Indigenous senator who heckled King during Australia visit censured

Australian senator Lidia Thorpe tore up a copy of a motion censuring her for protesting against King Charles during his October visit when she accused him of genocide against Indigenous people.

Ms Thorpe, an Independent senator and Indigenous activist, said “I’ll do it again” and “I’ll do it every time” after she was handed down the parliamentary rebuke.

“They want me to kneel, to be silent, to disappear, but let me be clear,” she said after the Australian Senate passed the motion which was supported by both the ruling Labor party and the opposition coalition, “my loyalty lies with my people, with justice, not with a government or a crown that has systematically worked to erase us”.

The Senate passed the motion against Mr Thorpe with 46 votes in favour and 12 against for heckling King Charles and Queen Camilla during their address in the Great Hall of Parliament House.

“This is not your country,” she said, approaching the stage and shouting at the King. “You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You are not our king, you’re not sovereign … You destroyed our land.”

Ms Thorpe, a DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara member, called the lawmakers who supported the motion “hypocrites” and said the censure process was a ploy to divert attention from the real issues affecting Australia.

She accused the government and opposition of denying her the right to vote.

“I was denied my right to be in that chamber whilst everybody else voted to shut me down,” she said.

Ms Thorpe, who had disrupted previous events in protest against Britain’s colonisation of Australia, had to retake her oath of office in 2022 after she tweaked it to label Queen Elizabeth a coloniser.

She was directed to recite the affirmation, a form of parliamentary oath that omits a reference to God, as written.

Australia has struggled for decades to reconcile with its Indigenous citizens, who make up 3.8 per cent of the 27 million population, and are, by most socioeconomic measures, the most disadvantaged people in the country.

Their ancestors arrived on the continent some 50,000 years before the British colonists, yet were marginalised during colonial rule and are not mentioned in Australia’s 123-year-old constitution.

A censure motion was also passed against United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet for offensive comments made on X (Twitter) after the election of Donald Trump as US president.

He is said to have used a racist and offensive term but deleted the post later.

He said his tweet “may have been taken out of context”.

Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong said the government “reluctantly” moved the motions against Ms Thorpe and Mr Babet for “actions and stunts designed to create storms on social media”.

“These are actions which seek to incite outrage and grievance, actually to boost their own profiles, and this is part of a trend that we do see internationally, but quite frankly we don’t need here in Australia,” Ms Wong said.

North Korea calls for ‘limitless’ nuclear expansion to counter US

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats, in the first direct criticism toward Washington since Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election.

At a conference with army officials on Friday, Mr Kim condemned the United States for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian Nato” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region.

Mr Kim also criticised the United States over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion. He insisted that Washington and its Western allies were using Ukraine as their “shock troops” to wage a war against Moscow and expand the scope of US military influence, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

“The US, Japan and South Korea will never get away from the responsibility as the culprits of destroying the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the region,” he said.

“The most important and critical task for our armed forces is preparations for a war”.

Mr Kim has prioritised his country’s ties to Russia in recent months, embracing the idea of a “new Cold War” and displaying a united front in Russian president Vladimir Putin’s broader conflicts with the West.

He has used Russia’s war on Ukraine as a distraction to accelerate the development of his nuclear-armed military, which now has various nuclear-capable systems targeting South Korea and intercontinental ballistic missiles that can potentially reach the US mainland.

Mr Kim has yet to directly acknowledge that he has been providing military equipment and troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine and the KCNA’s report didn’t mention whether Mr Kim made any comments toward Mr Trump, whose election win has yet to be reported in the North’s state media.

Mr Kim met Mr Trump three times in 2018 and 2019 during Trump’s first presidency, but their diplomacy quickly collapsed over disagreements in exchanging the release of US-led sanctions and North Korean steps to wind down its nuclear and missile program.

North Korea has since suspended any meaningful talks with Washington and Seoul as Kim ramped up his testing activity and military demonstrations in the face of what he portrayed as “gangster-like US threats.”

There’s concern in Seoul that Kim in exchange for his military support of Russia would receive Russian technology in return to further develop his arsenal.

Mr Trump’s election win has touched off speculation about a resumption of summit-driven diplomacy with Mr Kim, which was described by critics as a “bromance.” But some experts say a quick return to 2018 is highly unlikely, as too much has changed about the regional security situation and broader geopolitics since then.

While the North Korean nuclear problem was relatively an independent issue during Mr Trump’s first term, it is now connected with broader challenges created by Russia’s war on Ukraine and further complicated by weakened sanctions enforcement against Pyongyang, Hwang Ildo, a professor at South Korea’s National Diplomatic Academy wrote in a study last week.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile program is now much more advanced, which would increase Mr Kim’s perception of his bargaining powers.

Mr Kim’s efforts to increase North Korea’s presence in a united front against Washington could also gain strength if Trump spikes tariffs and rekindles a trade war with China, the North’s main ally and economic lifeline, Mr Hwang said.

Over 400,000 evacuated as Super Typhoon Man-yi batters Philippines

More than 400,000 people in the Philippines were forced to flee their homes as powerful typhoon Man-yi slammed into the eastern island province of Catanduanes wrecking houses and causing towering tidal surges.

The storm made landfall on Saturday night with sustained winds of up to 125mph and gusts of up to 149mph. The country’s weather agency had warned of a “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening situation” in provinces along its path.

Man-yi, locally known as Pepito, weakened slightly after hitting land to arrive over the coastal waters of Camarines Norte province by 8am (local time) on Sunday, the Southeast Asian country’s weather agency said.

Catanduanes was left without power after the storm knocked down trees and electricity posts, and disaster-response teams were checking how many more houses were damaged in addition to those impacted by previous storms, he said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the typhoon, which was forecast to further blow north-westwards across northern Luzon. “Significant weakening will occur during the passage of this tropical cyclone over mainland Luzon today,” the weather agency said.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr had asked his cabinet and provincial officials to brace for “the worst-case scenario”.

“We need tin roofs and other construction materials, aside from food. Villagers tell us here that they still haven’t gotten up from the past storm and were pinned down again by this typhoon,” Roberto Monterola, a disaster-mitigation officer in Catanduanes, told the Associated Press.

“Along a main boulevard here, the tidal surges went up to more than 23ft near the seaside houses. It looked really scary,” he said.

Nearly half of the island province’s 80,000 people were sheltering in evacuation centres, the authorities said.

More than 400,000 people heeded evacuation orders and took shelters at schools, malls and other evacuation centres, officials said. “It is more dangerous now for those in landslide-prone areas because the ground has been saturated by the consecutive typhoons,” Ariel Nepomuceno, the head of the civil defence was quoted by BBC as saying.

At least 26 domestic airports and two international airports were temporarily shut and inter-island ferry and cargo services were suspended due to rough seas, stranding thousands of passengers and commuters, according to the country’s civil aviation authority.

An estimated 750,000 people have taken refuge in shelters due to Man-yi and two previous storms mostly in the northern Philippines, officials said.

About 20 tropical storms strike the Philippines each year on average, bringing heavy rain, strong winds and deadly landslides. In October, floods and landslides brought by Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey killed 162 people with 22 missing, government figures show.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines.

Additional reporting by agencies

Ex-student kills eight in stabbing rampage at Chinese college

Eight people were killed after a former student went on a stabbing rampage at a vocational college in eastern China.

Police arrested a 21-year-old suspect, identified by the surname Xu, on Saturday for allegedly carrying out a deadly stabbing spree at the Wuxi Institute of Arts and Technology in Yixing city, Jiangsu province, approximately 1,000 kilometres south of Beijing. The incident took place around 6.30pm (local time), police said.

This is the second such incident of mass killing to rock the country in less than a week.

At least 17 others who sustained injuries were rushed to local hospitals. Emergency services were fully mobilised to treat the wounded and provide follow-up care for the affected, according to the authorities.

Police said the suspect was a former student at the school and was due to graduate this year, but failed his exams. “He returned to the school to express his anger and commit these murders,” the authorities were quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

The Yixing Public Security Bureau said the suspect was also dissatisfied with his internship compensation and later confessed to the crime.

Videos on social media showed the police entering the vocational college with shields to subdue the suspect.

The stabbing has come as a shock to the nation already reeling from the aftermath of a car attack in the city of Zhuhai, where at least 35 people were killed by a 62-year-old man, who drove his car in loops at a sports centre. Authorities on Saturday charged the suspect, identified by surnamed Fan, who was reportedly unhappy over a divorce property settlement at the time of the attack.

The recent flare of violence has prompted a heavily censored online discussion on the toll of the economic slowdown and whether young people will find themselves worse off than the generations before them that benefited from China’s rapid development.

One online commentator said the Wuxi attack appeared to reflect a sense of entitlement for a generation that had not expected hardship, a “giant baby mentality”.

“Always thinking that they are so aggrieved, everyone is persecuting me, I study and struggle just to be a beast of burden,” one person wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on Sunday.

Violent knife attacks are not uncommon in China, where firearms are strictly controlled, but there has been a spate of killings, which has triggered an online discussion about the nation’s mental health. At least six other high-profile knife attacks have been recorded this year across China.

In late October, a 50-year-old man wounded five people including three minors in a knife attack near one of Beijing’s top primary schools in Haidian district at the school dismissal time.

A fortnight earlier a 60-year-old man conducted a knife attack in front of a primary school in the central area of Guangzhou.

Curfew and internet shut down in Manipur as fresh violence erupts

A complete curfew has been imposed in parts of India’s restive state of Manipur after protesters stormed residents of state leaders following the alleged killing of a family of six in the latest incident of escalation of the conflict between ethnic groups.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse a livid mob that unsuccessfully tried to storm chief minister N Biren Singh’s house due to the government’s alleged inaction over the killing of six people, including infants and women.

The protesters on Saturday evening set fire to at least two churches and three houses in Jiribam and stormed residents of nearly half a dozen state ministers.

The state government has imposed an indefinite curfew and shut down internet services in the districts of Churachandpur, Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur and Thoubal to curb the unrest.

The six people went missing on 11 November after they were abducted by alleged militants during an attack on the police station. The bodies of two women and a child were recovered from the Barak River in Jiribam on Saturday, while the corpses of another woman and two other children were found a day before, India Today reported.

The northeast Indian state bordering Myanmar has been bristling with ethnic violence since May last year between the majority Meiteis and the minority Kuki-Zo ethnic groups, which has led to the death of at least 250 people. The majority of Meiteis, who are predominantly Hindus, live in the capital Imphal and the nearby districts, while the Kuki-Zos live in the hilly areas.

Civil society groups on Sunday issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the state government demanding action against armed militant groups following the recent spate of violence.

Earlier this month, the state was brought to a standstill following a protest over the killing of at least 10 people by paramilitary soldiers. The Manipur state police said those killed were “armed militants” and the soldiers fired at them after they attacked their post near Jiribam.

The dead bodies were brought to Assam’s Silchar Medical College Hospital bordering Jiribam for autopsy. The district became the latest epicentre of violence this month, triggering a series of killings after a tribal woman from the Hmar community was fatally burnt by suspected militants.

Sporadic clashes between two ethnic communities in the state have led to a steady trickle of deaths since the conflict began 20 months ago.

The federal government, which this week reimposed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur’s six areas, asked all security forces to take necessary steps to restore order and peace in the state.

“Armed miscreants from both communities in conflict have been indulging in violence, leading to unfortunate loss of lives and disruption in public order,” it said, according to the Indian Express.

“Public are requested to maintain peace, not believe in rumours and cooperate with the security forces to maintain law and order in the state.”

The state government on Saturday urged the federal home ministry to “review and withdraw” the notification declaring the reimposition of Afspa in six jurisdictions of Manipur. Afspa grants special power to armed forces to raid and arrest people without warrants along with the power to use maximum force, even to the extent of causing death, to deal with an emergency situation.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi urged prime minister Narendra Modi to visit Manipur and “work towards restoring peace and healing in the region”.

“After more than a year of division and suffering, it was the hope of every Indian that the Central and State governments would have made every effort at reconciliation and found a solution,” he wrote on X.

10 newborns killed in massive fire at hospital in India

At least 10 newborn babies were killed in a fire that engulfed a neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The fire broke out at about 10.45pm (local time) on Friday at the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi city, where 49 infants were being treated.

Local authorities said 38 other babies were rescued, with 16 of them in critical condition. “Seven bodies have been identified. Three bodies haven’t been identified as yet,” the state’s deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak told reporters.

Local authorities said all doctors were pressed into action to save the critically injured 16 infants. One infant remained missing, a government official, who did not wish to be named told Reuters.

The locals and staff broke the windows to rescue the infants from the neonatal care unit, according to reports. An investigation is underway to ascertain the cause of the fire, the police said.

A woman who lost her child told reporters outside the hospital that she couldn’t find her newborn after the fire and was informed later that the baby had died. Grief-stricken parents were seen crying and screaming in agony over the loss of the children.

The accident has raised questions over the hospital’s safety measures. While fire alarms had been installed in the intensive care unit, parents and witnesses said they did not activate during the blaze. Hospital staff acted only after they saw signs of smoke and fire.

“If the safety alarm had worked, we could have acted sooner and saved more lives,” said Naresh Kumar, a parent who lost his baby.

Akhtar Hussain, whose son was rescued and is receiving treatment in an adjacent ward, said the tragedy could have been prevented if the hospital had better safety protocols.

The deputy chief minister claimed that a fire safety audit of the hospital was conducted in February followed by a mock fire drill in June. “On how and why it happened, we can say something about it once the probe report comes,” he was quoted as saying by the NDTV.

Prime minister, Narendra Modi, expressed condolences over the “heart-wrenching” incident and offered an ex-gratia of Rs200,000 (£1,875) for the relatives of the dead and Rs50,000 (£468) for the injured.

“My deepest condolences to those who lost their innocent children in this,” Mr Modi posted on X.

President Droupadi Murmu added: “May God give strength to the bereaved parents and families to bear this cruel blow. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured babies.”

Fires are common in India, where building laws and safety norms are often flouted by builders and residents. Earlier in May, seven newborn babies were killed in a fire at an unlicensed children’s hospital in Capital New Delhi in a fire incident.

Sri Lanka president’s party wins landslide victory in snap elections

Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s coalition has secured a decisive victory in Sri Lanka’s snap general election, giving its new leftist president greater legislative powers to pursue policies to revive a country in the grip of a financial crisis.

Mr Dissanayake, an outsider in a country dominated by family politics for decades, comfortably won the island’s presidential election in September.

But his Marxist-leaning coalition, the National People’s Power (NPP), had just three of 225 seats before Thursday’s election, prompting him to dissolve parliament and seek a fresh mandate. This will help consolidate support for his economic relief initiatives aimed at alleviating the struggles of Sri Lanka’s poorest citizens amid an ongoing financial crisis.

The NPP won 107 seats, receiving almost 62 per cent or 6.8 million votes in Thursday’s election, putting them past the majority mark in the parliament, latest results on the Election Commission of Sri Lanka‘s website showed. A two-third majority appeared within reach of the coalition.

“We see this as a critical turning point for Sri Lanka,” Mr Dissanayake declared after casting his vote on Thursday.

“There is a change in Sri Lanka’s political culture that started in September, which must continue,” he said.

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party, led by opposition figure Sajith Premadasa, was the NPP’s main rival in the election but fell far short of challenging Mr Dissanayake’s sweeping success. The SJB captured just 28 seats with roughly 18 per cent of the votes polled.

Voters directly elect 196 members to parliament from 22 constituencies under a proportional representation system. The remaining 29 seats will be allocated according to the island-wide proportional vote obtained by each party.

Celebrations were largely muted, with the exception of a few NPP loyalists who lit fireworks in the outskirts of the capital, Colombo.

Approximately 17 million Sri Lankans were eligible to vote, with the election drawing a record number of political entities, as 690 parties and independent groups competed across the nation’s 22 electoral districts.

The vote grants lawmakers a five-year term in office, as the president seeks to address the economic and social fallout of the country’s ongoing debt and currency crises.

Traditionally, Sri Lankan voters support the president’s party in parliamentary elections held shortly after a presidential win, and this election appears no different.

Although the president holds considerable executive power, Mr Dissanayake still requires a parliamentary majority to fully appoint his cabinet and advance key economic policies. Among his ambitious goals is a plan to abolish Sri Lanka’s executive presidency, but for this, he needs a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Sri Lanka, a nation of 22 million, has been reeling from an economic crisis that erupted in 2022, which saw the country default on its debt due to a severe foreign currency shortage. This crisis drove the economy into a 7.3 per cent contraction in 2022, followed by a further 2.3 per cent drop last year.

However, the country has shown signs of recovery after securing a $2.9bn bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), though many citizens still struggle with the soaring cost of living.

In his economic strategy, Mr Dissanayake aims to soften some of the IMF’s stringent targets, hoping to cut back on income tax obligations and redirect funds towards welfare for those hit hardest by the downturn. Yet this approach has raised concerns among investors, who fear that attempts to alter the bailout terms could disrupt future IMF disbursements and jeopardise Sri Lanka’s target of reaching a primary surplus of 2.3 per cent of GDP by 2025.

The president’s ability to secure broad support in parliament will be critical as he moves forward with policies aimed at stabilising the economy while navigating international commitments and addressing the urgent needs of Sri Lanka’s most vulnerable populations.

Additional reporting by agencies

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un orders mass production of suicide drones

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered the mass production of exploding suicide drones designed to crash into targets after he guided a test of these aerial weapons, the state media reported on Friday.

The suicide attack drones, also known as loitering munitions, can be used to precisely attack enemy targets on the ground and in the sea and carry out a mission in different striking ranges, the North Korea state news agency KCNA reported.

The report claimed that the drones flew various routes and accurately struck targets. The images purportedly showed a BMW sedan being destroyed and old models of tanks being blown up.

“(Kim) underscored the need to build a serial production system as early as possible and go into full-scale mass production,” the report added.

Mr Kim said the competition for using drones for military purposes is accelerating around the world, with military authorities likely recognising their success in conflicts of various scale.

“The military authorities in the world will probably recognise that the drones are achieving clear successes in big and small conflicts. This is a trend that has emerged as an essential requirement in the military aspect nowadays,” it said.

Suicide drones have been used in escalating conflicts around the world, including in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, to prolong the conflict without expending the costly and deadly cruise and ballistic missiles.

“Such objective change urgently calls for updating many parts of military theory, practice and education,” Mr Kim said, according to KCNA.

The country’s latest military demonstration came as the US, South Korea and Japan engaged in combined military exercises involving advanced fighter jets and a US aircraft carrier in nearby international waters, in a display of their defense posture against North Korea.

This is not the first time the North Korean supreme leader is testing the practical use of suicide drones. In August, Mr Kim supervised a test of domestically-developed attack drones and said Pyongyang’s military should be equipped with them “as early as possible”.

Photos of the drone test showed a white drone with X-shaped tails and wings crashing into and destroying a target resembling South Korea’s K-2 main battle tank.

On the domestic front, North Korean drones have already been shot down by the South after Pyongyang sent them across the border flying for hours in key areas including Seoul and over the no-fly zone surrounding the South Korean presidential office.

The testing of the suicide drones amid North Korea’s rapidly developing military alliance with Russia has sparked concerns about Mr Kim receiving technical help from Moscow.

The leaders in the west are carefully watching North Korea and Russia’s recently ratified strategic partnership along military lines, where the two sides have vowed to come to each other’s aid.

Additionally, North Korea has deployed thousands of its troops to Russia’s western frontlines in the war with Ukraine without officially announcing its participation in Europe’s largest conflict since the Second World War.