New Zealand politicians broke out in song Thursday after striking down a right-wing-backed proposal that opponents feared would erode indigenous rights.

Tens of thousands of people – predominantly from the Māori community – had already taken to the streets to oppose the bill, which sought to redefine the terms of a treaty that British colonialists signed with the indigenous group more than 180 years ago.

The proposal made global headlines when a video went viral of the nation’s youngest legislator tearing the bill in two and leading a haka – a ceremonial Māori dance – in parliament.

As the bill was voted down by 112 votes to 11 on Thursday, after an occasionally heated session, politicians from both sides of the house sang a Māori song, or Waiata, in celebration, marking the end of a bitter public debate.

“This bill hasn’t been stopped, this bill has been absolutely annihilated,” said Hana-Rāwihti Maipi-Clarke, the MP who led the parliamentary haka during the earlier debate.

The Treaty Principles Bill sought to define the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi – an agreement signed between the British Crown and a group of indigenous Māori leaders in the 1840s, which formalized New Zealand as a British colony and reserved Māori land and customary rights.

Its proponent, David Seymour, argued parliament needed to define the principles of the treaty because definitions currently only existed in a series of court rulings made over decades – rather than in an act of parliament.

His ACT Party – a minority party in the right-wing governing coalition – believes the current law has led to a society where Māori have been afforded different rights and privileges to non-Māori in New Zealand.

Opponents said the courts had already settled the principles of the treaty and that the draft list Seymour put forward would erode indigenous rights and harm social cohesion.

Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Labour MP Willie Jackson called the bill “right-wing obscenity, masquerading as equality.”

Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins, the former prime minister, said the debate would be a “stain on the country” and called the proposed law change a “grubby little bill, born of a grubby little deal.”

The bill was allowed to pass through to the select committee stage because the ACT Party had made it a condition of the coalition deal that helped put Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ruling National Party into power.

But the Nationals and the other party in the coalition, New Zealand First, never agreed to support the bill beyond the select committee stage. Luxon had tried to publicly distance himself and his party from it.

Despite the overwhelming opposition, Seymour has vowed to “never give up” on his efforts to change the law.

“The idea that your race matters is a version of a bigger problem, it’s part of that bigger idea that our lives are determined by things out of our control,” he said in parliament on Thursday.

‘Cremation day’

Prime Minister Luxon was not present in parliament as the bill was voted down, drawing the ire of those behind the public campaign against it.

“If you’re the leader of this country and you’ve got a Bill in Parliament that had 300,000 submissions made on it, which broke every single record by a country mile, you would think that the leader of our country would want to be in Parliament for an occasion that big,” Tania Waikato, a lawyer for the Toitū te Tiriti campaign, told RNZ.

King Charles and Queen Camilla paid a surprise visit to the recovering Pope Francis on Wednesday during a state visit to Italy that coincided with the British royal couple’s 20th wedding anniversary.

The pope met privately with the royals, the Vatican said in a statement.

“During the meeting, the Pope expressed his good wishes to Their Majesties on the occasion of their wedding anniversary and reciprocated His Majesty’s wishes a speedy recovery of his health,” the Vatican said.

The 88-year-old pontiff has been recovering from a life-threatening bout of pneumonia which landed him in hospital for five weeks in February and March. Charles, meanwhile, has been battling cancer since last year.

Wednesday’s meeting came as a surprise after Buckingham Palace announced last month that the royals would postpone a planned state visit to the Vatican because of the pope’s ill health.

However, Francis had appeared to be in good spirits Sunday at his first public appearance since being released from hospital just over two weeks ago.

The pope smiled as he greeted crowds in the Vatican, sitting in a wheelchair and wearing what appeared to be a nasal cannula to help with his breathing.

In a photo circulated by the royal family of Francis greeting the royal couple Wednesday, the pontiff was not wearing the breathing aid.

Charles and Camilla are in Italy on a four-day state visit. They received a full ceremonial welcome on Tuesday, meeting President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale Palace before viewing a fly-past by aerial acrobatics teams from the Italian and British air forces.

Earlier Wednesday, Charles met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and became the first British monarch to address a joint session of the Italian parliament.

The trip comes less than two weeks after Charles was briefly hospitalized after experiencing “temporary side effects” from a scheduled cancer treatment, according to Buckingham Palace. While causing him to cancel a day’s worth of engagements, the king’s side effects were not out of the ordinary, according to a royal source, and he appeared to recover quickly.

In February last year, Charles revealed he had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer and stepped away from public duties for several months for treatment. He resumed official engagements in April last year after doctors said they were “very encouraged” by his progress.

Russian-American woman Ksenia Karelina, who was serving a 12-year prison sentence for treason in Russia, was released as part of a prisoner exchange that saw her swapped for an accused smuggler held in the US.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X early on Thursday that Karelina had been released and was on her way to the United States.

“American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release,” Rubio said on X.

He added the president would “continue to work for the release of ALL Americans.”

Karelina was exchanged for Arthur Petrov, a dual Russian-German citizen who was being held in the US on charges of criminal offences related to export control violations, smuggling, wire fraud and money laundering, Russian state news agencies reported Thursday, quoting the FSB, the Russian security agency.

The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the exchange happened in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. The ministry said in a statement that the fact that Russia and the US chose Abu Dhabi as the location for the swap reflected “the close friendship between them and the UAE.”

The ministry said it was hoping “these efforts will contribute to supporting efforts to reduce tensions and promote dialogue and understanding, thus achieving security and stability at the regional and international levels.”

Petrov was charged for criminal offenses related to export control violations, smuggling, wire fraud and money laundering, according to the US Justice Department.

He was arrested in August 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the US and was extradited to the US in August 2024. He was 33 at the time.

According to the Justice Department, Petrov was allegedly smuggling US-made microelectronics to Russia where they were used to manufacture weapons and other equipment for the Russian military.

The US put export controls on many parts that could be used to make weapons after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an effort to cut Russia off from Western technology.

The exchange happened as Russian and US officials were meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, to discuss embassy operations.

12 years for $50 charity donation

Karelina, then 33, was sentenced in August. She was convicted of treason after she made a donation of just over $50 to a US-based charity supporting Ukraine.

Her trial was held in the same court in Yekaterinburg where Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison last July.

Gershkovich was released in a historic prisoner swap that included former US Marine Paul Whelan, the prominent Putin critic and a permanent US resident Vladimir Kara-Murza, and the Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.

They were exchanged for a number of Russia citizens held in several countries, including convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov.

Karelina is a Los Angeles resident and amateur ballerina who became a US citizen in 2021. She entered Russia in January 2024 but the US did not learn of her arrest until February 8, 2024.

According to a website run by her supporters, Karelina traveled to Russia to visit her 90-year-old grandmother, sister, and parents, intending to return to her home in Los Angeles after two weeks.

Karelina’s release marks the second release of an American citizen from Russia since Trump returned to the White House. Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained in Russia for more than three years, was released in February. He was swapped for the accused Russian money launderer Alexander Vinnik.

The US is tracking over half a dozen Americans detained in Russia, the US official said. Among them is Stephen Hubbard who has been officially declared by the US as wrongfully detained. Hubbard, 72, was sentenced to six years and 10 months in Russian prison last year for allegedly fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.

Dominican Republic authorities have ended their rescue operation and turned to recovery efforts following the collapse of a nightclub roof on Tuesday, which left more than 200 people dead.

The deadly incident in the early hours of Tuesday morning at the Jet Set nightclub sent shockwaves around the country, with three days of mourning declared in the wake of the disaster.

The removal of bodies from the wrecked building accelerated overnight Wednesday into Thursday after civil protection services removed a large chunk of debris, according to Snayder Santana, an engineer from the Dominican Republic civil protection services.

According to Santana, the majority of the bodies recovered overnight were female and are still being identified.

An official statement from the country’s Emergency Center Operations on Wednesday said that “all reasonable possibilities of finding more survivors” had been exhausted, and the focus of the operation is now on recovering bodies.

“In the last days, rescue teams have worked uninterrupted to remove debris, helping the wounded and rescuing people alive,” the statement posted on X said.

It continues, “However, having exhausted any reasonable possibility of finding more survivors, the operation is now in a different phase, nonetheless sensitive and crucial: the recovery of human bodies with due respect and the dignity that every victim deserves.”

Juan Manuel Méndez, the director of the operations center, said in a press conference that no one had been pulled alive from the rubble since Tuesday.

It remains unclear how many people are unaccounted for.

Hundreds of rescue workers had spent two days combing through the remains of the nightclub after its roof collapsed around 1 a.m. on Tuesday during a performance of merengue artist Rubby Pérez and his orchestra, authorities said. Pérez’s body was recovered from the scene on Wednesday morning, emergency services said.

The death toll from the incident rose to 218 on Thursday, Méndez said. He added that 189 people had been rescued alive from the rubble. The previous death toll was put at 184.

The cause of the disaster is currently undetermined. The nightclub was built more than 50 years ago, according to local media reports, and has the capacity to hold up to 500 people.

Health minister Victor Atallah said most of the trauma injuries suffered by those killed were blows to the head. “The majority of the people who died, died instantly. Many were sitting down; the ceiling hit them in the head and chest,” he said, according to local newspaper El Caribe.

The Jet Set nightclub is one of the Caribbean nation’s most famous venues and its Monday night events are especially well attended. The nightclub is considered more upscale, attracting high-profile party-goers. Two former Major League Baseball players were in attendance at the venue when the collapse happened, and are among those confirmed dead.

Aerial footage showed the venue with a wide, gaping hole in the middle of the building where the audience would have been located during the performance.

Desperate families were seen outside the destroyed venue on Wednesday, hoping that their loved ones would be rescued from the debris. Local news footage on Wednesday showed some searching for the names of their loved ones in lists hanging on a field hospital outside the venue, while others went from hospital to hospital in search of news.

Dominican President Luis Abinader declared three days of mourning following the disaster. He traveled to the nightclub later Tuesday morning with First Lady Raquel Arbaje to express their condolences to families of the victims.

A suspect accused of facilitating the deadly Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 has been extradited by the United States to India, 17 years after the country was jolted by one of the worst tragedies to occur on its soil.

India accuses Rana of conspiring to carry out one of the country’s deadliest attacks, when 10 Pakistani men associated with the terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba killed more than 160 people during a four-day rampage through Mumbai that began on November 26, 2008.

That date is etched in the memory of the nation and is often referred to as India’s 9/11.

The attackers traveled to Mumbai by boat from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, hijacking a fishing trawler and killing its five crew members along the way. The men then docked at the waterfront near the iconic Gateway of India monument and split into at least three groups to carry out the attacks, according to police.

Using automatic weapons and grenades, they targeted the city’s largest train terminal, the luxury Taj Mahal Palace and the Oberoi Trident hotels, the popular Leopold restaurant, a Jewish community center, and a hospital.

Nine of the 10 terrorists were killed by police during a cat-and-mouse chase across the city. The lone surviving gunman, Ajmal Kasab, was executed in 2012.

Rana, who lived in the US at the time, is accused by New Delhi of conspiring with the terrorists and proving them with information required to carry out their attack. He previously denied similar accusations in a US court.

India’s federal investigative agency has charged Rana with several crimes, including attempting to wage war, murder and forgery. If found guilty, the 64-year-old could face the death penalty.

On Thursday, the country’s National Investigation Agency confirmed Rana’s extradition, writing in a statement that he was sent to India after he exhausted all legal avenues to stay in the US.

In 2011, a US court acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material to support the Mumbai attackers, but he was found guilty of two other charges, including providing material support to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.

He was serving a 14-year sentence in a Los Angeles jail for those charges when his extradition was approved earlier this week.

India’s foreign ministry on Wednesday said the US Supreme Court had rejected Rana’s plea to stay his extradition, but did not answer further questions about the case.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the date of the Mumbai attacks.

The Israeli military has fired Air Force reservists who publicly called for an immediate return of the remaining hostages in Gaza even if it requires an immediate ceasefire, according to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In a letter published in Israel’s major newspapers, hundreds of Air Force reservists and retirees said the IDF is fighting a war for political purposes without a military goal.

“At this time, the war mainly serves political and personal interests and not security interests,” the group wrote. “The continuation of the war does not contribute to any of its stated goals and will lead to the death of abductees, IDF soldiers and innocent civilians, and to the attrition of reservists.” The letter says the signatures include pilots and air crew. The letter didn’t call for a refusal to serve.

The public letter is another sign of the growing discontent within Israel at the continuation of the war after 18 months and the failure to return the remaining 59 hostages still held captive in Gaza. Nearly 70% of Israelis support ending the war in exchange as part of a deal to free the remaining hostages, according to a recent poll by Israel’s Channel 12.

Israeli reservists have become increasingly vocal since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas last month and returned to war, feeling the personal and financial strain of multiple tours of reserve duty and questioning the Israeli government’s commitment to negotiating a return of the hostages. The simmering frustration is a potential issue for a military that relies heavily on reservists in wartime.

The IDF Chief of Staff and the Air Force commander decided to fire the reservists who had signed the letter, including those who in active service. It’s unclear how many of the hundreds of signatories are active or reserve, but the IDF said it was analyzing the list to see how many more are still in the military.

“It is impossible for someone who works a shift in (an Air Force) pit to later come out and express a lack of confidence in the mission. This is an impossible anomaly,” the IDF said in a statement. An IDF official said most of the signatories are not active reservists.

Reservist navigator Alon Gur, whose name appears on the letter, was permanently dismissed last month, according to the IDF, after he said on social media that Israel had reached the point where “the state again abandons its citizens in broad daylight” and “where the king becomes more important than the kingdom,” according to widespread reports in Israeli media. Gur, who posted the statement the day Israel relaunched military operations in Gaza, said he had informed his squadron commander that he was leaving the military.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz slammed the letter and lauded the decision to fire the signatories.

Netanyahu cast the letter as written by “an extreme fringe group that is once again trying to break Israeli society from within.”

“Refusal is refusal—whether it is stated explicitly or disguised in euphemistic language,” he said in a statement.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has threatened to quit Netanyahu’s government if the war ends, congratulated the IDF Chief of Staff and the Air Force commander for ousting the “refuseniks” – a term used for those refusing to serve in the military.

“This swift action is essential to make it clear that we will not again accept refusals and calls for rebellion against the IDF,” he wrote on social media.

The move to clamp down on the public protest appeared aimed at stemming increasingly vocal discontent among reservists and preventing a repeat of 2023, when waves of reservists said they would refuse to serve in protest of Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul efforts

Nearly all of those reservists ultimately answered call-ups they received after Israel was attacked on October 7, but that wartime unity has begun to falter as the war has dragged on.

Sudan has accused the United Arab Emirates at the United Nations’ top court of violating the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in its Darfur region.

“A genocide is being committed against the ethnic group of the Masalit in the west of our country,” Sudan’s acting justice minister, Muawia Osman, told the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, on Thursday.

He alleged that a genocide was being carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces “with the support and complicity of the United Arab Emirates.”

Sudan last month filed a case against the UAE at the court for allegedly arming the RSF, an accusation that the UAE has repeatedly denied.

The UAE on Thursday reiterated its rejection of Sudan’s accusations, calling them “baseless and politically driven,” adding that it “supports neither side” in the Sudanese civil war, and that there is no evidence to support Sudan’s claims. In its statement to the court, it questioned the ICJ’s jurisdiction over the matter.

Since April 2023, two of Sudan’s most powerful generals – Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and former ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary RSF – have engaged in a bloody feud over control of the country which is split between their strongholds.

The ongoing civil war has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes and diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to an end have failed.

Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ deals with disputes between states and violations of international treaties. Sudan and the UAE are both signatories of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Osman alleged that “direct logistic and other support” the UAE provided to the RSF and allied militias “has been, continues to be the primary driving force behind the genocide” including “killing, rape, forced displacement, looting and the destruction of public and private properties.”

Cases before the ICJ can take years to reach a final decision, and so states can ask the court to issue emergency measures that prevent the conflict from escalating.

The Sudanese minister asked the court to urgently order the UAE “to refrain from any conduct amounting to complicity” in the alleged genocide against the Masalit, and that the Gulf state submit a report to the court within one month, and then every six months until the court comes to a final decision on the case.

UAE accuses Sudan of ‘cynical PR stunt’

The United States in January found attacks against the Masalit to be genocide. Last year, a UN panel of experts found that the UAE’s involvement, along with that of Chad, in the conflict was “credible.” US lawmakers have also said they would hold all major US arms sales to the UAE for “its support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who the United States determined committed genocide.”

Sudan’s lawyers referenced a recent Sudanese government intelligence assessment provided to the court which they said showed clear evidence that UAE-backed arms deliveries to the RSF through neighboring Chad “continue even today.”

The UAE has repeatedly rejected Sudan’s allegations, with Ketait on Thursday accusing the nation of weaponizing the ICJ “for disinformation.”