it also destroyed Ukrainian drones over two western regions on Friday night.
ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — America First Policy Institute, a think tank aligned with former President Donald Trump, is presumed by federal authorities to have been attacked by Chinese hackers, sources familiar with the matter have told ABC News.
AFPI’s Chief Communications Officer Marc Lotter told ABC News in a statement that “it is not surprising” that “hostile foreign actors” would target AFPI, noting it’s a leading Trump-aligned policy group.
“As the leading policy group in the America First movement, it is not surprising that hostile foreign actors would attempt to infiltrate our IT,” Lotter wrote. “The tactics, techniques, and procedures of the threat actor are similar to that of nation-state sponsored activities we have seen, allowing us to remediate and respond quickly.”
“Like the America First movement itself, AFPI will not creep at the speed of government but act at the speed of business with the world’s leading cyber experts to even further enhance our already robust security,” he continued.
Politico first reported the alleged hack.
AFPI is a policy advisory think tank group that houses hundreds of former Trump administration officials, including AFPI board chairwoman Linda McMahon, who has been named co-chair of the Trump Transition Team.
The reports of APFI’s being targeted by foreign actors come on the heels of alleged Iranian hacking of the Trump campaign.
The Justice Department unsealed an indictment last month that charged three Iranians over their alleged involvement in the hack of emails from former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
The indictment charged the men with a series of crimes ranging from computer hacking charges, material support to a foreign terrorist organization, identity theft and aiding and abetting.
Prosecutors say the three men were all employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and engaged in a “wide-ranging hacking campaign” that used spear-phishing and other digital hacking techniques to compromise targets that included current and former U.S. government officials, members of the media, NGOs and “individuals associated with U.S. political campaigns.”
