Nauru may seek to return refugees from the NZYQ cohort to their home countries, the Nauruan president has said, in an interview officially translated into English for the first time, and which the Australian government sought to keep hidden.
David Adeang’s interview erroneously claimed those being sent to Nauru were not refugees and said Nauru may seek to return them to their countries of origin where possible.
Detention of Dong on espionage charges has been criticised by human rights and press freedom organisations
A court in Beijing is expected to rule on Thursday in the appeal of Dong Yuyu, a Chinese journalist who is serving a seven-year jail sentence on espionage charges.
The detention of Dong, a senior columnist with a long career in Chinese state media, has been criticised by the US government and by international human rights and press freedom organisations.
Another two men from the NZYQ-affected cohort have been deported to Nauru in a process human rights advocates say is shrouded in secrecy.
Sources told Guardian Australia a Sudanese national, who was detained in the Yongah Hill centre just outside of Perth, and another man held in a different centre were chartered to Nauru last week.
Sheffield Hallam University ordered professor to cease human rights study into Uyghurs forced labour in China
An investigation into allegations that a British university was subjected to pressure from Beijing authorities to halt research about human rights abuses in China has been referred to counter-terrorism police.
The Guardian reported on Monday morning that Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC) research institution, had ordered professor Laura Murphy to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in the country in February.
Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities
A British university complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project being dropped, the Guardian can reveal.
In February, Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC), a leading research institution focused on human rights, ordered one of its best-known professors, Laura Murphy, to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China.
Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities
A British university complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project being dropped, the Guardian can reveal.
In February, Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC), a leading research institution focused on human rights, ordered one of its best-known professors, Laura Murphy, to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China.
Australia has commenced its $2.5bn deal with Nauru to offload more than 350 people from the NZYQ cohort after the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, confirmed the first arrival had landed on the tiny Pacific island last week.
Burke said Nauruan authorities had confirmed the arrival on Friday, as reported by the ABC, triggering the first yearly instalment of $408m.
Adnan* says he had never heard of Nauru when Australian Border Force officers showed up at his door in the middle of the night to inform him Nauru had granted him a 30-year visa.
Initially believing Nauru was part of Australia, Adnan felt a brief sense of relief before he realised he was being sent back to a place he had become uncomfortably familiar with – immigration detention.
After fleeing Chinese repression, Uyghurs Idris and Zeynure Hasan thought their family would be safe. But Beijing’s growing influence led to Idris’s arrest and a long battle to be reunited
Zeynure Hasan was at home in Istanbul in July 2021 when her husband finally called. It had been four days since she last heard from him as he got ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.
But the news Idris now shared with her was even worse. He had been arrested and imprisoned on arrival in Morocco and told he was going to be deported to China. “You should call anyone who can help me, anyone who can rescue me,” he told her, before the phone went dead.
Chinese president is behind patriarchal turn in politics with activists silenced for ‘promoting gender antagonism’
Addressing dignitaries gathered in Beijing on Monday, Xi Jinping praised the “historic achievements” of women’s rights in China. In the past 30 years, the Chinese president said, maternal mortality rates had dropped by nearly 80%, and women were now participating in the project of national governance with “unprecedented confidence and vigour”.
Xi was speaking at the global women’s summit, an event on Monday and Tuesday to mark the 30th anniversary of the historic UN’s world conference on women, which took place in Beijing. It was there in 1995 that Hillary Clinton, the then US first lady, delivered her “women’s rights are human rights” speech, lines now often quoted by people in China advocating for women’s rights.
A lucrative sector is spreading fast as criminal enterprises force abused and trafficked workers to cheat others
A Chinese court last month sentenced 11 people to death over their roles in a illegal scam empire along the border with Myanmar. But it won’t end a noxious multibillion-dollar industry that devastates the lives of two sets of victims. The first are those cheated out of money, often by people posing as potential romantic or business partners in what are known as “pig‑butchering” schemes. The second are those who are forced to cheat them, working in conditions amounting to modern slavery.
The recent study, Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds, by Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li and Mark Bo, paints a terrifying picture of the sector. Workers are trafficked into heavily guarded, prison-like compounds, where they are routinely abused and tortured for failing to meet targets, or extorted for ransoms. Others take the jobs willingly, but find that they cannot repay ruinous charges for food and accommodation. Their work requires them to be connected to the outside world round the clock, yet they are too terrified to seek help because of the surveillance and violence they endure.
The theme of this year’s Women By Women exhibition, Rooted in Resistance, is to showcase images of women defending their land and communities from destruction – by powerful people and corporations or the climate crisis. The pictures, taken by female photographers from Nepal, Cambodia, Brazil and Nigeria, will be on show at the Oxo Gallery in London from 9 to 12 October
Zhang Yadi was due to begin a degree in the UK but the activist vanished on holiday amid tensions over Dalai Lama
As Zhang Yadi toured remote villages in the Chinese province of Sichuan last year, she updated her friends with messages and photos of lush forest landscapes, colourful streets and locals wearing traditional Tibetan clothing.
The largely Tibetan parts of the province have become a popular tourist destination for holidaymakers. But the 22-year-old, on a break from her studies in Europe, told friends she was saddened by what she saw.
The former lawyer was outspoken about China’s response to the Covid pandemic
A Chinese citizen journalist who was previously jailed after reporting from the frontlines of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan is set to face trial for the second time, according to human rights activists and media freedom groups.
Zhang Zhan, who was released from prison in May 2024 after serving four years behind bars, is expected to face trial once again for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all term used to target government critics, at 9am on Friday at the Shanghai Pudong New Area people’s court.
A government can’t half care about human rights. And Australia’s ‘disagree where we must’ approach with China enables abuse and undermines our national interest
A photo of former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews alongside the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, during a military parade in Beijing raised troubling questions. Earlier, former New South Wales premier Bob Carr sought to pre-emptively justify his possible attendance at the event (although he didn’t in the end) in an opinion piece.
While it is difficult for the Australian government to control the actions of former officials, the photo still raises the question how the two former premiers found themselves in a situation where they were either in a photo or contemplated attending an event with all these known grave violators of human rights. Perhaps it is because the Australian government sends mixed messages about responding to human rights abuses when committed by some governments.
Choi Min-kyung is seeking damages from the state represented by its leader and has also submitted a criminal complaint alleging crimes against humanity
A North Korean defector has filed a lawsuit against Kim Jong-un in a South Korean court, alleging torture and sexual violence in the regime’s detention facilities.
Choi Min-kyung, 53, is seeking 50m won (US$37,000) in damages from the North Korean state represented by its leader, Kim Jong-un, and six other officials. She also submitted a criminal complaint asking prosecutors to investigate crimes against humanity charges against Kim and five other officials.
In 2015, a nationwide campaign rounded up hundreds of rights advocates. Since then, suppression has become more systematic and less visible, lawyers say
A decade on from China’s biggest crackdown on human rights lawyers in modern history, lawyers and activists say that the Chinese Communist party’s control over the legal profession has tightened, making rights defence work next to impossible.
The environment for human rights law has “steadily regressed, especially after the pandemic”, said Ren Quanniu, a disbarred human rights lawyer. “Right now, the rule of law in China – especially in terms of protecting human rights – has deteriorated to a point where it’s almost comparable to the Cultural Revolution era.” The Cultural Revolution was a decade of mass chaos unleashed by China’s former leader Mao Zedong in 1966. During that time judicial organs were attacked as “bourgeois” and the nascent court system was largely suspended.
Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.
The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.
The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.
There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth. Iran is the weakest. If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.
Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.
“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.
That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.
US chooses war to re-shape Middle East Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.
In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.
One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.
With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years. A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.
Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.
Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.
Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.
Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg? For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.
Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?
Back in the days of George W Bush, radical American thinkers like Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld created the Project for a New American Century and developed the policy, adopted by succeeding presidents, that promotes “the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces”.
It reconfirmed the neoconservative American dogma that no power should be allowed to rise in any region to become a regional hegemon; anything and everything necessary should be done to ensure continued American primacy, including the resort to war.
What has changed since those days are two crucial, epoch-making events: the re-emergence of Russia as a great power, albeit the weakest of the three, and the emergence of China as a genuine peer competitor to the USA. Professor John Mearsheimer’s insights are well worth studying on this topic.
The three pillars of multipolarity A new world order really is being born. As geopolitical thinkers like Professor Glenn Diesen point out, it will, if it is not killed in the cradle, replace the US unipolar world order that has existed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Many countries are involved in its birthing, including major players like India and Brazil and all the countries that are part of BRICS. Three countries, however, are central to the project: Iran, Russia and, most importantly, China. All three are in the crosshairs of the Western empire.
If Iran, Russia and China survive as independent entities, they will partially fulfill Halford MacKinder’s early 20th century heartland theory that whoever dominates Eurasia will rule the world. I don’t think MacKinder, however, foresaw cooperative multipolarity on the Eurasian landmass — which is one of the goals of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) – as an option.
That, increasingly, appears to be the most likely trajectory with multiple powerful states that will not accept domination, be that from China or the US. That alone should give us cause for hope.
Drunk on power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has launched war after war and brought us to the current abandonment of economic sanity (the sanctions-and-tariff global pandemic) and diplomatic normalcy (kill any peace negotiators you see) — and an anything-goes foreign policy (including massive crimes against humanity).
We have also reached — thanks in large part to these same policies — what a former US national security advisor warned must be avoided at all costs. Back in the 1990s, Zbigniew Brzezinski said, “The most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran.”
Belligerent and devoid of sound strategy, the Biden and Trump administrations have achieved just that.
Can Asia-Pacific avoid being dragged into an American war on China? Turning to our region, New Zealand and Australia’s governments cleave to yesterday: a white-dominated world led by the USA. We have shown ourselves indifferent to massacres, ethnic cleansing and wars of aggression launched by our team.
To avoid war — or a permanent fear of looming war — in our own backyards, we need to encourage sanity and diplomacy; we need to stay close to the US but step away from the military alliances they are forming, such as AUKUS which is aimed squarely at China.
Above all, our defence and foreign affairs elites need to grow new neural pathways and start to think with vision and not place ourselves on the losing side of history. Independent foreign policy settings based around peace, defence not aggression, diplomacy not militarisation, would take us in the right direction.
Personally I look forward to the day the US and its increasingly belligerent vassals are pushed back into the ranks of ordinary humanity. I fear the US far more than I do China.
Despite the reflexive adherence to the US that our leaders are stuck on, we should not, if we value our lives and our cultures, allow ourselves to be part of this mad, doomed project.
The US empire is heading into a blood-drenched sunset; their project will fail and the 500-year empire of the White West will end — starting and finishing with genocide.
Every day I atheistically pray that leaders or a movement will emerge to guide our antipodean countries out of the clutches of a violent and increasingly incoherent USA.
America is not our friend. China is not our enemy. Tomorrow gives birth to a world that we should look forward to and do the little we can to help shape.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The recent series of high-level agreements between Papua New Guinea and France marks a significant development in PNG’s geopolitical relationships, driven by what appears to be a convergence of national interests.
The “deepening relationship” is less about a single personality and more about a calculated alignment of economic, security, and diplomatic priorities with PNG, taking full advantage of its position as the biggest, most strategically placed island player in the Pacific.
An examination of the key outcomes reveals a partnership of mutual benefit, reflecting both PNG’s strategic diversification and France’s own long-term ambitions as a Pacific power.
A primary driver is the shared economic rationale. From Port Moresby’s perspective, the partnership offers a clear path to economic diversification and resilience.
But many in PNG have been watching with keen interest and asking: how badly does PNG want this?
While Prime Minister James Marape offered France a Special Economic Zone in Port Moresby (SEZ) for French businesses, he also named the lookout at Port Moresby’s Variarata National Park after President Emmanuel Macron drawing the ire of many in the country.
The proposal to establish a SEZ specifically for French industries is a notable attempt to attract capital from beyond PNG’s traditional partners.
Strategically coupled
This is strategically coupled with securing the future of the multi-billion-dollar Papua LNG project.
Macron’s personal undertaking to work with TotalEnergies to keep the project on schedule provides crucial stability for one of PNG’s most significant economic ventures.
For France, these arrangements secure a major energy investment for its national corporate champion and establish a stronger economic foothold in a strategically vital region between Asia and the Pacific.
In the area of security, the relationship addresses tangible needs for both nations.
PNG is faced with the immense challenge of monitoring a 2.4 million sq km Exclusive Economic Zone, making it vulnerable to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The finalisation of a Shiprider Agreement with France provides a practical force-multiplier, leveraging French naval assets to enhance PNG’s maritime surveillance capabilities. This move, along with planned defence talks on air and maritime cooperation, allows PNG to diversify its security architecture.
For France, a resident power with Pacific territories like New Caledonia and French Polynesia, participating in regional security operations reinforces its role and commitment to stability in the Indo-Pacific.
Elevating diplomatic influence
The partnership is also a vehicle for elevating diplomatic influence.
Port Moresby has noted the significance of engaging with a partner that holds permanent membership on the UN Security Council and seats at the G7 and G20.
This alignment provides PNG with a powerful channel to global decision-making forums. The reciprocal move to establish a PNG embassy in Paris further cements the relationship on a mature footing.
The diplomatic synergy is perhaps best illustrated by France’s full endorsement of PNG’s bid to host a future UN Ocean Conference. This support provides PNG with a major opportunity to lead on the world stage, while allowing France to demonstrate its credentials as a key partner to the Pacific Islands.
This deepening PNG-France partnership does not exist in a vacuum.
The West’s view of China’s rapid emergence as a dominant economic and military force in the region has reshaped the strategic landscape, prompting traditional powers to re-engage with renewed urgency.
increased diplomatic footprint
The United States has responded by significantly increasing its diplomatic and security footprint, a move marked by Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Port Moresby to sign the Defence Cooperation Agreement.
Similarly, Australia, PNG’s traditional security partner, is working to reinforce its long-standing influence through initiatives like the multi-million-dollar deal to establish a PNG team in its National Rugby League (NRL), a soft-power exercise reportedly linked to security outcomes.
This competitive environment has, in turn, created greater agency for Pacific nations, allowing them to diversify their partnerships beyond old allies and providing a fertile ground for European powers like France to assert their own strategic interests.
A strong foundation for the relationship is a shared public stance on environmental stewardship. The agreement on the need for rigorous scientific studies before any deep-sea mining occurs aligns PNG’s national policy with a position of environmental caution.
This common ground extends to broader climate action, where France’s commitment to conservation in the Pacific resonates with PNG’s status as a frontline nation vulnerable to climate change.
This alignment on values provides a durable and politically important basis for cooperation, allowing both nations to jointly advocate for climate justice and ocean protection.
For the Papua New Guinea economy, this deepening partnership with France is critically important as it provides high-level stability for the multi-billion-dollar Papua LNG project and creates a direct pathway for new investment through a proposed SEZ for French businesses.
Vital economic resource
Furthermore, by moving to finalise a Shiprider Agreement to combat illegal fishing, the government is actively protecting a vital economic resource.
For Marape’s credibility in local politics, these outcomes are tangible successes he can present to the nation as he battles a massive credibility dip in recent years.
Securing a personal undertaking from the leader of a G7 nation, gaining support for PNG to host a future UN Ocean Conference, and enhancing national security demonstrates effective leadership on the world stage.
This allows him to build a narrative of a competent statesman who, through “warm, personal relationships”, can deliver on promises of economic opportunity and national security while strengthening his political standing at home.
Exclusive: Restrictions to be reviewed as embassy official says ‘UK-China relations are showing a positive momentum’
China is considering lifting the sanctions it imposed on UK parliamentarians in 2021, in the latest sign of warming relations between London and Beijing.
The Chinese government is reviewing the sanctions, which it introduced four years ago in response to what it called “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, according to two UK government sources familiar with the conversations.
Exclusive: Restrictions to be reviewed as embassy official says ‘UK-China relations are showing a positive momentum’
China is considering lifting the sanctions it imposed on UK parliamentarians in 2021, in the latest sign of warming relations between London and Beijing.
The Chinese government is reviewing the sanctions, which it introduced four years ago in response to what it called “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, according to two UK government sources familiar with the conversations.
Growth in international hotels coincides with government effort to push region as a tourism destination
Almost 200 international hotels are operating or planning to open in Xinjiang, despite calls from human rights groups for global corporations not to help “sanitise” the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in the region, a report has said.
The report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) identified 115 operational hotels which the organisation said “benefit from a presence in the Uyghur region”. At least another 74 were in various stages of construction or planning, the report said. The UHRP said some of the hotels also had exposure or links of concern to forced labour and labour transfer programmes.
A Liberal Democrat MP refused entry to Hong Kong to see her young grandson has said her experience should be “a wake-up call for any parliamentarian”, given that it seems to show China holds a secret list of banned politicians.
Wera Hobhouse, who was turned back by officials on Thursday, said she was given no explanation as to why this happened, and could only assume that it was because she had spoken out about rights abuses by China.
Thousands of acres of rainforest is being cleared to produce palm oil, used in popular Nestlé and Mondelēz brands
West Papua’s Indigenous people have called for a boycott of KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, Oreo biscuits and Ritz crackers, and the cosmetics brands Pantene and Herbal Essences, over alleged ecocide in their territory.
All are products that contain palm oil and are made, say the campaigners, by companies that source the ingredient directly from West Papua, which has been under Indonesian control since 1963 and where thousands of acres of rainforest are being cleared for agriculture.
Maria Ressa says rules-based order ‘can perhaps still exist’ but social media is being used to undermine democracy around the world
The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is a welcome sign that the rules-based order continues to hold, the Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has said, even as the global order has been marred by the US “descending into hell” at the hands of the same forces that consumed the Philippines.
Ressa’s remarks came after Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, made his first appearance before the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, accused of committing crimes against humanity during his brutal “war on drugs”.
Allegations of crimes against humanity laid out against former Philippines president over his deadly ‘war on drugs’
Rodrigo Duterte has become the first Asian former leader to appear before the international criminal court, where he stands accused of committing crimes against humanity during his notorious “war on drugs” which is estimated to have killed as many as 30,000 people.
The ex-president of the Philippines, who was in office from 2016 to 2022, was arrested in Manila on an ICC warrant early on Tuesday, put on a government-chartered jet hours later, and arrived in The Hague the following day.
An investigation has exposed the tech firm’s cooperation with autocratic regimes to remove unfavourable content
Google has cooperated with autocratic regimes around the world, including the Kremlin in Russia and the Chinese Communist party, to facilitate censorship requests, an Observer investigation can reveal.
The technology company has engaged with the administrations of about 150 countries since 2011 that want information scrubbed from their public domains.
Russia, Turkey and Egypt also among worst perpetrators of transnational repression around the globe
A quarter of the world’s countries have engaged in transnational repression – targeting political exiles abroad to silence dissent – in the past decade, new research reveals.
The Washington DC-based non-profit organisation Freedom House has documented 1,219 incidents carried out by 48 governments across 103 countries, from 2014 to 2024.
By the time US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on China and Canada last Monday which could kickstart a trade war, New Zealand’s diplomats in Washington, DC, had already been deployed on another diplomatic drama.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz had said on social media it was “difficult to treat New Zealand as a normal ally . . . when they denigrate and punish Israeli citizens for defending themselves and their country”.
He cited a story in the Israeli media outlet Ha’aretz, which has a reputation for independence in Israel and credibility abroad.
But Ha’aretz had wrongly reported Israelis must declare service in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) as part of “new requirements” for visa applications.
Winston Peters replied forcefully to Cruz on X, condemning Ha’aretz’s story as “fake news” and demanding a correction.
Winston Peters puts Ted Cruz on notice over the misleading Ha’aretz story. Image: X/RNZ
But one thing Trump’s Republicans and Winston Peters had in common last week was irritating Mexico.
His fellow NZ First MP Shane Jones had bellowed “Send the Mexicans home” at Green MPs in Parliament.
Winston Peters then told two of them they should be more grateful for being able to live in New Zealand.
‘We will not be lectured’ On Facebook he wasn’t exactly backing down.
“We . . . will not be lectured on the culture and traditions of New Zealand from people who have been here for five minutes,” he added.
While he was at it, Peters criticised media outlets for not holding other political parties to account for inflammatory comments.
Peters was posting that as a politician — not a foreign minister, but the Mexican ambassador complained to MFAT. (It seems the so-called “Mexican standoff” was resolved over a pre-Waitangi lunch with Ambassador Bravo).
But the next day — last Wednesday — news of another diplomatic drama broke on TVNZ’s 1News.
“A deal that could shatter New Zealand’s close relationship with a Pacific neighbour,” presenter Simon Dallow declared, in front of a backdrop of a stern-looking Peters.
TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver reported the Cook Islands was about to sign a partnership agreement in Beijing.
“We want clarity and at this point in time, we have none. We’ve got past arrangements, constitutional arrangements, which require constant consultation with us, and dare I say, China knows that,” Peters told 1News.
Passports another headache
Cook Islands’ Prime Minister Mark Brown also told Barbara Dreaver TVNZ’s revelations last month about proposed Cook Island passports had also been a headache for him.
“We were caught by surprise when this news was broken by 1News. I thought it was a high-level diplomatic discussion with leaders to be open and frank,” he told TVNZ this week.
“For it to be brought out into the public before we’ve had a time to inform our public, I thought was a breach of our political diplomacy.”
Last week another Barabara Dreaver scoop on 1News brought the strained relationship with another Pacific state into the headlines:
“Our relationship with Kiribati is at breaking point. New Zealand’s $100 million aid programme there is now on hold. The move comes after President [Taneti] Maamau pulled out of a pre-arranged meeting with Winston Peters.”
The media ended up in the middle of the blame game over this too — but many didn’t see it coming.
Caught in the crossfire “A diplomatic rift with Kiribati was on no one’s 2025 bingo card,” Stuff national affairs editor Andrea Vance wrote last weekend in the Sunday Star-Times.
“Of all the squabbles Winston Peters was expected to have this year, no one picked it would be with an impoverished, sinking island nation,” she wrote, in terms that would surely annoy Kiribati.
“Do you believe Kiribati is snubbing you?” RNZ Morning Report’s Corin Dann asked Peters.
“You can come to any conclusion you like, but our job is to try and resolve this matter,” Peters replied.
Kiribati Education Minister Alexander Teabo told RNZ Pacific there was no snub.
He said Kiribati President Maamau — who is also the nation’s foreign minister — had been unavailable because of a long-planned and important Catholic ordination ceremony on his home island of Onotoa — though this was prior to the proposed visit from Peters.
Public dispute “regrettable’
Peters told the same show it was “regrettable” that the dispute had been made public.
On Newstalk ZB Peters was backed — and Kiribati portrayed as the problem.
“If somebody is giving me $100m and they asked for a meeting, I will attend. I don’t care if it’s my mum’s birthday. Or somebody’s funeral,” Drive host Ryan Bridge told listeners.
“It’s always very hard to pick apart these stories (by) just reading them in the media. But I have faith and confidence in Winston Peters as our foreign minister,” PR-pro Trish Shrerson opined.
So did her fellow panellist, former Labour MP Stuart Nash.
“He’s respected across the Pacific. He’s the consummate diplomat. If Winston says this is the story and this is what’s happening, I believe 100 percent. And I would say, go hard. Winston — represent our interests.”
‘Totally silly’ response
But veteran Pacific journalist Michael Field contradicted them soon after on ZB.
“It’s totally silly. All this talk about cancelling $104 million of aid is total pie-in-the-sky from Winston Peters,” he said.
“Somebody’s lost their marbles on this, and the one who’s possibly on the ground looking for them is Winston Peters.
“He didn’t need to be in Tarawa in early January at all. This is pathetic. This is like saying I was invited to my sister’s birthday party and now it’s been cancelled,” he said.
Not a comparison you hear very often in international relations.
“While the conspiracy around Kiribati and China has deepened, no one is noticing the still-viable Kiribati-United States treaty which prevents Kiribati atolls [from] being used as bases without Washington approval,” he added.
Kiribati ‘hugely disrespectful’
But TVNZ’s Barbara Dreaver said Kiribati was being “hugely disrespectful”.
In a TVNZ analysis piece last weekend, she said New Zealand has “every right to expect better engagement than it has been getting over the past year.”
Dreaver — who was born in and grew up in Kiribati and has family there — also criticised “the airtime and validation” Kwansing got in the media in New Zealand.
“She supports and is part of a government that requires all journalists — should they get a visa to go there — to hand over copies of all footage/information collected,” Dreaver said.
Kwansing hit back on Facebook, accusing Dreaver of “publishing inane drivel” and “irresponsible journalism causing stress to locals.”
“You write like you need a good holiday somewhere happy. Please book yourself a luxury day spa ASAP,” she told TVNZ’s Pacific Affairs reporter.
“Despite this media issue, the government of Kiribati remains convinced the strong bonds between Kiribati and New Zealand will enable a resolution to this unfortunate standoff,” it said.
Copping the blame
Another reporter who knows what it’s like to cop the blame for reporting stuff diplomats and politicians want to keep out of the news is RNZ Pacific’s senior journalist and presenter Lydia Lewis.
Last year, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese questioned RNZ’s ethics after she reported comments he made to the US Deputy Secretary of State at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga — which revealed an until-then behind closed doors plan to pay for better policing in the Pacific.
She’s also been covering the tension with Kiribati.
Is the heat coming on the media more these days if they candidly report diplomatic differences?
TVNZ Pacific senior journalist and presenter Lydia Lewis . . . “both the public and politicians are saying the media [are] making a big deal of things.” Image: RNZ Pacific
“There’s no study that says there are more people blaming the media. So it’s anecdotal, but definitely, both the public and politicians are saying the media (are) making a big deal of things,” Lewis told Mediawatch.
“I would put the question back to the public as to who’s manufacturing drama. All we’re doing is reporting what’s in front of us for the public to then make their decision — and questioning it. And there were a lot of questions around this Kiribati story.”
Lewis said it was shortly before 6pm on January 27, that selected journalists were advised of the response of our government to the cancellation of the meeting with foreign minister Peters.
Vice-President an alternative
But it was not mentioned that Kiribati had offered the Vice-President for a meeting, the same person that met with an Australian delegation recently.
A response from Kiribati proved harder to get — and Lewis spoke to a senior figure in Kiribati that night who told her they knew nothing about it.
Politicians and diplomats, naturally enough, prefer to do things behind the scenes and media exposure is a complication for them.
But we simply wouldn’t know about the impending partnership agreement between China and the Cook Islands if TVNZ had not reported it last Monday.
And another irony: some political figures lamenting the diplomatically disruptive impact of the media also make decidedly undiplomatic responses of their own online these days.
“It can be revealing in the sense of where people stand. Sometimes they’re just putting out their opinions or their experience. Maybe they’ve got some sort of motive. A formal message or email we’ll take a bit more seriously. But some of the things on social media, we just take with a grain of salt,” said Lewis.
“It is vital we all look at multiple sources. It comes back to balance and knowledge and understanding what you know about and what you don’t know about — and then asking the questions in between.”
Big Powers and the Big Picture Kwansing objected to New Zealand media jumping to the conclusion China’s influence was a factor in the friction with New Zealand.
“To dismiss the geopolitical implications with China . . . would be naive and ignorant,” Dreaver countered.
Michael Field pointed to an angle missing.
“While the conspiracy around Kiribati and China has deepened, no one is noticing the still viable Kiribati-United States treaty which prevents Kiribati atolls being used as bases without Washington approval,” he wrote in his Substack.
In the same article in which Vance called Kiribati “an impoverished, sinking island nation” she later pointed out that its location, US military ties and vast ocean territory make it strategically important.
Questions about ‘transparency and accountability’
“There’s a lot of people that want in on Kiribati. It has a huge exclusive economic zone,” Lewis said.
She said communication problems and patchy connectivity are also drawbacks.
“We do have a fuller picture now of the situation, but the overarching question that’s come out of this is around transparency and accountability.
“We can’t hold Kiribati politicians to account like we do New Zealand government politicians.”
“I don’t want to give Kiribati a free pass here but it’s really difficult to get a response.
“They’re posting statements on Facebook and it really has raised some questions around the government’s commitment to transparency and accountability for all journalists . . . committed to fair media reporting across the Pacific.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Detainees fear their return could be imminent despite UN experts urging Bangkok to halt possible transfer
Relatives of Uyghurs detained in Thailand for more than a decade have begged the Thai authorities not to deport the 48 men back to China, after the detainees suggested their return appeared imminent.
A UN panel of experts this week urged Thailand to “immediately halt the possible transfer”, saying the men were at “real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if they are returned”.
