Ghosts of the Past
NEED TO KNOW
Ghosts of the Past
NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand lawmaker Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke and other lawmakers recently broke into a traditional Māori haka on the parliamentary floor.
The dance was part of efforts to resist changing a nearly 200-year-old treaty that governs relations between the British and their descendants who have since settled in the country, and the indigenous Māori community that they subjugated.
Elected last year, Maipi-Clarke, 22, launched into the haka after she was asked what she thought of the proposal to revise the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, a document still in effect today, that protects Māori rights to their land and other interests in exchange for accepting British governance.
She ripped up the bill.
Maipi-Clarke told the Morning Shift radio talk show that she and others in the room felt as if their ancestors who had signed the treaty had possessed them and wanted to express their outrage at the idea. “It wasn’t really me, it was them,” she said. “I was like … ‘Wait, what did we just do?’ And then we walked out and … looked at each other like ‘what just happened?’”
The architect of the proposed revision to the treaty, David Seymour, who leads the right-wing ACT New Zealand political party, a minority member of the government’s center-right coalition, said the original treaty wrongfully divided Kiwis by race. He panned the demonstration.
“To the rest of the world, and the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders, it just looks ridiculous,” he said, according to Radio New Zealand. “You’ve got one person putting up a reasoned debate and inviting a response, and then you’ve got people that dance around doing a war dance, hurl personal insults, and ultimately get kicked out of Parliament. We’ve got to take a reality check here, that behavior is totally unacceptable.”
Even so, after weeks of demonstrations and marches involving thousands of protesters across the country, Seymour now lacks the support to move the bill for passage.
Still, Maipi-Clarke and her allies don’t care. They worry there will be more attempts to trample on their rights.
As a result, they started a Hīkoi (communal march) with tens of thousands of people who walked more than 600 miles from the country’s northern tip to the southern tip of the island, arriving at the capital of Wellington last week, reported Australia’s SBS News.
Ella Henry of Auckland University of Technology told SBS that New Zealand has long been at the forefront of managing relations with Indigenous people, but the new bill and other measures would undermine that long tradition.
“Our concern about this bill not only is the way that it is trying to undermine some of that legislation by using very libertarian arguments that somehow there is inequality based on race and ethnicity, is hugely problematic,” she said. “So we have gathered (at the march) … not just Māori, but others who support an inclusive, diverse, equal partnership that our country has been a world leader in pioneering.”
The ancients would be proud.
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
A TikTok Victory
ROMANIA
Romania’s presidential election is heading to a runoff next month after the results of the first round of voting gave the lead to a far-right candidate, an outcome that is rattling the country’s political establishment and raising concerns about its future alignment with NATO and the European Union, Reuters reported.
Results on Monday showed that far-right and pro-Russia candidate Calin Georgescu led the first-round ballot with nearly 23 percent of the vote, while center-right opposition leader Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union (USR) came second with 19.17 percent.
Both candidates outperformed Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the pre-election favorite, who came in third place with 19.15 percent and failed to make the second round. Voter turnout was 52 percent.
Georgescu’s victory sent shockwaves throughout Romania, the newswire wrote: He is known for his critical stance on NATO and pro-Russia rhetoric.
For example, he has questioned NATO’s ability to protect its members and has called the alliance’s missile defense systems in Romania a “shame of diplomacy.” The nationalist and anti-establishment contender has also praised “Russian wisdom.”
Analysts said his campaign – largely driven by TikTok – resonated with voters disillusioned by traditional parties and grappling with inflation and economic hardship, according to Euronews.
Markets reacted negatively to the first-round results, with Romania’s sovereign euro bonds dropping nearly two cents on Monday. Political scientist Cristian Pȋrvulescu told Reuters that the results serve as a wake-up call for establishment parties, saying, “Just imagine, we are in a position where we could have a far-right president.”
Others warned that Georgescu’s potential presidency could shift the country’s pro-Western stance, particularly as Romania prepares for parliamentary elections on Dec. 1.
Romania, which shares a 400-mile border with Ukraine, has been a key ally of the West during the war: Bucharest has provided Kyiv with military aid and enabled grain exports through its Black Sea ports.
Simmer, then Boil
PAKISTAN
Pakistani officials declared a seven-day ceasefire between Shia and Sunni groups in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province this week, following three days of deadly sectarian violence near the Afghan border that left at least 82 people dead and 156 injured, Al Jazeera reported.
Last week, clashes erupted between the two groups when gunmen attacked convoys of Shia Muslims, killing more than 40 people, including women and children. Residents in the area later retaliated by targeting Sunni Muslims.
The sectarian violence follows decades-long disputes over land in the province’s Kurram district.
Officials brokered the ceasefire after negotiations with community leaders, with both sides agreeing to exchange prisoners and return bodies, the BBC added.
The region has seen repeated flare-ups of sectarian violence.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 79 people were killed in Kurram from July to October. Police continue to struggle to maintain control in the area, which merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas in 2018.
But as Pakistani authorities are trying to restore calm in restive areas, thousands of supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan marched toward the country’s capital Islamabad on Monday to protest against the government and demand his release, the Associated Press noted.
Demonstrators faced widespread roadblocks and clashed with police, with one officer killed and an unknown number of them injured. Authorities have arrested more than 4,000 demonstrators since Friday and suspended mobile and Internet services in parts of the country.
Khan has been imprisoned since August 2023 and faces more than 150 criminal charges, which he and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party say are part of a political agenda orchestrated by the military and ruling coalition to keep him out of power.
Economists warn the protests could cost the country billions of rupees in damage, compounding Pakistan’s already fragile economic situation.
Analysts told the Guardian that Khan’s march is a final attempt to pressure the military into negotiations to avoid facing trial in military courts.
However, the government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, dismissed the protest as a “well-thought-out conspiracy” and accused Khan of using force to evade justice.
The Politics of Humility
URUGUAY
Center-left opposition candidate Yamandú Orsi won the presidential election in Uruguay, ousting the conservative government coalition candidate, Alvaro Delgado, by a few points in Sunday’s runoff elections, the Guardian reported Monday.
Orsi, a 57-year-old former history teacher from humble beginnings, secured 49.8 percent of the vote while Delgado won 45.9 percent, official results showed. Orsi’s party, the Broad Front, also won a majority in the upper house of parliament, but neither coalition clinched an absolute majority in the lower house.
“The horizon is brightening,” said Orsi, addressing his supporters. Delgado and Uruguay’s current President Luis Lacalle Pou, both from the National party, conceded the election and offered to help with the transition of power ahead of the swearing-in on March 1.
The Broad Front alliance, headed by Orsi, will now return to power after five years of a conservative coalition government. The Broad Front had governed Uruguay for 15 years before it was beaten by Lacalle Pou, according to the BBC.
Orsi is seen as the protege of former President José Mujica, a popular leader who, known for his modesty, was labeled with the moniker, “the world’s poorest president.” Orsi himself grew up in a rural area in a house without electricity. He then worked as a history teacher, becoming active in local politics, and later becoming mayor of Canelones, a small city in southern Uruguay.
Addressing the nation after his win, Orsi said, “I’m going to be the president who builds a more integrated country, where we set aside our differences and nobody is left behind, not economically, socially or politically.” He intends to govern with a “moderate left” approach and refrain from major policy shifts in the traditional and relatively wealthy nation.
DISCOVERIES
Icarus Takes Flight
The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing to make history by creating an artificial solar eclipse in space.
Next week, the Proba-3 mission will launch two satellites that will block the Sun’s light and capture unprecedented images of its faint outer atmosphere, or corona.
“This ambitious ESA mission has been many years in the making because it is seeking to do something in space that has previously been impossible,” said Damien Galano, Proba-3 mission manager, in a statement.
Proba-3 will launch aboard an Indian PSLV-XL rocket, marking ESA’s first mission launched from India since 2001. The two spacecraft will enter a highly elliptical orbit, traveling between 373 miles and more than 37,000 miles from Earth.
The occulter spacecraft – carrying a 4.6-foot-wide disk – will align precisely with the Sun to block its light. Meanwhile, the coronagraph spacecraft that is positioned 492 feet behind will capture images of the Sun’s corona.
“It will be the closest to the Sun we have observed the corona in visible light,” Galano separately told New Scientist this month.
Scientists hope that studying the corona will help answer key questions about its temperature, how it expands into space, and the origins of solar wind.
The mission may also help predict solar weather, such as geomagnetic storms that can disrupt satellites, communication networks, and power grids on Earth.
Meanwhile, the task will require a lot of precision: The spacecraft must maintain their positions to within 0.04 inches. This is made possible by advanced sensors and 12 nitrogen thrusters on the occulter, capable of adjustments as subtle as 0.002 pounds of force.
Each artificial eclipse will last up to six hours, with more than 1,000 eclipses planned over the two-year mission. These will occur at the spacecraft’s highest orbital point to reduce Earth’s gravitational interference and minimize the satellites’ fuel consumption.
ESA researchers hope that the Proba-3’s flying techniques could revolutionize spacecraft refueling techniques, in-orbit assembly of large telescopes, and space weather modeling.
“Up until now, we’ve only been able to do a centimeter precision or more,” Steve Buckley, lead engineer for Proba-3 noted to New Scientist. “This is 10 times better.”