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Category: Human Rights

  • Who killed Shireen Abu Akleh? Film names Israeli soldier but Israel ‘did best to cover up’

    Democracy Now!

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show looking at Israel’s ongoing targeting of Palestinian journalists. A recent report by the Costs of War Project at Brown University described the war in Gaza as the “worst ever conflict for reporters” in history.

    By one count, Israel has killed 214 Palestinian journalists in Gaza over the past 18 months, including two journalists killed on Wednesday — Yahya Subaih and Nour El-Din Abdo. Yahya Subaih died just hours after his wife gave birth to their first child.

    Meanwhile, new details have emerged about the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, the renowned Palestinian American Al Jazeera journalist who was fatally shot by an Israeli soldier three years ago on 11 May 2022.

    She was killed while covering an Israeli army assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Shireen and another reporter were against a stone wall, wearing blue helmets and blue flak jackets clearly emblazoned with the word “Press”.

    Shireen was shot in the head. She was known throughout the Arab world for her decades of tireless reporting on Palestine.

    AMY GOODMAN: Israel initially claimed she had been shot by Palestinian militants, but later acknowledged she was most likely shot by an Israeli soldier. But Israel has never identified the soldier who fired the fatal shot, or allowed the soldier to be questioned by US investigators.

    But a new documentary just released by Zeteo has identified and named the Israeli soldier for the first time. This is the trailer to the documentary Who Killed Shireen?

    DION NISSENBAUM: That soldier looked down his scope and could see the blue vest and that it said “press.”

    ISRAELI SOLDIER: That’s what I think, yes.

    SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: US personnel have never had access to those who are believed to have committed those shootings.

    DION NISSENBAUM: No one has been held to account. Justice has not been served.

    FATIMA ABDULKARIM: She is the first American Palestinian journalist who has been killed by Israeli forces.

    DION NISSENBAUM: I want to know: Who killed Shireen?

    CONOR POWELL: Are we going to find the shooter?

    DION NISSENBAUM: He’s got a phone call set up with this Israeli soldier that was there that day.

    CONOR POWELL: We just have to go over to Israel.

    DION NISSENBAUM: Did you ever talk to the guy who fired those shots?

    ISRAELI SOLDIER: Of course. I know him personally. The US should have actually come forward and actually pressed the fact that an American citizen was killed intentionally by IDF.

    FATIMA ABDULKARIM: The drones are still ongoing, the explosions going off.

    CONOR POWELL: Holy [bleep]! We’ve got a name.

    DION NISSENBAUM: But here’s the twist.

     

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: The trailer for the new Zeteo documentary Who Killed Shireen? The film identifies the Israeli soldier who allegedly killed Shireen Abu Akleh as Alon Scagio, who would later be killed during an Israeli military operation last June in Jenin, the same city where Shireen was fatally shot.

    AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by four guests, including two members of Shireen Abu Akleh’s family: her brother Anton, or Tony, and her niece Lina. They’re both in North Bergen, New Jersey. We’re also joined by Mehdi Hasan, the founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo, and by Dion Nissenbaum, the executive producer of Who Killed Shireen?, the correspondent on the documentary, longtime Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent based in Jerusalem and other cities, a former foreign correspondent. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

    We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Dion, we’re going to begin with you. This is the third anniversary, May 11th exactly, of the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Talk about your revelation, what you exposed in this documentary.

    DION NISSENBAUM: Well, there were two things that were very important for the documentary. The first thing was we wanted to find the soldier who killed Shireen. It had been one of the most closely guarded secrets in Israel. US officials said that if they wanted to determine if there was a crime here, if there was a human rights violation, they needed to talk to this soldier to find out what he was thinking when he shot her.

    And we set out to find him. And we did. We did what the US government never did. And it turned out he had been killed, so we were never able to answer that question — what he was thinking.

    But the other revelation that I think is as significant in this documentary is that the initial US assessment of her shooting was that that soldier intentionally shot her and that he could tell that she was wearing a blue flak jacket with “Press” across it.

    That assessment was essentially overruled by the Biden administration, which came out and said exactly the opposite. That’s a fairly startling revelation, that the Biden administration and the Israeli government essentially were doing everything they could to cover up what happened that day to Shireen Abu Akleh.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go to a clip from the documentary Who Killed Shireen?, in which Dion Nissenbaum, our guest, speaks with former State Department official Andrew Miller. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in 2022 when Shireen was killed.

    ANDREW MILLER: It’s nearly 100 percent certain that an Israeli soldier, likely a sniper, fired the shot that killed or the shots that killed Shireen Abu Akleh. Based on all the information we have, it is not credible to suggest that there were targets either in front of or behind Shireen Abu Akleh.

    The fact that the official Israeli position remains that this was a case of crossfire, the entire episode was a mistake, as opposed to potentially a mistaken identification or the deliberate targeting of this individual, points to, I think, a broader policy of seeking to manage the narrative.

    DION NISSENBAUM: And did the Israelis ever make the soldier available to the US to talk about it?

    ANDREW MILLER: No. And the Israelis were not willing to present the person for even informal questioning.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was State Department official — former State Department official Andrew Miller, speaking in the Zeteo documentary Who Killed Shireen? He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in 2022 when Shireen was killed.

    I want to go to Shireen’s family, whom we have as guests, Anton Abu Akleh and Lina, who are joining us from New Jersey. You both watched the film for the first time last night when it premiered here in New York City. Lina, if you could begin by responding to the revelations in the film?

    LINA ABU AKLEH: Hi, Amy. Hi. Thank you for having us.

    Honestly, we always welcome and we appreciate journalists who try to uncover the killing of Shireen, but also who shed light on her legacy. And the documentary that was released by Zeteo and by Dion, it really revealed findings that we didn’t know before, but we’ve always known that it was an Israeli soldier who killed Shireen. And we know how the US administration failed our family, failed a US citizen and failed a journalist, really.

    And that should be a scandal in and of itself.

    But most importantly, for us as a family, it’s not just about one soldier. It’s about the entire chain of command. It’s not just the person who pulled the trigger, but who ordered the killing, and the military commanders, the elected officials.

    So, really, it’s the entire chain of command that needs to be held to account for the killing of a journalist who was in a clear press vest, press gear, marked as a journalist.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Anton, if you could respond? Shireen, of course, was your younger sister. What was your response watching the documentary last night?

    ANTON ABU AKLEH: It’s very painful to look at all these scenes again, but I really extend my appreciation to Zeteo and all those who supported and worked on this documentary, which was very revealing, many things we didn’t know. The cover-up by the Biden administration, this thing was new to us.

    He promised. First statements came out from the White House and from the State Department stressed on the importance of holding those responsible accountable. And apparently, in one of the interviews heard in this documentary, he never raised — President Biden never raised this issue with Bennett, at that time the prime minister.

    So, that’s shocking to us to know it was a total cover-up, contradictory to what they promised us. And that’s — like Lina just said, it’s a betrayal, not only to the family, not only to Shireen, but the whole American nation.

    AMY GOODMAN: Mehdi Hasan, you’ve backed this documentary. It’s the first big documentary Zeteo is putting out. It’s also the first anniversary of the founding of Zeteo. Can you talk about the proof that you feel is here in the documentary that Alon Scagio, this — and explain who he is and the unit he was a part of? Dion, it’s quite something when you go to his grave. But how you can absolutely be sure this is the man?

    MEHDI HASAN: So, Amy, Nermeen, thanks for having us here. I’ve been on this show many times. I just want to say, great to be here on set with both of you. Thank you for what you do.

    This is actually our second documentary, but it is our biggest so far, because the revelations in this film that Dion and the team put out are huge in many ways — identifying the soldier, as you mentioned, Alon Scagio, identifying the Biden cover-up, which we just heard Tony Abu Akleh point out. People didn’t realise just how big that cover-up was.

    Remember, Joe Biden was the man who said, “If you harm an American, we will respond.” And what is very clear in the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen who spent a lot of her life in New Jersey, they did not respond.

    In terms of the soldier itself, when Dion came to me and said, “We want to make this film. It’ll be almost like a true crime documentary. We’re going to go out and find out who did it” — because we all — everyone followed the story. You guys covered it in 2022. It was a huge story in the world.

    But three years later, to not even know the name of the shooter — and I was, “Well, will we be able to find this out? It’s one of Israel’s most closely guarded secrets.” And yet, Dion and his team were able to do the reporting that got inside of Duvdevan, this elite special forces unit in Israel.

    It literally means “the cherry on top.” That’s how proud they are of their eliteness. And yet, no matter how elite you are, Israel’s way of fighting wars means you kill innocent people.

    And what comes out in the film from interviews, not just with a soldier, an Israeli soldier, who speaks in the film and talks about how, “Hey, if you see a camera, you take the shot,” but also speaking to Chris Van Hollen, United States Senator from Maryland, who’s been one of the few Democratic voices critical of Biden in the Senate, who says there’s been no change in Israel’s rules of engagement over the years.

    And therefore, it was so important on multiple levels to do this film, to identify the shooter, because, of course, as you pointed out in your news headlines, Amy, they just killed a hundred Palestinians yesterday.

    So this is not some old story from history where this happened in 2022 and we’re going back. Everything that happened since, you could argue, flows from that — the Americans who have been killed, the journalists who have been killed in Gaza, Palestinians, the sense of impunity that Israel has and Israel’s soldiers have.

    There are reports that Israeli soldiers are saying to Palestinians, “Hey, Trump has our back. Hey, the US government has our back.” And it wasn’t just Trump. It was Joe Biden, too.

    And that was why it was so important to make this film, to identify the shooter, to call out Israel’s practices when it comes to journalists, and to call out the US role.

    AMY GOODMAN: I  just want to go to Dion, for people who aren’t familiar with the progression of what the Biden administration said, the serious cover-up not only by Israel, but of its main military weapons supplier and supporter of its war on Gaza, and that is Joe Biden, from the beginning.

    First Israel said it was a Palestinian militant. At that point, what did President Biden say?

    DION NISSENBAUM: So, at the very beginning, they said that they wanted the shooter to be prosecuted. They used that word at the State Department and said, “This person who killed an American journalist should be prosecuted.” But when it started to become clear that it was probably an Israeli soldier, their tone shifted, and it became talking about vague calls for accountability or changes to the rules of engagement, which never actually happened.

    So, you got to a point where the Israeli government admitted it was likely them, the US government called for them to change the rules of engagement, and the Israeli government said no. And we have this interview in the film with Senator Chris Van Hollen, who says that, essentially, Israel was giving the middle finger to the US government on this.

    And we have seen, since that time, more Americans being killed in the West Bank, dozens and dozens and dozens of journalists being killed, with no accountability. And we would like to see that change.

    This is a trajectory that you’re seeing. You know, the blue vest no longer provides any protection for journalists in Israel. The Israeli military itself has said that wearing a blue vest with “Press” on it does not necessarily mean that you are a journalist.

    They are saying that terrorists wear blue vests, too. So, if you are a journalist operating in the West Bank now, you have to assume that the Israeli military could target you.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go to another clip from the film Who Killed Shireen?, which features Ali Samoudi, Shireen Abu Akleh’s producer, who was with Shireen when she was killed, and was himself shot and injured. In the clip, he speaks to the journalist Fatima AbdulKarim.

    FATIMA ABDULKARIM: We are set up here now, even though we were supposed to meet at the location where you got injured and Shireen got killed.

    ALI SAMOUDI: [translated] We are five minutes from the location in Maidan al-Awdah. But you could lose your soul in the five minutes it would take us to reach it. You could be hit by army bullets. They could arrest you.

    So it is essentially impossible to get there. I believe the big disaster which prevented the occupation from being punished and repeating these crimes is the neglect and indifference by many of the institutions, especially American ones, which continue to defend the occupation.

    FATIMA ABDULKARIM: [translated] We’re now approaching the third anniversary of Shireen’s death. How did that affect you?

    ALI SAMOUDI: [translated] During that period, the occupation was making preparations for a dangerous scenario in the Jenin refugee camp. And for this reason, they didn’t want witnesses.

    They opened fire on us in order to terroriSe us enough that we wouldn’t go back to the camp. And in that sense, they partially succeeded.

    Since then, we have been overcome by fear. From the moment Shireen was killed, I said and continue to say and will continue to say that this bullet was meant to prevent the Palestinian media from the documentation and exposure of the occupation’s crimes.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Ali Samoudi, Shireen Abu Akleh’s producer, who was with Shireen when she was killed, and was himself shot and injured.

    We should note, Ali Samoudi was just detained by Israeli forces in late April. The Palestinian journalist Mariam Barghouti recently wrote, “Ali Samoudi was beaten so bad by Israeli soldiers he was immediately hospitalised. This man has been one of the few journalists that continues reporting on Israeli military abuses north of the West Bank despite the continued risk on his life,” Mariam Barghouti wrote.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists spoke to the journalist’s son, Mohammed Al Samoudi, who told CPJ, quote, “My father suffers from several illnesses, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and a stomach ulcer . . .  He needs a diabetes injection every two days and a specific diet. It appears he was subjected to assault and medical neglect at the interrogation center . . .

    “Our lawyer told us he was transferred to an Israeli hospital after a major setback in his health. We don’t know where he is being held, interrogated, or even the hospital to which he was taken. My father has been forcibly disappeared,” he said.

    So, Dion Nissenbaum, if you could give us the latest? You spoke to Ali Samoudi for the documentary, and now he’s been detained.

    DION NISSENBAUM: Yeah. His words were prophetic, right? He talks about this was an attempt to silence journalists. And my colleague Fatima says the same thing, that these are ongoing, progressive efforts to silence Palestinian journalists.

    And we don’t know where Ali is. He has not actually been charged with anything yet. He is one of the most respected journalists in the West Bank. And we are just seeing this progression going on.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, the latest we know is he was supposed to have a hearing, and that hearing has now been delayed to May 13th, Ali Samoudi?

    DION NISSENBAUM: That’s right. And he has yet to be charged, so . . .

    AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Lina Abu Akleh, who’s in New Jersey, where Shireen grew up. Lina, you were listed on Time magazine’s 100 emerging leaders for publicly demanding scrutiny of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, the horror.

    And again, our condolences on the death of your aunt, on the killing of your aunt, and also to Anton, Shireen’s brother. Lina, you’ve also, of course, spoken to Ali Samoudi. This continues now. He’s in detention — his son says, “just disappeared”.

    What are you demanding right now? We have a new administration. We’ve moved from the Biden administration to the Trump administration. And are you in touch with them? Are they speaking to you?

    LINA ABU AKLEH: Well, our demands haven’t changed. From day one, we’re calling for the US administration to complete its investigation, or for the FBI to continue its investigation, and to finally release — to finally hold someone to account.

    And we have enough evidence that could have been — that the administration could have used to expedite this case. But, unfortunately, this new administration, as well, no one has spoken to us. We haven’t been in touch with anyone, and it’s just been radio silence since.

    For us, as I said, our demands have never changed. It’s been always to hold the entire system to account, the entire chain of command, the military, for the killing of an American citizen, a journalist, a Palestinian, Palestinian American journalist.

    As we’ve been talking, targeting journalists isn’t happening just by shooting at them or killing them. There’s so many different forms of targeting journalists, especially in Gaza and the West Bank and Jerusalem.

    So, for us, it’s really important as a family that we don’t see other families experience what we are going through, for this — for impunity, for Israel’s impunity, to end, because, at the end of the day, accountability is the only way to put an end to this impunity.

    AMY GOODMAN: I am horrified to ask this question to Shireen’s family members, to Lina, to Tony, Shireen’s brother, but the revelation in the film — we were all there last night at its premiere in New York — that the Israeli soldiers are using a photograph of Shireen’s face for target practice. Tony Abu Akleh, if you could respond?

    ANTON ABU AKLEH: You know, there is no words to describe our sorrow and pain hearing this. But, you know, I would just want to know why. Why would they do this thing? What did Shireen do to them for them to use her as a target practice? You know, this is absolutely barbaric act, unjustified. Unjustified.

    And we really hope that this US administration will be able to put an end to all this impunity they are enjoying. If they didn’t enjoy all this impunity, they wouldn’t have been doing this. Practising on a journalist? Why? You know, you can practice on anything, but on a journalist?

    This shows that this targeting of more journalists, whether in Gaza, in Palestine, it’s systematic. It’s been planned for. And they’ve been targeting and shutting off those voices, those reports, from reaching anywhere in the world.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Anton, if you could say — you know, you mentioned last night, as well, Shireen was, in fact, extremely cautious as a journalist. If you could elaborate on that? What precisely —

    ANTON ABU AKLEH: Absolutely. Absolutely. Shireen was very careful. Every time she’s in the field, she would take her time to put on the gear, the required helmet, the vest with “press” written on it, before going there. She also tried to identify herself as a journalist, whether to the Israelis or to the Palestinians, so she’s not attacked.

    And she always went by the book, followed the rules, how to act, how to be careful, how to speak to those people involved, so she can protect herself. But, unfortunately, he was — this soldier, as stated in the documentary, targeted Shireen just because she’s Shireen and she’s a journalist. That’s it. There is no other explanation.

    Sixteen bullets were fired on Shireen. Not even her helmet, nor the vest she was wearing, were able to protect her, unfortunately.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Mehdi Hasan, you wanted to respond.

    MEHDI HASAN: So, Tony asks, “Why? Why would you do this? Why would you target not just a journalist in the field, but then use her face for target practice?” — as Dion and his team reveal in the film. And there is, unfortunately, a very simple answer to that question, which is that the Israeli military — and not just the Israeli military, but many people in our world today — have dehumanised Palestinians.

    There is the removal of humanity from the people you are oppressing, occupying, subjugating and killing. It doesn’t matter if you’re an American citizen. It doesn’t matter if you have a press jacket on. It only matters that you are Palestinian in the sniper’s sights.

    And that is how they have managed to pull of the killing of so many journalists, so many children. The first documentary we commissioned last year was called Israel’s Real Extremism, and it was about the Israeli soldiers who go into Gaza and make TikTok videos wearing Palestinian women’s underwear, playing with Palestinian children’s toys. It is the ultimate form of dehumanisation, the idea that these people don’t count, their lives have no value.

    And what’s so tragic and shocking — and the film exposes this — is that Joe Biden — forget the Israeli military — Joe Biden also joined in that dehumanisation. Do you remember at the start of this conflict when he comes out and he says, “Well, I’m not sure I believe the Palestinian death toll numbers,” when he puts out a statement at the hundred days after October 7th and doesn’t mention Palestinian casualties.

    And that has been the fundamental problem. This was the great comforter-in-chief. Joe Biden was supposed to be the empath. And yet, as Tony points out, what was so shocking in the film is he didn’t even raise Shireen’s case with Naftali Bennett, the prime minister of Israel at the time.

    Again, would he have done that if it was an American journalist in Moscow? We know that’s not the case. We know when American journalists, especially white American journalists, are taken elsewhere in the world, the government gives a damn. And yet, in the case of Shireen, the only explanation is because she was a Palestinian American journalist.

    AMY GOODMAN: You know, in the United States, the US government is responsible for American citizens, which Biden pointed out at the beginning, when he thought it was a Palestinian militant who had killed her. But, Lina, you yourself are a journalist. And I’m thinking I want to hear your response to using her face, because, of course, that is not just the face of Shireen, but I think it’s the face of journalism.

    And it’s not just American journalism, of course. I mean, in fact, she’s known to hundreds of millions of people around world as the face and voice of Al Jazeera Arabic. She spoke in Arabic. She was known as that to the rest of the world. But to see that and that revealed in this documentary?

    LINA ABU AKLEH: Yeah, it was horrifying, actually. And it just goes on to show how the Israeli military is built. It’s barbarism. It’s the character of revenge, of hate. And that is part of the entire system. And as Mehdi and as my father just mentioned, this is all about dehumanizing Palestinians, regardless if they’re journalists, if they’re doctors, they’re officials. For them, they simply don’t care about Palestinian lives.

    And for us, Shireen will always be the voice of Palestine. And she continues to be remembered for the legacy that she left behind. And she continues to live through so many, so many journalists, who have picked up the microphone, who have picked up the camera, just because of Shireen.

    So, regardless of how the Israeli military continues to dehumanise journalists and how the US fails to protect Palestinian American journalists, we will continue to push forward to continue to highlight the life and the legacy that Shireen left behind.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s turn to Shireen Abu Akleh in her own words. This is an excerpt from the Al Jazeera English documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.

    SHIREEN ABU AKLEH: [translated] Sometimes the Israeli army doesn’t want you there, so they target you, even if they later say it was an accident. They might say, “We saw some young men around you.” So they target you on purpose, as a way of scaring you off because they don’t want you there.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was Shireen in her own words in an Al Jazeera documentary. So, Lina, I know you have to go soon, but if you could just tell us: What do you want people to know about Shireen, as an aunt, a sister and a journalist?

    LINA ABU AKLEH: Yes, so, we know Shireen as the journalist, but behind the camera, she was one of the most empathetic people. She was very sincere. And something not a lot of people know, but she was a very funny person. She had a very unique sense of humor, that she lit up every room she entered. She cared about everyone and anyone. She enjoyed life.

    Shireen, at the end of the day, loved life. She had plans. She had dreams that she still wanted to achieve. But her life was cut short by that small bullet, which would change our lives entirely.

    But at the end of the day, Shireen was a professional journalist who always advocated for truth, for justice. And at the end of the day, all she wanted to do was humanise Palestinians and talk about the struggles of living under occupation. But at the same time, she wanted to celebrate their achievements.

    She shed light on all the happy moments, all the accomplishments of the Palestinian people. And this is something that really touched millions of Palestinians, of Arabs around the world. She was able to enter the hearts of the people through the small camera lens. And until this day, she continues to be remembered for that.

    AMY GOODMAN: Before we go, we’re going to keep you on, Mehdi, to talk about other issues during the Trump administration, but how can people access Who Killed Shireen?

    MEHDI HASAN: So, it’s available online at WhoKilledShireen.com, is where you can go to watch it. We are releasing the film right now only to paid subscribers. We hope to change that in the forthcoming days.

    People often say to me, “How can you put it behind a paywall?” Journalism — a free press isn’t free, sadly. We have to fund films like this. Dion came to us because a lot of other people didn’t want to fund a topic like this, didn’t want to fund an investigation like this.

    So, we’re proud to be able to fund such documentaries, but we also need support from our contributors, our subscribers and the viewers. But it’s an important film, and I hope as many people will watch it as possible, WhoKilledShireen.com.

    AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank Lina, the niece of Shireen Abu Akleh, and Anton, Tony, the older brother of Shireen Abu Akleh, for joining us from New Jersey. Together, we saw the documentary last night, Who Killed Shireen? And we want to thank Dion Nissenbaum, who is the filmmaker, the correspondent on this film, formerly a correspondent with The Wall Street Journal. The founder of Zeteo, on this first anniversary of Zeteo, is Mehdi Hasan.

    The original content of this Democracy Now! programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific region hopes for ‘climate-conscious’ pope, says PCC leader

    By Christina Persico, RNZ Pacific bulletin editor

    The leader of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has reacted to the election of the new pope.

    Pope Leo XIV was elected by his fellow cardinals in the Conclave on Thursday evening, Rome time.

    Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is originally from Chicago, and has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.

    He became a cardinal only in 2023 and has become the first-ever US pope.

    PCC general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said he was not a Vatican insider, but there had been talk of cardinals feeling that the new pope should be a “middle-of-the-road person”.

    Reverend Bhagwan said there had been prayers for God’s wisdom to guide the decisions made at the Conclave.

    “I think if we look at where the decisions perhaps were made or based on, there had been a lot of talk that the cardinals going into Conclave had felt that a new pope would need to be someone who could take forward the legacy of Pope Francis, reaching out to those in the margins, but also be a sort of a middle-of-the-road person,” he said.

    Hopes for climate response
    Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific hoped that Pope Leo carried on the late Pope Francis’s connection to the climate change response.

    He said Pope Francis released his “laudate deum” exhortation on the climate shortly before the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year.

    “The focus on care for creation, the focus for ending fossil fuels and climate justice, the focus on people from the margins — I think that’s important for the Pacific people at this time.

    “I know that the Catholic Church in the Pacific has been focused on on its synodal process, and so he spoke about synodality as well.

    “I know that there were hopes for an Oceania synod, just as Pope Francis held a synod of the Amazon. And I think that is still something that’s in the hearts of many of our Catholic leaders and Catholic members.

    “We hope that this will be an opportunity to still bring that focus to the Pacific.”

    Picking up issues
    New Zealand’s Cardinal John Dew, who was in the Conclave, said the new pope would not hesitate to speak out about issues around the world.

    He said they were confident Pope Leo would pick up many of the issues Francis was well known for, like speaking up for climate change, human trafficking and the plight of refugees; and within the church, a different way of meeting and talking with one another — known as synodality — which is an ongoing process.

    “I think any pope needs to be able to challenge things that are happening around the world, especially if it is affecting the lives of people, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”

    Pope Leo appeared to be a very calm person, he added.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Absurd attack on free speech by Israel Institute over social media comment

    By Gordon Campbell

    The calls by the Israel Institute of New Zealand for Peter Davis to resign from the Helen Clark Foundation because of comments he made with regard to an ugly, hateful piece of graffiti are absurd.

    The graffiti in question said “I hated Jews before it was cool!” On social media, Davis made this comment :

    “Netanyahu govt actions have isolated Israel from global south and the west, and have stoked anti-Semitism. Yitzak Rabin was the last leader to effectively foster a political-diplomatic solution to the Israel-Palestine impasse. He was assassinated by a settler. You reap what you sow.”

    IMO, this sounds like an expression of sorrow and regret about the conflict, and about the evils it is feeding and fostering. Regardless, the institute has described that comment by Davis as antisemitic.

    “‘You cannot claim to champion social cohesion while minimising or rationalising antisemitic hate,’ the institute said. ‘Social trust depends on moral consistency, especially from those in leadership. Peter Davis’s actions erode that trust.’”

    For the record, Davis wasn’t rationalising or minimising antisemitic hate. His comments look far more like a legitimate observation that the longer the need for a political-diplomatic solution is violently resisted, the worse things will be for everyone — including Jewish citizens, via the stoking of antisemitism.

    The basic point at issue here is that criticisms of the actions of the Israeli government do not equate to a racist hostility to the Jewish people. (Similarly, the criticisms of Donald Trump’s actions cannot be minimised or rationalised as due to anti-Americanism.)

    Appalled by Netanyahu actions
    Many Jewish people in fact, also feel appalled by the actions of the Netanyahu government, which repeatedly violate international law.

    In the light of the extreme acts of violence being inflicted daily by the IDF on the people of Gaza, the upsurge in hateful graffiti by neo-Nazi opportunists while still being vile, is hardly surprising.

    Around the world, the security of innocent Israeli citizens is being recklessly endangered by the ultra-violent actions of their own government.

    If you want to protect your citizens from an existing fire, it’s best not to toss gasoline on the flames.

    To repeat: the vast majority of the current criticisms of the Israeli state have nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism. At a time when Israel is killing scores of innocent Palestinians on a nightly basis with systematic air strikes and the shelling of civilian neighbourhoods, when it is weaponising access to humanitarian aid as an apparent tool of ethnic cleansing, when it is executing medical staff and assassinating journalists, when it is killing thousands of children and starving the survivors . . . antisemitism is not the reason why most people oppose these evils. Common humanity demands it.

    Ironically, the press release by the NZ Israel Institute concludes with these words: “There must be zero tolerance for hate in any form.” Too bad the institute seems to have such a limited capacity for self-reflection.

    Footnote One: For the best part of 80 years, the world has felt sympathy to Jews in recognition of the Holocaust. The genocide now being committed in Gaza by the Netanyahu government cannot help but reduce public support for Israel.

    It also cannot help but erode the status of the Holocaust as a unique expression of human evil.

    One would have hoped the NZ Israel Institute might acknowledge the self-defeating nature of the Netanyahu government policies — if only because, on a daily basis, the state of Israel is abetting its enemies, and alienating its friends.

    Footnote Two: As yet, the so-called Free Speech Union has not come out to support the free speech rights of Peter Davis, and to rebuke the NZ Israel Institute for trying to muzzle them.

    Colour me not surprised.

    This is a section of Gordon Campbell’s Scoop column published yesterday under the subheading “Pot Calls Out Kettle”; the main portion of the column about the new Pope is here. Republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

  • Tracing radiation through the Marshall Islands: Reflections from a veteran Greenpeace nuclear campaigner

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace

    We’ve visited Ground Zero. Not once, but three times. But for generations, before these locations were designated as such, they were the ancestral home to the people of the Marshall Islands.

    As part of a team of Greenpeace scientists and specialists from the Radiation Protection Advisers team, we have embarked on a six-week tour on board the Rainbow Warrior, sailing through one of the most disturbing chapters in human history: between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs across the Marshall Islands — equivalent to 7200 Hiroshima explosions.

    During this period, testing nuclear weapons at the expense of wonderful ocean nations like the Marshall Islands was considered an acceptable practice, or as the US put it, “for the good of mankind”.

    Instead, the radioactive fallout left a deep and complex legacy — one that is both scientific and profoundly human, with communities displaced for generations.

    Rainbow Warrior ship entering port in Majuro, while being accompanied by three traditional Marshallese canoes. © Bianca Vitale / Greenpeace
    The Rainbow Warrior coming into port in Majuro, Marshall Islands. Between March and April 2025 it embarked on a six-week mission around the Pacific nation to elevate calls for nuclear and climate justice; and support independent scientific research into the impacts of decades-long nuclear weapons testing by the US government. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    Between March and April, we travelled on the Greenpeace flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, throughout the Marshall Islands, including to three northern atolls that bear the most severe scars of Cold War nuclear weapons testing:

    • Enewetak atoll, where, on Runit Island, stands a massive leaking concrete dome beneath which lies plutonium-contaminated waste, a result of a partial “clean-up” of some of the islands after the nuclear tests;
    • Bikini atoll, a place so beautiful, yet rendered uninhabitable by some of the most powerful nuclear detonations ever conducted; and
    • Rongelap atoll, where residents were exposed to radiation fallout and later convinced to return to contaminated land, part of what is now known as Project 4.1, a US medical experiment to test humans’  exposure to radiation.

    This isn’t fiction, nor the distant past. It’s a chapter of history still alive through the environment, the health of communities, and the data we’re collecting today.

    Each location we visit, each sample we take, adds to a clearer picture of some of the long-term impacts of nuclear testing—and highlights the importance of continuing to document, investigate, and attempt to understand and share these findings.

    These are our field notes from a journey through places that hold important lessons for science, justice, and global accountability.

    'Jimwe im Maron - Justice' Banner on Rainbow Warrior in Rongelap, Marshall Islands. © Greenpeace / Chewy C. Lin
    As part of the Marshall Islands ship tour, a group of Greenpeace scientists and independent radiation experts were in Rongelap to sample lagoon sediments and plants that could become food if people came back. Image: © Greenpeace/Chewy C. Lin

    Our mission: why are we here?
    With the permission and support of the Marshallese government, a group of Greenpeace science and radiation experts, together with independent scientists, are in the island nation to assess, investigate, and document the long-term environmental and radiological consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands.

    Our mission is grounded in science. We’re conducting field sampling and radiological surveys to gather data on what radioactivity remains in the environment — isotopes such as caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240. These substances are released during nuclear explosions and can linger in the environment for decades, posing serious health risks, such as increased risk of cancers in organs and bones.

    But this work is not only about radiation measurements, it is also about bearing witness.

    We are here in solidarity with Marshallese communities who continue to live with the consequences of decisions made decades ago, without their consent and far from the public eye.

    Stop 1: Enewetak Atoll — the dome that shouldn’t exist

    Rainbow Warrior alongside the Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands. © Greenpeace / Chewy C. Lin
    The Runit Dome with the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in the background. Image: © Greenpeace/Chewy C. Lin

    At the far western edge of the Marshall Islands is Enewetak. The name might not ring a bell for many, but this atoll was the site of 43 US nuclear detonations. Today, it houses what may be one of the most radioactive places in the world — the Runit Dome.

    Once a tropical paradise thick with coconut palms, Runit Island is capped by a massive concrete structure the size of a football field. Under this dome — cracked, weather-worn, and only 46 centimetres thick in some places — lies 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. These substances are not only confined to the crater — they are also found across the island’s soil, rendering Runit Island uninhabitable for all time.

    The contrast between what it once was and what it has become is staggering. We took samples near the dome’s base, where rising sea levels now routinely flood the area.

    We collected coconut from the island, which will be processed and prepared in the Rainbow Warrior’s onboard laboratory. Crops such as coconut are a known vector for radioactive isotope transfer, and tracking levels in food sources is essential for understanding long-term environmental and health risks.

    The local consequences of this simple fact are deeply unjust. While some atolls in the Marshall Islands can harvest and sell coconut products, the people of Enewetak are prohibited from doing so because of radioactive contamination.

    They have lost not only their land and safety but also their ability to sustain themselves economically. The radioactive legacy has robbed them of income and opportunity.

    Test on Coconuts in Rongelap, Marshall Islands. © Greenpeace / Chewy C. Lin
    Measuring and collecting coconut samples. Image: © Greenpeace/Chewy C. Lin

    One of the most alarming details about this dome is that there is no lining beneath the structure — it is in direct contact with the environment, while containing some of the most hazardous long-lived substances ever to exist on planet Earth. It was never built to withstand flooding, sea level rise, and climate change.

    The scientific questions are urgent: how much of this material is already leaking into the lagoon? What are the exposure risks to marine ecosystems and local communities?

    We are here to help answer questions with new, independent data, but still, being in the craters and walking on this ground where nuclear Armageddon was unleashed is an emotional and surreal journey.

    Stop 2: Bikini — a nuclear catastrophe, labelled ‘for the good of mankind’

    Drone, Aerial shots above Bikini Atoll, showing what it looks like today, Marshall Islands. © Greenpeace / Chewy C. Lin
    Aerial shot of Bikini atoll, Marshall Islands. The Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior can be seen in the upper left. Image: © Greenpeace/Chewy C. Lin

    Unlike Chernobyl or Fukushima, where communities were devastated by catastrophic accidents, Bikini tells a different story. This was not an accident.

    The nuclear destruction of Bikini was deliberate, calculated, and executed with full knowledge that entire ways of life were going to be destroyed.

    Bikini Atoll is incredibly beautiful and would look idyllic on any postcard. But we know what lies beneath: the site of 23 nuclear detonations, including Castle Bravo, the largest ever nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States.

    Castle Bravo alone released more than 1000 times the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive fallout massively contaminated nearby islands and their populations, together with thousands of US military personnel.

    Bikini’s former residents were forcibly relocated in 1946 before nuclear testing began, with promises of a safe return. But the atoll is still uninhabited, and most of the new generations of Bikinians have never seen their home island.

    As we stood deep in the forest next to a massive concrete blast bunker, reality hit hard — behind its narrow lead-glass viewing window, US military personnel once watched the evaporation of Bikini lagoon.

    Bikini Islanders board a landing craft vehicle personnel (LCVP) as they depart from Bikini Atoll in March 1946. © United States Navy
    Bikini Islanders board a landing craft vehicle personnel (LCVP) as they depart from Bikini Atoll in March 1946. Image: © United States Navy

    On our visit, we noticed there’s a spectral quality to Bikini. The homes of the Bikini islanders are long gone. In its place now stand a scattering of buildings left by the US Department of Energy: rusting canteens, rotting offices, sleeping quarters with peeling walls, and traces of the scientific experiments conducted here after the bombs fell.

    On dusty desks, we found radiation reports, notes detailing crop trials, and a notebook meticulously tracking the application of potassium to test plots of corn, alfalfa, lime, and native foods like coconut, pandanus, and banana. The potassium was intended to block the uptake of caesium-137, a radioactive isotope, by plant roots.

    The logic was simple: if these crops could be decontaminated, perhaps one day Bikini could be repopulated.

    We collected samples of coconuts and soil — key indicators of internal exposure risk if humans were to return. Bikini raises a stark question: What does “safe” mean, and who gets to decide?

    The US declared parts of Bikini habitable in 1970, only to evacuate people again eight years later after resettled families suffered from radiation exposure. The science is not abstract here. It is personal. It is human. It has real consequences.

    Stop 3: Rongelap — setting for Project 4.1

    Church and Community Centre of Rongelap, Marshall Islands. © Greenpeace / Chewy C. Lin
    The abandoned church on Rongelap atoll. Image: © Greenpeace/Chewy C. Lin

    The Rainbow Warrior arrived at the eastern side of Rongelap atoll, anchoring one mile from the centre of Rongelap Island, the church spire and roofs of “new” buildings reflecting the bright sun.

    n 1954, fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear detonation on Bikini blanketed this atoll in radioactive ash — fine, white powder that children played in, thinking it was snow. The US government waited three days to evacuate residents, despite knowing the risks. The US government declared it safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 — but it was a severely contaminated environment. The very significant radiation exposure to the Rongelap population caused severe health impacts: thyroid cancers, birth defects such as “jellyfish babies”, miscarriages, and much more.

    In 1985, after a request to the US government to evacuate was dismissed, the Rongelap community asked Greenpeace to help relocate them from their ancestral lands. Using the first Rainbow Warrior, and over a period of 10 days and four trips, 350 residents collectively dismantled their homes, bringing everything with them — including livestock, and 100 metric tons of building material — where they resettled on the islands of Mejatto and Ebeye on Kwajalein atoll.

    It is a part of history that lives on in the minds of the Marshallese people we meet in this ship voyage — in the gratitude they still express, the pride in keeping the fight for justice, and in the pain of still not having a permanent, safe home.

    Community Gathering for 40th Anniversary of Operation Exodus in Marshall Islands. © Greenpeace / Chewy C. Lin
    Greenpeace representatives and displaced Rongelap community come together on Mejatto, Marshall Islands to commemorate the 40 years since the Rainbow Warrior evacuated the island’s entire population in May 1985 due to the impacts of US nuclear weapons testing. Image: © Greenpeace/Chewy C. Lin

    Now, once again, we are standing on their island of Rongelap, walking past abandoned buildings and rusting equipment, some of it dating from the 1980s and 1990s — a period when the US Department of Energy launched a push to encourage resettlement declaring that the island was safe — a declaration that this time, the population welcomed with mistrust, not having access to independent scientific data and remembering the deceitful relocation of some decades before.

    Here, once again, we sample soil and fruits that could become food if people came back. It is essential to understand ongoing risks — especially for communities considering whether and how to return.

    This is not the end. It is just the beginning

    Team of Scientists and Rainbow Warrior in Rongelap, Marshall Islands. © Greenpeace / Chewy C. Lin
    The team of Greenpeace scientists and independent radiation experts on Rongelap atoll, Marshall Islands, with the Rainbow Warrior in the background. Shaun Burnie (author of the article) is first on the left. Image: © Greenpeace/Chewy C. Lin

    Our scientific mission is to take measurements, collect samples, and document contamination. But that’s not all we’re bringing back.

    We carry with us the voices of the Marshallese who survived these tests and are still living with their consequences. We carry images of graves swallowed by tides near Runit Dome, stories of entire cultures displaced from their homelands, and measurements of radiation showing contamination still persists after many decades.

    There are 9700 nuclear warheads still held by military powers around the world – mostly in the United States and Russian arsenals. The Marshall Islands was one of the first nations to suffer the consequences of nuclear weapons — and the legacy persists today.

    We didn’t come to speak for the Marshallese. We came to listen, to bear witness, and to support their demand for justice. We plan to return next year, to follow up on our research and to make results available to the people of the Marshall Islands.

    And we will keep telling these stories — until justice is more than just a word.

    Kommol Tata (“thank you” in the beautiful Marshallese language) for following our journey.

    Shaun Burnie is a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine and was part of the Rainbow Warrior team in the Marshall Islands. This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa and is republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Plan to fast-track appeals of some UK asylum seekers could face legal backlash

    Move to speed up appeals of people in government-funded hotels could be challenged on discrimination grounds, officials warn

    A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has said.

    A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto promise to end a practice that costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Campaigners challenge Hastings Council over its complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    Palestine campaigners are challenging Hastings Council leader Julia Hilton over the local authority’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Notably, the Hastings Palestine Solidarity Campaign (HDPSC) is demanding Hilton release legal advice which she claims makes her powerless to stop arms company General Dynamics from carrying out illegal activities on Hastings Council property.

    General ‘Genocide’ Dynamics: manufacturing components for Israel in Hastings

    The UN Human Rights Council has ordered General Dynamics – which pro-Palestine campaigners refer to as ‘Genocide’ Dynamics – to end all sales to Israel. In particular, this is in the context of Israel’s ongoing attacks on civilians in Gaza which:

    may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws.

    General Dynamics has refused to abide by this UN ruling. Therefore, campaigners argue that it is carrying out illegal activities by assisting Israel to perpetrate a genocide.

    The arms company currently leases the factory building on Castleham Road from Hastings Borough Council. Its website states that it makes parts for avionic and tactical communications systems for ground vehicles. But under terms of the lease, Hastings Council can revoke it if they are involved in “illegal or immoral” activities.

    In January, HDPSC raised the issue with the council leader. This was when it first came to its attention that General Dynamics was operating on council land. In response to HDPSC, councillor Hilton claimed that the terms of the lease are subject to “commercial confidentiality”. She detailed that she had received legal advice that there was no grounds to take action because General Dynamics is manufacturing components which is “a permitted use within the law”.

    However, HDPSC has rejected this. In his reply to councillor Hilton, HDPSC secretary Laurie Holden wrote:

    If the components being manufactured by GD in Hastings are playing a key role in the commission of an ongoing genocide, then their manufacture and export would appear to violate section 52 (1) of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 which makes it ‘an offence against the law of England and Wales for a person to engage in conduct ancillary’ to ‘genocide, a crime against humanity or a war crime’, where such ancillary acts include ‘aiding’ the commission of these. For example, it might ordinarily be legal to manufacture and export machetes, but not to Rwanda during its genocide.

    Councillor Hilton responded in an email that the council had plans to introduce an ethical lettings policy in the future.

    Manufacturing bombs for Israel’s massacres

    Campaigners insist, however, that the lack of a current policy would not absolve the council from its responsibility to act in an ethical way now. Moreover, nor would it excuse councillors of the crime of aiding a genocide if they refused to take action once they are aware that this was happening on their land.

    Al Jazeera verified that it was bombs General Dynamics manufactured, Israel dropped on the then ‘safe zone’ of Al Mawasi in Gaza last year.

    Hastings has long-standing links to a community in al Mawasi and councillor Hilton herself denounced these massacres as “inhumane” last September.

    An organiser of Hastings Friends of Al Mawasi Grace Lally said:

    The council leader joined with us in condemning the attacks on our friends in Al-Mawasi last year.

    But condemnation is really a meaningless gesture if we don’t do everything we can, and use any powers we have, to stop companies like General Dynamics enabling this genocide.

    Mr Holden, who the police arrested, and courts tried and found not guilty of aggravated trespass after taking part in a peaceful protest against General Dynamics in February last year, urged the council to immediately question General Dynamics about whether their factory in Hastings is supplying components to Israel. He called on councillor Hilton to act now:

    to ensure that HBC is not directly or indirectly implicated in the most heinous crime that any human beings can perpetrate – genocide, the deliberate attempt to exterminate an entire people.

    HDPSC has led 16 demonstrations at the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings over the past 19 months. It has disrupted and shut down operations in protest at the arms company profiting from the genocide in Gaza.

    The group has recently launched a new campaign: Schools Out for Genocide Dynamics. This gives parents, carers, and students the tools to challenge their academic institutions over the presence of General Dynamics in schools and at careers fairs.

    The campaign has already claimed a victory with the Big Futures career fair in Eastbourne. It dropped the arms company from its list of exhibitors. The campaign has also prompted a flood of letters to the heads of local schools.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Amid Israel’s Starvation Campaign, Palestinian Chef Fights to Preserve Heritage

    In the heart of Gaza, during the darkest days of Israel’s 18-month genocide, Chef Mona Zahed continued to cook. At the age of 38, with four children depending on her, Zahed became a beacon of hope for her family as she navigated despair and a lack of food while continuing her culinary practice. Her passion for cooking not only fueled her survival but also culminated in the release of her cookbook…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The Encampments vs October 8 – a battle of narratives on Palestine plays out in cinema

    REVIEW: By Joseph Fahim

    This article was initially set out to focus on The Encampments, Kei Pritsker and Michael T Workman’s impassioned documentary that chronicles the Columbia University student movement that shook the United States and captured imaginations the world over.

    But then it came to my attention that a sparring film has been released around the same time, offering a staunchly pro-Israeli counter-narrative that vehemently attempts to discredit the account offered by The Encampments.

    October 8 charts the alleged rise of antisemitism in the US in the wake of the October 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian fighters.

    A balanced record though, it is not. Wendy Sachs’s solo debut feature, which has the subhead, “The Fight for the Soul of America”, is essentially an unabashed defence of the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices.

    Its omissions are predictable; its moral logic is fascinatingly disturbing; its manipulative arguments are the stuff of Steven Bannon.

    It’s easily the most abhorrent piece of mainstream Israeli propaganda this writer has come across .

    Ignoring October 8 would be injudicious, however. Selected only by a number of Jewish film festivals in the US, the film was released in mid-March by indie distribution outfit Briarcliff Entertainment in more than 125 theatres.

    The film has amassed more than $1.3 million so far at the US box office, making it the second-highest grossing documentary of the year, ironically behind the self-distributed and Oscar-winning No Other Land about Palestine at $2.4 million.

    October 8 has sold more than 90,000 tickets, an impressive achievement given the fact that at least 73 percent of the 7.5 million Jewish Americans still hold a favourable view of Israel.

    “It would be great if we were getting a lot of crossover, but I don’t know that we are,” Sachs admitted to the Hollywood Reporter.

    Zionist films have been largely absent from most local and international film festivals — curation, after all, is an ethical occupation — while Palestinian stories, by contrast, have seen an enormous rise in popularity since October 7.

    The phenomenon culminated with the Oscar win for No Other Land.

    October 8
    October 8 . . . “easily the most abhorrent piece of mainstream Israeli propaganda this writer has come across.” Image: Briarcliff Entertainment

    But the release of October 8 and the selection of several Israeli hostage dramas in February’s Berlin Film Festival indicates that the war has officially reached the big screen.

    With the aforementioned hostage dramas due to be shown stateside later this year, and no less than four major Palestinian pictures set for theatrical release over the next 12 months, this Israeli-Palestinian film feud is just getting started.

    Working for change
    The Encampments, which raked in a highly impressive $423,000 in 50 theatres after a month of release, has been garnering more headlines, not only due to the fact that the recently detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil happens to be one of its protagonists, but because it is clearly the better film.

    Pritsker and Workman, who were on the ground with the students for most of the six-week duration of the set-in, provide a keenly observed, intimate view of the action, capturing the inspiring highs and dispiriting lows of the passionate demonstrations and wayward negotiations with Columbia’s administrations.

    The narrative is anchored from the point of views of four students: Grant Miner, a Jewish PhD student who was expelled in March for his involvement in the protests; Sueda Polat, a protest negotiator and spokesperson for the encampments; Naye Idriss, a Palestinian organiser and Columbia alumni; and the soft-spoken Khalil, the Palestinian student elected to lead the negotiations.

    A desire for justice, for holding Israel accountable for its crimes in Gaza, permeated the group’s calling for divesting Columbia’s $13.6 billion endowment funds from weapons manufacturers and tech companies with business links to the Netanyahu’s administration.

    Each of the four shares similar background stories, but Miner and Khalil stand out. As a Jew, Miner is an example of a young Jewish American generation that regard their Jewishness as a moral imperative for defending the Palestinian cause.

    Khalil, meanwhile, carries the familiar burden of being a child of the camps: a descendant of a family that was forcibly displaced from their Tiberias home in 1948.

    The personal histories provide ample opportunities for reflections around questions of identity, trauma, and the youthful desire for tangible change.

    Each protester stresses that the encampment was a last and only resort after the Columbia hierarchy casually brushed aside their concerns.

    These concerns transformed into demands when it became clear that only more strident action like sit-ins could push the Columbia administration to engage with them.

    In an age when most people are content to sit idly behind their computers waiting for something to happen, these students took it upon themselves to actively work for change in a country where change, especially in the face of powerful lobbies, is arduous.

    Only through protests, the viewers begin to realise, can these four lucidly deal with the senseless, numbing bloodshed and brutality in Gaza.

    Crackdown on free speech
    Through skilled placement of archival footage, Pritsker and Workman aptly link the encampments with other student movements in Columbia, including the earlier occupation of Hamilton Hall in 1968 that demonstrated the university’s historic ties with bodies that supported America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

    Both anti-war movements were countered by an identical measure: the university’s summoning of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to violently dismantle the protests.

    Neither the Columbia administration, represented by the disgraced ex-president Minouche Shafik, nor the NYPD are portrayed in a flattering fashion.

    Shafik comes off as a wishy-washy figure, too protective of her position to take a concrete stance for or against the pro-Palestinian protesters.

    The NYPD were a regular fixture outside universities in New York during the encampments during 2024 (MEE/Azad Essa)
    The NYPD were a regular fixture outside universities in New York during the encampments during 2024 Image: MEE/Azad Essa

    The NYPD’s employment of violence against the peaceful protests that they declared to have “devolved into antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric” is an admission that violence against words can be justified, undermining the First Amendment of the US constitution, which protects free speech.
    The Encampments     is not without flaws. By strictly adhering to the testimonials of its subjects, Pritsker and Workman leave out several imperative details.

    These include the identity of the companies behind endowment allocations, the fact that several Congress senators who most prominently criticised the encampments “received over $100,000 more on average from pro-Israel donors during their last election” according to a Guardian finding, and the revelations that US police forces have received analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict directly from the Israeli army and Israeli think tanks.

    The suggested link between the 1968 protests and the present situation is not entirely accurate either.

    The endowments industry was nowhere as big as it is now, and there’s an argument to be made about the deprioritisation of education by universities vis-a-vis their endowments.

    A bias towards Israel or a determination to assert the management’s authority is not the real motive behind their position — it’s the money.

    Lastly, avoiding October 7 and the moral and political issues ingrained within the attack, while refraining from confronting the pro-Israel voices that accused the protesters of aggression and antisemitism, is a major blind spot that allows conservatives and pro-Israel pundits to accuse the filmmakers of bias.

    One could be asking too much from a film directed by first-time filmmakers that was rushed into theatres to enhance awareness about Mahmoud Khalil’s political persecution, but The Encampments, which was co-produced by rapper Macklemore, remains an important, urgent, and honest document of an event that has been repeatedly tarnished by the media and self-serving politicians.

    The politics of victimhood
    The imperfections of The Encampments are partially derived from lack of experience on its creators’ part.

    Any accusations of malice are unfounded, especially since the directors do not waste time in arguing against Zionism or paint its subjects as victims. The same cannot be said of October 8.

    Executive produced by actress Debra Messing of Will & Grace fame, who also appears in the film, October 8 adopts a shabby, scattershot structure vastly comprised of interviews with nearly every high-profile pro-Israel person in America.

    The talking heads are interjected with dubious graphs and craftily edited footage culled from social media of alleged pro-Palestinian protesters in college campuses verbally attacking Jewish students and allegedly advocating the ideology of Hamas.

    Needless to say, no context is given to these videos whose dates and locations are never identified.

    The chief aim of October 8 is to retrieve the victimisation card by using the same language that informed the pro-Palestine discourse

    Every imaginable falsification and shaky allegation regarding the righteousness of Zionism is paraded: anti-Zionism is the new form of antisemitism; pro-Palestinian protesters harassed pro-Israel Jewish students; the media is flooded with pro-Palestinian bias.

    Other tropes include the claim that Hamas is conspiring to destabilise American democracy and unleash hell on the Western world.

    Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas co-founder who defected to Israel in 1997, stresses that “my definition of Intifada is chaos”.

    There is also the suggestion that the protests, if not contained, could spiral into Nazi era-like fascism.

    Sachs goes as far as showing historical footage of the Third Reich to demonstrate her point.

    The chief aim of October 8 is to retrieve Israel’s victimhood by using the same language that informs pro-Palestine discourse. “Gaza hijacked all underdog stories in the world,” one interviewee laments.

    At one point, the attacks of October 7 are described as a “genocide”, while Zionism is referred to as a “civil rights movement”.

    One interviewee explains that the framing of the Gaza war as David and Goliath is erroneous when considering that Hamas is backed by almighty Iran and that Israel is surrounded by numerous hostile countries, such as Lebanon and Syria.

    In the most fanciful segment of the film, the interviewees claim that the Students for Justice in Palestine is affiliated and under the command of Hamas, while haphazardly linking random terrorist attacks, such as 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting to Hamas and by extension the Palestinian cause.

    A simmering racist charge delineate the film’s pro-Israel discourse in its instance on pigeonholing all Palestinians as radical Muslim Hamas supporters.

    There isn’t a single mention of the occupied West Bank or Palestinian religious minorities or even anti-Hamas sentiment in Gaza.

    Depicting all Palestinians as a rigid monolith profoundly contrasts Pritsker and Workman’s nuanced treatment of their Jewish subjects.

    The best means to counter films like October 8 is facts and good journalism

    There’s a difference between subtraction and omission: the former affects logical form, while the latter affects logical content.

    October 8 is built on a series of deliberate omissions and fear mongering, an unscrupulous if familiar tactic that betrays the subjects’ indignation and their weak conviction.

    It is thus not surprising that there is no mention of the Nakba or the fact that the so-called “civil rights movement” is linked to a state founded on looted lands or the grand open prison Israel has turned Gaza into, or the endless humiliation of Palestinians in the West Bank.

    There is also no mention of the racist and inciting statements by far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

    Nor is there mention of the Palestinians who have been abducted and tortured and raped in Israeli prisons.

    And definitely not of the more than 52,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza to date.

    Sachs’ subjects naturally are too enveloped in their own conspiracies, in the tightly knotted narrative they concocted for themselves, to be aware of their privilege.

    The problem is, these subjects want to have their cake and eat it. Throughout, they constantly complain of being silenced; that most institutions, be it the media or college hierarchies or human rights organisations, have not recognised the colossal loss of 7 October 7 and have focused instead on Palestinian suffering.

    They theorise that the refusal of the authorities in taking firm and direct action against pro-Palestinian voices has fostered antisemitism.

    At the same time, they have no qualms in flaunting their contribution to New York Times op-eds or the testimonies they were invited to present at the Congress.

    All the while, Khalil and other Palestinian activists are arrested, deported and stripped of their residencies.

    The value of good journalism
    October 8, which portrays the IDF as a brave, truth-seeking institution, is not merely a pro-Israel propaganda, it’s a far-right propaganda.

    The subjects adopt Trump rhetoric in similarly blaming the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies for the rise of antisemitism, while dismissing intersectionality and anti-colonialism for giving legitimacy to the Palestinian cause.

    As repugnant as October 8 is, it is crucial to engage with work of its ilk and confront its hyperboles.

    Last month, the Hollywood Reporter set up an unanticipated discussion between Pritsker, who is in fact Jewish, and pro-Israel influencer Hen Mazzig.

    The heated exchange that followed demonstrated the difficulty of communication with the pro-Israeli lobby, yet nonetheless underlines the necessity of communication, at least in film.

    Mazzig spends the larger part of the discussion spewing unfounded accusations that he provides no validations for: “Mahmoud Khalil has links to Hamas,” he says at one point.

    When asked about the Palestinian prisoners, he confidently attests that “the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners” — hostages, as Pritsker calls them — they have committed crimes and are held in Israeli prisons, right?

    “In fact, in the latest hostage release eight Palestinian prisoners refused to go back to Gaza because they’ve enjoyed their treatment in these prisons.”

    Mazzig dismisses pro-Palestinian groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and the pro-Palestinian Jewish students who participated in the encampments.

    “No one would make this argument but here we are able to tokenise a minority, a fringe community, and weaponise it against us,” he says.

    “It’s not because they care about Jews and want Jews to be represented. It’s that they hate us so much that they’re doing this and gaslighting us.”

    At this stage, attempting for the umpteenth time to stress that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not one and the same — a reality that the far-right rejects — is frankly pointless.

    Attempting, like Khalil, to continually emphasise our unequivocal rejection of antisemitism, to underscore that our Jewish colleagues and friends are partners in our struggle for equality and justice, is frankly demeaning.

    For Mazzig and Messing and the October 8 subjects, every Arab, every pro-Palestinian, is automatically an antisemite until proven otherwise.

    The best means to counter films like October 8 is facts and good journalism.

    Emotionality has no place in this increasingly hostile landscape. The reason why The Bibi Files and Louis Theroux’s The Settlers work so well is due to their flawless journalism.

    People may believe what they want to believe, but for the undecided and the uninformed, factuality and journalistic integrity — values that go over Sachs’ head — could prove to be the most potent weapon of all.

    Joseph Fahim is an Egyptian film critic and programmer. He is the Arab delegate of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, a former member of Berlin Critics’ Week and the ex director of programming of the Cairo International Film Festival. This article was first published by Middle East Eye.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Kiwi heart surgeon, his wife and the film maker in Palestine

    RNZ Nine To Noon

    Auckland film maker Paula Whetu Jones has spent nearly two decades working pro bono on a feature film about the Auckland cardiac surgeon Alan Kerr, which is finally now in cinemas.

    She is best known for co-writing and directing Whina, the feature film about Dame Whina Cooper.

    She filmed Dr Kerr and his wife Hazel in 2007, when he led a Kiwi team to Gaza and the West Bank to operate on children with heart disease.

    What started as a two-week visit became a 20 year commitment, involving 40 medical missions to Gaza and the West Bank and hundreds of operations.

    Paula Whetu Jones self-funded six trips to document the work and the result is the feature film The Doctor’s Wife, now being screened free in communities around the country.

    20 years of inspirational work in Palestine

    Pacific Media Watch reports that Paula Whetu Jones writes on her film’s website:

    I met Alan and Hazel Kerr in 2006 and became inspired by their selflessness and dedication. I wanted to learn more about them and shine a light on their achievements.

    I’ve been trying to highlight social issues through documentary film making for 25 years. I have always struggled to obtain funding and this project was no different. We provided most of the funding but it wouldn’t have been possible to complete it without the generosity of a small number of donors.

    Others gave of their time and expertise.

    Film maker Paula Whetu Jones
    Film maker Paula Whetu Jones . . . “Our documentary shows the humanity of everyday Palestinians, pre 2022, as told through the eyes of a retired NZ heart surgeon, his wife and two committed female film makers.” Image: NZ On Film

    Our initial intention was to follow Dr Alan in his work in the West Bank and Gaza but we also developed a very special relationship with Hazel.

    While Dr Alan was operating, Hazel took herself all over the West Bank and Gaza, volunteering to help in refugee camps, schools and community centres. We tagged along and realised that Dr Alan and his work was the heart of the film but Hazel was the soul. Hence, the title became The Doctor’s Wife.

    I was due to return to Palestine in 2010 when on the eve of my departure I was struck down by a rare auto immune condition which left me paralysed. It wasn’t until 2012 that I was able to return to Palestine.

    Wheelchair made things hard
    However, being in a wheelchair made everything near on impossible, not to mention my mental state which was not conducive to being creative. In 2013, tragedy struck again when my 22-year-old son died, and I shut down for a year.

    Again, the project seemed so far away, destined for the shelf. Which is where it sat for the next few years while I tried to figure out how to live in a wheelchair and support myself and my daughter.

    The project was re-energised when I made two arts documentaries in Palestine, making sure we filmed Alan while we were there and connecting with a NZ trauma nurse who was also filming.

    By 2022, we knew we needed to complete the doco. We started sorting through many years of footage in different formats, getting the interviews transcribed and edited. The last big push was in 2023. We raised funds and got a few people to help with the logistics.

    I spent six months with three editors and then we used the rough cut to do one last fundraiser that helped us over the line, finally finishing it in March of 2025.

    Our documentary shows the humanity of everyday Palestinians, pre-2022, as told through the eyes of a retired NZ heart surgeon, his wife and two committed female film makers who were told in 2006 that no one cares about old people, sick Palestinian children or Palestine.

    They were wrong. We cared and maybe you do, too.

    What is happening in 2025 means it’s even more important now for people to see the ordinary people of Palestine

    Dr Alan and his wife, Hazel are now 90 and 85 years old respectively. They are the most wonderfully humble humans. Their work over 20 years is nothing short of inspiring.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pope Leo XIV faces limits on changing the Catholic Church − but Francis made reforms that set the stage for larger changes

    ANALYSIS: By Dennis Doyle, University of Dayton

    Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States has been picked to be the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church; he will be known as Pope Leo XIV.

    Now, as greetings resound across the Pacific and globally, attention turns to what vision the first US pope will bring.

    Change is hard to bring about in the Catholic Church. During his pontificate, Francis often gestured toward change without actually changing church doctrines. He permitted discussion of ordaining married men in remote regions where populations were greatly underserved due to a lack of priests, but he did not actually allow it.

    On his own initiative, he set up a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, but he did not follow it through.

    However, he did allow priests to offer the Eucharist, the most important Catholic sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, to Catholics who had divorced and remarried without being granted an annulment.

    Likewise, Francis did not change the official teaching that a sacramental marriage is between a man and a woman, but he did allow for the blessing of gay couples, in a manner that did appear to be a sanctioning of gay marriage.

    To what degree will the new pope stand or not stand in continuity with Francis? As a scholar who has studied the writings and actions of the popes since the time of the Second Vatican Council, a series of meetings held to modernize the church from 1962 to 1965, I am aware that every pope comes with his own vision and his own agenda for leading the church.

    Still, the popes who immediately preceded them set practical limits on what changes could be made. There were limitations on Francis as well; however, the new pope, I argue, will have more leeway because of the signals Francis sent.

    The process of synodality
    Francis initiated a process called “synodality,” a term that combines the Greek words for “journey” and “together.” Synodality involves gathering Catholics of various ranks and points of view to share their faith and pray with each other as they address challenges faced by the church today.

    One of Francis’ favourite themes was inclusion. He carried forward the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Holy Spirit — that is, the Spirit of God who inspired the prophets and is believed to be sent by Christ among Christians in a special way — is at work throughout the whole church; it includes not only the hierarchy but all of the church members.

    This belief constituted the core principle underlying synodality.

    A man in a white priestly robe and a crucifix around his neck stands with several others, dressed mostly in black.
    Pope Francis with the participants of the Synod of Bishops’ 16th General Assembly in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican in October 2023. Image: The Conversation/AP/Gregorio Borgia

    Francis launched a two-year global consultation process in October 2022, culminating in a synod in Rome in October 2024. Catholics all over the world offered their insights and opinions during this process.

    The synod discussed many issues, some of which were controversial, such as clerical sexual abuse, the need for oversight of bishops, the role of women in general and the ordination of women as deacons.

    The final synod document did not offer conclusions concerning these topics but rather aimed more at promoting the transformation of the entire Catholic Church into a synodal church in which Catholics tackle together the many challenges of the modern world.

    Francis refrained from issuing his own document in response, in order that the synod’s statement could stand on its own.

    The process of synodality in one sense places limits on bishops and the pope by emphasising their need to listen closely to all church members before making decisions. In another sense, though, in the long run the process opens up the possibility for needed developments to take place when and if lay Catholics overwhelmingly testify that they believe the church should move in a certain direction.

    Change is hard in the church
    A pope, however, cannot simply reverse official positions that his immediate predecessors had been emphasising. Practically speaking, there needs to be a papacy, or two, during which a pope will either remain silent on matters that call for change or at least limit himself to hints and signals on such issues.

    In 1864, Pius IX condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.”

    It wasn’t until 1965 – some 100 years later – that the Second Vatican Council, in The Declaration on Religious Freedom, would affirm that “a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion. …”

    A second major reason why popes may refrain from making top-down changes is that they may not want to operate like a dictator issuing executive orders in an authoritarian manner.

    Francis was accused by his critics of acting in this way with his positions on Eucharist for those remarried without a prior annulment and on blessings for gay couples. The major thrust of his papacy, however, with his emphasis on synodality, was actually in the opposite direction.

    Notably, when the Amazon Synod — held in Rome in October 2019 — voted 128-41 to allow for married priests in the Brazilian Amazon region, Francis rejected it as not being the appropriate time for such a significant change.

    Past doctrines
    The belief that the pope should express the faith of the people and not simply his own personal opinions is not a new insight from Francis.

    The doctrine of papal infallibility, declared at the First Vatican Council in 1870, held that the pope, under certain conditions, could express the faith of the church without error.

    The limitations and qualifications of this power include that the pope:

    • be speaking not personally but in his official capacity as the head of the church;
    • he must not be in heresy;
    • he must be free of coercion and of sound mind;
    • he must be addressing a matter of faith and morals; and
    • he must consult relevant documents and other Catholics so that what he teaches represents not simply his own opinions but the faith of the church.

    The Marian doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption offer examples of the importance of consultation. The Immaculate Conception, proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854, is the teaching that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was herself preserved from original sin, a stain inherited from Adam that Catholics believe all other human beings are born with, from the moment of her conception.

    The Assumption, proclaimed by Pius XII in 1950, is the doctrine that Mary was taken body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life.

    The documents in which these doctrines were proclaimed stressed that the bishops of the church had been consulted and that the faith of the lay people was being affirmed.

    Unity, above all
    One of the main duties of the pope is to protect the unity of the Catholic Church. On one hand, making many changes quickly can lead to schism, an actual split in the community.

    In 2022, for example, the Global Methodist Church split from the United Methodist Church over same-sex marriage and the ordination of noncelibate gay bishops. There have also been various schisms within the Anglican communion in recent years.

    The Catholic Church faces similar challenges but so far has been able to avoid schisms by limiting the actual changes being made.

    On the other hand, not making reasonable changes that acknowledge positive developments in the culture regarding issues such as the full inclusion of women or the dignity of gays and lesbians can result in the large-scale exit of members.

    Pope Leo XIV, I argue, needs to be a spiritual leader, a person of vision, who can build upon the legacy of his immediate predecessors in such a way as to meet the challenges of the present moment.

    He already stated that he wants a synodal church that is “close to the people who suffer,” signaling a great deal about the direction he will take.

    If the new pope is able to update church teachings on some hot-button issues, it will be precisely because Francis set the stage for him.The Conversation

    Dr Dennis Doyle, is professor emeritus of religious studies, University of Dayton. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • USP World Press Freedom Day warnings over AI, legal reform and media safety

    By Niko Ratumaimuri in Suva

    World Press Freedom Day is not just a celebration of the vital role journalism plays — it is also a moment to reflect on the pressures facing the profession and Pacific governments’ responsibility to protect it.

    This was one of the key messages delivered by two guest speakers at The University of the South Pacific (USP) Journalism’s 2025 World Press Freedom Day celebrations this week, the UN Human Rights Adviser for the Pacific, Heike Alefsen, and Fiji Media Association’s general secretary, Stanley Simpson.

    In her address to journalism students and other attendees on Monday, chief guest Alefsen emphasised that press freedom is a fundamental pillar of democracy, a human right, and essential for sustainable development and the rule of law.

    “Media freedom is a prerequisite for inclusive, rights-respecting societies,” Alefsen said, warning of rising threats such as censorship, harassment, and surveillance of journalists — especially with the spread of AI tools used to manipulate information and monitor media workers.

    Ms Alefsen, Dr Singh and Mr Simpson
    UN Human Rights Adviser for the Pacific Heike Alefsen (from left), USP Journalism programme head Dr Shailendra Singh, and Fiji Media Association’s general secretary Stanley Simpson . . . reflecting on pressures facing the profession of journalism. Image: Mele Tu’uakitau

    AI and human rights
    She stressed that AI must serve human rights — not undermine them — and that it must be used transparently, accountably, and in accordance with international human rights law.

    “Some political actors exploit AI to spread disinformation and manipulate narratives for personal or political gain,” she said.

    She added that these risks were compounded by the fact that a handful of powerful corporations and individuals now controlled much of the AI infrastructure and influenced the global media environment — able to amplify preferred messages or suppress dissenting voices.

    “Innovation cannot come at the expense of press freedom, privacy, or journalist safety,” she said.

    Regarding Fiji, Alefsen praised the 2023 repeal of the Media Industry Development Act (MIDA) as a “critical turning point,” noting its positive impact on Fiji’s ranking in the RSF World Press Freedom Index.

    World Press Freedom Day at The University of the South Pacific
    World Press Freedom Day at The University of the South Pacific on Monday. Image: USP — the country rose four places to 40th in the 2025 survey.

    However, she emphasised that legal reforms must continue, especially regarding sedition laws, and she highlighted ongoing challenges across the Pacific, including financial precarity, political pressure, and threats to women journalists.

    According to Alefsen, the media landscape in the Pacific was evolving for the better in some countries but concerns remained. She highlighted the working conditions of most journalists in the region, where financial insecurity, political interference, and lack of institutional support were prevalent.

    “Independent journalism ensures transparency, combats disinformation, amplifies marginalised voices, and enables people to make informed decisions about their lives and governance. In too many countries around the world, journalists face censorship, detention, and in some cases, death — simply for doing their jobs,” she said.

    Strengthening media independence and sustainability
    Keynote speaker Stanley Simpson, echoed these concerns, adding that “the era where the Fiji media could survive out of sheer will and guts is over.”

    “Now, it’s about technology, sustainability, and mental health support,” he said.

    Speaking on the theme, Strengthening Media Independence and Sustainability, Simpson emphasised the need for the media to remain independent, noting that journalists are often expected to make greater sacrifices than professionals in other industries.

    “Independence — while difficult and challenging — is a must in the media industry for it to maintain credibility. We must be able to think, speak, write, and report freely on any matter or anyone,” Simpson said.

    According to Simpson, there was a misconception in Fiji that being independent meant avoiding relationships or contacts.

    “There is a need to build your networks — to access and get information from a wide variety of sources. In fact, strengthening media independence means being able to talk to everyone and hear all sides. Gather all views and present them in a fair, balanced and accurate manner.”

    He argued that media could only be sustainable if it was independent — and that independence was only possible if sustainability was achieved. Simpson recalled the events of the 2006 political upheaval, which he said contributed to the decline of media freedom and the collapse of some media organisations in Fiji.

    “Today, as we mark World Press Freedom Day, we gather at this great institution to reflect on a simple yet profound truth: media can only be truly sustainable if it is genuinely free.

    “We need democratic, political, and governance structures in place, along with a culture of responsible free speech — believed in and practised by our leaders and the people of Fiji,” he said.

    USP students and guests at the 2025 World Press Freedom Day event. Picture: Mele Tu’uakitau

    The new media landscape
    Simpson also spoke about the evolving media landscape, noting the rise of social media influencers and AI generated content. He urged journalists to verify sources and ensure fairness, balance and accuracy — something most social media platforms were not bound by.

    While some influencers have been accused of being clickbait-driven, Simpson acknowledged their role. “I think they are important new voices in our democracy and changing landscape,” he said.

    He criticised AI-generated news platforms that republished content without editorial oversight, warning that they further eroded public trust in the media.

    “Sites are popping up overnight claiming to be news platforms, but their content is just AI-regurgitated media releases,” he said. “This puts the entire credibility of journalism at risk.”

    Fiji media challenges
    Simpson outlined several challenges facing the Fiji media, including financial constraints, journalist mental health, lack of investment in equipment, low salaries, and staff retention. He emphasised the importance of building strong democratic and governance structures and fostering a culture that respects and values free speech.

    “Many fail to appreciate the full scale of the damage to the media industry landscape from the last 16 years. If there had not been a change in government, I believe there would have been no Mai TV, Fiji TV, or a few other local media organisations today. We would not have survived another four years,” he said.

    According to Simpson, some media organisations in Fiji were only one or two months away from shutting down.

    “We barely survived the last 16 years, while many media organisations in places like New Zealand — TV3’s NewsHub — have already closed down. The era where the Fiji media would survive out of sheer will and guts is over. We need to be more adaptive and respond quickly to changing realities — digital, social media, and artificial intelligence,” he said.

    Dr Singh (left) moderates the student panel discussion with Riya Bhagwan, Maniesse Ikuinen-Perman and Vahefonua Tupola. Image: Mele Tu’uakitau

    Young journalists respond
    During a panel discussion, second-year USP journalism student Vahefonua Tupola of Tonga highlighted the connection between the media and ethical journalism, sharing a personal experience to illustrate his point.

    He said that while journalists should enjoy media freedom, they must also apply professional ethics, especially in challenging situations.

    Tupola noted that the insights shared by the speakers and fellow students had a profound impact on his perspective.

    Another panelist, third-year student and Journalism Students Association president Riya Bhagwan, addressed the intersection of artificial intelligence and journalism.

    She said that in this era of rapid technological advancement, responsibility was more critical than ever — with the rise of AI, social media, and a constant stream of information.

    “It’s no longer just professional journalists reporting the news — we also have citizen journalism, where members of the public create and share content that can significantly influence public opinion.

    “With this shift, responsible journalism becomes essential. Journalists must uphold professional standards, especially in terms of accuracy and credibility,” she said.

    The third panelist, second-year student Maniesse Ikuinen-Perman from the Federated States of Micronesia, acknowledged the challenges facing media organisations and journalists in the Pacific.

    She shared that young and aspiring journalists like herself were only now beginning to understand the scope of difficulties journalists face in Fiji and across the region.

    Maniesse emphasised the importance of not just studying journalism but also putting it into practice after graduation, particularly when returning to work in media organisations in their home countries.

    The panel discussion, featuring journalism students responding to keynote addresses, was moderated by USP Journalism head of programme Dr Shailendra Singh.

    Dr Singh concluded by noting that while Fiji had made significant progress with the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act (MIDA), global experience demonstrated that media freedom must never be taken for granted.

    He stressed that maintaining media freedom was an ongoing struggle and always a work in progress.

    “As far as media organisations are concerned, there is always a new challenge on the horizon,” he said, pointing to the complications brought about by digital disruption and, more recently, artificial intelligence.

    • Fiji rose four places to 40th (out of 180 nations) in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index to make the country the Oceania media freedom leader outside of Australia (29) and New Zealand (16).

    Niko Ratumaimuri is a second-year journalism student at The University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus. This article was first published by the student online news site Wansolwara and is republished in collaboration with Asia Pacific Report.

    USP Journalism students, staff and guests at the 2025 World Press Freedom Day celebrations at Laucala campus
    USP Journalism students, staff and guests at the 2025 World Press Freedom Day celebrations at Laucala campus on Monday. Image: Mele Tu’uakitau

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Cuban Days Against Homophobia And Transphobia Have Begun

    The National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) launched the 18th edition of the Cuban Days Against Homophobia and Transphobia on Monday. Under the slogan “Love is the law,” the event will run until May 18 in the largest of the Antilles.

    During the inauguration of the initiative, CENESEX director Dr. Mariela Castro Espín commented that Cuban LGBTIQ+ activism cannot be disconnected or alienated from the current circumstances of the world, which is why these conferences are dedicated to anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggles.

    She referred to the setbacks occurring in several countries with regard to the rights of women and the LGBTIQ+ community.

    The post Cuban Days Against Homophobia And Transphobia Have Begun appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • India: Evicted Tribe Re-occupies Their Homes inside Famous Tiger Reserve

    TigerJenu Kuruba families begin their long-awaited re-occupation of their ancestral homes inside the Nagarhole National Park. They carried photos of loved ones who had died after the village was evicted, so they too can return to the forest. ©Sartaz Ali Barkat/ Survival

    A group of Indigenous people who were evicted from their ancestral village in Nagarhole Tiger Reserve in south India 40 years ago have returned to their former homes.

    It’s believed to be the first time Indigenous people in India have asserted their rights in this way, and returned en masse to their homes after being evicted from a Protected Area.

    TigerForest department officials warn the Jenu Kuruba against re-occupying their homes inside Nagarhole National Park. The Indigenous people castigated them for delaying recognition of their forest rights, and went ahead anyway. ©Survival International

    More than 50 Jenu Kuruba families took part in the long-planned operation, and have started building houses using their traditional materials and techniques. The Jenu Kuruba say they decided to return because their sacred spirits, who still dwell in the old village location, became angry at being abandoned when the community was forced from the forest in the 1980s.

    Forest department officials, backed up by police, warned the Jenu Kuruba against re-occupying their homes, but the Indigenous people castigated them for delaying the recognition of their forest rights for years, and went ahead anyway. Today around 130 police officers and forest guards were on the scene, and prevented journalists from accessing the area.

    Shivu, a young Jenu Kuruba leader, said today: “Historical injustice continues to happen over us by denying our rights on our lands, forests and access to sacred spaces. Tiger conservation is a scheme of the forest department and various wildlife NGO’s to grab indigenous lands by forcefully moving us out, but opening the very same lands in the pretext of tourism to make money

    We have to today returned to our home lands and forests. we will remain here. Our sacred sprits are with us.”

    TigerJenu Kuruba families begin to construct a house for their ancestors, as they rebuild their old village inside Nagarhole National Park. ©Sartaz Ali Barkat/ Survival

    In a statement the Jenu Kuruba of Nagarhole said: “Enough is Enough. We can’t part from our lands anymore. We want our children and youth to live a life that our ancestors once lived. Tigers, elephants, peacocks, wild boar, wild dogs are our deities. We have been worshipping them as our ancestral spirits since generations. This deliberate attempt to separate us from our lands, forests and sacred spaces will not be tolerated. We resist the current conservation model based on the false idea that forests, wildlife and humans cannot coexist.”

    For decades it has been official policy in India, as in many other countries around the world, to evict Indigenous people whose lands are turned into Protected Areas, a practice known as Fortress Conservation.

    An estimated 20,000 Jenu Kuruba people have been illegally evicted from Nagarhole. Another 6,000 resisted, and have managed to stay in the park.

    The Jenu Kuruba’s belief system centers around their connection to the forest, its wildlife, and their gods – including the tigers who live there – but forest guards harass, threaten, and even shoot members of the tribe.

    Jenu Kuruba people are experts in their environment. They gather medicine, honey, fruits, vegetables, tubers, and the thatch and bamboo needed to build their houses.

    Famed for their honey collecting skills – Jenu Kuruba means “honey collectors” – they are guided from birth to death by the philosophy “Nanga Kadu Ajjayya… Nanga Kadina Jenu Ajjayya – Our forests are sacred… The honey from our forest is sacred.”

    Those beliefs underpin the tribe’s careful management of their environment and have ensured tiger survival. Indeed, the healthy tiger population found in their forest is what drove the Indian government to turn the area into a Tiger Reserve. It has one of the highest concentrations of tigers in all of India.

    Caroline Pearce, Director of Survival International, said today: “The Jenu Kuruba people’s re-occupation of their ancestral land is an inspirational act of repossession. They’re reclaiming what was theirs, in defiance of a hugely powerful conservation and tourism industry that has enriched itself at their expense.

    “If the Indian government really cares about tiger conservation, it will not only allow the Jenu Kuruba people to return, but encourage them to do so – because the science is clear that tigers thrive alongside the Indigenous people whose forests they live in.”

    The post India: Evicted Tribe Re-occupies Their Homes inside Famous Tiger Reserve first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Trump’s hatred of queer rights continues to reverberate, as Pittsburgh gay bar raided by swarm of cops

    A gay bar in Pittsburgh was raided for a compliance check by police officers in bulletproof vests. Performers were forced off stage while police emptied the bar and carried out their checks – all while Donald Trump continues his assault on queer rights.

    Given that historically, queer bars are often over-policed via these same compliance checks, attendees were sceptical of the police’s motivations. One witness said:

    Dozens of state police, geared up with bulletproof vests, flooded the bar and told us to get out. None of the officers would explain what was happening. We stood in the rain for maybe 30 minutes or so until most patrons were let back in.

    Pittsburgh response

    Whilst waiting outside, patrons at the bar were joined by Indica, a drag queen, who rallied the crowd as they waited for police to leave. Indica told Qburgh:

    Queer people banded together and showed we are so much stronger than an attempt to make us scared or comply with their rules.

    Pittsburgh mayor Ed Gainey discussed the context of the raid:

    I want first to acknowledge the way in which bar raids were used historically to harass and commit violence against the LGBTQIA+ community. It was not so long ago that police raids on gay bars were routine, and it was one such raid, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, that sparked the modern movement to establish safe places for people to be open about their gender and sexuality without fear of arrest.

    It is my intent that our actions as a city build upon, rather than undermine, that legitimate desire for safety.

    Officers found that at the time of the raid, the bar had 133 people inside. But, the establishment only has an occupancy permit for 70 people due to overcrowding regulations. However, as Gainey acknowledged, this doesn’t change the intimidation of police raiding a venue during an event:

    However, we need to be thoughtful about the fear that the sudden appearance of multiple armed officers can cause. We also need to have safeguards in place that ensure that NBTF [Nuisance Bar Task Force] complaints cannot be used to target vulnerable populations.

    Historical targeting – and now Trump

    Famously, the Stonewall uprising was one of the prominent examples of patrons at queer bars resisting pressure from police. These raids have been so ubiquitous that the police’s mode of operation is all too familiar:

    Officers would pour in, threatening and beating bar staff and clientele. Patrons would pour out, lining up on the street so police could arrest them.

    This routine is so familiar that as far back as 19th century London, an example can be found of police raiding queer spaces:

    in 1810, we get our first recorded instance of a gay bar—under admittedly unfortunate circumstances. In London, a bar called the White Swan was raided under laws against sodomy. In total, 25 men were arrested, eight were convicted, and two were hanged (one of whom was 16 years old, while neither were even present at the White Swan on the night of the raid).

    The Black Cat in San Francisco ended up taking the state of California to court in the 1950s. The bar would overturn a decision by the local police department to revoke their licence when the supreme court ruled that:

    in order to establish ‘good cause’ for suspension of plaintiff’s license, something more must be shown than that many of his patrons were homosexuals and that they used his restaurant and bar as a meeting place.

    There are numerous existing lists and archives of American and British bars that were raided by police in attempts at state intimidation and surveillance of gay, lesbian, and transgender people.

    Policing queerness

    Being policed in public places is part of being queer, whether gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary, or otherwise queer. In a climate of Trump increasing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation, the raiding of a Pittsburgh bar is extremely troubling. Just days after the Pittsburgh raid, a Boston hotel accused a lesbian of being a man in women’s toilets and kicked her out.

    Ansley Baker described how a security guard barged into the stall she was using:

    All of a sudden there was banging on the door.

    I pulled my shorts up. I hadn’t even tied them. One of the security guards was there telling me to get out of the bathroom, that I was a man in the women’s bathroom. I said, ‘I’m a woman.’

    Baker and her partner were escorted out of the hotel, but not before the guard demanded they produce identification to ‘prove’ they were women. And, Baker described how other people in the public bathroom jeered and insulted her and her partner as they were removed.

    Liz Victor, Baker’s partner, said:

    It was a very scary situation, but trans women experience this every single day in the U.S. and across the world.

    Climate of fear under both Trump and Starmer

    Both Trump in the US and UK more broadly are barrelling towards more policing of queer people, and trans people in particular. As the government fans the flames of a culture war, both police and members of the public are emboldened in persecuting and vilifying queer people. The fact that other users of a public bathroom thought it acceptable to jeer at people being removed by security speaks to a wider problem with a rollback of LGBTQ+ rights.

    Unfortunately, these incidents will only become more commonplace in both states. GenderGP, an organisation that campaigns for healthcare for trans and non-binary people, said:

    Denying gender-affirming healthcare, banning pronoun recognition, and excluding trans athletes are not just inconveniences—they are life-threatening. Studies consistently show that access to gender-affirming care significantly reduces rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among transgender individuals.

    Historically, queer people are over-policed in public spaces, be it bars, bathrooms, or otherwise. States are emboldening bigots with their own bigoted legislation – we cannot allow it to happen.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • MPs seek assurance that UK gender guidance will not ignore trans people

    Exclusive: Transgender activists worry that EHRC is taking an overly literal approach to supreme court ruling

    A cross-party committee of MPs has written to the UK’s equalities watchdog to seek assurances that its guidance on how organisations interpret the landmark supreme court ruling on gender issues does not ignore the needs of transgender people.

    The letter from the Commons women and equalities committee to Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, also urged her to extend the two-week timetable for people to submit views on how the EHRC’s code of practice for organisations should work, saying this should be at least six weeks.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Fiji media’s Stan Simpson blasts ‘hypocrites’ in social media clash over press freedom

    Pacific Media Watch

    Barely hours after being guest speaker at the University of the South Pacific‘s annual World Press Freedom Day event this week, Fiji media industry stalwart Stanley Simpson was forced to fend off local trolls whom he described as “hypocrites”.

    “Attacked by both the Fiji Labour Party and ex-FijiFirst MPs in just one day,” chuckled Simpson in a quirky response on social media.

    “Plus, it seems, by their very few supporters using myriads of fake accounts.

    “Hypocrites!”

    Simpson, secretary of the Fiji Media Association (FMA), media innovator, a founder and driving force of Mai TV, and a gold medallist back in his university student journalist days, was not taking any nonsense from his cyberspace critics, including Rajendra, the son of Labour Party leader and former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

    The critics were challenging recent comments about media freedom in his speech at USP on Monday and on social media when he took a swipe at “pop-up propagandists”.

    “I stand by my statements. And I love the attention now put on media freedom by those who went missing or turned a blind eye when it was under threat [under Voreqe Bainimarama’s regime post-2006 coup]. Time for them to own up and come clean.”

    Briefly, this is the salvo that Simpson fired back after Rajendra Chaudhry’s comment “This Stanley Simpson fella . . . Did he organise any marches [against the Bainimarama takeover], did he organise any international attention, did he rally the people against the Bainimarama regime?” and other snipes from the trolls.

    1. FLP [Fiji Labour Party]
    At a period 2006-2007 when journalists were being bashed and beaten and media suppressed — the Fiji Labour Party and Chaudhry went silent as they lay in bed with the military regime.

    Rajendra Chaudhry's criticism
    Rajendra Chaudhry’s criticism. Image: APR screenshot

    “They try to gloss over it by saying the 1997 constitution was still intact. It was intact but useless because you ignored the gross human rights abuses against the media and political opponents.

    “Where was FLP when Imraz, Laisa, Pita and Virisila were beaten? Where were they when Netani Rika, Kenneth Zinck, Momo, Makeli Radua were attacked and abused, when our Fiji Living Office was trashed and burnt down, and Pita and Dionisia put in jail cells like common criminals?

    “It was when Chaudhry took on Fiji Water and it backfired and left the regime that they started to speak out. When Aiyaz [Sayed-Khaiyum, former Attorney-General] replaced him as No. 2. By then too late.

    “Yes FLP — some of us who survived that period are still around and we still remember so you can’t rewrite what happened in 2006-2007 and change the narrative. You failed!”

    “2. Alvick Maharaj [opposition MP for the FijiFirst Party]
    “The funny thing about this statement is that I already knew last night this statement was coming out and who was writing it etc. I even shared with fellow editors and colleagues that the attacks were coming — and how useless and a waste of time it would be as it was being done by people who were silent and made hundreds of thousands of dollars while media were being suppressed [under the draconian Fiji Media Industry Development Act 2010 (MIDA) and other news crackdowns].

    Troll-style swipes
    Troll-style swipes. Image: APR screenshot

    “Ex-Fiji First MPs protecting their former PR colleagues for their platform which has been used to attack their political opponents. We can see through it all because we were not born yesterday and have experience in this industry. We can see what you are doing from a mile away. Its a joke.

    “And your attacks on the [recent State Department] editors’ US trip is pathetic. Plus [about] the visit to Fiji Water.

    “However, the positive I take from this — is that you now both say you believe in media freedom.

    “Ok now practice it. Not only when it suits your agenda and because you are now in Opposition.

    “You failed in the past when you governed — but we in the media will continue to endeavor to treat you fairly.

    “Sometimes that also means calling you out.”

    USP guest speech
    As guest speaker at USP, Simpson had this to say among making other points during his media freedom speech:

    The USP World Press Freedom Day seminar on Monday
    The USP World Press Freedom Day seminar on Monday. Image: USP/APR

    “Journalists today work under the mega spotlight of social media and get attacked, ridiculed and pressured daily — but need to stay true to their journalism principles despite the challenges and pressures they are under.

    “Today, we stand at a crossroads. To students here at USP — future journalists, leaders, and citizens — remember the previous chapter [under FijiFirst]. Understand the price paid for media freedom. Protect it fiercely. Speak out when it’s threatened, even if it’s unpopular or uncomfortable.

    “To our nation’s leaders and influencers: defend a free media, even when it challenges you. A healthy democracy requires tolerance of criticism and commitment to transparency.”

    • Fiji rose four places to 40th (out of 180 nations) in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index to make the country the Oceania media freedom leader outside of Australia (29) and New Zealand (16).

  • NZ Māori Council, PSNA appeal for urgent action over Gaza starvation

    Asia Pacific Report

    The New Zealand Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa made a high profile appeal to Foreign Minister Winston Peters over Gaza today, calling for urgent action over humanitarian supplies for the besieged Palestinian enclave.

    “Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court,” said the open letter published by the two organisations as full page advertisements in three leading daily newspapers.

    Noting that New Zealand has not joined the International Court of Justice for standing up to “condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war”, the groups still called on the government to use its “internationally respected voice” to express solidarity for humanitarian aid.

    The plea comes amid Israel’s increased attacks on Gaza which have killed at least 61 people since dawn, targeting civilians in crowded places and a Gaza City market.

    The more than two-month blockade by the the enclave by Israel has caused acute food shortages, accelerating the starvation of the Palestinian population.

    Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies — while more than 3000 trucks laden with supplies are stranded on the Egyptian border blocked from entry into Gaza.

    At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade. The overall death toll, revised in view of bodies buried under the rubble, stands at 62,614 Palestinians and 1139 people killed in Israel.

    The open letter, publlshed by three Stuff-owned titles — Waikato Times in Hamilton, The Post in the capital Wellington, and The Press in Christchurch, said:

    Rt Hon Winston Peters
    Minister of Foreign Affairs
    Winston.Peters@parliament.govt.nz

    Open letter requesting government action on the future of Gaza

    Kia ora Mr Peters,

    The situation in Occupied Gaza has reached another crisis point.

    We urge our country to speak out and join other nations demanding humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

    For more than two months, Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies. The World Food Programme says food stocks in Gaza are fully depleted. UNICEF says children face “growing risk of starvation, illness and death”. The International Committee of the Red Cross says “the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse”.

    Meanwhile, 3000 trucks laden with desperately needed aid are lined up at the Occupied Gaza border. Israeli occupation forces are refusing to allow them in.

    Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of International Humanitarian Law and a War Crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court.

    At the International Court of Justice many countries have stood up to condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war and to demand accountability for Israel to end its industrial-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

    New Zealand has not joined that group. Our government has been silent to date.

    After 18 months facing what the International Court of Justice has described as a “plausible genocide”, it is grievous that New Zealand does not speak out and act clearly against this ongoing humanitarian outrage.

    Minister Peters, as Minister of Foreign Affairs you are in a position of leadership to carry New Zealand’s collective voice in support of humanitarian aid to Gaza to the world. We are asking you to speak on behalf of New Zealand to support the urgent international plea for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and to initiate calls for a no-fly zone to be established over the region to prevent further mass killing of civilians.

    We believe the way forward for peace and security for everyone in the region is for all parties to follow international law and United Nations resolutions, going back to UNGA 194 in 1948, so that a lasting peace can be established based on justice and equal rights for everyone.

    New Zealand has an internationally respected voice — please use it to express solidarity for humanitarian aid to Gaza, today.

    Nā

    Ann Kendall QSM, Co-chair
    Tā Taihākurei Durie, Pou [cultural leader]
    NZ Māori Council

    Maher Nazzal and John Minto, National Co-chairs
    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)

    The NZ Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa advertisement
    The NZ Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa advertisement in New Zealand media today. Image: PSNA


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New Caledonia’s political talks – no outcome after three days of ‘conclave’

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific Desk

    After three solid days of talks in retreat mode, New Caledonia’s political parties have yet to reach an agreement on the French Pacific territory’s future status.

    The talks, held with French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and French Prime Minister’s special advisor Eric Thiers, have since Monday moved from Nouméa to a seaside resort in Bourail — on the west coast of the main island, about 200 km from the capital — in what has been labelled a “conclave”, a direct reference to this week’s meeting of Catholic cardinals in Rome to elect a new pope.

    However, the Bourail conclave is yet to produce any kind of white smoke, and no one, as yet, claims “Habemus Pactum” to say that an agreement has been reached.

    Under heavy security, representatives of both pro-France and pro-independence parties are being kept in isolation and are supposed to stay there until a compromise is found to define New Caledonia’s political future, and an agreement that would later serve as the basis for a pact designed to replace the Nouméa Accord that was signed in 1998.

    The talks were supposed to conclude yesterday, but it has been confirmed that the discussions were going to last longer, at least one more day, probably well into the night.

    Valls was initially scheduled to fly back to Paris today, but it has also been confirmed that he will stay longer.

    Almost one year after civil unrest broke out in New Caledonia on 13 May 2024, leaving 14 dead and causing 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.2 billion) in damage, the talks involve pro-France Les Loyalistes, Le Rassemblement, Calédonie Ensemble and pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), UNI-PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).

    Wallisian ‘third way’
    Éveil Océanien, a Wallisian-based party, defends a “neither pro, nor against independence” line — what it calls a “third way”.

    The talks, over the past few days, have been described as “tense but respectful”, with some interruptions at times.

    The most sensitive issues among the numerous topics covered by the talks on New Caledonia’s future, are reported to be the question of New Caledonia’s future status and relationship to France.

    Other sensitive topics include New Caledonia’s future citizenship and the transfer of remaining key powers (defence, law and order, currency, foreign affairs, justice) from Paris to Nouméa.

    Valls, who is visiting New Caledonia for the third time since February 2025, said he would stay in New Caledonia “as long as necessary” for an inclusive and comprehensive agreement to be reached.

    Earlier this week, Valls also likened the current situation as “walking on a tightrope above embers.”

    “The choice is between an agreement and chaos,” he told local media.

    Clashing demands
    On both sides of the discussion table, local parties have all stated earlier that bearing in mind their respective demands, they were “not ready to sign at all costs.”

    The FLNKS is demanding full sovereignty while on the pro-France side, that view is rejected after three referendums were held there between 2018 and 2021 said no to independence.

    Valls’s approach was still trying to reconcile those two very antagonistic views, often described as “irreconcilable”.

    “But the thread is not broken. Only more time is required”, local media quoted a close source as saying.

    Last week, an earlier session of talks in Nouméa had to be interrupted due to severe frictions and disagreement from the pro-France side.

    Speaking to public broadcaster NC la 1ère on Sunday, Rassemblement leader Virginie Ruffenach elaborated, saying “there had been profound elements of disagreements on a certain number of words uttered by the minister (Valls)”.

    One of the controversial concepts, strongly opposed by the most radical pro-French parties, was a possible transfer of key powers from Paris to Nouméa, as part of a possible agreement.

    Loyalists opposed to ‘independence-association’
    “In what was advanced, the land of New Caledonia would no longer be a French land”, Ruffenach stressed on Sunday, adding this was “unacceptable” to her camp.

    She also said the two main pro-France parties were opposed to any notion of “independence-association”.

    “Neither Rassemblement, nor Les Loyalistes will sign for New Caledonia’s independence, let this be very clear.”

    The pro-France camp is advocating for increased powers (including on tax matters) for each of the three provinces of New Caledonia, a solution sometimes regarded by critics as a form of partition of the French Pacific territory.

    In a media release on Sunday, FLNKS “reaffirmed its . . . ultimate goal was Kanaky (New Caledonia’s) accession to full sovereignty”.

    Series of fateful anniversaries
    On the general public level, a feeling of high expectations, but also wariness, seems to prevail at the news that discussions were still inconclusive.

    In 1988, the Matignon-Oudinot peace talks between pro-independence leader at the time, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, were also held, in their final stage, in Paris, behind closed doors, under the close supervision of French Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

    The present crucial talks also coincide with a series of fateful anniversaries in New Caledonia’s recent history — on 5 May 1988, French special forces ended a hostage situation and intervened on Ouvéa Island in the Gossana grotto, where a group of hard-line pro-independent militants had held a group of French gendarmes.

    The human toll was heavy: 19 Kanak militants and 2 gendarmes were killed.

    On 4 May 1989, one year after the Matignon-Oudinot peace accords were signed, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his deputy Yeiwene Yeiwene were gunned down by hard-line pro-independence Kanak activist Djubelly Wea.

    Valls attended most of these commemoration ceremonies at the weekend.

    On 5 May 1998, the 27-year-old Nouméa Accord was signed between New Caledonia’s parties and then French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

    De facto Constitution
    The Nouméa pact, which is often regarded as a de facto Constitution, was placing a particular stress on the notions of “re-balancing” economic wealth, a “common destiny” for all ethnic communities “living together” and a gradual transfer of powers from Paris to Nouméa.

    The Accord also prescribed that if three self-determination referendums (initially scheduled between 2014 and 2018) had produced three rejections (in the form of “no”), then all political stakeholders were supposed to “meet and examine the situation thus generated”.

    The current talks aimed at arriving at a new document, which was destined to replace the Nouméa Accord and bring New Caledonia closer to having its own Constitution.

    Valls said he was determined to “finalise New Caledonia’s decolonisation” process.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Expulsion and Occupation: Israel’s Proposed Gaza Plan

    Killing civilians wholesale, starving them to convince those unaffected to change course, and shepherding whole populations like livestock into conditions of further misery would all qualify as heinous crimes in international law.  When it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza, this approach is seen as necessary politics, unalloyed by the restraints of humanitarianism.  When confronted with these harsh realities on the ground, unequivocal denials follow: This is not happening in Gaza; no one is starving. And if that were the case, blame those misguided savages in Hamas.

    As the conflict chugs along in pools of blood and bountiful gore, the confused shape of Israel’s intentions continues in all its glorious nebulousness.  Pretend moderation clouds murderous desire.  There is no sense that those unfortunate Israeli hostages captured by Hamas in its assault on October 7, 2023, matter anymore, being merely decorative for the imminent slaughter.  There is even less sense that Hamas will be cleansed and removed from the strip, however attractive this idea continues to be.

    Such evident limits have not discouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, who have decided that more force, that old province of the unimaginative, is the answer.  According to the PM, the cabinet had agreed on a “forceful operation” to eliminate Hamas and salvage what is left of the hostage situation.

    A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier-General Effie Defrin, has explained on Israeli radio that the offensive will apparently ensure the return of the hostages.  What follows will be “the collapse of the Hamas regime, its defeat, its submission”.  Anywhere up to two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza will be herded into the ruins of the south.  Humanitarian aid will be arranged by the Israeli forces to be possibly distributed through approved contractors.

    The IDF chief of staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamir, confirmed that the approved plan will involve “the capture of the Strip and holding the territories, moving the Gazan population south for its defence, denying Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian supplies, and powerful attacks against Hamas.”

    Within the Israeli cabinet, ethnocentric and religious fires burn with bright fanaticism.  The Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich remains a figure who ignores floral subtlety in favour of the blood-stained sledgehammer.  He remains that coherent link between cruel lawmaking and baffling violence.  “Within a few months,” he boasts, “we will be able to declare that we have won.  Gaza will be totally destroyed.”  With pompous certitude, he also claimed that the next six months would see Hamas cease to exist.

    Such opinions, expressed at the “Settlements Conference” organised by the Makor Rishon newspaper in Ofra, a West Bank settlement, give a sense of the flavour.  Palestinians are to be “concentrated” on land located between the Egyptian border and the arbitrarily designated Morag Corridor.  As with any potential abuser keen to violate his vulnerable charges while justifying it, Smotrich tried to impress with the idea that this was a “humanitarian” zone that would be free of “Hamas and terrorism”.

    The program here is clear in its chilling crudeness.  Expulsion, relocation, transfer.  These are the words famously used to move on populations of a sizeable number in history, often at enormous cost.  That this should involve lawmakers of the Jewish state adds a stunning, if perverse, poignancy to this.  They, the moved on in history, the expelled and the condemned wanderers, shall expel others and condemn them in turn.  Smotrich also points the finger at desperation and hopelessness, the biting incentives that propel migration.  The Palestinians will feel blessed in their banishment.  “They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”

    Impossible to ignore in Smotrich’s steaming bile against the Palestinians is the broader view that no Palestinian state can arise, necessitating urgent, preventative poisoning.  In addition to the eventual depopulation of Gaza, plans to reconstitute the contours of the West Bank, ensuring that Israeli and Palestinian traffic are separated to enable building and construction for settlements as a prelude to annexation, are to be implemented.

    The issue of twisting and mangling humanitarian aid in favour of Israel’s territorial lust has raised some tart commentary.  A statement from the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a forum led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), does not shy away from the realities on the ground.  All supplies, including those vital to survival, have been blocked for nine weeks.  Bakeries and community kitchens have closed, while warehouses are empty.  Hunger, notably among children, is rampant.  Israel’s plan, as presented, “will mean that large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies.”

    The UN Secretary General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator have confirmed that they will not cooperate in the scheme, as it “does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality.”

    The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have made the same point.  Despite all being solid allies of Israel, they have warned that violations of international law are taking place.  “Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and a Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change”.

    To date, a promise lingers that the offensive will only commence once US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar takes place.  But no ongoing savaging of Gaza with some crude effort at occupation will solve the historical vortex that continues to drag the Jewish state to risk and oblivion.

    The post Expulsion and Occupation: Israel’s Proposed Gaza Plan first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Financial Times: The West’s shameful silence on Gaza – do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu

    EDITORIAL: The Financial Times editorial board

    After 19 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and drawn accusations of war crimes against Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is once more preparing to escalate Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

    The latest plan puts Israel on course for full occupation of the Palestinian territory and would drive Gazans into ever-narrowing pockets of the shattered strip.

    It would lead to more intensive bombing and Israeli forces clearing and holding territory, while destroying what few structures remain in Gaza.

    This would be a disaster for 2.2 million Gazans who have already endured unfathomable suffering.

    Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that the ultimate goal of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land. For two months, Israel has blocked delivery of all aid into the strip.

    Child malnutrition rates are rising, the few functioning hospitals are running out of medicine, and warnings of starvation and disease are growing louder. Yet the US and European countries that tout Israel as an ally that shares their values have issued barely a word of condemnation.

    They should be ashamed of their silence, and stop enabling Netanyahu to act with impunity.

    In brief remarks on Sunday, US President Donald Trump acknowledged Gazans were “starving”, and suggested Washington would help get food into the strip.

    But, so far, the US president has only emboldened Netanyahu. Trump returned to the White House promising to end the war in Gaza after his team helped broker a January ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

    Under the deal, Hamas agreed to free hostages in phases, while Israel was to withdraw from Gaza and the foes were to reach a permanent ceasefire.

    But within weeks of the truce taking hold, Trump announced an outlandish plan for Gaza to be emptied of Palestinians and taken over by the US.

    In March, Israel collapsed the ceasefire as it sought to change the terms of the deal, with Washington’s backing. Senior Israeli officials have since said they are implementing Trump’s plan to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.

    On Monday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip.”

    Netanyahu insists an expanded offensive is necessary to destroy Hamas and free the 59 remaining hostages. The reality is that the prime minister has never articulated a clear plan since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack killed 1200 people and triggered the war.

    Instead, he repeats his maximalist mantra of “total victory” while seeking to placate his extremist allies to ensure the survival of his governing coalition.

    But Israel is also paying a price for his actions. The expanded offensive would imperil the lives of the hostages, further undermine Israel’s tarnished standing and deepen domestic divisions.

    Israel has briefed that the expanded operation would not begin until after Trump’s visit to the Gulf next week, saying there is a “window” for Hamas to release hostages in return for a temporary truce.

    Arab leaders are infuriated by Netanyahu’s relentless pursuit of conflict in Gaza yet they will fete Trump at lavish ceremonies with promises of multibillion-dollar investments and arms deals.

    Trump will put the onus on Hamas when speaking to his Gulf hosts. The group’s murderous October 7 attack is what triggered the Israeli offensive.

    Gulf states agree that its continued stranglehold on Gaza is a factor prolonging the war. But they must stand up to Trump and convince him to pressure Netanyahu to end the killing, lift the siege and return to talks.

    The global tumult triggered by Trump has already distracted attention from the catastrophe in Gaza. Yet the longer it goes on, the more those who remain silent or cowed from speaking out will be complicit.

    This editorial was published by the London Financial Times under the original title “The west’s shameful silence on Gaza: The US and European allies should do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu” on May 6, 2025.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Under no illusions’ about France, says author of new Rainbow Warrior book

    Pacific Media Watch

    The author of the book Eyes of Fire, one of the countless publications on the Rainbow Warrior bombing almost 40 years ago but the only one by somebody actually on board the bombed ship, says he was under no illusions that France was behind the attack.

    Journalist David Robie was speaking last month at a Greenpeace Aotearoa workship at Mātauri Bay for environmental activists and revealed that he has a forthcoming new book to mark the anniversary of the bombing.

    “I don’t think I had any illusions at the time. For me, I knew it was the French immediately the bombing happened,” he said.

    Eyes of Fire
    Eyes of Fire . . . the earlier 30th anniversary edition in 2015. Image: Little Island Press/DR

    “You know with the horrible things they were doing at the time with their colonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, assassinating independence leaders and so on, and they had a heavy military presence.

    “A sort of clamp down in New Caledonia, so it just fitted in with the pattern — an absolute disregard for the Pacific.”

    He said it was ironic that four decades on, France had trashed the goodwill that had been evolving with the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa accords towards independence with harsh new policies that led to the riots in May last year.

    Dr Robie’s series of books on the Rainbow Warrior focus on the impact of nuclear testing by both the Americans and the French, in particular, on Pacific peoples and especially the humanitarian voyages to relocate the Rongelap Islanders in the Marshall Islands barely two months before the bombing at Marsden wharf in Auckland on 10 July 1985.

    Detained by French military
    He was detained by the French military while on assignment in New Caledonia a year after Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior was first published in New Zealand.

    His reporting won the NZ Media Peace Prize in 1985.


    David Robie’s 2025 talk on the Rainbow Warrior.     Video: Greenpeace Aotearoa

    Dr Robie confirmed that Little island Press was publishing a new book this year with a focus on the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

    Plantu's cartoon on the Rainbow Warrior bombers
    Plantu’s cartoon on the Rainbow Warrior bombers from the slideshow. Image: David Robie/Plantu

    “This edition is the most comprehensive work on the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, but also speaks to the first humanitarian mission undertaken by Greenpeace,” said publisher Tony Murrow.

    “It’s an important work that shows us how we can act in the world and how we must continue to support all life on this unusual planet that is our only home.”

    Little Island Press produced an educational microsite as a resource to accompany Eyes of Fire with print, image and video resources.

    The book will be launched in association with a nuclear-free Pacific exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre in mid-July.

    Find out more at the Eyes of Fire microsite
    Find out more at the microsite: eyes-of-fire.littleisland.co.nz

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Samoa down in RSF media freedom world ranking due to ‘authoritarian pressure’

    Talamua Online News

    Samoa has dropped in its media and information freedom world ranking from 22 in 2024 to 44 in 2025 in the latest World Press Freedom Index compiled annually by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    For the Pacific region, New Zealand is ranked highest at 16, Australia at 29, Fiji at 40, Samoa ranked 44 and Tonga at 46.

    And for some comfort, the United States is ranked 57 in media freedom.

    The 2025 World Press Freedom Index released in conjunction with the annual Media Freedom Day on May 3, says despite the vitality of some of its media groups, Samoa’s reputation as a regional model of press freedom has suffered in recent years due to “authoritarian pressure” from the previous prime minister and a political party that held power for four decades until 2021.

    Media landscape
    The report lists independent media outlets such as the Samoa Observer, “an independent daily founded in 1978, that has symbolised the fight for press freedom.”

    It also lists state-owned Savali newspaper “that focuses on providing positive coverage of the government’s activities.”

    TV1, is the product of the privatisation of the state-owned Samoa Broadcasting Corporation. The Talamua group operates Samoa FM and other media outlets, while the national radio station 2AP calls itself “the Voice of the Nation.”

    Political context
    Although Samoa is a parliamentary democracy with free elections, the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) held power for four decades until it was narrowly defeated in the April 2021 general election by Samoa United in Faith (Faʻatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi, or FAST).

    An Oceania quick check list on the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom rankings
    An Oceania quick check list on the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom rankings. While RSF surveys 180 countries each year, only Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Tonga are included so far. Image: PMW from RSF

    The report says part of the reason for the HRPP’s defeat was its plan to overhaul Samoa’s constitutional and customary law framework, which would have threatened freedom of the press.

    Championing media freedom
    The Journalists Association of (Western) Samoa (JAWS) is the national media association and is press freedom’s leading champion. JAWS spearheaded a media journalism studies programme based at the National University of Samoa in the effort to train journalists and promote media freedom but the course is not producing the quality journalism students needed as its focus, time and resources have been given the course.

    Meanwhile, the media standards continue to slide and there is fear that the standards will drop further in the face of rapid technological changes and misinformation via social media.

    A new deal for journalism
    The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by RSF revealed the dire state of the news economy and how it severely threatens newsrooms’ editorial independence and media pluralism.

    In light of this alarming situation, RSF has called on public authorities, private actors and regional institutions to commit to a “New Deal for Journalism” by following 11 key recommendations.

    Strengthen media literacy and journalism training
    Part of this deal is “supporting reliable information means that everyone should be trained from an early age to recognise trustworthy information and be involved in media education initiatives. University and higher education programmes in journalism must also be supported, on the condition that they are independent.”

    Finland (5th) is recognised worldwide for its media education, with media literacy programmes starting in primary school, contributing to greater resilience against disinformation.

    Republished from Talamua Online News.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Martial Law Disguised as Law and Order: The Oldest Trick in the Authoritarian Playbook

    “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison

    We are being frog-marched into tyranny at the end of a loaded gun. Or rather, hundreds of thousands of loaded guns.

    Let’s not mince words: President Trump’s April 28 executive order is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook: martial law masquerading as law and order.

    Officially titled “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens,” this order is a “heil Hitler” wrapped in the goosestepping, despotic trappings of national security.

    Don’t be fooled by Trump’s tough-on-crime rhetoric, cloaked in patriotic language and the promise of safety.

    This is the language of every strongman who’s ever ruled by force.

    The White House claims the order will “empower state and local law enforcement to relentlessly pursue criminals and protect American communities.” But under this administration, “criminal” increasingly includes anyone who dares to exercise their constitutional rights.

    The order doesn’t merely expand policing—it institutionalizes repression.

    It sets us squarely on the road to martial law.

    If allowed to stand, Trump’s executive order completes our shift from a nation of laws, where even the least among us had the right to due process, to a nation of enforcers: vigilantes with badges who treat “we the people” as suspects and subordinates.

    Without invoking the Insurrection Act or deploying active-duty military forces, Trump has accelerated the transformation of domestic police into his own paramilitary force.

    With the stroke of his presidential pen, he has laid the groundwork for a stealth version of martial law by:

    • Expanding police powers and legal protections;
    • Authorizing the DOJ to defend officers accused of civil rights violations;
    • Increasing the transfer of military equipment to local police;
    • Shielding law enforcement from judicial oversight;
    • Prioritizing law enforcement protection over civil liberties;
    • Embedding DHS and federal agents more deeply into local policing.

    All of this has occurred without congressional debate, judicial review, or constitutional scrutiny.

    For years, we have watched as the government transformed local law enforcement into extensions of the military: outfitted with military hardware and trained in battlefield tactics.

    However, this executive order goes one step further—it creates not just a de facto standing army but Trump’s own army: loyal not to the Constitution or the people but to the president.

    This is the very danger the Founders feared: a militarized police force answerable to a powerful executive, operating outside the bounds of the law.

    This is martial law without a declaration.

    Today, law enforcement is equipped like the military, trained in battlefield tactics, and given broad discretion over who to target and how to respond. But these are not soldiers bound by the laws of war. They are civilian enforcers, wielding unchecked power with minimal oversight.

    And they are everywhere.

    Armored vehicles on neighborhood streets. Flashbang raids on family homes. Riot police in small towns. SWAT-style teams deployed by federal agencies. Drones overhead. Mass surveillance below.

    We are fast approaching a reality where constitutional rights exist in name only.

    In practice, we are ruled by a quasi-military bureaucracy empowered to:

    • Detain without trial;
    • Punish political dissent;
    • Seize property under civil asset forfeiture;
    • Classify critics as extremists or terrorists;
    • Conduct mass surveillance on the populace;
    • Raid homes in the name of “public safety”;
    • Use deadly force at the slightest provocation.

    In other words, we’ve got freedom in name only.

    It’s the same scenario nationwide: in big cities and small towns alike, militarized “warrior” cops—hyped up on power—ride roughshod over individual rights by exercising almost absolute discretion over who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

    This nationwide epidemic of court-sanctioned police violence has already ensured that unarmed Americans—many of them mentally ill, elderly, disabled, or simply noncompliant—will continue to die at the hands of militarized police.

    From individuals shot for holding garden hoses to those killed after calling 911 for help, these tragedies underscore a chilling truth: in a police state, the only truly “safe” person is one who offers no resistance at all.

    These killings are the inevitable result of a system that rewards vigilante aggression by warrior cops and punishes accountability.

    These so-called warrior cops, trained to act as judge, jury, and executioner, increasingly outnumber those who still honor their oath to uphold the Constitution and serve the public.

    Now, under the cover of executive orders and nationalist rhetoric, that warrior mentality is being redirected toward a more dangerous mission: silencing political dissent.

    Emboldened by Trump’s call to reopen Alcatraz and target so-called “homegrown” threats, these foot soldiers of the police state are no longer going to be tasked with enforcing the law—they will be deployed to enforce political obedience.

    This is not a theory. It is a reality unfolding before our eyes.

    We are living in a creeping state of undeclared martial law.

    The militarization of police and federal agencies over recent decades has only accelerated the timeline toward authoritarianism.

    This is how freedom ends—not with a loud decree, but with the quiet, calculated erosion of every principle we once held sacred.

    We’ve come full circle—from resisting British redcoats to submitting to American forces with the same disdain for liberty.

    Our constitutional foundation is crumbling, and with it, any illusion that those in power still serve the public good.

    For its part, Congress has abdicated its role as a constitutional check on executive power, passing sweeping authorizations with little scrutiny and failing to rein in executive overreach. The courts, too, have in the past sanctioned many of these abuses in the name of national security, public order, or qualified immunity. Instead of acting as constitutional safeguards, these institutions have largely become rubber stamps.

    Indeed, the president, Congress, the courts, and the police have come to embody the very abuse the Founders fought to resist. Only now are the courts beginning to show glimmers of allegiance to the Constitution.

    This is not about partisanship. This is about power without restraint.

    As tempting as it is to place full blame on Trump for this full-throttle shift into martial law, he is not the architect of this police state. He is its most shameless enabler—a useful frontman for the Deep State in its ongoing war on the American people.

    As we warned in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we are sliding fast down a slippery slope to a Constitution-free America.

    We ignore these signs at our peril.

    The post Martial Law Disguised as Law and Order: The Oldest Trick in the Authoritarian Playbook first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Indonesian postcard image ‘dangerous’ but Fiji a rising star in RSF press freedom index

    Pacific Media Watch

    To mark the release of the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) partnered with the agency The Good Company to launch a new awareness campaign that puts an ironic twist on the glossy advertising of the tourism industry.

    Three out of six countries featured in the exposé are from the Asia Pacific region — but none from the Pacific Islands.

    The campaign shines a stark light on the press freedom violations in countries that seem perfect on postcards but are highly dangerous for journalists, says RSF.

    It is a striking campaign raising awareness about repression.

    Fiji (44th out of 180 ranked nations) is lucky perhaps as three years ago when its draconian media law was still in place, it might have bracketed up there with the featured “chilling” tourism countries such as Indonesia (127) — which is rapped over its treatment of West Papua resistance and journalists.

    Disguised as attractive travel guides, the campaign’s visuals use a cynical, impactful rhetoric to highlight the harsh realities journalists face in destinations renowned for their tourist appeal.

    Along with Indonesia, Greece (89th), Cambodia (115), Egypt (170), Mexico (124) and the Philippines (116) are all visited by millions of tourists, yet they rank poorly in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, reports RSF.

    ‘Chilling narrative’
    “The attention-grabbing visuals juxtapose polished, enticing aesthetics with a chilling narrative of intimidation, censorship, violence, and even death.

    “This deliberately unsettling approach by RSF aims to shift the viewer’s perspective, showing what the dreamlike imagery conceals: journalists imprisoned, attacked, or murdered behind idyllic landscapes.”


    The RSF Index 2025 teaser.     Video: RSF

    Indonesia is in the Pacific spotlight because of its Melanesian Papuan provinces bordering Pacific Islands Forum member country Papua New Guinea.

    Despite outgoing President Joko Widodo’s 10 years in office and a reformist programme, his era has been marked by a series of broken promises, reports RSF.

    “The media oligarchy linked to political interests has grown stronger, leading to increased control over critical media and manipulation of information through online trolls, paid influencers, and partisan outlets,” says the Index report.

    “This climate has intensified self-censorship within media organisations and among journalists.

    “Since October 2024, Indonesia has been led by a new president, former general Prabowo Subianto — implicated in several human rights violation allegations — and by Joko Widodo’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as vice-president.

    “Under this new administration, whose track record on press freedom offers little reassurance, concerns are mounting over the future of independent journalism.”

    Fiji leads in Pacific
    In the Pacific, Fiji has led the pack among island states by rising four places to 40th overall, making it the leading country in Oceania in 2025 in terms of press freedom.

    A quick summary of Oceania rankings in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index
    A quick summary of Oceania rankings in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index. Image: RSF/PMW

    Both Timor-Leste, which dropped 19 places to 39th after heading the region last year, and Samoa, which plunged 22 places to 44th, lost their impressive track record.

    Of the only other two countries in Oceania surveyed by RSF, Tonga rose one place to 46th and Papua New Guinea jumped 13 places to 78th, a surprising result given the controversy over its plans to regulate the media.

    RSF reports that the Fiji Media Association (FMA), which was often critical of the harassment of the media by the previous FijiFirst government, has since the repeal of the Media Act in 2023 “worked hard to restore independent journalism and public trust in the media”.

    In March 2024, research published in Journalism Practice journal found that sexual harassment of women journalists was widespread and needed to be addressed to protect media freedom and quality journalism.

    In Timor-Leste, “politicians regard the media with some mistrust, which has been evidenced in several proposed laws hostile to press freedom, including one in 2020 under which defaming representatives of the state or Catholic Church would have been punishable by up to three years in prison.

    “Journalists’ associations and the Press Council often criticise politicisation of the public broadcaster and news agency.”

    On the night of September 4, 2024, Timorese police arrested Antonieta Kartono Martins, a reporter for the news site Diligente Online, while covering a police operation to remove street vendors from a market in Dili, the capital. She was detained for several hours before being released.

    Samoan harassment
    Previously enjoying a good media freedom reputation, journalists and their families in Samoa were the target of online death threats, prompting the Samoan Alliance of Media Professionals for Development (SAMPOD) to condemn the harassment as “attacks on the fourth estate and democracy”.

    In Tonga, RSF reports that journalists are not worried about being in any physical danger when on the job, and they are relatively unaffected by the possibility of prosecution.

    “Nevertheless, self-censorship continues beneath the surface in a tight national community.”

    In Papua New Guinea, RSF reports journalists are faced with intimidation, direct threats, censorship, lawsuits and bribery attempts, “making it a dangerous profession”.

    “And direct interference often threatens the editorial freedom at leading media outlets. This was seen yet again at EMTV in February 2022, when the entire newsroom was fired after walking out” in protest over a management staffing decison.

    “There has been ongoing controversy since February 2023 concerning a draft law on media development backed by Communications Minister Timothy Masiu. In January 2024, a 14-day state of emergency was declared in the capital, Port Moresby, following unprecedented protests by police forces and prison wardens.”

    This impacted on government and media relations.

    Australia and New Zealand
    In Australia (29), the media market’s heavy concentration limits the diversity of voices represented in the news, while independent outlets struggle to find a sustainable economic model.

    While New Zealand (16) leads in the Asia Pacific region, it is also facing a similar situation to Australia with a narrowing of media plurality, closure or merging of many newspaper titles, and a major retrenchment of journalists in the country raising concerns about democracy.

    Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Cook Islands environment group calls on govt to condemn Trump’s seabed mining order

    By Losirene Lacanivalu, of the Cook Islands News

    A leading Cook Islands environmental lobby group is hoping that the Cook Islands government will speak out against the recent executive order from US President Donald Trump aimed at fast-tracking seabed mining.

    Te Ipukarea Society (TIS) says the arrogance of US president Trump to think that he could break international law by authorising deep seabed mining in international waters was “astounding”, and an action of a “bully”.

    Trump signed the America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources order late last month, directing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to allow deep sea mining permits.

    The order states: “It is the policy of the US to advance United States leadership in seabed mineral development.”

    NOAA has been directed to, within 60 days, “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits in areas beyond national jurisdiction under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.”

    It directs the US science and environmental agency to expedite permits for companies to mine the ocean floor in the US and international waters.

    In addition, a Canadian mining company — The Metals Company — has indicated that they have applied for a permit from Trump’s administration to start commercially mining in international waters.

    The mining company had been unsuccessful in gaining a commercial mining licence through the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

    ‘Arrogance of Trump’
    Te Ipukarea Society’s technical director Kelvin Passfield told Cook Islands News: “The arrogance of Donald Trump to think that he can break international law by authorising deep seabed mining in international waters is astounding.

    “The United States cannot pick and choose which aspects of the United Nations Law of the Sea it will follow, and which ones it will ignore. This is the action of a bully,” he said.

    “It is reckless and completely dismissive of the international rule of law. At the moment we have 169 countries, plus the European Union, all recognising international law under the International Seabed Authority.

    “For one country to start making new international rules for themselves is a dangerous notion, especially if it leads to other States thinking they too can also breach international law with no consequences,” he said.

    TIS president June Hosking said the fact that a part of the Pacific (CCZ) was carved up and shared between nations all over the world was yet another example of “blatantly disregarding or overriding indigenous rights”.

    “I can understand why something had to be done to protect the high seas from rogues having a ‘free for all’, but it should have been Pacific indigenous and first nations groups, within and bordering the Pacific, who decided what happened to the high seas.

    “That’s the first nations groups, not for example, the USA as it is today.”

    South American countries worried
    Hosking highlighted that at the March International Seabed Authority (ISA) assembly she attended it was obvious that South American countries were worried.

    “Many have called for a moratorium. Portugal rightly pointed out that we were all there, at great cost, just for a commercial activity. The delegate said, ‘We must ask ourselves how does this really benefit all of humankind?’

    Looking at The Metals Company’s interests to commercially mine in international waters, Hosking said, “I couldn’t help being annoyed that all this talk assumes mining will happen.

    “ISA was formed at a time when things were assumed about the deep sea e.g. it’s just a desert down there, nothing was known for sure, we didn’t speak of climate crisis, waste crisis and other crises now evident.

    “The ISA mandate is ‘to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from the harmful effects that may arise from deep seabed related activities.

    “We know much more (but still not enough) to consider that effective protection of the marine environment may require it to be declared a ‘no go zone’, to be left untouched for the good of humankind,” she added.

    Meanwhile, technical director Passfield also added, “The audacity of The Metals Company (TMC) to think they can flaunt international law in order to get an illegal mining licence from the United States to start seabed mining in international waters is a sad reflection of the morality of Gerard Barron and others in charge of TMC.

    ‘What stops other countries?’
    “If the USA is allowed to authorise mining in international waters under a domestic US law, what is stopping any other country in the world from enacting legislation and doing the same?”

    He said that while the Metals Company may be frustrated at the amount of time that the International Seabed Authority is taking to finalise mining rules for deep seabed mining, “we are sure they fully understand that this is for good reason. The potentially disastrous impacts of mining our deep ocean seabed need to be better understood, and this takes time.”

    He said that technology and infrastructure to mine is not in place yet.

    “We need to take as much time as we need to ensure that if mining proceeds, it does not cause serious damage to our ocean. Their attempts to rush the process are selfish, greedy, and driven purely by a desire to profit at any cost to the environment.

    “We hope that the Cook Islands Government speaks out against this abuse of international law by the United States.” Cook Islands News has reached out to the Office of the Prime Minister and Seabed Minerals Authority (SBMA) for comment.

    Republished from the Cook Islands News with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji media welcomes credible news services, but not ‘pop-up propagandists’, says Simpson

    By Anish Chand

    Entities and individuals that thrived under the previous government with public relations contracts now want to be part of the media or run media organisations, says Fiji Media Association (FMA) secretary Stanley Simpson.

    He made the comments yesterday while speaking at a World Press Freedom Day event hosted by the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific.

    “We were attacked by fake accounts and a government-funded propaganda machine,” he said.

    “It is ironic that those who once spinned and attacked the media as irrelevant  — because they said no one reads or watches them anymore — now want to be part of the media or run media organisations.”

    “There are entities and individuals that thrived under the previous government with PR contracts while the media struggled and now want to come and join the hard-fought new media landscape.”

    Simpson said the Fijian media fraternity would welcome credible news services.

    “We have to be wary and careful of entities that pop up overnight and their real agendas.”

    “Particularly those previously involved with political propaganda.

    “And we are noticing a number of these sites seemingly working with political parties and players in pushing agendas and attacking the media and political opponents.”

    Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • DHS Offer for “Voluntary Self-Deportation” Could Harm Undocumented Immigrants

    The Trump administration on Monday announced what it called “historic travel assistance and stipend for voluntary self-deportation,” prompting one expert to issue a warning to undocumented immigrants who may consider the offer. “If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest, and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Two Britons to challenge UK’s ‘weak’ response to climate crisis in Strasbourg court

    Doug Paulley and Kevin Jordan say their lives being ruined, and lack of effective strategy infringes their human rights

    Two men who say they are being failed by the UK’s flawed response to climate breakdown are taking their case to Europe’s top human rights court.

    Doug Paulley and Kevin Jordan say their lives have been ruined by the rising temperatures and extreme weather caused by the climate crisis, and that the government’s response fails to respect their human rights.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Viral video shows Fiji prison chief throwing punches at Suva bar

    RNZ Pacific

    The head of Fiji’s prison service has been caught on camera involved in a fist fight that appears to have taken place at the popular O’Reilley’s Bar in the capital of Suva.

    Sevuloni Naucukidi, the acting Commissioner of the Fiji Corrections Service (FCS), can be seen in the viral video throwing punches at another man as staff at the establishment scramble to contain the situation.

    The 30-second clip of the incident, shared online by The Fiji Times today, had been viewed more than half a million times, with more than 8200 reactions and almost 2000 shares by 1pm (NZT).

    Naucukidi was appointed to act as the Fiji prison chief at the end of March after the FCS Commissioner Dr Jalesi Nakarawa was stood down by the Constitutional Offices Commission following allegations of misbehaviour.

    Fiji's Minister for Justice Siromi Turaga, Minister of Justice, left, and Correction Service acting commissioner Sevuloni Naucukidi. 31 March 2025
    Fiji’s Minister for Justice Siromi Turaga (left) and Correction Service acting Commissioner Sevuloni Naucukidi on 30 March 2025. Image: Fiji Corrections Service/RNZ Pacific

    Police spokesperson Wame Boutolu told The Fiji Times that no complaint had been filed with police regarding the incident.

    The newspaper reported that it was not clear whether the incident took place before or after Naucukidi’s appointment as FCS acting commissioner.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    The Fiji Times reported later that Justice Minister Siromi Turaga had said that a “certain level of decorum is expected at all times — particularly when in uniform, whether that be Bula Friday wear or your official work attire”.

    He made the comments in relation to the controversial video.

    Turaga said preliminary investigations indicated that the footage was from an earlier date.

    “We have contacted the owners of the establishment, who have confirmed that the video likely dates back to early March 2025,” he said.

    The Fiji Times video clip.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • On the Key Points of Contemporary International Relations: Responsibility to Protect and Humanitarian Military Intervention

    War and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

    The R2P is one of the most important features of the post-Cold War global politics and international relations (IR) regarding the relations between war and politics, which was formalized in 2005, focusing on when the international community (the UN) must intervene for human protection purposes. The R2P was officially endorsed by the international community by the unanimous decision of the UN General Assembly as a principle at the UN World Summit in 2005. This agreement was regulated in paragraphs 138−140 of the documents of this World Summit. There are three crucial decisions concerning the principle of the R2P:

    1. Every state is responsible for protecting its population, in general, that means not only the citizens but more broadly all residents living within the territory of the state from four crimes: a) genocide, b) war crimes, c) crimes against humanity, and d) ethnic cleansing.

    2. The international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist states for the sake that they will realize their fundamental responsibility to protect their residents from the four crimes defined in the first decision.

    3. In the case, however, that the state authorities are “manifestly failing” to protect their residents from the four crimes, then the international community has a moral responsibility to take timely and decisive action on a case-by-case basis. In principle, those actions include both coercive and non-coercive measures founded on Chapters VI−VIII of the UN Charter.

    The R2P was, for instance, invoked in some 45 Resolutions by the UNSC, like Resolutions 1970 and 1973 on Libya in 2011. Nevertheless, the R2P principle is directly connected with the principle of Responsible Sovereignty, that is, in fact, the idea that a state’s sovereignty is conditional upon how state authorities are treating their own residents, founded on the belief that the state’s authority arises ultimately from sovereign individuals.

    As a very complex principle, from the international community’s viewpoint, it is, however, generally accepted that the mainstream consensus is that the R2P is best understood as a multifaceted framework or a complex legal and moral norm that embodies many different but related components. Regarding this issue, in 2009, the UN Secretary-General divided the R2P into three pillars, which had important traction in the further discourse:

    1. Pillar I refers to the domestic responsibilities of states to protect their own residents from the four crimes.

    2. Pillar II regards the responsibility of the international community to provide international assistance with the consent of the target state.

    3. Pillar III is focusing on “timely and collective response” in that the international community is taking collective action through the UNSC to protect the people from the four crimes, but without the consent of the target state, i.e., its governmental authorities.

    Nevertheless, although states did not formally sign up to this structure of the three-pillar approach, they, however, help distinguish between different forms of the R2P action. Among other examples, international assistance in Mali or South Sudan was provided within the framework of the R2P and the consent of the governments of Mali and South Sudan (reflecting the Pillar II action) but the military intervention in Libya in 2011 was done without the consent of the Libyan government (reflecting the Pillar III operation).

    Nonetheless, the widest justification for humanitarian intervention within the internationally recognized legal framework of the R2P is to stop or prevent genocide that is seen as the worst possible crime against humanity – the “crime of crimes”. Nevertheless, in practice, it is very difficult to provide a consistent and reliable “just cause” reason for the international humanitarian intervention within the legal framework of the R2P. This is for the very reason that the phenomenon of genocide is usually understood as a deliberate act or even a planned program of mass killings and destruction of the whole human group or a part of it based on ethnic, ideological, political, religious, or similar background. Probably, the most regarded attempt to fix the principles for the international military intervention concerning the R2P is given by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (the ICISS), proposed in 2000 by Canada:

    1. Large-scale loss of life. It can be, nevertheless, real or propagated, with genocidal intent or not, that is the product of several causes like deliberate military-police action, state neglect or inability to act, or a failed state situation (the so-called “failed/rogue state”) (the 1994 Rwandan genocide, for example).

    2. Large-scale ethnic cleansing. Actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forcible expulsion, acts of terror, or raping (for instance, the current holocaust against Palestinians in Gaza).

    Nonetheless, once the criteria for humanitarian intervention are fixed, the next question immediately is on the agenda: Who should decide when the criteria are satisfied? In other words: Who has the “right authority” to authorize military intervention for humanitarian purposes? The generally accepted worldwide answer to these questions is that the only UNSC can authorize a military intervention (what was not done, for instance, in the case of NATO intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 and, therefore, this intervention of 78 days is a pure example of military aggression on a sovereign state). This conclusion reflects, in fact, the UN’s role as the focal source of international law, followed by the UNSC’s responsibility for the protection of international security and peace.

    However, one of the crucial problems became that it may be very difficult to obtain the UNSC’s authorization for military intervention for the very reason that there are five great powers with veto rights (for instance, the USA has almost always used a veto right to bloc any anti-Israeli action by the UNSC). Some of the five members, or all, may be more concerned about the issues of global power, their geopolitical or other goals, etc., than they are concerned with real humanitarian concerns. Nevertheless, the principles on which the R2P idea is founded recognized such a problem by requiring that the UNSC’s authorization has to be obtained before the start of any military intervention, but at the same time accept that alternative options must be available if the UNSC rejects a proposal for the military intervention or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time. Under the R2P, these possible alternatives are that a proposed humanitarian intervention should be considered by the UNGA in an Emergency Special Session or by a regional or sub-regional organization (for instance, the African Union). However, in the very practice, for example, NATO was (mis)used in such matters by serving as a military machine that carries out military interventions, like in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 or Afghanistan in 2001, and later in keeping the order in those occupied territories.

    From one viewpoint, the value of the R2P is still contested, especially among the theoreticians of global politics and IR. However, its supporters defend the principle of the R2P for the reason of its seven crucial (positive) features:

    1. The principle is re-conceptualizing the notion of sovereignty for the very reason that it requires that state sovereignty (independence) is, in fact, a moral responsibility rather than a practical right. In other words, the state has to deserve to be treated as a sovereign by maintaining all international duties, including the R2P.

    2. The principle is focusing on the powerless rather than the powerful people by addressing the rights of the victims to be protected, but not the rights of the state’s authorities to intervene.

    3. The principle of the R2P is establishing a quite clear red line, as it is identifying four crimes as the signal for international action and intervention if necessary.

    4. The consensual support for the R2P among states is very significant, as such consensus is helping international understandings of rightful conduct, especially what concerns the issue of the „Just War“ in the case of the international military intervention.

    5. The principle is broader regarding the operational scope compared to the pure form and understanding of the humanitarian intervention, which poses a false choice between two extremes: to do nothing or to go to war. However, it is argued that the R2P is overcoming such simplistic choice by outlining the broad range of coercive and non-coercive measures which in practice can be used for the sake of encouragement, assistance, and, if necessary, force states to realize their responsibility based on international law and standards.

    6. Although it does not add anything new to international law, the principle of the R2P is drawing attention to a wide range of pre-existing legal responsibilities and, consequently, is helping the international community to focus its attention and responsibility on the real crisis.

    7. Concerning the case of Iraq in 2003, the R2P became at least in the eyes of Westerners, an important principle in restating that the UNSC is the primary legal authorizer of any Pillar III use of force. However, the same policy did not work in the case of NATO aggression on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1999. Why the R2P as a principle is not used by the international community against the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Gazan Palestinians is for the very reason that the West Bank of Israel is the USA.

    What is a Humanitarian Military Intervention (HMI)?

    The principle of the R2P is in direct connection with the question of practical humanitarian military intervention, if necessary. According to the widely accepted academic concept of humanitarian military intervention (HMI), it is a type of military intervention with the focal purpose of humanitarian but not strategic or geopolitical reasons and ultimate objectives. Nevertheless, the term itself became very contested and extremely controversial as it, basically, depends on its various interpretations and understandings. In essence, it is the problem of portraying military intervention as humanitarian to be legally legitimate and morally defensible.

    Nevertheless, in practice, the use of the term HMI is surely evaluative and subjective. Some HMIs, at least in terms of intentions, can be classified as humanitarian if they are motivated primarily by the desire to prevent harm to some group of people, including genocide and ethnic cleansing. We have to understand that in the majority of cases of HMI, there are mixed motives for such intervention – declarative and hidden. The evaluation of HMI can be done in terms of pure outcomes: HMI is really humanitarian only if it is resulting in a practical improvement in conditions and especially a reduction of human suffering.

    There are three deconstructing attitudes regarding HMI:

    1. By presenting HMIs as humanitarian, it is giving them a full framework of moral justification and rightfulness, which means legitimacy. The term HMI serves the interests of humanity by reducing death and physical and mental suffering.

    2. The term intervention refers to different forms of interference in the internal affairs of others (in principle, states). Therefore, the term conceals the fact that the (military) interventions in question are military actions involving the use of force and violence. Consequently, the term humanitarian military intervention (the HMI) is more objective and, therefore, preferred.

    3. The notion of the term humanitarian intervention can reproduce significant power asymmetries. The powers of intervention (in practice, NATO and NATO member states) possess military power and formal moral justification, while the human groups needing protection (in practice, in the developing world) are propagandistically presented as victims living in conditions of chaos and the Middle Ages. Consequently, the term HMI supports the notion of westernization as modernization or even, in fact, Americanization.

    More precisely, HMI is entry into a foreign state or international organization by armed forces with the declarative task to protect residents from a real or alleged persecution or the violation of their human (and in some cases minority) rights. For instance, the Russian military intervention in Chechnya in the 1990s was deemed necessary to protect the rights of the Russian Orthodox minority in the Chechen Muslim environment. However, the legal and political lines of HMI are ambiguous, especially in the cases of moral justification for armed incursions in crisis-affected states for the sake of realizing some strategic and geopolitical aims, as was the case with NATO military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999. All counter-HMI supporters are quoting the Charter of UN which clearly states that all member states of the United Nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. However, on the other hand, the UNSC is authorized with specific interventions. The justification of HMI to protect the lives and rights of people is still under debate over when it is right to intervene and when not to intervene.

    Finally, concerning HMI, the focal questions still remain like:

    1) Balancing of minority and majority rights;

    2) The amount of death and damage that is acceptable during a HMI (the so-called “collateral damage”);

    3) How to reconstruct societies after HMI?

    Both concepts, the R2P and HMI, are in direct connection with the concept of human security. The origins of the concept are traced back to the 1994 UN Human Development Report. The report stated that while the majority of states of the international community secured the freedom and rights of their own residents, individuals, nevertheless, remained vulnerable to different levels of threats like poverty, terrorism, disease, or pollution.

    The concept of human security became supported by academic scholars as an idea that individuals, as opposed to states, should be the referent object of security in IR and security studies. In their opinion, both human security and security studies have to challenge the state-centric view of international security and IR.

    Does in Practice Humanitarian Military Intervention (HMI) Work?

    Regarding any kind of  HMI within the moral and legal framework of the R2P, the focal question became: Do the benefits of HMI outweigh its costs? Or to put the question in a different way: Does the R2P, in fact, save lives?

    The crucial issue is to judge HMI not from the side of its moral motives/intentions, or even in terms of international legal framework but rather from the side of its direct (short-time) and indirect (long-time) outcomes from different points of view (political, economic, human cost, cultural, environmental, etc.). However, solving this problem requires that real outcomes have to be compared with those outcomes that would happen in some hypothetical circumstances; for instance, what would happen if the R2P did not occur? Such hypothetical circumstances cannot be proved, like arguing that an earlier and effective HMI in Rwanda in 1994 will save hundreds of thousands of lives or without NATO military intervention in the Balkans in 1999 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo will experience massive expulsion and above all ethnic cleansing/genocide by the Yugoslav security forces. For instance, the NATO military intervention in the Balkans in 1999 became the trigger for Serbian retaliation against the Albanian population in Kosovo. In other words, NATO aggression in Kosovo in 1999 succeeded in the initial goal of expelling Serbian police and the Yugoslav army from the province, but at the same time helped a massive displacement of the ethnic Albanian population (however, a big part of this “displacement” was arranged by the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army for the propagandistic media purposes) and giving a post-war umbrella for the real ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs by the local Albanians for the next 20+ years. In this particular case of the HMI, the R2P military action resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe, which means it was absolutely counterproductive compared with its initial (humanitarian/moral) task.

    Nonetheless, it can be said, at least from the Western points of view, that there are some examples of the HMI that were beneficial like the establishment of a “no-fly zone” in North Iraq in 1991 which not only prevented reprisal attacks and massacres of the Kurds after their uprising (backed by the USA and her allies) but at the same time allowed the land populated by the Kurds to develop a high degree of autonomy. In both cases, Iraq in 1991 and Yugoslavia in 1999, both operations were carried out by NATO airstrikes involving a significant number of civilian casualties on the ground and a minimal number among the aggressor’s side. For instance, estimates of the civilians and combatants killed in Kosovo in 1999 are 5,700 according to the Serbian sources (the casualties in Central and North Serbia are not taken into consideration on this occasion). The Western academic propaganda claims that Western HMI in Sierra Leone was effective as it brought to an end a 10-year civil war which cost some 50,000 lives, followed by providing the foundations for democratic parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007.

    There are many other R2P military interventions that, in fact, failed or were much less effective and, therefore, raised questions about their purpose. On some occasions, the HMI under the legal umbrella of the UN peacekeepers failed, as humanitarian catastrophes happened (Kosovo after June 1999, the Congo), while some HMIs were quickly left as being unsuccessful (Somalia). However, several R2P interventions ultimately resulted in a protracted counterinsurgency fight (Iraq or Afghanistan). That is the crucial problem concerning the effective results of the HMI/R2P; such military interventions may result in bringing more harm than benefits. A classic example concerning this problem is to change some authoritarian regimes by the use of foreign occupying forces; in many cases, this increases political tension and provokes civil wars, which subject ordinary citizens to constant civil war and suffering. In principle, if the civil struggle is resulting from an effective breakdown in government, foreign interventions of any kind may make internal political things worse, not better.

    While political stability respecting human universal rights are theoretically and morally all desirable goals,  it cannot always be possible for outsiders to impose or enforce these goals. Therefore, the HMI has to be understood from long-term perspective results and not as a result of the pressure from public opinion or politicians that something has to be done. It is known that some HMIs simply failed as a result of badly planned reconstruction efforts or an insufficient supply of different types of resources for the purpose of reconstruction. Consequently, the principle of HMI/R2P places stress not only on the R2P but also on the responsibility to reconstruct after the intervention.

    Is the Humanitarian Military Intervention (HMI) Justified?

    The HMI has become, during the last 30+ years, one of the hottest disputed topics in both IR and world politics. There are two diametrically opposite approaches to the HMI practice: 1) It is clear evidence that IR affairs are guided by new and more acceptable cosmopolitan sensibilities; and 2) The HMIs are, in principle, very misguided, politically and geopolitically motivated, and finally morally confused.

    The focal arguments for the HMI as a positive feature in IR can be summed up in the next five points:

    1. The HMI is founded on the belief that common humanity exists, which implies the attitude that moral responsibilities cannot be confined only to own people, but rather to all entire mankind.

    2. The R2P is increased by the recognition of growing global interconnectedness and interdependence, and, therefore, state authorities can no longer act like to be isolated from the rest of the world. The HMI, consequently, is justified as enlightened self-interest, for instance, to stop the refugee crisis, which can provoke serious political problems abroad.

    3. The state failure that provokes humanitarian problems will have extreme implications for the regional balance of power and, therefore, will create security instability. Such an attitude is providing geopolitical background for surrounding states to participate in the HMI, with great powers opting to intervene for the formal sake to prevent a possible regional military confrontation.

    4. The HMI can be justified under the political environment in which the people are suffering, as not have a democratic way to eliminate their hardship. Consequently, the HMI can take place with the sake to overthrow the authoritarian political regime of dictatorship and, therefore, promote political democracy with the promotion of human rights and other democratic values.

    5. The HMI can show not only demonstrable evidence of the shared values of the international community like peace, prosperity, human rights, or political democracy but as well as it can give guidelines for the way in which state authority has to treat its citizens within the framework of the so-called „responsible sovereignty“.

    The focal arguments against the HMI are:

    1. The HMI is, in fact, an action against international law, as international law only clearly gives the authorization for the intervention in the case of self-defense. This authorization is founded on the assumption that respect for the state’s independence is the basis for the international order and IR. Even if the HMI is formally allowed by international law to some degree for humanitarian purposes, the international law, in such cases, is confused and founded on the weakened rules of the order of global politics, foreign affairs, and IR.

    2. Behind the HMI is national interest but not real interest for the protection of international humanitarian norms. States are primarily motivated by concerns of national self-interest; therefore, their formal claim that the HMI is allegedly motivated by humanitarian considerations can be an example of political deception.

    3. In the practice of the HMI or the R2P we can find many examples of double standards. It is the practice of pressing humanitarian emergencies somewhere in which the HMI is either ruled out or never taken into consideration. It happens for several reasons: no national interest is on stage; an absence of media coverage; intervention is politically impossible, etc. Such a situation is confuses the HMI in both political and moral terms.

    4. The HMI is, in the majority of practical cases, founded on a politicized image of political conflict between “good and bad guys.” Usually, it has been a consequence of the exaggeration of war crimes on the ground. It ignores the moral complexities which are part of all international and domestic conflicts. The attempt to simplify any humanitarian crisis helps explain the tendency towards so-called “mission drift” and interventions going wrong.

    5. The HMI is seen in many cases as cultural imperialism, based on essentially Western values of human rights, which are not applicable in some other parts of the globe. Religious, historical, cultural, social, and/or political differences are making it impossible to create universal guidelines for the behavior of the state’s authorities. Consequently, the task of establishing a “just cause” threshold for a HMI within the framework of the R2P may be unachievable.

    The post On the Key Points of Contemporary International Relations: Responsibility to Protect and Humanitarian Military Intervention first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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