Elon Musk trashes Donald Trump's ‘big, beautiful' spending bill as Senate begins debate
US Senators have begun debating Donald Trump's 'big beautiful' spending bill, a hugely divisive proposal that would deliver key parts of the US President's domestic agenda while making massive cuts to social welfare programmes.
Trump is hoping to seal his legacy with the 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' which would extend
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1News
an hour ago
- 1News
'Make the deal': Trump calls for a ceasefire on the war in Gaza
US President Donald Trump overnight has urged progress in ceasefire talks in the 20-month war in Gaza, as Israel and Hamas appeared to move closer to an agreement. Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was set to travel to Washington this week for talks on a ceasefire, an Israeli official said. Plans were being made for Netanyahu to travel there in the coming weeks, a sign there may be movement on a deal. Netanyahu was meeting with his security Cabinet on Sunday evening, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that hadn't been finalised. "MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!" Trump wrote on social media early Sunday. Trump raised expectations on Saturday for a deal, saying there could be an agreement within the next week. Trump has repeatedly called for Israel and Hamas to end the war. An eight-week ceasefire was reached just as he took office earlier this year, but Israel resumed the war in March after trying to get Hamas to accept new terms on next steps. ADVERTISEMENT Some Palestinians greeted the possibility of a new truce with scepticism after watching the last ceasefire shattered. "Since the beginning of the war, they have been promising us something like this: Release the hostages and we will stop the war," said Abdel Hadi Al-Hour. "They did not stop the war." Trump slams Netanyahu trial Trump also doubled down on his criticism of the legal proceedings against Netanyahu, who is on trial for alleged corruption, calling it "a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT". Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem. (Source: Associated Press) In the post on Saturday evening, Trump said the trial interfered with ceasefire talks, saying Netanyahu "is right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back". Last week, Trump called for the trial to be cancelled. It was a dramatic interference by an ally in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state. It unnerved many in Israel, despite Trump's popularity there. ADVERTISEMENT The trial has repeatedly been postponed at Netanyahu's request, citing security and diplomatic developments. On Sunday, the court agreed to call off two more days of testimony by him scheduled this week. Major sticking point Talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly faltered over a major sticking point — whether the war should end as part of any ceasefire agreement. Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi accused Netanyahu of stalling progress on a deal, saying on social media that the Israeli leader insists on a temporary agreement that would free just 10 of the hostages. About 50 hostages remained, with less than half believed to be alive. Netanyahu spokesperson Omer Dostri said that "Hamas was the only obstacle to ending the war", without addressing Merdawi's claim. During a visit on Sunday to to Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet, Netanyahu said that the Israel-Iran war and subsequent ceasefire have opened many opportunities: "First of all, to rescue the hostages. Of course, we will also have to solve the Gaza issue, to defeat Hamas, but I estimate that we will achieve both tasks." Hamas said it was willing to free all the hostages in exchange for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and an end to the war in Gaza. Israel rejected that offer, saying it would agree to end the war if Hamas surrendered, disarmed and went into exile, something that the group refused. ADVERTISEMENT The war in Gaza began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which militants killed 1200 people and took roughly 250 hostage. Gaza's Health Ministry on Sunday said that another 88 people have been killed by Israeli fire over the past 24 hours, raising the war's toll among Palestinians to 56,500. The ministry, which operated under the Hamas government, didn't distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, but said more than half of the dead were women and children. Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip mourn their deaths at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. (Source: Associated Press) The war has displaced most of Gaza's population, often multiple times, obliterated much of the territory's urban landscape and left people overwhelmingly reliant on outside aid, which Israel has limited since the end of the latest ceasefire. Fewer than half of Gaza's hospitals were even partly functional, and more than 4000 children needed medical evacuation abroad, a new UN humanitarian assessment said. "We are exhausted, we are tired. We hope to God that the war will end," said one Palestinian, Mahmoud Wadi. New Gaza evacuations ordered ADVERTISEMENT The Israeli military ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians in large swaths of northern Gaza, home to hundreds of thousands of people who had returned during the ceasefire earlier this year. Colonel Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the order on social media. It included multiple neighbourhoods in eastern and northern Gaza City, as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp. The military would expand its escalating attacks westward to the city's centre, calling for people to move toward the Muwasi area in southern Gaza, Adraee said. An Israeli military offensive aimed to move Palestinians to southern Gaza, so forces could more freely operate to combat militants. Rights groups said their movement would amount to forcible displacement.
Scoop
an hour ago
- Scoop
Operation Midnight Hammer: Were Iran's Nuclear Facilities Damaged?
The aftermath of Operation Midnight Hammer, a strike by the US Air Force on three nuclear facilities in Iran authorised by President Donald Trump on June 22, was raucous and triumphant. But that depended on what company you were keeping. The mission involved the bombing of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, and the uranium-conversion facility in Isfahan. The Israeli Air Force had already attacked the last two facilities, sparing Fordow for the singular weaponry available for the USAF. The Fordow site was of particular interest, located some eighty to a hundred metres underground and cocooned by protective concrete. For its purported destruction, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were used to drop GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator 'bunker buster' bombs. All in all, approximately 75 precision guided weapons were used in the operation, along with 125 aircraft and a guided missile submarine. Trump was never going to be anything other than optimistic about the result. 'Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images,' he blustered. 'Obliteration is an accurate term!' At the Pentagon press conference following the attack, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bubbled with enthusiasm. 'The order we received from our commander in chief was focused, it was powerful, and it was clear. We devastated the Iranian nuclear program.' The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine was confident that the facilities had been subjected to severe punishment. 'Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.' Adding to Caine's remarks, Hegseth stated that, 'The battle damage assessment is ongoing, but our initial assessment, as the Chairman said, is that all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect.' Resort to satellite imagery was always going to take place, and Maxar Technologies willingly supplied the material. 'A layer of grey-blue ash caused by the airstrikes [on Fordow] is seen across a large swathe of the area,' the company noted in a statement. 'Additionally, several of the tunnel entrances that lead into the underground facility are blocked with dirt following the airstrikes.' The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, also added his voice to the merry chorus that the damage had been significant. 'CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran's Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted airstrikes.' The assessment included 'new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.' Israeli sources were also quick to stroke Trump's already outsized ego. The Israel Atomic Energy Commission opined that the strikes, combined with Israel's own efforts, had 'set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.' IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir's view was that the damage to the nuclear program was sufficient to have 'set it back by years, I repeat, years.' The chief of the increasingly discredited International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, flirted with some initial speculation, but was mindful of necessary caveats. In a statement to an emergency meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors, he warned that, 'At this time, no one, including the IAEA, is in a position to have fully assessed the underground damage at Fordow.' Cue the speculation: 'Given the explosive payload utilised and extreme(ly) vibration-sensitive nature of centrifuges, very significant damage is expected to have occurred.' This was a parade begging to be rained on. CNN and The New York Times supplied it. Referring to preliminary classified findings in a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment running for five pages, the paper reported that the bombing of the three sites had 'set back the country's nuclear program by only a few months'. The entrances to two of the facilities had been sealed off by the strikes but were not successful in precipitating a collapse of the underground buildings. Sceptical expertise murmured through the report: to destroy the facility at Fordow would require 'waves of airstrikes, with days or even weeks of pounding the same spots.' Then came the issue of the nuclear material in question, which Iran still retained control over. The fate of over 400 kg of uranium that had been enriched up to 60% of purity is unclear, as are the number of surviving or hidden centrifuges. Iran had already informed the IAEA on June 13 that 'special measures' would be taken to protect nuclear materials and equipment under IAEA safeguards, a feature provided under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Any transfer of nuclear material from a safeguarded facility to another location, however, would have to be declared to the agency, something bound to be increasingly unlikely given the proposed suspension of cooperation with the IAEA by Iran's parliament. After mulling over the attacks over the course of a week, Grossi revisited the matter. The attacks on the facilities had caused severe though 'not total' damage. 'Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.' Tehran could 'in a matter of months' have 'a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium.' Iran still had the 'industrial and technological' means to recommence the process. Efforts to question the effacing thoroughness of Operation Midnight Hammer did not sit well with the Trump administration. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt worked herself into a state on any cautionary reporting, treating it as a libellous blemish. 'The leaking of this alleged report is a clear attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear program,' she fumed in a statement. 'Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets.' Hegseth similarly raged against the importance placed on the DIA report. In a press conference on June 26, he bemoaned the tendency of the press corps to 'cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood'. The scribblers had to 'cheer against the efficacy of these strikes' with 'half-truths, spun information, leaked information'. Trump, for his part, returned to familiar ground, attacking any questioning narrative as 'Fake News'. CNN, he seethed, had some of the dumbest anchors in the business. With malicious glee, he claimed knowledge of rumours that reporters from both CNN and The New York Times were going to be sacked for making up those 'FAKE stories on the Iran Nuclear sites because they got it so wrong.' A postmodern nonsense has descended on the damage assessments regarding Iran's nuclear program, leaving the way clear for over remunerated soothsayers. But there was nothing postmodern in the incalculable damage done to the law of nations, a body of acknowledged rules rendered brittle and breakable before the rapacious legislators of the jungle.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
What does the US remittance tax mean for the Pacific?
A view of the US Capitol in Washington on 30 June 2025. US senators began voting Monday on Donald Trump's flagship spending bill, as the deeply divisive package -- expected to slash social programs for the poor and add an eye-watering $3 trillion to the national debt -- entered its frenetic home stretch. Photo: AFP / Jim Watson The United States is set to implement a tax on remittances paid by migrants to their communities overseas. The tax is a component of the " One Big Beautiful Bill ", a cornerstone fiscal measure under President Donald Trump. When the spending bill passed through the House of Representatives, the tax was set at 5 percent. The US Senate reduced it down to 3.5 percent, and now again to 1 percent. The bill has undergone numerous amendments in the Senate before it goes back to the House for final negotiations and then to the White House. However, even if the final tax level falls on the lower end, Pacific development experts say that both direct and indirect impacts pose a significant threat to the region. Deep within the pages of congressional reports on the "One Big Beautiful Bill" lies a section titled "Removing Taxpayer Benefits for Illegal Immigrants". The tax takes aim at outward flows of income generated by illegal immigrants within the US economy, one of several measures designed to disadvantage illegal immigrants financially. Remittance transfer providers, such as US banks, credit unions, or licensed brokers and dealers, would collect the tax at the point of transfer before the remittance is sent abroad, increasing the cost of sending remittances. The tax applies to all US citizens and nationals sending money overseas, though it had originally been aimed only at illegal immigrants before a Senate redraft on 30 June. With the US responsible for the largest global share of remittances, particularly to Latin America and the Caribbean, critics argue it could cause serious damage in the developing world. In May, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounced the tax as "a measure that is unacceptable". It is also proven controversial in right-leaning circles, particularly among libertarians, prompting draft after redraft of the policy. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, called the tax "poorly designed". "Although the Senate bill's narrowing of the tax would greatly diminish these problems, it would not eliminate them. That outcome can be attained by rejecting the remittances tax in its entirety." The US Migration Policy Institute estimates that, as of 2023 there are 166,389 immigrants currently in the US who were born in Oceania (other than Australia and New Zealand). The Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), an organisation of civil society groups throughout the region, said the tax will have "profound implications" on Pacific livelihoods. PANG deputy coordinator Adam Wolfenden told RNZ Pacific that, while relatively less remittance cash finds its way into the Pacific, these are nations who rely on it. "For a country like Samoa, which gets 20 percent of its remittance money from the US, we'll see that cut. For a country like Tonga, for who the US is its biggest source of remittances at just over 35 percent, this will see a cut." "Studies have shown that any increase in the cost of sending money home has a larger impact." According to the World Bank, sending remittances currently costs an average of 6.62 percent of the amount sent, thanks to things like provider fees. Wolfenden pointed to a study by the Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research, which found that demonstrates that one percentage point increase in remittance costs would correlate with a 1.6 percent decline in the amount that reaches it's final destination. A potential 3.5 percent tax would reduce remittance flows by 5.6 percent, PANG said. "The fear is that, for those who receive remittances in those domestic economies, particularly that rely on remittances to fund a lot of consumption, the tax will ultimately lead to some kind of decrease in economic growth. Amid other US actions in the Pacific, such as massive cuts to aid, tariffs and increased militarisation, Wolfenden believes the US simply is not considering the Pacific in the decision making. "I think they are promoting their interests above all else. And I think that is a short-sighted view towards what a relationship with the Pacific means." The Australian National University's Development Policy Centre deputy director Dr Ryan Edwards called the tax "terrible". "Remittances can get sent in many ways. There's the cash ones which will be targeted through formal channels, and informal channels, where people often just carry it back in their suitcases and declare it or find other ways," he said. "This will push everything to the informal channel market, which many countries have tried for a long time to move people away from for security reasons." Edwards told RNZ Pacific that he is concerned about the precedent the policy will set, and what kind of signal it would send to governments with significant aid contributions. "We have seen the current US administration testing the waters with international trade, aid, and other things. [These things] tend to benefit both sides in ways that we often do not pick up at a first glance. "It is a slippery slope in terms of setting an example, and the US has historically had a role as a global example not so much anymore."
