November 5 marks the day that has been set aside to acknowledge Parihaka and the courageous and peaceful resistance of the people against the armed militia that invaded their village in 1881.
This year, Parihaka will be the focus of an international conference held in New Plymouth Ngā Motu on November 5 – 8.
This is the first time that an IPRA conference has been held in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the first time it has had the theme of “Indigenous peacebuilding”.
The conference will begin with a pōwhiri and hāngī at Ōwae Marae, the traditional home of the Te Atiawa iwi, one of the Taranaki tribes that has a close association with Parihaka.
Tribal leaders such as Wharehoka Wano, Ruakere Hond, Puna-Wano Bryant, and Tonga Karena from Parihaka will be among the welcoming speakers at the marae.
Other keynote speakers for the conference will include Rosa Moiwend, an independent researcher and human rights activist from West Papua; Professor Asmi Wood, who works on constitutional rights for Aboriginal people; Akilah Jaramoji, a Caribbean Human Rights Activist; Bettina Washington, a Wampanoag Elder working with Indigenous Sharing Circles; Vivian Camacho with her knowledge of ancestral Indigenous health practices in Boliva and Professor Kevin Clements from the Toda Institute.
Throughout the five-day conference, academic papers will be presented related to both Indigenous and general issues on peace and conflict.
Some of those deal with resistance by women through the music of steelpan in Trinidad and Tobago; collaborative Indigenous research from Turtle Island and the Philippines towards building peace; disarmament and peace education in Aotearoa; cultural violence experienced by minority women in Thailand; permaculture and peace in Myanmar; resistance and peacebuilding of Kankaumo Indigenous people in Colombia; intercultural dialogue for peace in Nigeria; Aboriginal Australian and Tsalagi principles of balance and harmony; the resistance of Roma people through art; auto-ethnographical poetry by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities around the world; and community-led peacebuilding in Melanesia.
Plenary panels include nuclear justice and African negotiations of peace and social justice through non-violent pathways.
Professor Kelli Te Maihāroa (Waitaha, Ngāti Rārua Ātiawa, Taranaki, Tainui Waikato) of the Otago Polytechnic Te Kura Matatini ki Ōtakou, is the co-general secretariate for Asia Pacific Peace Research Association and co-chair of the IPRA conference, along with Professor Matt Mayer who is co-secretary-general of IPRA.
And – to no one’s surprise but what should be the horror of all – the AI systems come preloaded with racism.
Facial recognition and human rights
The UN’s office for human rights, as well as anthropologists and tech experts, have long known that AI systems are inherently racist, either by design or through the biases of their creators — but the police facial recognition systems are going above and beyond in the service of racist discrimination.
Investigative work by civil rights group Big Brother Watch has found that of the people misidentified by these police AI systems, 80% are Black – like anti-knife crime worker Shaun Thompson, who was detained by police and forced to give fingerprints, and Robert Williams, held for thirty hours by police who wrongly thought he was a watch thief.
The Met’s own data show that of more than a thousand people flagged by facial recognition since the beginning of 2025, more than half had no arrest warrants against them – yet the force also insists that nobody has been wrongly arrested since the beginning of 2023, twisting words to claim that because police officers thought the arrests were justified at the time, the arrests were not wrong, as its response to a Freedom of Information Act request shows:
The facial recognition push goes hand in hand with Starmer’s plan to force ‘digital ID’ on anyone who wants to work — and on children in school.
Big Brother Watch Legal and Policy Officer Jasleen Chaggar said:
Live facial recognition is a mass surveillance tool that risks making London feel like an open prison, and the prospect of the Met expanding facial recognition even more across the city is disproportionate and chilling.
Far from police using these cameras to find serious wanted criminals, the Met’s report shows that the majority of people flagged by facial recognition were not wanted for arrest.
It’s disturbing that 80% of the innocent people wrongly flagged by facial recognition were black. We all want police to have the tools they need to cut crime but this is an Orwellian and authoritarian technology that treats millions of innocent people like suspects and risks serious injustice.
No law in this country has ever been passed to govern live facial recognition. Given the breathtaking risk to the public’s privacy, it’s long overdue that the government bans its use.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer announced his intention to resurrect New Labour’s Digital ID policy. This was despite there being no mention of Digital ID in the 2024 manifesto. It was also despite Starmer and the policy being widely unpopular with the public.
The government has shifted its stance on why we need Digital ID as critics have torn apart their arguments. MP David Davis, meanwhile, has suggested Digital ID isn’t just unnecessary; it’s also a risk to our security.
Questions
On 31 October, the BBC reported that the “government is facing questions over whether the system at the heart of its plans for digital ID can be trusted to keep people’s personal data secure”. The piece highlights that Digital ID would be based on two Gov.UK systems:
One Login (live now, with 12 million sign-ups).
Wallet (live soon, but could allow individuals to store Digital ID data on their smart phone).
Speaking on the nature of this digital setup, Tory MP David Davis said:
What will happen when this system comes into effect is that the entire population’s entire data will be open to malevolent actors – foreign nations, ransomware criminals, malevolent hackers and even their own personal or political enemies.
As a result, this will be worse than the Horizon [Post Office] scandal.
Yet another Government data leak – and this is the same Government that thinks they can keep your digital ID biometric data safe…https://t.co/WbEqtmp4Fy
In a letter earlier this month, Davis highlighted:
a 2022 incident, in which it was found that the One Login system was being developed on unsecured workstations by contractors without the required security clearance in Romania.
Davis also points out that One Login does not meet the government’s own requirements to be classified as a safe and trusted identity supplier.
The government has said this problem will be restored “imminently”, but this itself exposes an issue with systems that rely on Digital ID: what happens if there’s a problem which leads to permanent or temporary data losses?
to a whistleblower, who claims that the government has missed the 2025 deadline set out in its national cyber security strategy, external for hardening “critical” systems against cyber attacks.
This followed a simulated cyber attack in March this year when authorised hackers were able to access ‘privileged’ systems. As a result, Clement-Jones said the situation:
should give us all no confidence at all that the new compulsory digital ID, which will be based on them, will ensure that our personal data is safe and will meet the highest cybersecurity standards
Big tech
David Powell is another critic of the policy is David Powell, and he recently said that Digital ID is:
the single most important piece of infrastructure that Silicon Valley and the corporations associated with them need, we must not comply.
He added that:
The Tony Blair Institute is calling for a National Data Library, it means Blair’s previously ditched Digital ID has been resurrected in line with extreme corporate pressure from the entire AI industry, Palantir, Google, Meta, Facebook, etc, and Keir Starmer’s AI Growth Zones launched in January 2025 are a key deregulated facet.
Keir Starmer is point blank lying to the public when he says Digital ID will not track the lives of Brits, this statement is the polar opposite of what Silicon Valley wants, there is no way that Starmer is pushing Digital ID for benign reasons.
Meanwhile, a key financial backer of the Tony Blair institute has publicly said the following:
The man behind the digital ID push is Larry Ellison, owner of Oracle, CBS, CNN, and, soon, TikTok. He wants data centralization and total surveillance. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly watching & recording everything that’s going on.” Terrifying. https://t.co/mb05XvnOAxpic.twitter.com/cUx45ORy2F
The case for Digital ID is weak and constantly shifting; the case against it, meanwhile, is becoming stronger every day.
If there’s a silver lining to all this, it’s that when the public forces Labour into another retreat, people will forever link the policy with Tony Blair and Keir Starmer — two of the most hated PMs this country has ever produced.
More than a quarter of Australia’s National Press Club sponsors are part of the global arms industry or working on its behalf. Michelle Fahy reports.
ANALYSIS:By Michelle Fahy
The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website. Of those, 10 are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations, and another eleven provide services to the arms industry, including consultants KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY.
They include the world’s two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; France’s largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos — all of which are in the global top 20.
BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2 billion from Australian taxpayers last year.
In 2023, those five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter of total weapons sales ($973 billion) by the world’s top 100 weapons companies that year.
Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces.
The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel.
None has done so.
Another of the club’s sponsors, Thales, is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.
Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”.
Undue Influence asked the Press Club’s CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.
Reilly responded: “The board are informed monthly about . . . proposals and have the right to refuse any application.”
National Press Club The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.
The club’s board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABC’s Laura Tingle.
The other board members are current and former mainstream media journalists, as well as at least two board members who have jobs that involve lobbying.
Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Club’s two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra.
SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.
Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Daley had worked for Nationals’ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey, and, before that, for media outlets The Financial Review and Bloomberg.
Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as “the peak national representative body for the Australian defence industry”. The group has established a Defence Council and, in 2017, appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it.
The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.
Conflicts of interest Undue Influence asked Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: “Thanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.”
Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff. Reilly responded:
“The club has a directors’ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.”
MWM is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article.
Selling access While Reilly declined to disclose the club’s sponsorship arrangements with Westpac and Telstra, citing “commercial in confidence” reasons, The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year that Westpac paid $3 million in 2015 to replace NAB as the Press Club’s principal sponsor.
The SMH article, “Westpac centre stage at post-budget bash”, on Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House in late March, added:
“(Westpac) . . . gets more than its money’s worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese . . . Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
“Westpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul Erickson…
“Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table.”
Reilly told Undue Influence that all the other corporate sponsors pay $25,000 a year, with a few paying extra as partners in the club’s journalism awards.
The 21 arms industry and related sponsors, therefore, contribute an annual $525,000 to the Press Club’s coffers. This is 23 percent of the $2.26 million revenue it earns from “membership, sponsorship and broadcasting”, the club’s largest revenue line for the 2024 financial year.
“The National Press Club of Australia proudly partners with organisations that share our commitment to quality, independent journalism,” says the club’s website.
Acclaimed journalist and Middle East expert Chris Hedges . . . the National Press Club cancelled a planned speech by him, reportedly under pressure. Image: The Chris Hedges Report
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on September 10, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Compare this with two addresses given by $25,000 corporate sponsors — Kurt Campbell (former US deputy secretary of state, now co-founder and chair of The Asia Group), who gave an address on September 7; and Mike Johnson, CEO of Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN), who gave an address on October 15. Neither the Press Club nor the speakers disclosed the companies’ sponsorship of the Press Club.
The club also promotes additional benefits of corporate sponsorship, including “Brand association with inclusion on our prestigious ‘Corporate Partners’ board and recognition on the National Press Club of Australia website”.
The club also promises corporate sponsors that they will receive “priority seating and brand positioning” at its weekly luncheon addresses.
Profiting from genocide In July, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, issued a report explaining how the corporate sector had become complicit with the State of Israel in conducting the genocide.
Albanese highlighted Lockheed Martin and the F-35 programme, which has 1650 companies worldwide in its supply chain. More than 75 of those companies are Australian.
Her report also noted that arms-making multinationals depend on legal, auditing and consulting firms to facilitate export and import transactions to supply Israel with weapons.
Four of the world’s largest accounting, audit and consulting firms — all of which have arms industry corporations as clients — are sponsors of the Press Club: KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY. Until recently, PwC counted among them.
EY (Ernst & Young) has been Lockheed Martin’s auditor since 1994. EY is also one of two auditors used by Thales, and has been for 22 years. Deloitte has been BAE Systems’ auditor since 2018. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — a Press Club sponsor until 2024 — has been Raytheon’s auditor since 1947.
Lockheed Martin’s supply to Israel of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and C-130 Hercules transport planes, and their parts and components, along with Hellfire missiles and other munitions, has directly facilitated Israel’s genocide.
Raytheon’s (RTX) supply of guided missiles, bombs, and other advanced weaponry and defence systems, like the Iron Dome interceptors, also directly supports Israel’s military capability.
In England, BAE Systems builds the rear fuselage of every F-35, with the horizontal and vertical tails and other crucial components manufactured in its UK and Australian facilities. It also supplies the Israeli military with munitions, missile launching kits and armoured vehicles, while BAE technologies are integrated into Israel’s drones and warships.
Thales supplies Israel’s military with vital components, including drone transponders. Australian Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were murdered by an Israeli Hermes drone, which contained Thales’ transponders. Yet, echoing Australia, France claims its military exports to Israel are non-lethal.
Michelle Fahy is an independent Australian writer and researcher, specialising in the examination of connections between the weapons industry and government. She writes for various independent publications and on Substack on Undueinfluence.substack.com This article was first published on Undueinfluence and Michael West Media and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
More than a quarter of Australia’s National Press Club sponsors are part of the global arms industry or working on its behalf. Michelle Fahy reports.
ANALYSIS:By Michelle Fahy
The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website. Of those, 10 are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations, and another eleven provide services to the arms industry, including consultants KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY.
They include the world’s two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; France’s largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos — all of which are in the global top 20.
BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2 billion from Australian taxpayers last year.
In 2023, those five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter of total weapons sales ($973 billion) by the world’s top 100 weapons companies that year.
Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces.
The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel.
None has done so.
Another of the club’s sponsors, Thales, is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.
Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”.
Undue Influence asked the Press Club’s CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.
Reilly responded: “The board are informed monthly about . . . proposals and have the right to refuse any application.”
National Press Club The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.
The club’s board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABC’s Laura Tingle.
The other board members are current and former mainstream media journalists, as well as at least two board members who have jobs that involve lobbying.
Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Club’s two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra.
SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.
Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Daley had worked for Nationals’ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey, and, before that, for media outlets The Financial Review and Bloomberg.
Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as “the peak national representative body for the Australian defence industry”. The group has established a Defence Council and, in 2017, appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it.
The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.
Conflicts of interest Undue Influence asked Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: “Thanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.”
Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff. Reilly responded:
“The club has a directors’ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.”
MWM is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article.
Selling access While Reilly declined to disclose the club’s sponsorship arrangements with Westpac and Telstra, citing “commercial in confidence” reasons, The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year that Westpac paid $3 million in 2015 to replace NAB as the Press Club’s principal sponsor.
The SMH article, “Westpac centre stage at post-budget bash”, on Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House in late March, added:
“(Westpac) . . . gets more than its money’s worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese . . . Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
“Westpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul Erickson…
“Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table.”
Reilly told Undue Influence that all the other corporate sponsors pay $25,000 a year, with a few paying extra as partners in the club’s journalism awards.
The 21 arms industry and related sponsors, therefore, contribute an annual $525,000 to the Press Club’s coffers. This is 23 percent of the $2.26 million revenue it earns from “membership, sponsorship and broadcasting”, the club’s largest revenue line for the 2024 financial year.
“The National Press Club of Australia proudly partners with organisations that share our commitment to quality, independent journalism,” says the club’s website.
Acclaimed journalist and Middle East expert Chris Hedges . . . the National Press Club cancelled a planned speech by him, reportedly under pressure. Image: The Chris Hedges Report
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on September 10, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Compare this with two addresses given by $25,000 corporate sponsors — Kurt Campbell (former US deputy secretary of state, now co-founder and chair of The Asia Group), who gave an address on September 7; and Mike Johnson, CEO of Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN), who gave an address on October 15. Neither the Press Club nor the speakers disclosed the companies’ sponsorship of the Press Club.
The club also promotes additional benefits of corporate sponsorship, including “Brand association with inclusion on our prestigious ‘Corporate Partners’ board and recognition on the National Press Club of Australia website”.
The club also promises corporate sponsors that they will receive “priority seating and brand positioning” at its weekly luncheon addresses.
Profiting from genocide In July, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, issued a report explaining how the corporate sector had become complicit with the State of Israel in conducting the genocide.
Albanese highlighted Lockheed Martin and the F-35 programme, which has 1650 companies worldwide in its supply chain. More than 75 of those companies are Australian.
Her report also noted that arms-making multinationals depend on legal, auditing and consulting firms to facilitate export and import transactions to supply Israel with weapons.
Four of the world’s largest accounting, audit and consulting firms — all of which have arms industry corporations as clients — are sponsors of the Press Club: KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY. Until recently, PwC counted among them.
EY (Ernst & Young) has been Lockheed Martin’s auditor since 1994. EY is also one of two auditors used by Thales, and has been for 22 years. Deloitte has been BAE Systems’ auditor since 2018. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — a Press Club sponsor until 2024 — has been Raytheon’s auditor since 1947.
Lockheed Martin’s supply to Israel of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and C-130 Hercules transport planes, and their parts and components, along with Hellfire missiles and other munitions, has directly facilitated Israel’s genocide.
Raytheon’s (RTX) supply of guided missiles, bombs, and other advanced weaponry and defence systems, like the Iron Dome interceptors, also directly supports Israel’s military capability.
In England, BAE Systems builds the rear fuselage of every F-35, with the horizontal and vertical tails and other crucial components manufactured in its UK and Australian facilities. It also supplies the Israeli military with munitions, missile launching kits and armoured vehicles, while BAE technologies are integrated into Israel’s drones and warships.
Thales supplies Israel’s military with vital components, including drone transponders. Australian Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were murdered by an Israeli Hermes drone, which contained Thales’ transponders. Yet, echoing Australia, France claims its military exports to Israel are non-lethal.
Michelle Fahy is an independent Australian writer and researcher, specialising in the examination of connections between the weapons industry and government. She writes for various independent publications and on Substack on Undueinfluence.substack.com This article was first published on Undueinfluence and Michael West Media and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s Democracy Now! show looking at US-China relations and President Trump’s threat to resume nuclear weapons testing.
President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a one-year trade truce, but the trade deal was overshadowed by Trump’s announcement that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Just before his meeting with Xi, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Because of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”
AMY GOODMAN: It’s unclear what President Trump was referring to. Russia and China have not tested a nuclear weapon in decades; North Korea last tested one in 2017. Trump spoke briefly with reporters after his meeting with Xi, flying back to the United States.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing.
REPORTER 1: Russia?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing, and we’ve halted it years — many years ago.
But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.
REPORTER 1: Did Israel — did Israel —
REPORTER 2: Any details around the testing, sir? Like where, when?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be — it’ll be announced. You know, we have test sites. It’ll be announced.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s threat to resume nuclear tests comes just months before the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia expires. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, expires February of next year.
We go right now to Dr Ira Helfand. He’s an expert on the medical consequences of nuclear war, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He also serves on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. He’s today joining us from Winnipeg, Canada, where he’s speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
Dr Helfand, welcome back to Democracy Now! You must have been shocked last night when, just before the certainly globally touted meeting between Trump and Xi, Trump sent out on social media that he’s going to begin testing nuclear weapons, comparing it, saying that we have to test them on an equal basis, referring to countries like Russia and China.
Can you explain what he is talking about? They, like the United States, haven’t tested nuclear weapons in decades.
DR IRA HELFAND: Good morning, Amy.
Actually, I can’t explain what he’s talking about, because it doesn’t make any sense. As you pointed out, Russia and China have not tested nuclear weapons for decades. And I think the most important thing right now is that the White House has got to clarify what President Trump is talking about.
If we really are going to resume explosive nuclear testing, this is an extraordinarily destabilising decision, and one which will increase even more the already great danger that we have of stumbling into a nuclear conflict. But they need to clarify this, because, as you pointed out, the statement doesn’t make sense in terms of what’s actually happening in the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr Helfand, what would these tests entail, were this to actually occur the way that Trump has said?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, again, it’s not clear what he’s talking about. If he’s — if he is speaking about resuming explosive nuclear testing, presumably this would not be in the atmosphere, which is prohibited by a treaty which the United States did sign and ratify in 1963, but it would be underground nuclear explosions. And the principal danger there, I think, is political.
This will undoubtedly trigger response by other countries that have nuclear weapons, and dramatically accelerate the already very dangerous arms race that the world finds itself in today.
The one, perhaps, value of this statement is that it helps to draw attention to the fact that the nuclear problem has not gone away, as so many of us would like to believe. We are facing the gravest danger of nuclear war that has existed on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and possibly worse than it was during the Cold War.
And this comes at a time when the best science we have shows that even a very limited nuclear war, one that might take place between India and Pakistan, has the potential to trigger a global famine that could kill a quarter of the human race in two years.
We have to recognise that reality, and we need to change our nuclear policy so that it is no longer based on the idea that nuclear weapons make us safe, but that it recognises the fact that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to our safety.
And for citizens in the United States in particular, I think this means doing things like are advocated by the Back from the Brink campaign, calling on the United States to stop this tit-for-tat exchange of threats with our nuclear adversaries and to enter into negotiations with all eight of the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement that will allow them to eliminate their nuclear arsenals according to an agreed-upon timetable, and so they can all join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at some point when they have completed this task.
This idea is dismissed sometimes as being unrealistic. I think what’s unrealistic is the belief that we can continue to maintain these enormous nuclear arsenals and expect that nothing is going to go wrong.
We’ve been lucky over and over again. This year alone, five of the nine countries which have nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military conflict. India and Pakistan were fighting each other. That could easily have escalated into a nuclear war between them, which could have had devastating consequences for the entire planet.
And we keep dodging bullets, and we keep acting as though that’s going to keep happening. It isn’t. Our luck is going to run out at some point, and we have to recognise that. We have to recognise the only way to guarantee our safety is to get rid of these weapons once and for all.
President Trump’s post announcing the U.S. would resume nuclear testing featured some inaccuracies, and introduced quite a bit of uncertainty. https://t.co/wRbnOxuaBU
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Helfand, before we conclude, just about the timing of Trump’s comment, which came just days after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-armed missile, which it said could penetrate US defences.
Do you think Trump was responding to that, without perhaps understanding that there was a difference between that and carrying out explosive nuclear tests?
DR IRA HELFAND: It’s certainly possible, and the timing suggests that may be what’s happening. But again, the White House needs to clarify this statement, because, as it stands, it was an explicit instruction to begin testing at the test sites, which suggests nuclear explosive testing.
I suspect that is not what the president meant, but at this point, who knows?
AMY GOODMAN: Right. It was nuclear-capable, not nuclear-armed. And finally, I mean, he’s talking about doing this immediately, instructing what he called the War Department, the Department of War.
Isn’t the Energy Department in charge of the nuclear stockpile? And aren’t scores of nuclear scientists now furloughed during the government shutdown? Who is maintaining this very dangerous stockpile?
DR IRA HELFAND: That was another striking inconsistency in that statement. It is not the Pentagon, which he referred to as the Department of War, that would be conducting nuclear testing if it recurs. It is, Amy, as you suggested, it’s the Department of Energy that is responsible for this activity.
So, again, another area in which the statement is just confusing, puzzling and needs clarification. And I think, you know, this is a really urgent matter, because, as it stands, the statement itself is destabilising.
It raises tension. It creates further problems. And we don’t need that anymore. We need to —
AMY GOODMAN: And opens the door for other countries, is that right, to test nuclear weapons?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, absolutely. And that would be — you know, there would be absolutely nothing the US could do that would more undermine our security at this point with regards to nuclear weapons than to resume testing. It would give a green light to many other countries to resume testing, as well, and lead to markedly increased instability in the global situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr Ira Helfand, we thank you so much for being with us, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, won the Nobel Peace Prize, PSR, in 1985, serving on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign, joining us, interestingly, from Winnipeg, Canada, where he is speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s Democracy Now! show looking at US-China relations and President Trump’s threat to resume nuclear weapons testing.
President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a one-year trade truce, but the trade deal was overshadowed by Trump’s announcement that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Just before his meeting with Xi, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Because of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”
AMY GOODMAN: It’s unclear what President Trump was referring to. Russia and China have not tested a nuclear weapon in decades; North Korea last tested one in 2017. Trump spoke briefly with reporters after his meeting with Xi, flying back to the United States.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing.
REPORTER 1: Russia?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing, and we’ve halted it years — many years ago.
But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.
REPORTER 1: Did Israel — did Israel —
REPORTER 2: Any details around the testing, sir? Like where, when?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be — it’ll be announced. You know, we have test sites. It’ll be announced.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s threat to resume nuclear tests comes just months before the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia expires. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, expires February of next year.
We go right now to Dr Ira Helfand. He’s an expert on the medical consequences of nuclear war, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He also serves on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. He’s today joining us from Winnipeg, Canada, where he’s speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
Dr Helfand, welcome back to Democracy Now! You must have been shocked last night when, just before the certainly globally touted meeting between Trump and Xi, Trump sent out on social media that he’s going to begin testing nuclear weapons, comparing it, saying that we have to test them on an equal basis, referring to countries like Russia and China.
Can you explain what he is talking about? They, like the United States, haven’t tested nuclear weapons in decades.
DR IRA HELFAND: Good morning, Amy.
Actually, I can’t explain what he’s talking about, because it doesn’t make any sense. As you pointed out, Russia and China have not tested nuclear weapons for decades. And I think the most important thing right now is that the White House has got to clarify what President Trump is talking about.
If we really are going to resume explosive nuclear testing, this is an extraordinarily destabilising decision, and one which will increase even more the already great danger that we have of stumbling into a nuclear conflict. But they need to clarify this, because, as you pointed out, the statement doesn’t make sense in terms of what’s actually happening in the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr Helfand, what would these tests entail, were this to actually occur the way that Trump has said?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, again, it’s not clear what he’s talking about. If he’s — if he is speaking about resuming explosive nuclear testing, presumably this would not be in the atmosphere, which is prohibited by a treaty which the United States did sign and ratify in 1963, but it would be underground nuclear explosions. And the principal danger there, I think, is political.
This will undoubtedly trigger response by other countries that have nuclear weapons, and dramatically accelerate the already very dangerous arms race that the world finds itself in today.
The one, perhaps, value of this statement is that it helps to draw attention to the fact that the nuclear problem has not gone away, as so many of us would like to believe. We are facing the gravest danger of nuclear war that has existed on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and possibly worse than it was during the Cold War.
And this comes at a time when the best science we have shows that even a very limited nuclear war, one that might take place between India and Pakistan, has the potential to trigger a global famine that could kill a quarter of the human race in two years.
We have to recognise that reality, and we need to change our nuclear policy so that it is no longer based on the idea that nuclear weapons make us safe, but that it recognises the fact that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to our safety.
And for citizens in the United States in particular, I think this means doing things like are advocated by the Back from the Brink campaign, calling on the United States to stop this tit-for-tat exchange of threats with our nuclear adversaries and to enter into negotiations with all eight of the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement that will allow them to eliminate their nuclear arsenals according to an agreed-upon timetable, and so they can all join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at some point when they have completed this task.
This idea is dismissed sometimes as being unrealistic. I think what’s unrealistic is the belief that we can continue to maintain these enormous nuclear arsenals and expect that nothing is going to go wrong.
We’ve been lucky over and over again. This year alone, five of the nine countries which have nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military conflict. India and Pakistan were fighting each other. That could easily have escalated into a nuclear war between them, which could have had devastating consequences for the entire planet.
And we keep dodging bullets, and we keep acting as though that’s going to keep happening. It isn’t. Our luck is going to run out at some point, and we have to recognise that. We have to recognise the only way to guarantee our safety is to get rid of these weapons once and for all.
President Trump’s post announcing the U.S. would resume nuclear testing featured some inaccuracies, and introduced quite a bit of uncertainty. https://t.co/wRbnOxuaBU
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Helfand, before we conclude, just about the timing of Trump’s comment, which came just days after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-armed missile, which it said could penetrate US defences.
Do you think Trump was responding to that, without perhaps understanding that there was a difference between that and carrying out explosive nuclear tests?
DR IRA HELFAND: It’s certainly possible, and the timing suggests that may be what’s happening. But again, the White House needs to clarify this statement, because, as it stands, it was an explicit instruction to begin testing at the test sites, which suggests nuclear explosive testing.
I suspect that is not what the president meant, but at this point, who knows?
AMY GOODMAN: Right. It was nuclear-capable, not nuclear-armed. And finally, I mean, he’s talking about doing this immediately, instructing what he called the War Department, the Department of War.
Isn’t the Energy Department in charge of the nuclear stockpile? And aren’t scores of nuclear scientists now furloughed during the government shutdown? Who is maintaining this very dangerous stockpile?
DR IRA HELFAND: That was another striking inconsistency in that statement. It is not the Pentagon, which he referred to as the Department of War, that would be conducting nuclear testing if it recurs. It is, Amy, as you suggested, it’s the Department of Energy that is responsible for this activity.
So, again, another area in which the statement is just confusing, puzzling and needs clarification. And I think, you know, this is a really urgent matter, because, as it stands, the statement itself is destabilising.
It raises tension. It creates further problems. And we don’t need that anymore. We need to —
AMY GOODMAN: And opens the door for other countries, is that right, to test nuclear weapons?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, absolutely. And that would be — you know, there would be absolutely nothing the US could do that would more undermine our security at this point with regards to nuclear weapons than to resume testing. It would give a green light to many other countries to resume testing, as well, and lead to markedly increased instability in the global situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr Ira Helfand, we thank you so much for being with us, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, won the Nobel Peace Prize, PSR, in 1985, serving on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign, joining us, interestingly, from Winnipeg, Canada, where he is speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
With just three weeks to go before Tongans head to the polls, the debate over election issues is heating up.
Under the spotlight are the role of the palace in the country’s democratic process and calls for voting rights for overseas-based Tongans. The state of the economy and access to health care are also being examined.
Tongan political scientist Dr Malakai Koloamatangi said for many Tongans, bread-and-butter election issues remained important.
“People are just wanting to get on with life, and they want the best conditions . . . for them to get a job, put their kids through school, a roof over their heads, vehicles and to meet their obligations around social [and] cultural [customs].”
Dr Koloamatangi, who is the registrar at the Tonga National University, believed voters wanted to see policies that addressed increasing living costs and fuel shortages, which have caused significant disruptions to daily life.
“We’re not seeing abject poverty in Tonga but things like wages need to be raised in order to meet the rising cost of the standard of living.
“And we’re still having issues with petrol and oil not arriving on time. So big queues at the gas stations and so on.”
Scrutiny over palace role
A former political adviser, Lopeti Senituli, said the role of the palace and its noble representatives in Parliament was under increasing scrutiny.
The Tonga Parliament is made up of noble and people’s representatives. On polling day, regular voters cast ballots to elect 17 people’s representatives to Parliament, while the kingdom’s nobles vote for nine noble representatives.
Senituli said King Tupou IV’s displeasure over the behaviour of previous noble representatives to Parliament was well known.
“Some of them have not performed like a noble, have not acted like a noble. Some of them, for example, have been investigated for being involved in drug smuggling from America,” he said.
He said candidates would be acutely aware of the power dynamic between the palace and Parliament, particularly since former Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni resigned in December last year ahead of a vote-of-no confidence.
Hu’akavameiliku reportedly clashed with King Tupou VI over key ministerial portfolios that were traditionally held by the monarchy.
“The King is, to put it mildly, not happy with the noble representatives in cabinet in previous governments. And of course, he was not happy with the previous prime minister.”
Top job not guaranteed
Senituli said, while Hu’akavameiliku’s successor, incumbent Prime Minister Dr ‘Aisake Eke enjoyed the support of the king, he was not guaranteed the top job again.
“Winning his actual electoral electorate is guaranteed in my view, but whether or not he can pull together a cabinet made up of 12 supporters from the nine members of nobility and 16 people’s reps is another matter.”
Both Senituli and Dr Koloamatangi believe the provision in Tonga’s Constitution, which states the Prime Minister can nominate up to four cabinet ministers who were not elected representatives, added another layer of complexity to Tonga’s governing processes.
Crown Prince Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalala was appointed to his cabinet position in Dr Eke’s government through this mechanism. He holds both the foreign affairs and defence force portfolios.
Senituli believed that overlap in power between the palace and executive needed to be addressed as Tonga worked towards becoming a mature democracy.
However, Dr Koloamatangi disagreed, saying it was a long-standing tradition for future monarchs to hold cabinet positions.
“Most of the kings of Tonga, the monarchs, were trained in that way,” Dr Koloamatangi said.
‘Good training ground’
“While their fathers were still on the throne, they were given the responsibilities in government. So I think it’s a good training ground for the Crown Prince.”
Meanwhile, overseas-based Tongans are also keeping tabs on developments, with many calling for voting rights in their home nation. Under current rules, only those who live in Tonga are eligible to vote.
Kennedy Fakanaanaaki-Fualu, secretary for the Auckland Tongan Community organisation, said members of the diaspora like him contributed significantly to Tonga.
“If it wasn’t for the remittances [sent from overseas-based Tongans], Tonga would be in deep, deep trouble,” he said.
“We should be given the right to vote, especially if you’re a Tongan citizen.”
Tonga’s polling day is set for November 20.
About 65,000 people will be eligible to vote. Those casting ballots must do it in person, with no provisions for overseas or absentee voting.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
With just three weeks to go before Tongans head to the polls, the debate over election issues is heating up.
Under the spotlight are the role of the palace in the country’s democratic process and calls for voting rights for overseas-based Tongans. The state of the economy and access to health care are also being examined.
Tongan political scientist Dr Malakai Koloamatangi said for many Tongans, bread-and-butter election issues remained important.
“People are just wanting to get on with life, and they want the best conditions . . . for them to get a job, put their kids through school, a roof over their heads, vehicles and to meet their obligations around social [and] cultural [customs].”
Dr Koloamatangi, who is the registrar at the Tonga National University, believed voters wanted to see policies that addressed increasing living costs and fuel shortages, which have caused significant disruptions to daily life.
“We’re not seeing abject poverty in Tonga but things like wages need to be raised in order to meet the rising cost of the standard of living.
“And we’re still having issues with petrol and oil not arriving on time. So big queues at the gas stations and so on.”
Scrutiny over palace role
A former political adviser, Lopeti Senituli, said the role of the palace and its noble representatives in Parliament was under increasing scrutiny.
The Tonga Parliament is made up of noble and people’s representatives. On polling day, regular voters cast ballots to elect 17 people’s representatives to Parliament, while the kingdom’s nobles vote for nine noble representatives.
Senituli said King Tupou IV’s displeasure over the behaviour of previous noble representatives to Parliament was well known.
“Some of them have not performed like a noble, have not acted like a noble. Some of them, for example, have been investigated for being involved in drug smuggling from America,” he said.
He said candidates would be acutely aware of the power dynamic between the palace and Parliament, particularly since former Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni resigned in December last year ahead of a vote-of-no confidence.
Hu’akavameiliku reportedly clashed with King Tupou VI over key ministerial portfolios that were traditionally held by the monarchy.
“The King is, to put it mildly, not happy with the noble representatives in cabinet in previous governments. And of course, he was not happy with the previous prime minister.”
Top job not guaranteed
Senituli said, while Hu’akavameiliku’s successor, incumbent Prime Minister Dr ‘Aisake Eke enjoyed the support of the king, he was not guaranteed the top job again.
“Winning his actual electoral electorate is guaranteed in my view, but whether or not he can pull together a cabinet made up of 12 supporters from the nine members of nobility and 16 people’s reps is another matter.”
Both Senituli and Dr Koloamatangi believe the provision in Tonga’s Constitution, which states the Prime Minister can nominate up to four cabinet ministers who were not elected representatives, added another layer of complexity to Tonga’s governing processes.
Crown Prince Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalala was appointed to his cabinet position in Dr Eke’s government through this mechanism. He holds both the foreign affairs and defence force portfolios.
Senituli believed that overlap in power between the palace and executive needed to be addressed as Tonga worked towards becoming a mature democracy.
However, Dr Koloamatangi disagreed, saying it was a long-standing tradition for future monarchs to hold cabinet positions.
“Most of the kings of Tonga, the monarchs, were trained in that way,” Dr Koloamatangi said.
‘Good training ground’
“While their fathers were still on the throne, they were given the responsibilities in government. So I think it’s a good training ground for the Crown Prince.”
Meanwhile, overseas-based Tongans are also keeping tabs on developments, with many calling for voting rights in their home nation. Under current rules, only those who live in Tonga are eligible to vote.
Kennedy Fakanaanaaki-Fualu, secretary for the Auckland Tongan Community organisation, said members of the diaspora like him contributed significantly to Tonga.
“If it wasn’t for the remittances [sent from overseas-based Tongans], Tonga would be in deep, deep trouble,” he said.
“We should be given the right to vote, especially if you’re a Tongan citizen.”
Tonga’s polling day is set for November 20.
About 65,000 people will be eligible to vote. Those casting ballots must do it in person, with no provisions for overseas or absentee voting.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The US Senate voted this evening, 51–47, to strip Donald Trump of the power to impose trade tariffs, as his tariff-driven inflation — building since his inauguration in January — continues to batter the US economy and millions of its citizens. In a sign that Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is loosening — though not nearly enough — four Republicans joined Democrats to defeat him for the third time this week.
French MPs narrowly endorsed the postponement of New Caledonia’s provincial elections to no later than 28 June 2026 in a crucial vote in Paris this week.
It comes as newly appointed Overseas Minister Naïma Moutchou prepares to visit the French Pacific territory for more talks on its political future.
The vote took place in the Lower House, the National Assembly, on Tuesday in a climate of division between national parties.
It was a narrow score, with 279 MPs backing the postponement and 247 voting against the “Constitutional organic” Bill.
A final vote (298 for and 39 against) in the other chamber, the Senate (Upper House), on Wednesday in a relatively less adverserial environment, was regarded as a sheer formality.
After this, the French Constitutional Council is to deliver its ruling on the conformity of the text.
New Caledonia’s provincial elections have already been postponed several times: originally set for May 2024, they had to be delayed due to the riots that took place, then were further delayed from December 2024 to November 2025.
As part of an emergency parliamentary procedure, a bipartisan committee earlier this week also modified the small text (which contains only three paragraphs), mainly to delete any reference to an agreement project signed in July 2025 in Bougival (near Paris).
The text was supposed to serve as the blueprint for New Caledonia’s future status. It contained plans to make New Caledonia a “State” within France’s realm and to provide a new “nationality”, as well as transferring powers from Paris to Nouméa (including foreign affairs).
The “agreement project” was initially signed by all of New Caledonia’s political parties, but one of the main components of the pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) later said it withdrew its negotiators’ signatures.
The FLNKS said this was because the agreement was not in line with its aim of full sovereignty and was merely a “lure of independence”.
The party has since reaffirmed that it did not want to have anything to do with the Bougival text.
No more mention of Bougival The bipartisan committee modified the Bill’s title accordingly, introducing, in the new version, “to allow the pursuit of consensual discussions on New Caledonia’s institutional future”.
The modifications to the Bill have been described as a way of allowing discussions and, even though no longer specifically mentioned, to use the Bougival accord as a base for further talks, mainly with the FLNKS.
“This is a political message to the FLNKS, Bill rapporteur Philippe Gosselin (Les Républicains -centre right) said this week
One of the FLNKS key representatives at the National Assembly, pro-independence Emmanuel Tjibaou (who also chairs the Union Calédonienne party, the main component of FLNKS), however maintained his opposition to the modified text.
The postponement was also said to be designed to “give more time” to possible discussions.
The other National Assembly MP for New Caledonia, pro-France Nicolas Metzdorf, said even though the name Bougival was eventually removed, “everyone knows we will continue to talk from the basis of Bougival, because these are the most advanced bases in the negotiations”.
Tjibaou said the slight change can be regarded as “an essential detail” and mark “a new sequence” in future political talks.
“We’re still in the negotiating phase,” he said.
‘Denial of democracy’
However, he maintained his stance against the postponement of the local polls, saying this was a “denial of democracy”.
“The bill was originally designed to postpone provincial elections to allow Bougival’s implementation. Then they remove any mention of Bougival and then they say ‘we vote for the postponement’. What are we talking about? It just doesn’t make sense”, he said.
Tjibaou’s FLNKS has called for a peaceful march on Friday, 31 October 2025, to voice its opposition to the postponement of local elections.
Newly-appointed French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou is expected to arrive in New Caledonia on Saturday.
Since she was appointed earlier this month in the second cabinet of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu (who was also Minister for Overseas between 2000 and 2022), Moutchou has repeated that her door remained open to further talks with FLNKS and that “nothing can be done” without the FLNKS as long as FLNKS “does not want to do things without the (other parties)”.
In New Caledonia, she said she would “meet all of the partners to examine how an agreement can be implemented”.
Ahead of her trip that will be her baptism of fire, Moutchou also spent hours in video conference talks with New Caledonia’s key politicians earlier this week.
‘Dialogue and respect’
“My approach will be based on dialogue, consistency and respect. Nothing should be rushed. It’s all about refining and clarifying certain points”.
Under the Bougival text, several key aspects of New Caledonia’s future remain highly sensitive. This includes a “comprehensive” agreement that would lift restrictions to the list of people entitled to vote at local provincial elections.
Since 2007, until now, under the existing Nouméa Accord (signed in 1998), only people who were born or resided in New Caledonia before 1998 are entitle to cast their votes for the local polls.
Under the Bougival roadmap, the “special” electoral roll would be “unfrozen” to allow French citizens to vote, provided they have resided for 15 (and a later stage 10) uninterrupted years, as well as those who were born in New Caledonia after 1998.
The change would mean the inclusion of about 15,000 “natives” and up to 25,000 long-term residents, according to conservative estimates.
The sensitive subject was regarded as the main trigger for civil unrest that started in May 2024 and caused 14 deaths, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion) in damage and a drop of 13.5 percent of New Caledonia’s gross domestic product (GDP).
MP Arthur Delaporte (Socialist party), who backed the modifications on October 27 at the bipartisan committee, assured his party would not support any constitutional reform that would not have been the result of a consensus or could be regarded as a “passage en force”.
The warning is especially meaningful on a backdrop of persistent instability in the French Parliament.
Lecornu is leading his second cabinet since he was appointed early September 2025 — his first was short-lived and only lasted 14 hours.
He has since narrowly survived two motions of no-confidence.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Hundreds packed a conference room in Denver, Colorado on the evening of Wednesday, October 22, after the city’s Mayor Mike Johnston renewed a contract with surveillance company Flock without a public process or City Council vote, according to activists.
Just weeks after Denver’s City Council unanimously voted down a two-year, USD 666,000 extension with Flock in May, Johnston’s office approved a shorter-term deal worth USD 498,500, which is narrowly under the USD 500,000 threshold that would have triggered council oversight.
“Instead of joining us here at this town hall tonight, the mayor announced this morning that he is again unilaterally extending the city’s contract with Flock,” Katie Leonard, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, told the crowd.
A Marshall Islands lawmaker has called on Pacific legislatures to establish and strengthen their national human rights commissions to help address the region’s nuclear testing legacy.
“Our people in the Marshall Islands carry voices of our lives that are shaped by this nuclear legacy,” Senator David Anitok said during the second day of the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures (APIL) general assembly in Saipan this week.
“Decades later, our people still endure many consequences, such as cancer, displacement, environmental contamination, and the Micronesian families seeking safety and care abroad. Recent studies and lived experience [have shown] what our elders have always known-the harm is deeper, broader, and longer lasting than what the world once believed.”
Anitok said that once established, these human rights commissions must be independent, inclusive, and empowered to tackle not only the nuclear testing legacy but also issues of injustice, displacement, environmental degradation, and governance.
“Let’s stand together and build a migration network of human rights institutions that will protect our people, our lands, our oceans, our cultures, our heritages, and future generations,” he said.
“Furthermore, we call upon all of you to engage more actively with international human rights mechanisms. Together, it will help shape a future broadened in human rights, peace, and dignity.”
Marshall Islands Senator David Anitok . . . “Let’s stand together and build a migration network of human rights institutions that will protect our people . . . and future generations.” Image: RNZ Pacific/Mark Rabago
To demonstrate the Marshall Islands’ leadership on human rights, Anitok noted that the country has been elected to the UN Human Rights Council twice under President Dr Hilda Heine — an honour shared in the Pacific only once each by Australia and Tahiti.
Pohnpei Senator Shelten Neth echoed Anitok’s call, demanding justice for the Pacific’s nuclear testing victims.
“Enough is enough. Let’s stop talking the talk and let’s put our efforts together — united we stand and walk the talk.
“Spreading of the nuclear waste is not only confined to the Marshall Islands, and I’m a living witness. I can talk about this from the scientific research already completed, but many don’t want to release it to the general public.
“The contamination is spreading fast. [It’s in] Guam already, and the other nations that are closer to the RMI,” Neth said.
He then urged the United States to accept full responsibility for its nuclear testing programme in the Pacific.
“I [want to tell] Uncle Sam to honestly attend to the accountability of their wrongdoing. Inhuman, unethical, unorthodox, what you did to RMI. The nuclear testing is an injustice!” Neth declared.
Anitok and Neth’s remarks followed a presentation by Diego Valadares Vasconcelos Neto, human rights officer for Micronesia under the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who discussed how UN human rights mechanisms can support economic development, health, and welfare in the region.
Neto underscored the UN’s 80-year partnership with the Pacific and its continuing commitment to peace, human rights, and sustainable development in the wake of the Second World War and the nuclear era.
He highlighted key human rights relevant to the Pacific context:
Right to development — Economic progress must go beyond GDP growth to include social, cultural, and political inclusion;
Right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment — Ensuring access to information, public participation, and justice in environmental matters; and
Political and civil rights — Upholding participation in governance, freedom of expression and association, equality, and self-determination.
Based in Pohnpei and representing OHCHR’s regional office in Suva, Fiji, Neto outlined UN tools available to assist Pacific legislatures, including the Universal Periodic Review, special procedures (such as thematic experts on water, sanitation, and climate justice), and treaty bodies monitoring state compliance with human rights conventions.
He also urged Pacific parliaments to form permanent human rights committees, ratify more international treaties, and strengthen legislative oversight on human rights implementation.
Neto concluded by citing ongoing UN collaboration in the Marshall Islands-particularly in addressing the human rights impacts of nuclear testing and climate change-and expressed hope for continued dialogue between Pacific lawmakers and the UN Human Rights Office.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A former National MP has launched a petition calling for “equality and respect” in New Zealand’s immigration visa treatment of Pacific Islanders, saying “many are shocked when they learn the truth”.
In a full page advertisement in The New Zealand Herald newspaper today, Anae Arthur Anae condemned the New Zealand government’s visa settings that discriminated against Pacific peoples visiting the country and recalled the “dark days of the Dawn Raids“.
The petition calls on the government to allow Pacific people to enter New Zealand on a three-month visitor visa issued on arrival.
“While 90 percent of New Zealanders value and respect the contribution that Pacific peoples have made to this beautiful nation, most are unaware of the unfair treatment we continue to face,” Anae declared.
“Many are shocked when they learn the truth.”
“Currently, citizens from 60 countries aroundn the world — representing a combined population of 1.65 billion peopole — can arrive at any New Zealand airport and receive a three-month visitor visa arrival, free of charge,” he said.
“In contrast, the 16 Pacific Island Forum nations, with a total population of fewer than 16 million, are denied this privilege.
‘Lengthy, expensive’ process
Anae, who recently discussed his proposal on Radio Samoa, said that instead Pacific people needed to go through a “lengthy and expensive” visa application process — “preventing many from attending family funerals, emergencies, graduations and other important family events”.
Until recently, he said, New Zealand’s Immigration Office in Samoa had been open for just an hour a day, “serving over 200,000 people with deep family and historical ties to New Zealand”.
Anae said this lack of accessibility was “unacceptable for nations bound to New Zealand through treaties of friendship and shared sacrifice”.
Former MP Anae Arthur Anae discusses his petition with Radio Samoa.
“Let us reflect: Is this how we treat nations who have stood beside New Zealand through war, loss and shared history?” he said.
The “Pacific Justice:” advertisement in today’s New Zealand Herald. Image: NZH screenshot APR
“We have shown loyalty, worked hard to build this country since the 1940s, and contributed immensely to its growth. Yet, we were once hunted in the dark days of the Dawn Raids, a shameful chapter that should never be repeated.
“Pacific peoples have proven time and again that, when given the opportunity, we can achieve and contribute equally to anyone else.”
The petition has received at least 24,000 signatures and closes on November 7.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has confirmed that his Finance Minister — and one of three deputies — has resigned after being charged by the country’s anti-corruption watchdog.
Local media first reported that Professor Biman Prasad, the man in charge of government finances, had been charged with corruption-related offences under Fiji’s political party laws and was expected to resign.
According to local media reports, Dr Prasad was charged with allegedly failing to declare his directorship in hotel ventures as required under the Political Parties Act.
The development came less than a week after the resignation of co-Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica, who is also facing corruption charges.
“Today, I received Biman Prasad’s formal notification of his resignation from Cabinet and as Deputy Prime Minister. He will remain a member of Parliament and caucus. His resignation follows the formal charges being laid against him by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC),” Rabuka said in a video statement released by the Fiji government yesterday afternoon.
Dr Prasad, who is the leader of the National Federation Party, has served as a cabinet member since 24 December 2022. He was responsible for finance, strategic planning, national development and statistics portfolios.
Rabuka told fijivillage.com that he believed the cases against his two deputies would not be resolved quickly, and that “it may take some portfolio management and reshuffling”.
‘Shortest possible time’
However, in a statement last evening, Dr Prasad said he intended to “deal with this charge in the shortest possible time and in accordance with proper legal process”.
“My lawyers are dealing with this expeditiously,” he said.
He said Rabuka had “assured me of his personal support while I do so”.
“One thing I have learned in 11 years of political leadership is that it involves many challenges, often from unexpected places,” he said.
“This is just one more of those challenges to be dealt with calmly, patiently, and as swiftly as possible.”
Rabuka has appointed an MP from his ruling People’s Alliance Party to take over the ministerial portfolios that Dr Prasad and Kamikamica had been overseeing.
Manoa Kamikamica (left) and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . the resigned deputy PM is charged with perjury and giving false information to a public servant. Image: Facebook / Manoa Kamikamica DPM
Kamikamica is being charged with perjury and giving false information to a public servant, while the details of the charges against Dr Prasad have yet to be made public by FICAC.
‘Political and institutional chaos’ – Labour Party The Fiji Labour Party says the latest developments is a sign of “a total breakdown of leadership” under Rabuka.
“Fiji Labour Party notes with deep concern the ongoing political and institutional chaos gripping the coalition government,” it said in a statement.
“Instead of confronting the crisis head-on, the Prime Minister has chosen to downplay the gravity of the situation, pretending that everything remains ‘under control’.
“The truth is quite the opposite — the coalition is collapsing under the weight of its own hypocrisy, infighting, and betrayal,” it said.
The party added the government is “in free fall” and the country needs “renewal, not recycled politics”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has confirmed that his Finance Minister — and one of three deputies — has resigned after being charged by the country’s anti-corruption watchdog.
Local media first reported that Professor Biman Prasad, the man in charge of government finances, had been charged with corruption-related offences under Fiji’s political party laws and was expected to resign.
According to local media reports, Dr Prasad was charged with allegedly failing to declare his directorship in hotel ventures as required under the Political Parties Act.
The development came less than a week after the resignation of co-Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica, who is also facing corruption charges.
“Today, I received Biman Prasad’s formal notification of his resignation from Cabinet and as Deputy Prime Minister. He will remain a member of Parliament and caucus. His resignation follows the formal charges being laid against him by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC),” Rabuka said in a video statement released by the Fiji government yesterday afternoon.
Dr Prasad, who is the leader of the National Federation Party, has served as a cabinet member since 24 December 2022. He was responsible for finance, strategic planning, national development and statistics portfolios.
Rabuka told fijivillage.com that he believed the cases against his two deputies would not be resolved quickly, and that “it may take some portfolio management and reshuffling”.
‘Shortest possible time’
However, in a statement last evening, Dr Prasad said he intended to “deal with this charge in the shortest possible time and in accordance with proper legal process”.
“My lawyers are dealing with this expeditiously,” he said.
He said Rabuka had “assured me of his personal support while I do so”.
“One thing I have learned in 11 years of political leadership is that it involves many challenges, often from unexpected places,” he said.
“This is just one more of those challenges to be dealt with calmly, patiently, and as swiftly as possible.”
Rabuka has appointed an MP from his ruling People’s Alliance Party to take over the ministerial portfolios that Dr Prasad and Kamikamica had been overseeing.
Manoa Kamikamica (left) and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . the resigned deputy PM is charged with perjury and giving false information to a public servant. Image: Facebook / Manoa Kamikamica DPM
Kamikamica is being charged with perjury and giving false information to a public servant, while the details of the charges against Dr Prasad have yet to be made public by FICAC.
‘Political and institutional chaos’ – Labour Party The Fiji Labour Party says the latest developments is a sign of “a total breakdown of leadership” under Rabuka.
“Fiji Labour Party notes with deep concern the ongoing political and institutional chaos gripping the coalition government,” it said in a statement.
“Instead of confronting the crisis head-on, the Prime Minister has chosen to downplay the gravity of the situation, pretending that everything remains ‘under control’.
“The truth is quite the opposite — the coalition is collapsing under the weight of its own hypocrisy, infighting, and betrayal,” it said.
The party added the government is “in free fall” and the country needs “renewal, not recycled politics”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The disease gets worse and worse every year, and the only remedy that will have permanent effect is to abolish private ownership of industry and production for profit, and substitute public ownership with production for use.
— Upton Sinclair, “Production For Use” in New Deal Thought, 1933, edited by Howard Zinn
Donald Trump, after talking with the San Francisco mayor and wealthy business leaders in the Bay Area, has at least temporarily backed off from unleashing a Chicago-style ICE spectacle there.
This is but the latest un-fascist display by the Orange “Hitler,” who couldn’t even bring down Jimmy Kimmel, much less conquer and subdue a string of countries on multiple continents.
In reality, the fascist thesis as applied to Trump doesn’t really hold together well, especially if it is seen as a repetition of Nazism. Unlike Hitler, who was probably the most popular political leader in German history before WWII, Trump struggles to maintain approval in the low-forties and has yet to find a single issue that can forge a robust national unity behind the Dear Leader.
More importantly, he does not seek to establish a new system of representation beyond parliaments and traditional parties to replace the liberal model, as the Nazis did, but to enhance his own fame and fortune by picking the carcass of a collapsing U.S. empire while promising an impossible return to its “glorious” past. He’s a con-man, not a conqueror.
Do we really think that blowing up fishing boats and trying to finish wars in a single weekend to avoid stock market losses (Trump’s strategy in bombing Iran last June) represent the martial glory fascists live for?
Even if Trump wanted to be a Nazi cult leader, he wouldn’t be able to, as mass culture doesn’t exist today like it did in the 1930s. Cultural space these days is highly fragmented due to neo-liberal stratification and anti-social media, which make mass mobilization much more difficult than it was for the Nazis. So while Trump can give us more January 6s, he can’t deliver anything like Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies, and his capacity to transform U.S. culture as a whole is nil.
His talent is for division, not unity, and his erratic policies look more like a staccato sequence of lunatic reality TV episodes than they do the unfolding of a fascist ideological program. Programmatic change requires order, after all, whereas Trump is an agent of chaos, which by definition can’t be normalized.
As a response to Trump’s admittedly harrowing second term, repeatedly declaring, “This is fascism!” in a rising tone of righteous indignation really does not constitute opposition, nor does it achieve anything more than a demonstration of the highly agitated state of the outraged person, which only delights the MAGA base, as such reactions are proof of their “owning the libs.”
Government of the triggered, by the triggered, and for the triggered will not win the day.
Realistically, we are in for an extended period of trench warfare, not a violent subjugation by “fascists.” The contending parties are Trump, who aspires to personal dictatorship based on his victories at the polls, and the dictatorship of money, which has never been elected by anyone. In the middle are we-the-people, who must quickly find a way to create real democracy or else be crushed by polarized elites who agree on nothing more than that the people must shut up and obey.
The beginning of this process may be the fact that Trump has stirred up a broad, uneasy “resistance” movement in the nine months since he returned to the White House. Although still too superficial in its approach, it’s definitely a plus that some seven million people in more than 2700 demonstrations throughout the fifty states of the fragmenting American union recently came together to reject the anti-democratic regression propelled by his administration. Under the slogan “No Kings,” political activists, celebrities, and concerned citizens from all parts of the country denounced the magnate’s ploys to dismantle institutional checks on executive power in an effort to amass boundless personal power unto himself, warning that he has set himself on a path that may soon convert the American republic into a monarchy or worse.
Unfortunately, the “King” thesis appears to be poorly thought through. If Trump is King, then Netanyahu must be the King of Kings, able to reduce the U.S. monarch to his personal lackey at the snap of his fingers. This has to be a major concern for any authentic resistance movement, but at the “No Kings” march in New York City, there was (1) an approved list of chants (!) and (2) “Free Palestine!” wasn’t on it (!)
Hopefully, the movement’s paternalism will disappear and its priorities improve.
In any event, the “King” problem is hardly restricted to the Republican side of the aisle. We got Trump in the first place because Democrats rigged the 2016 elections against the most popular politician in the country — Bernie Sanders — then pumped up Trump as the opponent they could most easily beat, but then couldn’t do so. They barely defeated him in 2020 only thanks to Covid, but then refused to hold primaries in 2024 and put up the vegetable Biden, replacing him late in the campaign with Kamala Harris, who never won a single delegate when she ran for president in 2020. Meanwhile, “King” Trump has taken on and defeated a wide field of candidates running against him over the course of the decade he has dominated American politics.
If Trump is a King, then what are James Clyburn and Nancy Pelosi? They are as entrenched in their positions as any King could be, tolerating no primaries or debates, ruling apparently until death with no possible successful challenge from within the Democratic Party.
If we are serious about transforming U.S. politics we must not only remove Donald Trump from office, but also what the late economist Edward Herman called the un-elected dictatorship of money, the massive centers of private wealth that dominate the state and fund both political parties, precisely in order to prevent any possibility of citizen-led democracy. It is these conglomerations of capital and their fatuous dream of limitless profit (at public expense) that are at the root of our most pressing political problems today.
We have an “immigration problem” because Big Capital holds down living standards abroad then welcomes fleeing workers as “cheap labor” when they reach the U.S., flouting the law and passing on the social costs to others.
We have a “homeless problem” because there is more private profit in dislodging the poor from their homes and “gentrifying” them, than in guaranteeing housing to all as a matter of right.
We have a “healthcare crisis” because capitalism defines medical care as a commodity and rations it according to ability to pay, not medical need. The poorest and sickest people get the worst care and die the youngest; the wealthiest and healthiest people get the best care and live the longest. Got a problem with that? Fuck you.
There is no solution to these and many other problems without challenging the right of capital to transform societies into collections of profitable commodities to be bought and sold by the highest bidder.
American society must be de-commodified by a popular democratic movement aiming to reconstitute the state in order to establish the dignity of labor and broad social equality. This admittedly ambitious goal will necessarily take us far beyond the Democrat-Republican ideological fight into the realm of establishing a culture of social justice, which is what Dr. King gave his life for.
A state dedicated to social justice cannot content itself with being a neutral arbitrator between rival criminal organizations (the DNC and the GOP), but must strive to meet the demands of justice for all. It must cease looking for guidance from financial markets and begin to look to the needs and talents of the people it is supposed to serve. It must dismantle the vast networks of private wealth fastened like barnacles to the state and build democratic legitimacy through policies in the interest of and articulated by an organized majority. Those policies must reverse neo-liberal austerity and return to national development, this time under the aegis of public profit. Private profit can and should continue to exist, but released from subordination to monopoly interests, which will help small business and the entire culture to flourish.
Wages must be substantially raised, employment and medical care guaranteed to all (the latter free at the point of service), and a sovereign financial system capable of channeling savings to innovation and the productive sector established. A public banking system must be created to free the economy from the shackles of usury and convert production into an engine of national development rather than an intermediary of parasitic capital. Without democratic control over credit there can be no real political economy; without political economy there is no real sovereignty.
As things stand right now, we are a nation of dependent paycheck nomads, not independent citizens. We might reasonably call ourselves the United Corporations of America, but not the United States of America, and certainly not a democracy. There can be no democracy under plutocracy.
This is not a call to hand over the economic steering wheel to pointy-headed government bureaucrats, but to subordinate capital to the national interest. Massive concentrations of private wealth can be of no general benefit unless brought under democratic citizen control. Capital should propel a broad network of small and medium-sized productive units to fulfill the economic needs of the American people, not shower the Elon Musks of the world with public money so they can create a trillionaire class. Who needs a trillionaire class?
A citizen-directed state can and should direct, regulate, and guard against private interests re-capturing public decisions and distorting national priorities. Private capital can be an ally of democracy, but never its boss, for it ceases to be democracy at that point. We must create a strong government grounded in democratic legitimacy and technical capacity, capable of disciplining private economic power and putting it at the service of the common good. Only in that way can the state and productive sector be instruments of national sovereignty, rather than a doorway through which an un-elected dictatorship of profiteers enters to restore private domination of public policy.
Our economic goal should not be to administer stagnation and decline, as the neo-liberals have done, nor to surrender to delusions of restoring the robber baron era of U.S. capitalism, which is neither desirable nor achievable. We should dedicate ourselves to crafting a national economic policy that articulates the needs and goals of science, energy, and business, to be carried out by an efficient state planning body capable of coordinating public and private investment in fulfillment of a chosen democratic purpose. Without state direction, the best-laid plans will fizzle out; without broad democratic legitimacy, the economy will fragment and popular sovereignty melt away.
Economic transformation will require educational transformation. We should not have to rely on brain-draining talent from other countries. Our own schools should produce the talent we need. This means an education system oriented towards national production, innovation, and work. Treating workers as mindless atoms of production and lazy maximizers of consumption is an abysmal failure. There is no justification for divorcing production from learning and consumption from creativity – except to perpetuate a professional servant class and highly undemocratic elite governing a failing society. We have had enough of that already.
Of course such an agenda will be dismissed as “Bolshevism” and worse, but we should not let disingenuous calls for “consensus” and “pragmatism” lead to capital subordinating public interest to private gain all over again. Public functions should be plainly in public hands, animated by a program of public profit, democratically determined.
Real transformation does not come from conciliation and deference to private power. It comes from confrontation, breaking with dependence, bureaucratic mediocrity, and parasitic elites. This is a historic necessity, not a misguided indulgence of the non-existent “radical left.” Every real gain, from the abolition of slavery to legal labor unions to universal suffrage of the adult population, was a battle against fear, complacency, and bureaucratic inertia.
Let’s abandon the rearguard struggle to hold on to the remnants of past gains without challenging the legitimacy of private interests dominating the state and leading us to ever greater disaster. We shouldn’t want to perpetuate power, but transform it.
However, the region’s most urgent crisis was once again given only formulaic attention. West Papua, where Indonesian military operations continue to displace and replace tens of thousands of Papuans, was given just one predictable paragraph in the final communiqué.
This reaffirmed Indonesia’s sovereignty, recalled an invitation made six years ago for the UN High Commissioner to visit, and vaguely mentioned a possible leaders’ mission in 2026.
For the Papuan people, who have been waiting for more than half a century to exercise their right to self-determination, this represented no progress. It confirmed a decades-long pattern of acknowledging Jakarta’s tight grip, expressing polite concern and postponing action.
A stolen independence
The crisis in West Papua stems from its unique place in Pacific history. In 1961, the West Papuans established the New Guinea Council, adopted a national anthem and raised the Morning Star flag — years before Samoa gained independence in 1962 and Fiji in 1970.
Papuan delegates had also helped to launch the South Pacific Conference in 1950, which would become the Pacific Islands Forum.
However, this path was abruptly reversed. Under pressure from Cold War currents, the Netherlands transferred administration to Indonesia.
The promised plebiscite was replaced by the 1969 Act of Free Choice, in which 1026 hand-picked Papuans were forced to vote for integration under military coercion.
Despite protests, the UN endorsed the result. West Papua was the first Pacific nation to have its recognised independence reversed during decolonisation.
Systematic blockade
Since the early 1990s, UN officials have been seeking access to West Papua. However, the Indonesians have imposed a complete block on any international institutions and news media entering.
Between 2012 and 2022, multiple UN high commissioners and special rapporteurs requested visits. All were denied.
More than 100 UN member states have publicly supported these requests. It has never occurred. Regional organisations ranging from the Pacific Islands Forum to the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States have made identical demands. Jakarta ignores them all.
International media outlets face the same barriers. Despite former Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s 2015 declaration that foreign journalists could enter Papua freely, visa restrictions and surveillance have kept the province as among the world’s least reported conflicts.
During the protests in 2019, Indonesia shut down internet access across the territory.
Indonesia calculates that it can ignore international opinion because key partners treat West Papua as a low priority.
Australia and New Zealand balance occasional concern with deeper trade ties. The US and China prioritise strategic interests.
Even during his recent visit to Papua New Guinea, UN Secretary-General António Guterres made no mention of West Papua, despite the conflict lying just across the border.
Bougainville vs West Papua
The Pacific’s inaction is particularly striking when compared to Bougainville. Like West Papua, Bougainville endured a brutal conflict.
Unlike West Papua, however, Bougainville received genuine international support for self-determination. Under UN oversight, Bougainville’s 2019 referendum allowed free voting, with 98 per cent choosing independence.
Today, Bougainville and Papua New Guinea are negotiating a peaceful transition to sovereignty.
West Papua has been denied even this initial step. There is no credible mediation. There is no international accompaniment. There is no timetable for a political solution.
The price of hypocrisy
Pacific leaders are confronted with a fundamental contradiction. They demand bold global action on climate justice, yet turn a blind eye to political injustice on their doorstep.
The ban on raising the Morning Star flag in Honiara, reportedly under pressure from Indonesia, has highlighted this hypocrisy.
The flag symbolises the right of West Papuans to exist as a nation. Prohibiting it at a meeting celebrating regional solidarity revealed the extent of external influence in Pacific decision-making.
This selective solidarity comes at a high cost. It undermines the Pacific’s credibility as a global conscience on climate change and decolonisation.
It leaves Papuans trapped in what they describe as a “slow-motion genocide”. Between 2018 and 2022, an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 people were displaced by Indonesian military operations.
In 2024, Human Rights Watch reported that violence had reached levels unseen in decades.
Breaking the pattern
The Forum could end this cycle by taking practical steps. For example, it could set a deadline of 12 months for an Indonesia-UN agreement on unrestricted access to West Papua.
If no agreement is reached, the Forum could conduct its own investigation with the Melanesian Spearhead Group. It could also make regional programmes contingent on human rights benchmarks, including ensuring humanitarian access and ending internet shutdowns.
Such measures would not breach the Forum’s charter. They would align Pacific diplomacy with the proclaimed values of dignity and solidarity. They would demonstrate that regional unity extends beyond mere rhetoric.
The test of history
The people of West Papua were among the first in Oceania to resist colonial expansion and to form a modern government. They were also the first to experience the reversal of recognised sovereignty.
Until Pacific leaders find the courage to confront Indonesian obstruction and insist on genuine West Papuan self-determination, “Iumi Tugeda” will remain a beautiful slogan shadowed by betrayal.
The region’s moral authority does not depend on eloquence regarding the climate fund, but on whether it confronts its deepest wound.
Any claim to a unified Blue Pacific identity will remain incomplete until the issue of West Papua’s denied independence is finally addressed.
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic and writer from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He holds a Master of Arts in international relations from Flinders University – Australia.
You can wake up one morning in Fiji and feel like you’re living in a totally different country.
Overnight we have lost two of our three Deputy Prime Ministers — by many accounts these were the two who were perhaps among the most influential and pivotal in the running of this government.|
For days news of Biman’s impending arrest was being posted about in advance — clearly leaked by people inside Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC). So it did not come as a total surprise.
But reading the reactions on social media — what has surprised, unnerved and confused many — especially government supporters, is how and why does a government charge their own when many in the previous government they wanted to be held accountable continue to walk free?
Why did charges against the two DPM’s take priority?
Is that a sign of how divided they are — or how upright and full of integrity they are?
Charges seem small
The charges brought against the two DPM’s seem small when compared to the significant impact of their removal from cabinet. PM Sitiveni Rabuka, when he was SODELPA leader in 2018, was charged with more or less the similar offence DPM Biman is being charged with — inaccurate declaration of assets and liabilities under the Political Parties Act.
Rabuka was acquitted on the eve of the 2018 election.
Many thought then the whole charge was nothing more than the former Bainimarama government trying to take out its main competitor ahead of the 2018 elections. There was a strong anti-FICAC sentiment then by those now in power.
The main gripe of the coalition parties coming in was that FICAC was being used by those in power for their political agenda — and needed to be disbanded and come under the Police Force.
Rabuka said as much to me in a 2022 interview.
Inevitably, many are now openly wondering if the same thing FijiFirst was accused of doing is happening here, and if this is a machiavellian political strategy for power. To take out a potential internal challenger and clear out a coalition partner so PAP can fight the next elections on its own and focus on winning it outright.
With the support of some former FijiFirst MP’s — PAP has more than enough numbers — and not as reliant on NFP and SODELPA any more.
Coalition has been great
The coalition has been great — but it has been a headache keeping everyone together and managing everyone’s competing interests.
However, the PM has grounds to argue that he is just following the process and maintaining the integrity of FICAC’s fight against corruption — that was severely compromised with the appointment of Barbara Malimali as per the Commission of Inquiry report.
That all he is practising are the principles of transparency, accountability and good governance. Nothing more, nothing less.
That matter is being heard in court with the ruling to be delivered by 23 January 2026 — three months away.
Rabuka has stated that “no one is above the law” and seems confident of weathering any political storm.
But the dark political clouds are forming. Expect more thunder and lightning strikes as more influential people in key positions are expected to be arrested, putting the political and judicial landscape in turmoil.
Forecast is uncertain.
Many storms before
Rabuka has been through many storms like this before. He says he continues to have the support of everyone on his side, including the two DPM’s recently charged.
For now he remains firmly in charge.
But what was once just whispers of internal dissent and division that many of us once dismissed as rumours is starting to grow, as politicians weigh their options.
Whether it turns into a split or full on rebellion, or everyone realise they have no choice but to fall in line, we shall wait and see.
Could we see a repeat of 1994 when Rabuka’s government was brought down from within but he managed to win enough in the elections and form a coalition with the GVP to remain in power?
As of now many in politics are trying to work out which way the wind will blow.
Stanley Simpson is director of Mai TV, general secretary of the Fiji Media Association (FMA) and a media commentator. This is an independent commentary first published on his Facebook page and republished with permission.
That’s what inspired American independence in the first place.
But autocracy takes many shapes.
How about No Oligarchs? Or No Deep State? No Police State? No Mass Surveillance? No Compromised Politicians? No Corrupt Judiciary?
There was much enthusiasm and excitement. And talk of channeling that energy into constructive action. There would be regular Calls to Action sent across social media platforms and by direct email.
“Call your Senator today and urge …”
“Call your Representative today and object to …”
“Go to your congressman’s local office and …”
What? Is this a joke?
Let me get this right. We’re supposed to call the AIPAC-funded, MIC forever war politicians, the folks that haven’t raised the minimum wage since 2009, the Big Pharma Big Health Insurance lapdogs who STILL have not instituted affordable, quality, universal health care in our country, the warmongering blowhards who have funded the slaughters in Gaza and Ukraine to the tune of $200 billion and counting, the misguided fools who have decided to allocate $1 trillion next year to the wasteful, self-destructive DOD, the elected representatives who kneel at the altar of Wall Street, hedge funds and the big banks, the incompetents who couldn’t even get it together to keep the government open for business … WE’RE SUPPOSED TO CALL THEM?
I will believe that No Kings is a real, legitimate, grass roots uprising of the people, by the people, and for the people, when they declare unequivocally that the “movement” will devote its energy and resources, direct the preponderance of its organizing efforts, to one vital task — the only one that can make a real difference.
Creating real choice at the polls by putting real people’s candidates on the ballot. When the spokespersons announce that every call to action must unwaveringly focus on true representative government. When all the enthusiasm and excitement is channeled into giving voters in every single contest — 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats — the absolutely essential opportunity in 2026 to vote for a candidate who will listen to and faithfully serve the needs and priorities of every U.S. citizen, not just the wealthy and powerful elite class.
On October 17, I received a brief email from a former Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) vice-president: “Can’t wait for your blog covering the reception of Simeon Brown at conference yesterday!!”
The context was the aggressive address of Minister of Health Simeon Brown to the ASMS annual conference.
As reported by Radio New Zealand’s Ruth Hill (October 16), Brown accused senior doctors of crossing an “ethical line” by taking strike action involving non-acute care.
Health Minister Simeon Brown . . . his ‘unethical’ accusation against doctors. Image: RNZ screenshot APR
His accusation was made in the lead up to the “mega strike” of around 100,000 senior doctors, nurses, teachers and public servants on October 23.
It included misleadingly Brown claiming that patients were paying the price for the strike action and that ASMS had walked “away from negotiations”.
Further, he added, “Patients should never be collateral damage in disputes between management and unions.” He urged ASMS to call off the strike action and return to negotiations (conveniently ignoring that it never left them).
Clicking my heels – but how? As the ASMS executive director until 31 December 2019, what could I do but click my heels and obey the former vice-president. But this left me with a problem of what to focus on in a short blog.
The Health Minister had raised several options.
Attack dog Judith Collins published a strident and inaccurate open letter. Image: otaihangasecondopinion.wordpress.com
One was the fact that his address, reinforced by Public Services Minister Judith Collins’ stridently inaccurate “attack dog open letter” attack on the health and education unions (October 19) is the most aggressive and hardline government approach towards health unions, at least, since I first became involved with the newly formed ASMS in 1989.
Another was the deliberate use of misleading claims such as Brown accusing ASMS of not being prepared to negotiate while, at the same time, Health New Zealand was refusing to meet ASMS to discuss negotiations. Also deliberately misleading was his false claim about senior doctors’ average salaries.
Eventually I landed on the accusation that triggered much of the media interest and most of the criticisms from ASMS conference delegates — Brown’s claim that senior doctors were crossing an ethical line.
Understanding medical ethics As Ruth Hill reported there were “audible cries of disbelief” from the delegates. Also see Stuff journalist Bridie Witton’s coverage (October 16).
Let’s get back to basics. Ethics is the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity.
Following on, medical ethics is the disciplined study of morality in medicine and concerns the obligations of doctors and healthcare organisations to patients as well as the obligations of patients.
Hippocrates developed the oath that formed the original basis of medical ethics. Image: otaihangasecondopinion
Medical ethics starts with the Hippocratic Oath beginning with its first principle of ‘first do no harm’.
As part of an earlier post on the ancient Oath and this principle (5 February 2022) I argued that not only were they still relevant today, but that they should be applied to the whole of our health system, including its leadership.
Who really crossed the ethical line?
Dr Elizabeth Fenton is a lecturer in bioethics at Otago University. On October 22 she had an article published in The Conversation that shone a penetrating analytical light on Simeon Brown’s ethical line crossing claim.
Her observations included:
Bioethics lecturer Dr Elizabeth Fenton gets to the core of whether striking senior doctors are crossing an ethical line. Image: otaihangasecondopinion
“Striking is an option of last resort. In healthcare, it causes disruption and inconvenience for patients, whānau and the health system – but it is ethically justified.
“Arguably, it is ethically required when poor working conditions associated with staff shortages, inadequate infrastructure and underfunding threaten the wellbeing of patients and the long-term sustainability of public health services.
” . . . The real ethical issue is successive governments’ failure to address these conditions and their impact on patient care.”
In response to the health minister’s implication that striking doctors are failing to meet their ethical obligations to provide healthcare, she noted that:
“These are the same doctors who, alongside nurses, carers and allied health professionals, kept New Zealand’s health system functioning during the COVID pandemic in the face of heightened personal risk, often inadequate protections and substantial additional burdens.
“While the duty of care is of primary ethical importance, codes of ethics also recognise doctors’ duties to all patients, and responsibilities to advocate for adequate resourcing in the health system. These duties may justify compromising care to individual patients under the circumstances in which industrial action is considered.”
Further, doctors:
“. . . are striking because their ability to meet these obligations [to provide high quality care] is routinely compromised by working conditions that contribute to burnout and moral injury – the impact of having to work under circumstances that violate core moral values.
“A key goal of the industrial action is to demand better conditions for clinical care, such as safe staffing levels, that will benefit patients and staff and improve the health system for everyone.”
The penultimate final word In the context of Dr Fenton’s incisive analysis, as reported by Ruth Hill in her above-mentioned RNZ item it is appropriate to leave the penultimate final word to the response of senior doctors at the ASMS annual conference to Simeon Brown’s ethical line crossing accusation. These comments were made in among their boos and groans.
Dr Katie Ben . . . operating lists routinely being cancelled. Image: The Press
ASMS president and Nelson Hospital anaesthetist Dr Katie Ben said:
“We have now taken to putting the number of times the patient has been cancelled on the operating list to ensure the patient doesn’t get cancelled for the fourth, fifth or sixth time. Non-clinical managers were cancelling planned care because they could not fill rosters.”
Waikato Hospital rheumatologist Dr Alan Doube said many people (with crippling chronic conditions) did not even get a first specialist appointment (FSA).
“In Waikato, we decline regularly 50 percent of our FSA so we can provide some kind of sensible ongoing care.”
Emergency medicine specialist Dr Tom Morton at Nelson Hospital added:
“Our ED waiting time have blown out with more than doubling of patients leaving without being seen, which I think is a significant marker of unmet need that’s not being recorded or reported on officially.”
The ultimate final word: nailing who crossed an ethical line In a subsequent RNZ item (October 17), the Health Minister threatened a law change to remove senior doctors’ right to strike: Right to strike threatened.
Patient advocate Malcolm Mulholland . . . nailing who crossed an ethical line. Image: otaihangasecondopinion
The reported response of leading patient advocate Malcolm Mulholland nailed who was crossing the ethical line. Describing Simeon Brown’s threat as “pathetic”, he added:
“I think the reason why our doctors and our nurses are striking is because there’s just simply not enough staff. I don’t know how many times they have to tell him until they are blue in the face.
“You know, all this talk about crossing an ethical line, I would say, ‘take a look in the mirror, minister’.”
Indeed Health Minister — look in the mirror! It is the striking doctors who are acting in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath and adhering to the principle of “first do no harm”. It is the Health Minister who is not.
Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.
Successive New Zealand governments have dodged the issue of how the news media should be held to account, leaving us with outdated and fragmented systems for standards and complaints.
But the issue erupted recently when the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) advised The Platform it could consider public complaints about its online output.
Talley’s . . . sued TVNZ over six 1News reports in 2021 and 2022. Image: Screenshot
Those who reckon we don’t need an official broadcasting watchdog point out we already have laws protecting privacy, copyright and other things — and criminalising harassment and bullying.
And if someone on air — or online — lowers your reputation in the minds of right-thinking New Zealanders without good reason, you can sue them for defamation if you think you can prove it.
News organisations don’t often end up in court for that, but when they do it’s big news. Reputations are at stake — and possibly lots of money too in damages.
Thirty years ago the country’s largest-ever payment followed scurrilous claims in Metro magazine’s gossip column — all about a journalist at a rival publication.
Ten years ago, foreign affairs reporter Jon Stephenson sued the chief of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) for statements that wrongly cast doubt on his reporting about New Zealand soldiers in Afghanistan. After a full jury trial, a second was about to begin when the NZDF settled for an undisclosed sum and a statement of “regret”.
Last week, another defamation case concluded, but this time the plaintiff was not a person — and was not seeking damages.
The result may not be known for months, but it could change the way controversial claims about big companies are handled by newsrooms, and — depending on the outcome — how defamation law is deployed by those on the end of investigative reporting.
‘See you in court’ Over five weeks, lawyers for food giant Talley’s went toe-to-toe in the High Court with TVNZ and its lawyers, led by Davey Salmon KC, who also acted for Stephenson 10 years ago.
Talley’s sued TVNZ over six 1News reports in 2021 and 2022 — and also, unusually, sued Christchurch-based reporter Thomas Mead individually as well.
The series alleged problems with hygiene, health and safety at two Talley’s plants.
“To the public, the company presents a spotless image of staff producing frozen vegetables with a smile on their face, but 1News can now pull back the curtain of a different side to its Ashburton factory,” Mead told viewers in July 2021.
Whistleblowers — some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity — told 1News about problems at two plants and shared photos of dirty equipment and apparent hazards.
TVNZ also reported a leaked email telling Talley’s staff not to talk about an incident where emergency services were called to free a worker’s hand trapped in a machine.
Mead also told viewers an invitation to tour one factory was withdrawn at the last minute. Instead, senior Talley’s staff urged TVNZ not to air the allegations and the images.
Anonymity and privacy Before the trial, Talley’s went to court to try — unsuccessfully — to force TVNZ to reveal the identity of some of its sources and further details of their allegations. It said this would have allowed it to assess whether the sources had sufficient understanding of the safety issues that concerned them.
“I made them a promise, and I have kept it,” Thomas Mead told the court, insisting TVNZ protected their identities because they feared retaliation from Talley’s.
In court, Talley’s lawyer Brian Dickey KC said TVNZ could not produce any evidence that any workers had faced any actual retaliation. He alleged the anonymous sources were wrong and one had tried to extort the company.
Dickey even called one report by Mead “a hit piece”, and said TVNZ’s presentation was overly emotional and its reports displayed “animus” against the company.
TVNZ insisted the reports were accurate, verified and — crucially — in the public interest, and losing the case would set a dangerous precedent for journalism.
Talley’s told the court it did not want damages, just an acknowledgement that it had been defamed and had suffered losses because of the reports.
In this case, the lawyers were not seeking to sway members of a jury — only Judge Pheroze Jagose. He said his decision may not be released until Easter next year.
“It was probably best that it was just a judge-alone (trial) because it’s mind-numbingly complex when you get into the depth of detail and the layers of what’s being argued,” Tim Murphy, Newsroom co-editor, told Mediawatch.
Pecuniary loss
To win the case, Talley’s must show it suffered pecuniary loss.
“This adds a level because they have to show their business has been affected in a way that has cost them money,” said Murphy, who watched the trial from the press bench.
“They need to show that not only has there been loss immediately after or in the time frame of these pieces in 2021 and 2022 — but also that the particular statements in each story that they’re suing about — called ‘imputations’ in defamation law — then led to the loss.
“They said it couldn’t be specified to a dollar figure — but in their view it was obvious and inarguable that the TVNZ coverage had cost them financially.”
Talley’s said contracts with Countdown (now Woolworths) and Hello Fresh were affected.
“They also had the cost of an independent inquiry by former Police Commissioner Mike Bush, and the cost of a PR firm to handle all of this — and then costs of their management time diverted from their factories and so on,” Newsroom co-editor Tim Murphy told Mediawatch.
“They also said they had opprobrium for their staff in the community, and they said that was a cost because it can affect morale and productivity.”
What are the stakes? “From past defamation cases that went a long way — even if they didn’t get to trial — both parties will have spent millions in legal costs to this point,” Murphy told Mediawatch.
“Talley’s have also gone for ‘indemnity costs’ so there could still be a substantial amount [to pay] for TVNZ should it lose.”
“Both parties (in court) painted this case as having a very big impact should it go the other way.”
“TVNZ’s view was that if . . . a company can succeed with that level of loss, then it will open it up to all sorts of companies. Davey Salmon, their KC, said that it would be inviting Defamation Act cases from corporations who have effectively suffered no loss.
“Talley’s were of the view that if TVNZ won this, then it was open season on companies and corporations… and that no company would be able to withstand reporting that is in error or biased.”
Murphy’s predecessor as New Zealand Herald editor, Dr Gavin Ellis, appeared as an expert witness for TVNZ. Dr Ellis told the court TVNZ appeared to have verified sources and cross-checked key claims and sought independent views. He also believed Talley’s was given a reasonable amount of time to respond to allegations.
He also backed TVNZ’s decision not to surrender notes — or even redacted versions of transcripts from interviews with anonymous sources to protect their confidentiality.
“There were pretty good levels of both cross-referencing and validating. There are other aspects of the case with vulnerabilities and some of those were from at least one of the anonymous sources,” Murphy told Mediawatch.
“The need to be able to offer and guarantee anonymity and protection of identity in all respects is vital for that public interest function that journalists have.”
TVNZ argued that in the Court of Appeal, and won the right to continue that protection of those sources.
The planning, decision-making and personal communications at TVNZ was scrutinised closely in court, as well as the reporting seen by the public.
One 1News broadcast in 2021 kicked off with host Simon Dallow saying: “a whistleblower tells 1News” Talley’s Ashburton plant was an “accident waiting to happen”.
In court it emerged that the anonymous source in question had not used those precise words, though Mead himself had put those words to the source during a conversation.
“[TVNZ] made claims that — when they were examined in microscopic detail — didn’t match what the story itself said. This is what lawyers do if they get this chance. They examine to that level and nuance,” Murphy said.
“Often in journalism if you get a clear affirmative to a question like that, then it’s fair to paraphrase it and say the person agreed it was ‘an accident waiting to happen’. But in this case the answer . . . was very discursive.”
Talley’s also said some of TVNZ’s presentation was inappropriately emotive and Brian Dickey KC seized on individual words and phrases to allege TVNZ and Mead had taken against Talley’s.
Murphy noted Talley’s objected to reports that would “present anonymous source allegations, give Talley’s response and then end with a ‘but’. The company questioned why his summaries never raised a qualification like ‘but’ about the claims made by a source.”
“It alleged the technique undercut what Talley’s had said – and that there was a sort of default over-weighting of the critical view of them,” Murphy said.
Salmon claimed Talley’s was over-analysing the reports’ wording and amplifying their importance.
“News does not need to be presented in the austere form of a court judgment to be responsible. If it was, it would not be read or watched and it would not inform,” he told the court.
Will this change the way big stories are done? Summarising complex things to make them easily understood in a three-minute TV news bulletin — or shorter — is a challenge.
Could this case prompt a move away from paraphrasing to make stories more engaging and comprehensible — and towards a drier, longer and a little less simplified style on television?
“In the quiet moments, all of those involved at TVNZ will see that there needs to be a tighter, clearer, more precise and weighted use of language and words — and images as well — in the bringing-together and presentation of these kinds of stories,” Murphy told Mediawatch.
“It’s no bad thing in a way for all the media to be given a sharp reminder that precision extends to every element of an investigative story and its presentation. The captions, the summary, the pull-quotes, the scripts, the promos of stories are all subject to this sort of scrutiny.”
Chilling effect? Bryce Edwards of the pro-transparency Integrity Institute said this was an example of “the rich and powerful [using] these laws as legal weapons to silence critics, discourage investigative journalism, and shield themselves from scrutiny”.
“It put the very right of the media to hold power to account in the dock,” Edwards said.
Murphy said: “I think it was quite clear through the whole case that there was sort of a power play.
“The power of a big corporation with rich-lister family backers drawing a line in the sand and saying: ‘We’ve had power of the media thrown at us unfairly — so we’re going to exert some power back other way.’”
And while the media do not end up in court often defending defamation claims, we do not often know if media might be swayed by threats of defamation action from those with financial and legal clout. Or if they are deterred from publishing stories that could result in the kind of lengthy and potentially costly court case TVNZ has just faced.
“While there are many times where lawyers’ letters — or even perhaps injunctions to delay material being aired or published — occur, there are also many times where media companies have ploughed,” Murphy said.
“I don’t think the balance in the defamation setup we have is as yet favouring organisations or companies or the wealthy as much as elsewhere. We do have a defence of responsible publication in the public interest. But the key word there is ‘responsible’.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Upon winning the the 2024 election, Labour immediately embroiled itself in multiple cronyism scandals. While the accusations have died down since then, it seems the potential cronyism has not:
Companies that donated to Labour awarded £138m in contracts.
Corporations don’t donate, they bribe. Buy access to policymakers, favourable laws, lax regulation, govt contracts.
It is political corruption. Must be criminalized. No second jobs for MPs.https://t.co/pCAGjyrA2F
The Autonomy Institute looked at 373 companies which have been both:
Givers (i.e. made declared donations).
Takers (i.e. received contracts from a public sector contracting authority).
They refer to these companies as ‘giver and taker’ companies (G&Ts)
It turns out G&Ts have donated £47m since 2000, with successive governments awarding them £60bn in contracts since 2015. The Autonomy Institute note that:
In effect, for every £1 donated by a ‘giver and taker’ company since 2000, over £1,294 of public funds have been given out in the form of contracts to this same set of companies since in the last decade alone
This issue is very much a cross-party problem when it comes to Labour and the Tories:
• 29 of these companies donated just under £11 million to the Conservative Party, and were then awarded contracts worth £2.3 billion while the party was in government (May 2015 to July 2024).
• 8 corporations which donated over £580,000 to the Labour Party and were awarded contracts totalling over £138 million within the first year of the current Labour government (July 2024-June 2025).
This is grim given that Labour ran on a platform of not being the Tories. Additionally, Keir Starmer used to speak out against ‘cronyism’:
Stop the cronyism, stop the abuse of taxpayers’ money and stop the wasteful outsourcing of contracts.https://t.co/WOvvfRXSYr
The above post is the last time Starmer tweeted about ‘cronyism’. It’s almost as if he began to foment cronyism ambitions of his own.
Lord Ali was buying Keir Starmer thousands of pounds worth of ‘gifts’. @adilray was spot on in September last year when he called it cash for access. That’s exactly what it is when super rich multi millionaires buy stuff for politicians. Its corruption plain and simple. https://t.co/sUIJmr3U9npic.twitter.com/YA4qT72EnL
Ah, remember Starmer said there would be no cronyism?
The Guardian reports, Companies that recently donated to Labour were awarded contracts worth almost £138 MILLION during the party’s first year in power.
As reported by the Guardian, Dr Susan Hawley (executive director of Spotlight on Corruption) said the following:
There is nothing more damaging to public trust than the perception that those with privileged access to those in power get privileged access to taxpayer-funded contracts.
These findings show a systemic problem with the UK’s absurdly weak handling of conflicts of interest. It must lead to systemic solutions which include screening out political donors and their companies from the procurement process, and real consideration of a ban on company directors or their companies that receive public contracts from making political donations.
• Public contracts should not be awarded to companies that have made political donations.
• All political donations above £500 should be logged through real-time disclosures, with full details available for public scrutiny.
• Company numbers of donor entities must be published alongside other donation details.
• Reinstate reporting requirements for defence and spending contracts.
Given that Labour have continued to engage in Tory-style sleaze, it’s unlikely they’ll implement any of the above. As we’ve reported, however, the party is increasingly sick of Starmer, which means the gravy train might have to make an unexpected stop.
While we doubt Labour can be anything other than Tory-lite at this point, they will at least have to make some changes to move past the Starmer disaster, and policies like the above are ripe for the taking.
Given Plaid Cymru’s historic win in Caerphilly, you’d think they’d be all over the Sunday interviews this weekend. That is, unless you’re familiar with these shows, of course, in which case you no doubt assumed they’d have Reform on no matter what:
Normal service on #TrevorPhillips & #BBCLauraK. Days after Plaid Cymru won the #Caerphilly by-election there is no room for Plaid on either programme. But Trevor Phillips has room for the losing party: Farage’s Reform & Zia Yusuf. Ever get the feeling you are being cheated? pic.twitter.com/b1T7oO8IB2
As people reported, the Caerphilly by-election was truly history in the making:
Caerphilly by-election broke several records:
First time Labour has lost in 115 years Worst-ever Labour result Best-ever Plaid Cymru result Worst-ever Tory result Highest Reform % in a Welsh FPTP seat https://t.co/7ySKTr2jBvpic.twitter.com/sDKXaOzWsP
It was certainly a big result for Reform; it was just an even bigger result for Plaid Cymru.
Accordingly, people had questions for Sky News:
Plaid Cymru won the Caerphilly by election, beating Reform into second place. So does #trevorphillips interview someone from the winning party? Of course he doesn’t!
Where’s Lindsay Whittle, Rhun ap Iorwerth or anyone else from Plaid, the party that actually WON the election? Media bias will be the death of this country https://t.co/E77dwX86Bm
The BBC avoided the issue by not having Reform or Plaid Cymru on. And while it’s obviously worth asking the sitting government how they messed up so badly, voters clearly want to hear from other voices too:
Streeting is asked about the Caerphilly result & he says the way to respond is to have a values driven agenda, which he explains is about modernising & reforming public services
We all know what right wing politicians mean when they talk about modernising & reforming pic.twitter.com/c0pv8WV1W1
#TrevorPhillips: Sarah Pochin(Reform MP) said people are switching off because there are too many black & asian people on telly… is she turning off now, because of you & me?
Like Pochin herself, Yusuf agrees we’re seeing too many non-white people in adverts. As Reform are against diversity targets, however, it’s unclear how they intend to solve this ‘problem’.
Mukhtar said the following on the topic:
Does it drive Sarah Pochin mad when she sees Zia Yusuf on Reform party campaign ads?
We’d say Yusuf is one of Reform’s big five media figures, with the others including Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Andrea Jenkyns, and Sarah Pochin. This presumably represents a problem for them, as the Asian population of the UK is only 8.6%. Does this mean we should only see 8.6 Zia Yusufs for every 91.4 white Reform politicians?
This is obviously a very silly thing to suggest, and yet that’s Reform’s argument when it comes to diversity in British adverts.
Mainstream nonsense
The mainstream media were pushing Nigel Farage down people’s throats long before he was a successful party leader. Given that, it’s unsurprising they’d continue to prioritise Reform even as voters choose other parties.
There is at least a silver lining in all this, and it’s that the more these Reform politicians speak their minds, the worse they look.
Reform MP Sarah Pochin: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people, full of people that are basically anything other than White.”
If the colour of someone else’s skin drives you ‘mad’, you are a Grade-A racist. pic.twitter.com/Doo5DfX0yl
Independent candidate Catherine Connolly will become the 10th President of Ireland after winning a record number of first-preference votes. The 914,143 of these ballots she received accounted for 63% of the total. The runner up Heather Humphreys received 424,987 votes, amounting to 29.5%. The final result was the following:
Connolly (Independent): 914,143 (63.4%)
Heather Humphreys (Fine Gael): 424,987 (29.5%)
Jim Gavin (Fianna Fáil): 103,568 (7.1%)
Turnout: 1,656,436 (46% of electorate)
Spoilt: 213,738 (12.9%)
Quota: 721,350
Jim Gavin remained on the ballot due to a late withdrawal. He had dropped out of the race following the revelation that 16 years ago he pocketed €3,300 that a tenant had sent him by error, and never returned the money.
Catherine Connolly backs peace and a more diverse Ireland
In her victory speech, Connolly – who was backed by all major left-wing parties – said:
I will be a president who listens and who reflects and who speaks when it’s necessary. And a voice for peace. A voice that builds on our policy of neutrality. A voice that articulates the existential threat posed by climate change.
Connolly’s stances advocating for peace and neutrality were a feature of her campaign. She was strongly critical of so-called Israel’s genocide in Gaza along with the Irish government’s role in it. She has also backed the maintenance of Ireland’s triple-lock — which requires the UN Security Council, the Irish government and the Dáil Éireann (parliament’s lower house) to all back an international deployment of Irish troops greater than 12.
In a country with a growing threat from a far-right spewing anti-immigrant rhetoric, she went on to pledge support for a more diverse Ireland:
…together we can shape a new republic that values everybody. That values and champions diversity. And that takes confidence in our own identity, our Irish language, our English language, and the new people who have come to our country.
I want to wholeheartedly congratulate Catherine Connolly on her election as the 10th President of Ireland. Catherine will be a President for all of us, she will be my President and I want to wish her every success.
Praise for “authentic” figure in a “landslide victory for humanity“
Praise rolled in from allies too, with Paul Murphy, TD (member of the Irish parliament) for Dublin South-West complimenting her for being “authentic”, and having “a human side to her that people found immensely appealing.” He also asserted that the unity shown by the left during the Connolly campaign represented a key learning point and an opportunity to maintain momentum:
The big lesson is that if the left unites and seeks to mobilise people, it can win. The dynamic of unity can create confidence and enthuse others to get involved.
Praise came in from abroad too, with Jeremy Corbyn showing his approval of the former Galway TD:
Congratulations to Catherine Connolly, the next President of Ireland. Catherine will be a voice for peace, social justice and a united Ireland. This is a landslide victory for humanity and for hope!
Massive spoiled ballot count reveals spectre of far-right
However, any enthusiasm for the win ought to be tempered by a closer look at the stats. Connolly’s win came via just 28.8% of the electorate, in what was effectively a two horse race, with Gavin on the ballot in only a procedural sense. The figure of almost 13% spoiled votes shows an unprecedented level of hostility to what is being offered to voters, given the number for the previous election in 2018 was 1.2%. In three of five Dublin constituencies, spoiled votes outnumbered those received by Heather Humphreys.
…deeper and further reflection on the reasons for this.
They went on to say:
Our National Election and Democracy Study (NEDS) and Post Electoral Event Review (PEER) reports, which will be published in the coming months, should provide some insights which will make a contribution to the ongoing process of enhancing democracy and elections in this country.
Murphy blamed the phenomenon on reactionary campaigners, saying:
…the far right have their claws and influence in working-class communities.
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín also warned:
A whole section of Irish society do not feel that they have a voice within the system, do not feel that they have a horse in the race, and that’s dangerous.
Even Catherine Connolly’s critics are optimistic – but success only possible if the left remains united
…very wide and disparate constituency of the disillusioned, the disgruntled and the disengaged.
However, he also praised Catherine Connolly, and offered hope for her presidency, given the impressive result of her insurgent campaign. He expressed hope she might:
…speak for the established State, represent a radical opposition to it and give hope to those who are increasingly disenchanted with Irish democracy.
He continued:
That’s a tough task. But so was getting to the point where she has a chance to make good on her promise. She has defied scepticism and made the improbable seem inevitable. If she can repeat that feat in office, she will do much to shore up a democracy endangered by complacency.
Murphy too was optimistic, saying:
…experience of canvassing more hard-pressed working class areas proves that this is not a lost battle, but one to be engaged with. Most of those considering spoiling their ballot were open to being convinced that the best protest was to defeat the political establishment.
The mistake would obviously be to put excessive hope for change in the occupant of a largely ceremonial role. Ireland has had two successive progressive presidents, and that hasn’t prevented the country reaching the current crisis point of an ascendant reactionary tendency. The potential lies in Murphy’s hope for a unified progressive movement, which might ultimately enable the election of a left-wing government.
Were it to then deal with the many drivers fuelling the far-right scourge — unaffordable housing, inadequate health care, the cost of living — Connolly’s triumph of uniting the typically more fractious wing of politics will have been a genuine watershed moment for those seeking a more humane nation.
The central hall in the Dolphin in Darlington wasn’t just a venue on Friday evening, it was an anomaly.
In this tiny, post-industrial town in the north, the population has been lost for a long time, reeling from the fall of the ‘Red Wall,’ and desperate for change. Years of lack of funding, being ignored by the vast majority of political parties, has meant that the populist far-right have found a home in the crumbling streets of the town, where Reform UK are expected to surge in the polls.
Yet it was here, in the last bastion of community in Darlington, that the Green Party hosted a sold-out public meeting. Three hundred and fifty people packed into the hall, a huge number for a town of this size, every eye shimmering with excitement and hope as they jostled for seats.
Zack Polanski, the new Green Partyleader, took to the stage, and fucking hell, he did not mince his words.
Opening with a winning smile, he greeted the crowd in a way that I haven’t seen in years. His openness, humour, and caring demeanor seemed to saturate his every word, showing that the purpose of the meeting was not to dwell on the fact that “the county’s future is on the edge,” but to light a fire of hope. The night was a beautiful demonstration that a politics of hope is the answer to the creeping national despair:
The engine of hope, powered by local people
Zack Polanski’s approach, a brilliant mixture of charisma and enthusiasm, immediately set the tone, one that contrasted sharply with the caution of the mainstream. Emphasising that, under his leadership, the massive increase in membership was not a cult of personality, but a genuine grassroots phenomenon.
With open arms, he declared:
Hope is not about a charismatic leader on a stage, hope is about a movement.
At that point, I felt a prickle of hope in the pit of my stomach.
The powerful message seemed to ripple through the audience, reminding us all that we are not passive consumers of politics, but the engine that we powered to facilitate change. Not since Jeremy Corbyn had I felt this prickle, with Polanski’s leadership style embracing the messiness of real democracy. He seems unafraid to acknowledge the rifts that haunt the left, recognising that a healthy party needs a broad church of members.
Our unified struggle and reframing the blame
The commitment to internal democracy in the Green Party shone through in the words “parties should have disagreements,” and assured people that it would be the members who would be deciding the future of the party.
The most compelling part of the evening was how Zack Polanski dismantled the divide-and-rule tactics of the establishment. For the leader of the Greens, although he openly stated the environment remains a primary issue, he highlighted how social and racist injustices are not a separate issue. You cannot tackle one without tackling them all.
This philosophy led him to confront the politics of hate and division. Polanski himself is proudly gay and Jewish, clearly showing that the Green Party would stand for all minoritised people, and he highlighted this by talking about the plight of the trans community and the relentless attacks they are facing as the media tries to mask the real issues society faces.
Polanski did not shy away from calling the rise of far-right figures exactly what it is: fascism, which he proudly and loudly called Nigel Farage, to the smiling approval of the crowd:
The real politics of hope from Zack Polanski and the Greens
Yet Zack Polanski immediately pivoted, drowning the politics of fear with his own politics of hope.
His strategy to win hearts in tiny towns like Darlington was powerful and made me pause and think.
Stating that the people running into the open arms of far-right organisations are “not racist, they are scared,” and face exactly the same fears as we do. They cannot afford their homes, their bills, and cannot feed their kids. We are one and the same, but these lost people just need to realise that, rather than punching downwards and attacking the vulnerable, they need to turn their eyes upwards towards the true enemy.
The Green Party’s role, he argued, is that our struggles are the same and the only enemy we share is the system of orchestrated inequality.
That prickle of hope became a little flame, as I realised what he said was true, and it dawned on me I had to change my ways as well and open myself up to speaking to these people, not just shout at them. It is time to open those dialogues and embrace those who suffer like we do, but have not quite realised the real reasons why.
“We don’t have to stop the small boats, we have to stop the yachts”
That little flame of hope flickering in my stomach suddenly became a furnace with what Zack Polanski then went on to say. He unapologetically laid out the economic blueprint for hope, emphasising that wealth redistribution was the key to going forward and that the means of production should be squarely in the control of the workers.
Honestly, I could have cried.
Who was this man standing before us, smiling at the crowd and speaking the most sense I’d heard since the Corbyn years?
Going on to announce a wealth tax, a policy supported by 75% of the population, was met with ear-shattering applause, as he unapologetically and confidently smashed an issue that every single other leader didn’t have the balls to address. With that winning smile, he promised the revenue it would raise would balance the country’s battered books and would fund the essential services austerity had destroyed.
A £15 minimum wage was also met with rippling excitement from the crowd, a momentum I didn’t think could be beaten until the mention of a MAXIMUM WAGE left Polanski’s lips. Ensuring the crowd that bosses would “no longer be able to take the piss,” the people in the room met this with cacophonous cheers, the promise to shatter the current status quo giving us all the hope we have been missing for so long.
Pledge after pledge from Zack Polanski
Our crumbling NHS, he stated, would no longer incorporate private healthcare, declaring it was run by nothing but leeches. Connecting the health crisis directly to immigration, he highlighted the over 150,000 vacancies within our healthcare system, with the anti-immigration rhetoric of the right pushing away essential workers that we need to keep the nation healthy.
Oh, and social housing? Don’t worry, Zack Polanski has it covered. With over 1.2 million people on the waiting list, he pledged to build social housing, safe from the predatory ownership of career landlords.
Putting the nail in the coffin for the Reform UK party, Polanski smashed the key issue that the entire crowd’s beliefs echoed: The migration issue isn’t one of scarcity, but of greed. The Greens were going after those who truly drained our wrecked country’s resources.
The Rich.
And I almost lost my shit when he said:
We don’t have to stop the small boats, we have to stop the yachts.
A final, hope-filled pledge
The Green Party’s strategy has already been bearing fruit in Darlington, where six Green councillors have been championing local people’s issues. They have tirelessly worked for their community, fighting incredibly hard against the Skerningham Development and working with local Fix-It Cafes.
Zack Polanski promised to turn the current momentum of the party into a force capable of winning 30 to 40 seats in the next government.
He drew a very rare line in the sand as well, which shocked me. I have seen Polanski speak with Zarah Sultana previously, and all he ever did was offer his hand and ways to work together. But this red line was spot on. He refused to ever consider a coalition with Labour, citing the original pledges Starmer had pissed on to get into power, Polanski saying that he “could not be trusted.”
The meeting ended not with a policy debate, but with a massively overwhelming feeling of hope.
A hope none of us have felt for years.
A hope that we, as the trodden-down working class, need to bring to those who are lost and scared:
The Green Party has another new member – thanks to Zack Polanski
The entire evening was a testament to the fact that, even in a little run-down town like Darlington, which is deemed ‘jaded,’ people are hungry for the politics of change. They need a politics that speaks to their needs and offers a genuine alternative to community, that will fight the rising tide of fascism and bring the real power of politics to the people. We need a politics run by us, not politicians in the hands of their corporate masters and shareholders.
For me, sitting in that crowd and feeling the shared conviction in Zack Polanski’s voice and the cheers of those around me, the furnace of hope burning in my chest, I came to a realisation.
It was time I stopped watching from the sideline and actually became part of the change.
That night, I decided to join the Greens.
Featured image and additional images via the Canary
Pulitzer Prize–winning US journalist Chris Hedges joins Antoinette Lattouf on We Used To Be Journos to unpack his time in Australia, including some fraught interactions with sections of the Australian media.
The pair also discuss what he flew all this way to talk about — how Western journalists are betraying their colleagues in Gaza.
Hedges also offers some honest advice for young people who still want to tell stories and speak truth to power.
New Zealand’s Space Minister Judith Collins was warned just two months into Israel’s war on Gaza that new BlackSky satellites being launched from NZ could be used by that country’s military, reports Television New Zealand’s 1News.
According to a network news item on Friday, government documents showed officials had recommended the launches go ahead in spite of risks, saying there were no restrictions on trade with Israel.
Minister Collins gave the green light and RocketLab began launching the the Gen-3 BlackSky satellites from Mahia Peninsula earlier this year.
In the documents, obtained by 1News political reporter Benedict Collins under the Official Information Act, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials said while there were risks, the positives outweighed the negatives.
The officials’ advice on the satellite launches stated: “While it poses risks, there is a net good associated with commercially available remote sensing due to the wide range of applications,” 1News said.
One risk they identified related to Israel, but they said there were mitigating factors.
“There are no United Nations Security Council sanctions on Israel, and New Zealand does not implement autonomous sanctions outside the context of the conflict in Ukraine,” they advised the minister.
“There are also no policy restrictions on New Zealand’s trading relationship with Israel.”
World court warnings
However, over the two years of war on Gaza since 7 October 2023, several nonbinding legal opinions by the world’s highest court and UN agencies have warned Israel about its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and also warned countries and companies about complicity with the pariah Zionist state.
In the latest ruling this week, the International Court of Justice said Israel was obliged to ease the passage of aid into Gaza, stressing it had to provide Palestinians with “basic needs” essential to survival.
The wide-ranging ICJ ruling came as aid groups were scrambling to scale up much-needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza, seizing upon a fragile ceasefire agreed earlier this month.
Another court in The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC), has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to 1News, the NZ documents also show that when MBIE officials recommended the application be approved they were aware experts at the UN were warning a possible genocide could unfold in Gaza and that schools and hospitals were being bombed.
‘Appalling’ decision
The officials’ advice came in December 2023, two months after the Hamas attacks on Israel which left 1200 people dead. Israel in response launched a retaliatory offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 68,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Minister Collins said this week the decision had been the right one.
“We don’t have sanctions on Israel, we’re not at war with Israel, Israel is not our enemy,” she said.
But Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said it was an “appalling” decision that could fuel human rights abuses, reports 1News.
Officials at New Zealand’s space agency declined to be interviewed by 1News about Blacksky and RocketLab did not respond to a request for an interview with its founder Sir Peter Beck.
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