Bowen told media at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the new proposal would allow Australia to prepare draft text and issue the overarching document of the event, while Türkiye will oversee the operation side of the meeting.
In a statement, Whipps said the region’s ambition and advocacy would not waver.
“A Pacific COP was vital to highlight the critical climate-ocean nexus, the everyday realities of climate impacts, and the serious threats to food security, economies and livelihoods in the Pacific and beyond,” he said.
“Droughts, fires, floods, typhoons, and mudslides are seen and felt by people all around the world with increasing severity and regularity.”
No resolution with Türkiye
Australia and the Pacific had most of the support to host the meeting from parties, but the process meant there was no resolution from the months-long stand-off with Türkiye, the default city of Bonn in Germany would have hosted the COP.
It would also mean a year with no COP president in place.
Australia’s Climate Minister Chris Bowen . . . “It would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all. This process works on consensus.” Image: RNZ
Bowen said it would have been irresponsible for multilateralism, which was already being challenged.
“We didn’t want that to happen, so hence, it was important to strike an agreement with Turkiye, our competitor,” he said.
“Obviously, it would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all. This process works on consensus.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s head of Pacific campaigns Shiva Gounden said not hosting the event is going to make the region’s job, to fight for climate justice, harder.
“When you’re in the region, you can shape a lot of the direction of how the COP looks and how the negotiations happen inside the room, because you can embed it with a lot of the values that is extremely close to the Pacific way of doing things,” he said.
Gounden said the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process had failed the Pacific.
“The UNFCCC process didn’t have a measure or a way to resolve this without it getting this messy right at the end of COP30,” Gounden said.
“If it wasn’t resolved, it would have gone to Bonn, where there wouldn’t be any presidency for a year and that creates a lot of issues for multilateralism and right now multilateralism is under threat.”
No safe ‘overshoot’
Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) international policy lead Sindra Sharma said the decision on the COP31 presidency in no way shifts the global responsibility to deliver on the Paris Agreement.
“There is no safe ‘overshoot’ and every increment of warming is a failure to current and future generations.
“We cannot afford to lose focus. We are in the final hours of COP30 and the outcomes we secure here will set the foundation for COP31.
“We need to stay locked in and ensure this COP delivers the ambition and justice frontline communities deserve.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A rift within New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement has further widened after the second component of the “moderates”, the UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), has officially announced it has now left the once united Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).
The UPM announcement, at a press conference in Nouméa, comes only five days after the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party), another moderate pro-independence group, also made official it was splitting from the FLNKS.
It was in line with resolutions taken at the party’s Congress held at the weekend.
Both groups have invoked similar reasons for the move.
UPM leader Victor Tutugoro told local media on Wednesday his party found it increasingly “difficult to exist today within the [FLNKS] pro-independence movement, part of which has now widely radicalised through outrage and threats”.
He said both his party and PALIKA did not recognise themselves anymore in the FLNKS’s increasingly “violent operating mode”.
Tutugoro recalled that since August 2024, UPM had not taken part in the operation of the “new FLNKS” [including its political bureau] because it did not accept its “forceful ways” under the increasing domination of Union Calédonienne, especially the recruitment of new “nationalist” factions and the appointment of CCAT leader and UC political commissar Christian Téin as its new President,.
Téin was arrested in June 2024 for alleged criminal-related charges before and during the May 2024 riots and then flown to mainland France.
After one year in jail in Mulhouse (North-east of France), his pre-trial conditions were released and in October 2025, he was eventually authorised to return to New Caledonia, where he should be back in the next few days.
Christian Téin’s return soon Téin remains under pre-trial conditions until he is judged, at a yet undetermined date.
Téin and a “Collectif Solidarité Kanaky 18” however announced Téin was to hold a public meeting themed “Which way for the Decolonisation of Kanaky-New Caledonia?” on 22 November 2025 in the small French city of Bourges, local media reported.
“This will be his last public address before he returns to New Caledonia,” said organisers.
Tutugoro says things worsened since the negotiations that led to the signing of a Bougival agreement, in July 2025, from which FLNKS pulled out in August 2025, denouncing what they described as a “lure of independence”.
“This agreement now separates us from the new FLNKS. And this is another reason for us to say we have nothing left to do [with them],” said Tutugoro.
UPM recalls it was a founding member of the FLNKS in 1984.
UPM, PALIKA founding members of FLNKS 41 years ago On November 14, the PALIKA [Kanak Liberation Party] revealed the outcome of its 50th Congress held six days earlier, which now makes official its withdrawal from the FLNKS (a platform it was part of since the FLNKS was set up in 1984).
It originally comprised PALIKA, UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), Union Calédonienne (UC) and Wallisian-based Rassemblement démocratique océanien (RDO).
PALIKA said it had decided to formally split from FLNKS because it disagreed with the FLNKS approach since the May 2024 riots.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Readers respond to news articles and analysis on Shabana Mahmood’s proposals to change the asylum system
The government’s asylum proposals, rendering subsistence support discretionary and compelling refugees to return once their countries are deemed “safe”, represent a profound departure from both legal obligations and moral responsibility. These are not minor administrative adjustments; they are structural erosions of rights that strike at the heart of Britain’s commitment to fairness and justice.
The United Kingdom remains bound by the 1951 refugee convention and the Human Rights Act 1998. These instruments enshrine non‑discretionary duties, including the provision of subsistence and protection against refoulement. To reframe such duties as optional is to mischaracterise international law and invite judicial challenge. More importantly, it undermines the principle that rights are universal and inalienable, not favours dispensed at political whim.
In the aftermath of conflict, dictatorship, or mass human rights violations, societies face the challenge of addressing past atrocities while rebuilding for the future. Transitional justice refers to a set of legal and social mechanisms designed to achieve justice, accountability, and reconciliation in such contexts. These processes include truth commissions, criminal prosecutions, reparations for victims, and institutional reforms aimed at preventing future abuses. Rooted in the principles of human rights and international law, transitional justice seeks to balance the need for justice and survivor healing with the complexities of political and social stability.
Across the world, many charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play a crucial role in supporting transitional justice efforts. Whether by documenting human rights abuses, advocating for victims, or facilitating truth and reconciliation initiatives, these organisations help societies navigate the difficult journey toward justice and peace. This article by Barbara Listek explores some of the key NGOs working in the field, highlighting their impact in post-conflict and post-authoritarian contexts.
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) supports societies recovering from mass human rights violations by helping them confront the past and build more just and inclusive futures. Working alongside victims, local communities, and institutions, ICTJ provides expertise on truth commissions, reparations, criminal accountability, and institutional reform. Whether advising on the creation of truth-seeking bodies or supporting prosecutions of those responsible for serious crimes, the organisation’s work is rooted in the belief that acknowledging harm and delivering justice are essential for healing and long-term peace.
Since its founding, ICTJ has played a key role in transitional justice processes across the globe, including in Colombia, Tunisia, and The Gambia. Its approach is deeply grounded in the lived experiences of survivors, ensuring that justice efforts are not only technically sound but also meaningful to those most affected. By focusing on systemic change and survivor-centred solutions, ICTJ works to prevent the recurrence of violence and strengthen democratic institutions in countries emerging from repression and conflict.
Redress is a London-based organisation founded by British businessman Keith Carmichael after he was unlawfully detained and tortured in Saudi Arabia. Frustrated by the lack of legal support and accountability available to survivors like himself, Carmichael launched REDRESS to fill a critical gap in access to justice. His personal experience became the driving force behind the charity’s mission: to secure justice and reparation for victims of torture and other grave human rights violations.
Now more than 30 years old, REDRESS continues to lead efforts globally to end impunity for torture. The organisation provides legal representation to survivors, supports strategic litigation before national and international courts, and advocates for stronger laws and policies that prevent torture and ensure reparations. By working directly with survivors, while also influencing governments and international institutions, REDRESS helps ensure that survivors’ voices are heard and that justice becomes a meaningful reality, central to any process of healing and transitional justice.
The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) is an organisation founded in 1998 on the principle, first used during the Nuremberg trials after World War II, that certain crimes are so egregious that they represent offences against all humankind. These crimes include genocide, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial killing and torture, and as CJA argues, they should never go unanswered.
CJA’s approach is survivor-led and collaborative. The organisation works closely with local partners and in-country prosecutors to build cases that centre the voices and experiences of those most affected. Alongside this, CJA advocates for stronger laws and policies that make it harder for abusers to escape justice and hold everyone accountable to the human rights standards.
The African Transitional Justice Legacy Fund (ATJLF) is an organisation launched in 2019 to support African-led responses to past atrocities, rooted in the belief that sustainable peace and justice must be shaped by those directly affected. Backed by the MacArthur Foundation and WellSpring Philanthropic Fund, the ATJLF emerged alongside the African Union’s Transitional Justice Policy, helping translate its goals into practical, community-driven action. Managed initially by the Ghana-based Institute for Democratic Governance, the Fund has since become a nine-year institutionalised effort supporting civil society across West Africa.
By empowering survivor-led groups and grassroots initiatives, the ATJLF has helped amplify voices often excluded from transitional justice processes. Since its inception, over $2.5 million has been distributed to 46 organisations working in countries including Guinea, Liberia, and The Gambia. As it enters its legacy phase (2024–2026), the Fund is scaling its efforts beyond West Africa and focusing on deeper, long-term partnerships to ensure the impact of its work endures well beyond its closure.
Impunity Watch is an international non-profit organisation working with victims of violence to deliver redress for grave human rights violations and to promote justice and peace. The organisation approaches transitional justice work through a victim-centred approach, taking into account the long-standing criticism of transitional justice not being sufficiently victim-centred. It is also their aim to overcome systemic impunity and its root causes in order to achieve transformative justice (here we could link the article I wrote on transformative justice, but it is not published yet).
For more information about the organisation, we recommend visiting their website for an abundant collection of resources and information, such as the charity’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan, information about the complex work Impunity Watch does, as well as their multimedia resources section.
The Global Survivors Fund (GSF) is an international charity organisation based in Switzerland, that has it as its mission to enhance the access to reparations for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence around the globe. It was founded in 2019 by Dr Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad – 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
The organisation’s work is centred around three core pillars: acting to provide interim reparative measures in situations where States or other parties are unable or unwilling to meet their responsibilities; advocating for the legally responsible parties (duty-bearers) and the international community to develop reparation programmes; and guiding States and civil society by providing expertise and technical support for designing reparation programmes.
To learn more about the organisation’s transformative work, donate or find information about positions openings, visit their website.
Founded in 2014, the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation (GIJTR) is a consortium of nine global organisations dedicated to addressing the transitional justice needs of societies emerging from conflict or periods of authoritarian rule. The initiative collaborates with communities worldwide to amplify survivors’ voices and inspire collective action in confronting human rights violations. By addressing past traumas, GIJTR aims to pave the way for a more just and peaceful future.
Over the past decade, GIJTR has engaged with communities in over 70 countries, collaborating with more than 800 local civil society organisations and supporting over 500 grassroots projects. Its initiatives include documenting human rights abuses, providing technical assistance to civil society activists, and promoting reparative justice efforts. Notably, the organisation has worked alongside survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in contexts such as Bangladesh, Colombia, and Guinea, supporting them in advocating for their rights and developing community-based programs aimed at meeting survivors’ needs.
The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is the only global network of historic sites, museums, and memory initiatives that connects past struggles to today’s human rights movements. With over 350 members in 65 countries, its mission is to ensure that the sites preserve the memory of past injustices while fostering dialogue and learning that prevent future violations.
Their slogan being “Remembering is a Form of Resistance,” the Coalition works with local communities, governments, and international partners to ensure that these sites serve as platforms for reconciliation, education, and activism. It convenes impactful projects and initiatives as well as training events that bring together site professionals, historians, and activists to develop best practices for memory‑based reconciliation and community empowerment
If you are interested in how museums can contribute to upholding human rights, or would like to visit one of such sites, we recommend checking out our article on “20 Human Rights Museums Around The World” to discover inspiring spaces that might be worth visiting (perhaps on your next trip!).
The Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC) is a Sarajevo-based, women-led research centre and NGO, dedicated to advancing transitional justice and promoting peace in post-conflict societies. Founded in 2011 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, PCRC works on issues related to justice, accountability, reconciliation, and human rights. Its efforts include conducting research, providing education, and supporting projects aimed at improving social cohesion and fostering sustainable peace. PCRC is also involved in advocacy and works with local and international organisations to develop and implement policies that address the needs of survivors of conflict and promote justice for atrocities.
PCRC’s signature programmes include Balkan Diskurs, an online platform empowering young journalists to report on regional issues, and Ordinary Heroes, a multimedia project showcasing stories of rescue and courage to promote tolerance and reconciliation. Its work has earned international recognition, including the 2014–15 Intercultural Innovation Award from the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the BMW Group, and praise from the Council of Europe for its exemplary peace education model.
Are you inspired by PCRC’s blend of research and action? Learn what it takes to follow in their footsteps by reading our guide on “How to Become a Human Rights Researcher.”
Rights for Peace is a London-based international organisation that seeks to address the root causes of violence and promote peace through human rights advocacy and transitional justice. Focusing on countries in transition from conflict or repression, Rights for Peace engages with local communities to ensure that victims of violence are heard and that justice mechanisms are effective. It works to strengthen the rule of law, promote accountability, and support processes of social healing through legal reforms and community-led initiatives. By fostering a culture of peace and justice, the organisation aims to prevent the recurrence of violence and contribute to long-term stability.
Currently active in Sudan and South Sudan, Rights for Peace collaborates with local partners to strengthen rule‑of‑law institutions and ensure that victims’ voices shape accountability processes. Its casework includes monitoring identity‑based violations and developing strategic litigation to hold perpetrators accountable, reflecting the organisation’s commitment to survivor‑centred justice.
The issuance of Interpol red notices against two Salvadoran human rights defenders currently in exile in Spain constitutes a grave misuse of the law enforcement mechanism, UN experts warned on 19 November 2025
“This move amounts to an act of transnational repression, as it extends the harassment of human rights defenders beyond borders, targeting them in a country where they are seeking safety,” the experts said.
Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya have applied for asylum in Spain, fleeing legal harassment in El Salvador stemming from their legitimate human rights work. Both human rights defenders work for the non-governmental organisation UNIDEHC, which has been targeted by the Salvadoran authorities since February 2025 for its support to the La Floresta community, who have been facing attempts of forced eviction since 2024.
“The charges brought against Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya in El Salvador and related arrest warrants issued by the authorities appear to be without basis and in direct connection with their legitimate human rights work for UNIDEHC to support communities under threat and denounce the actions of the Government under the state of emergency declared in 2022,” the experts said.
In May 2025, the court presiding over their case in El Salvador ordered the Interpol National Central Bureau to submit a request for the issuance of a red notice to the Interpol General Secretariat. Interpol confirmed the issuance in July 2025.
The experts pointed to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Interpol, which state that the organisation is “strictly forbidden” from undertaking “any intervention or activities of a political nature”, and that the organisation’s activities will be conducted “in the spirit of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.”
In September 2025, Rudy Joya was summoned by police under the pretext of his asylum application in Spain. Upon presenting himself to the authorities, he was detained and presented before a Spanish specialised court. Ivania Cruz was also summoned and appeared before the same court, which ordered that both defenders sign-in at a local court every 15 days, not leave the country, surrender their passports and report any change of address.
“We call on Interpol to immediately revoke the red notices and judicial sanctions against Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya, and on Spain to refuse to accede to the red notice and to ensure their safety by rejecting their forcible return to El Salvador,” the experts said.
The experts are in contact with Interpol and the governments of Spain and El Salvador on these concerns.
Ganna Yudkivska (Chair-Rapporteur), Matthew Gillett (Vice-Chair on Communications), Miriam Estrada Castillo (Vice-Chair on Follow-Up), Mumba Malila, and Ethan Hee-Seok Shin,Working Group on Arbitrary Detent
On a day which promised calm, following the ceasefire deal in Gaza, the Israeli occupation violated the truce for the 394th time.
They launched a bloody attack on various areas of the Gaza Strip, resulting in callous murder of 40 citizens, entire families, wiped from the civil registry.
A dozen more were wounded, some remain in critical condition.
Another day, another massacre
In the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, a building inhabited by displaced persons seeking sanctuary, an Israeli missile struck the family, killing five members of the Zakaria Azzam family, including children, some of whom were only a few years old. After the bombing, a small chair and a child’s dress remained as silent symbols of suffering and lost innocence.
Shuja’iyya and West Khan Yunis have witnessed repeated massacres despite the ceasefire.
Israeli rockets destroyed entire houses and neighbourhoods, while paramedics were seen gathering charred and dismembered limbs trapped beneath the rubble.
The occupation is claiming these raids targeted armed resistance leaders, who they say were convening for a meeting.
The reality on the ground reveals the victims were mothers, children and ordinary men.
The mirage of a ceasefire
In just four hours, forty people have been exterminated, adding to the catalogue of Israel’s butchering of Gazans.
The following morning, the occupation carried out a military incursion east of Gaza City, expanding the buffer zone by about 300 metres. Dozens of families were trapped inside their homes amid intense shelling. Their fate remains unknown.
The Government Media Office in Gaza stated that since the ceasefire agreement came into effect, the occupation has carried out about 400 documented violations. They have killed 300 civilians, which is exacerbating crowding in the very few safe areas that remain.
The office held the mediators and guarantors, led by US President Donald Trump, responsible Israel’s continuing violations. They accused them of impotence by failing to prevent Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure, most notably shelters and hospitals.
The office cautioned that silence is no longer an option.
It called for immediate action to stop ‘ongoing crimes and violations’ and pressure the occupation to implement the ceasefire agreement.
Such a move would ensure the protection of civilians and halt the deterioration of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders has called on the Samoan Prime Minister to lift the ban preventing the daily newspaper Samoa Observer from attending government press conferences.
“The measure is totally unacceptable — it comes after one of its journalists filed a complaint over violence committed by the PM’s security officers,” said RSF in a post on its BlueSky news feed.
Samoan Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Schmidt “temporarily” banned the Samoa Observer on Monday from engagements with him and his ministers, triggering a wave of condemnation from Pacific and global media freedom organisations.
#Samoa: RSF is calling on the Prime Minister to lift the ban preventing the daily #SamoaObserver from attending government press conferences. The measure is totally unacceptable — it comes after one of its journalists filed a complaint over violence committed by the PM’s security officers.
As other criticism of the Samoan Prime Minister continued to flow during the week, former prime minister and leader of the Samoa Uniting Party, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, said the ban was a “clear attempt to silence scrutiny” and a serious decline in Samoa’s democratic standards.
Quoted in the Samoa Observer today, Fiame said that when a person held public office, transparency was an obligation, not a choice.
She warned that democracy weakened not through a single dramatic event, but through a series of actions that slowly eroded transparency and silenced independent voices.
Fiame said the banning of a major newspaper like the Samoa Observer could not be viewed as a simple administrative decision.
“It is an act that strikes at the heart of media freedom, a right that allows the public to understand and question those who hold power,” she said.
Fiame reflected on her own time as prime minister, noting that no journalist or media organisation had ever ever been shut out, regardless of how challenging their questions were.
She said leadership required openness, accountability, and the ability to face criticism without fear or restriction.
Meanwhile, the Samoa Observer’s editor, Shalveen Chand, reported that the Journalists Association of [Western] Samoa (JAWS) had also urged Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa to reconsider the decision and lift the ban on the newspaper’s journalists from attending his press conferences.
JAWS said in a statement it was deeply concerned that such bans might “become the norm” for the current government and for future governments.
While Indonesians worry about President Prabowo Subianto’s undemocratic moves, the failures of his flagship “breakfast” policy, and a faltering economy, Australia enters into another “treaty” of little import. Duncan Graham reports.
COMMENTARY:By Duncan Graham
Under-reported in the Australian and New Zealand media, Indonesia has been gripped by protests this year, some of them violent.
The protests have been over grievances ranging from cuts to the national budget and a proposed new law expanding the role of the military in political affairs, President Prabowo Subianto’s disastrous free school meals programme, and politicians receiving a $3000 housing allowance.
More recently, further anger against the President has been fuelled by his moves to make corrupt former dictator Soeharto (also Prabowo’s former father-in-law) a “national hero“.
Ignoring both his present travails, as well as his history of historical human rights abuses (that saw him exiled from Indonesia for years), Prabowo has been walking the 27,500-tonne HMAS Canberra, the fleet flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, along with PM Anthony Albanese.
The location was multipurpose: It showed off Australia’s naval hardware and reinforced the signing of a thin “upgraded security treaty” between unequals. Australia’s land mass is four times larger, but there are 11 Indonesians to every one Aussie.
Ignoring the past Although Canberra’s flight deck was designed for helicopters, the crew found a desk for the leaders to lean on as they scribbled their names. The location also served to keep away disrespectful Australian journalists asking about Prabowo’s past, an issue their Jakarta colleagues rarely raise for fear of being banned.
Contrast this one-day dash with the relaxed three-day 2018 visit by Jokowi and his wife Iriana when Malcolm Turnbull was PM. The two men strolled through the Botanical Gardens and seemed to enjoy the ambience. The President was mobbed by Indonesian admirers.
This month, Prabowo and Albanese smiled for the few allowed cameras, but there was no feeling that this was “fair dinkum”. Indonesia said the trip was “also a form of reciprocation for Prime Minister Albanese’s trip to Jakarta last May,” another one-day come n’go chore.
Analysing the treaty needs some mental athleticism and linguistic skills because the Republic likes to call itself part of a “non-aligned movement”, meaning it doesn’t couple itself to any other world power.
The policy was developed in the 1940s after the new nation had freed itself from the colonial Netherlands and rejected US and Russian suitors.
It’s now a cliché — “sailing between two reefs” and “a friend of all and enemy of none”. Two years ago, former Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi explained:
“Indonesia refuses to see the Indo-Pacific fall victim to geopolitical confrontation. …This is where Indonesia’s independent and active foreign policy becomes relevant. For almost eight decades, these principles have been a compass for Indonesia in interacting with other nations.
“…(it’s) independent and active foreign policy is not a neutral policy; it is one that does not align with the superpowers nor does it bind the country to any military pact.”
Pact or treaty?
Is a “pact” a “treaty”? For most of us, the terms are synonyms; to the word-twisting pollies, they’re whatever the user wants them to mean.
We do not know the new “security treaty” details although the ABC speculated it meant there will be “leader and ministerial consultations on matters of common security, to develop cooperation, and to consult each other in the case of threats and consider individual or joint measures” and “share information on matters that would be important for Australia’s security, and vice-versa.”
Much of the “analysis” came from Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s media statement, so no revelations here.
What does it really mean? Not much from a close read of Albanese’s interpretation: ”If either or both countries’ security is threatened,
to consult and consider what measures may be taken either individually or jointly to deal with those threats.”
Careful readers will spot the elastic “consult and consider”. If this were on a highway sign warning of hazards ahead, few would ease up on the pedal.
Whence commeth the threat? In the minds of the rigid right, that would be China — the nation that both Indonesia and Australia rely on for trade.
Indonesia’s militaristic president Prabowo Subianto is seizing books which undermine his political agenda. Duncan Graham #indonesiahttps://t.co/akvGdOqC9d
Keating and Soeharto
The last “security treaty” to be signed was between PM Paul Keating and Soeharto in 1995. Penny Wong said the new document is “modelled closely” on the old deal.
The Keating document went into the shredder when paramilitary militia and Indonesian troops ravaged East Timor in 1999, and Australia took the side of the wee state and its independence fighters.
Would Australia do the same for the guerrillas in West Papua if we knew what was happening in the mountains and jungles next door? We do not because the province is closed to journos, and it seems both governments are at ease with the secrecy. The main protests come from NGOs, particularly those in New Zealand.
Foreign Minister Wong added that “the Treaty will reflect the close friendship, partnership and deep trust between Australia and Indonesia”.
Sorry, Senator, that’s fiction. Another awkward fact: Indonesians and Australians distrust each other, according to polls run by the Lowy Institute. “Over the course of 19 years . . . attitudes towards Indonesia have been — at best — lukewarm.
And at worst, they betray a lurking suspicion.
These feelings will remain until we get serious about telling our stories and listening to theirs, with both parties consistently striving to understand and respect the other. “Security treaties” involving weapons, destruction and killings are not the best foundations for friendship between neighbours.
Future documents should be signed in Sydney’s The Domain.
Duncan Graham has a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He now lives in Indonesia. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission.
The other week I was sat pondering life during my morning commute (as you do!) and I was reminded of something very important that my late mother taught me. And this got me thinking.
During her 60 odd years on the planet, my mum had learnt a lot. And she gave some great advice as a result.
A lot of what my mother taught me has stuck with me for its honesty, relevance and truth – whether or not I understood it at the time. Whether in response to a problem shared or during one of her life chats, her advice was always spot on.
As a child, walking along whilst out together, she’d often bring up certain topics and give specific life lessons. I certainly remember these, and I appreciate them even more as I’ve gotten older and wiser, and in particular, as I think more and more about how I’d bring up any future children of my own.
So as 10 November drew around again, reminding me of the day she left this world, I decided to pen this blog in honour of my mum and her memory, sharing her wisdom.
I hope you find it insightful.
1. On religion:
Mum and I at Lichfield Cathedral (c. 2008/9).
Going to church every week doesn’t (automatically) make you a better Christian [believer]
Message:
I remember this message. It was crystal clear. My mum sat me down one day and told me: there’s no point sitting in church once a week but being not-a-very nice person, and then the world judging a kind, moral person who doesn’t attend service.
We did go to church most Sundays (my non-Christian dad dropping us off), but the learning didn’t end there. My mum’s emphasis was more on behaviour and values, than on rituals at home.
What she taught me was that it’s your behaviour – how you treat others every day of the week: your manners, principles, values and your morals (your actions) – that truly count.
Sitting in church [or any place of worship] diligently once a week, but not leading a good, kind, just life is futile.
In short: don’t judge others and don’t automatically assume the best, just because a person has a spotless attendance record.
2. On education:
Education is never wasted
It’s your ticket to independence
Message:
“Education is never wasted” – four words that have stuck with me forever.
I believe they’re fundamentally true. For education is a door to many opportunities.
Learning, training, gaining an education is never wasted – it’s an investment, not just for your career and financial future, but for your mind, expanding your view on the world and opening your eyes to new experiences.
For women in particular, it’s they key to independence. And more often than not, now it’s critical to run a home (given the current cost of living and reliance on two salaries).
Study hard, aim high – but always remember that family (including yourself, not work) comes first.
My mother certainly lived by this. She was the first in her family to obtain a university degree. She then went on to become a fantastic teacher and educator – and a great inspiration to me growing up.
3. On identity:
At Giza, Egypt, on a family holiday (2009).
“I’m me” – be you first, not a label
Message:
As a child, I struggled to understand why my Italian mother wasn’t…. well, very “Italian”.
We didn’t speak Italian at home, we only started travelling to Italy when I was in my early teens and well, we just didn’t fit the (at least very) visual stereotype.
Trying to get answers from my mum about why she wasn’t “more Italian”, she once responded to me: “I’m me”. I didn’t get it.
Years later as an adult, I do. I now understand her and I empathise with her – even if I don’t agree with how things turned out.
It hurt to have to “reclaim” my Italian culture, to feel cut off from traditions and people.
It felt unfair to have to learn the language as a foreign language in my teens (an idea my mother wasn’t happy with at first), instead of being bilingual from childhood – something which I’ll never experience
And it pains me to feel that sense of “imposter syndrome“, where to my mind I’m “not Italian enough” for Italians (too fair, too shy and not fluent enough), yet also too “different” (a little “odd”) (e.g. loud, emotive, “conservative”) according to British socio-cultural norms (a learning that started as a child being scorn/criticised by my peers for “talking with my hands” and later peaking when I moved way for university and met my British housemates).
It’s a long ongoing story for another time (this blog gives an introduction).
Yet, none the less, my mother made a very valid point.
Before nationality, religion, age, cultural background, ethnicity and so on: you are your own person. You are you. You are an individual.
Do not be restricted or contained to that – or limit your outlook on the world in terms of others.
Do not stereotype others. See them as an individual first behind the labels.
Be aware of cultural norms, adapt, be respectful, embrace everyone. Do not make assumptions about others and do not limit yourself. Your future is in your hands.
4. On money:
It’s about values, not money
Message:
“Those who’ve got it don’t need to flaunt it” – a phrase I remember my mother saying on several occasions. And she was right – no one likes a show off.
Humility is key. Flashing the cash isn’t classy. Less is more, as they say. All that glitters isn’t gold – that’s another one.
But manners? They’re golden.
Manners cost nothing, but mean everything. They’re priceless. Show the world who you are through your values and manners.
Be kind, be humble, be polite – that’s what speaks volumes, not money.
Coming into a fortune may change your financial status, but it doesn’t necessarily signify that every other area of your life is up to the mark, or that you’re a “better person”.
Growing up, we didn’t have a flashy car (quite the opposite). We didn’t go on a holiday abroad until I was around 12 years old. And we didn’t live extravagantly.
We didn’t really struggle, but there were challenges, sacrifices and choices to be made.
What my parents had, they invested it into their children’s education – both inside and outside the classroom.
5. On love:
Mum and dad on their wedding day (1974).
You’ll find love when you’re not looking
Message:
Many a person has said it and my mother is no different: “You find love when you’re not looking for it”.
Well, that’s certainly true for my parents. By the time they went on their first date, they’d already met several times after repeatedly bumping into each other at teacher parties in Bristol (where they were both living at the time).
There was no plan, no agenda. They were just where they were meant to be, when they were destined to be and the rest is history.
And that’s what I believe: it’s all down to God (fate).
I don’t only believe this because I personally believe that such things are all pre-planned (by the Divine), but because as they say, when you’re not looking and simply living your life, doing the things you love, you’re being truly and authentically you!
When you’re authentic to yourself, you find what (or who) matches you! And so, yes I do believe that my mother was right: love comes when you least expect it.
It’ll come. Be patient. Do you, and leave the rest to fate!
6. On charity:
The more you have, the less you give
Message:
Growing up, my mother always encouraged us to help others and to give selflessly.
I remember once sharing with her how it shocked me how some of my classmates (whose parents had a lot more than we had) wouldn’t bring a can of food to a school food collection.
I can honestly say that my mother was a selfless person. And what she taught me is that having more doesn’t (necessarily) increase our ability (or will) to give.
Just because someone has more, it doesn’t mean they’ll give more.
Helping others isn’t a burden, it’s a duty. We share the world with others and we should share what we have.
Give with your heart, whatever you can. And remember: it doesn’t need to be big – every little helps at they say.
Don’t assume, that those who have the most, give the most. Kindness is a human value – and that’s free.
7. On friendship:
Mum visiting me on my year abroad in Siena, Italy (2009).
There are fair weather friends
And there are real friends
Message:
Not everyone that comes into your life will stay in your life.
A true friend is there for you through good times and bad, through thick and thin.
A fair-weather friend is there for the good only. They won’t stick around when things get tough.
Accept it, grieve them and move on. They’re not a true friend.
When it comes to friends, less is more: it’s better to have a few solid true friends in your life, than a large group of fair-weather friends (acquaintances).
This is what my mum would tell me and she was 100% right. This is something I learnt about a lot growing up.
Now that I’m 37 and reflecting on life, I can honestly say that my friends are like family to me. And that my mum was right: she was my best friend.
8. On self-care:
Always be prepared for the unexpected
Message:
Thinking of my mum, I remember one random day when she looked at my shoes and then promptly decided it was time to go shopping: shoe shopping.
One pair of tan leather Mary janes later, I was all set.
Set for what? Well, life.
The thing with my mum is that she didn’t really do casual – smart casual yes – but casual, no. It didn’t suit her (and it doesn’t really suit me either).
“People always judge you by two things, your hands (and nails) and your shoes” she’d tell me. And rightly or wrongly, people do judge.
Heading off to university in particular, she’d always remind me to be prepared: “You never know who you’ll meet”. And she had a point.
Her motto was: always try and look your best.
People judge us out in the world and you never know what opportunity may arise or who you may meet. Invest in yourself.
Now, this doesn’t mean full make-up or putting lots of pressure on yourself. Just the simple stuff.
Keep your nails neat, make sure your shoes are in good condition and when it comes to make up: less is more. A simple bit of mascara and lipstick will do if that’s all you can face for the day.
9. On gender:
With mum and my grandmother – at a very young age!
It’s a man’s world:
Stand tall and fight your ground
Message:
It’s a man’s world, but don’t let that stop you. Be brave, be loud, be fierce.
Move beyond the words, roles and restrictions upon women carved out by men (even in your own family, faith community or place of study).
Reject gender stereotypes – starting with childhood and how you raise your children.
I know this was something my mum actively did as an adult, in how she carved out her own life regarding her relationships, faith, education, work and at what age she had children.
This later shaped my world from a young age. The youngest of three children, I was also the only girl.
I loved being a girl. I collected handbags from a ridiculously young age. I wore skirts, dresses, florals and always tried to increasingly get away with make-up. I was anything but a tomboy.
I also had dolls. But: they were only one part of my toy/activity collection.
I never had a pram to push a doll in and my parents never bought Barbie dolls (I did have one or two as a gift from friends). What I did have was many more puzzles, books, art materials – and a super cool music player.
As a child, I was encouraged to learn, explore and be happy with who I was.
And as a girl, I felt no different to my brothers based on gender, other than the fact that I was taught about the need to be independent and mindful of my personal safety (thus responding to the symptoms of living in a sexist society).
I wasn’t treated differently but I was made aware and encouraged to be the best I could be, carving out my future.
10. On activism:
You have to work from within the system – not outside
Message:
Advocating for my non-verbal autistic brother – back in the day when no-one really knew what autism was except for the professionals – was no mean feat.
My mum fought tirelessly for my brother, her family and for whatever she felt was necessary. And it wasn’t easy: I think the price she may have paid was sadly her health.
Passing the baton to my father and I after finding out her cancer was terminal, I knew of the responsibilities ahead of me. It was time to step up; my brother needed me.
I’d learnt from the best – typing out letters that my mother would dictate to me. Her brainpower met my typing power.
Inspired by my mum, I’d always been a fierce advocate of social justice. From family, to community, to wider society, there’s a role to play:
“You’re like a bulldog” my mum said to me one day. I remember this so well.
Shocked, I asked her what she meant. After all, this didn’t exactly sound complementary!
“Small but fierce. You’ll stand up and push when you need to” was her reply.
Well, yes. She was right we need to fight for our rights, always.
But, where I didn’t agree with my mother was how to do this – the approach to creating positive change, for advocating, for standing up for what’s right.
From a young age, I’d dreamt of changing the world; fighting against the system that was so flawed. My mother didn’t.
She wanted better. But she wanted long term change: sustainability.
My mother talked of the need to make change from within, slowly and in doing so, gaining support – if you really wanted to make a difference.
And you know what? v37-year-old me has to agree. She was on to something there.
She was usually right about most things…
Dedication:
This blog is dedicated to my late mother Emilia. May your memory forever be a blessing.
May we meet again one day. I love you, forever and always.
Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy have been found to have breached a prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to a prisoner who spent months segregated from other inmates, in what is believed to be a legal first.
Sahayb Abu was confined to his cell at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, for 22 hours a day and prevented from associating with other prisoners for more than four months after Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, allegedly attacked prison officers at HMP Frankland.
Tens of thousands of families are desperately searching for loved ones ‘disappeared’ by the country’s drug cartels. Now, pigs, drones and AI are being used to find clandestine graves
Six years ago, Guadalupe Ayala was left distraught after her 25-year-old son, Alfredo Ezequiel Campos, was taken from his home in Tlajomulco. It was another name added to the list of more than 15,000 people recorded as missing in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. In the state capital, Guadalajara, a major traffic junction plastered with posters of missing people has been renamed the “roundabout of the disappeared”.
There are more than 100,000 missing people in Mexico – one of the tragic consequences of the country’s deadly drug crisis, with most of the “disappeared” believed to be abducted by organised crime groups and drug cartels. The total is likely to be even higher as many people are not reported missing for fear of retribution.
The UN Security Council passed a regime change resolution against Gaza on Monday, effectively issuing a mandate for an invasion force to enter the besieged coastal enclave and install a US-led ruling authority by force.
Passing with 13 votes in favour and none in defiance, the new UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution has given the United States a mandate to create what it calls an “International Stabilisation Force” (ISF) and “Board of Peace” committee to seize power in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump has hailed the resolution as historic, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has stood in opposition to an element of the resolution that mentions “Palestinian Statehood”.
In order to understand what has just occurred, it requires a breakdown of the resolution itself and the broader context surrounding the ceasefire deal.
When these elements are combined, it becomes clear that this resolution is perhaps one of the most shameful to have passed in the history of the United Nations, casting shame on it and undermining the very basis on which it was formed to begin with.
An illegal regime change resolution In September 2025, a United Nations commission of inquiry found Israel to have committed the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
For further context, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the most powerful international legal entity and organ of the UN, ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide and thus issued orders for Tel Aviv to end specific violations of international law in Gaza, which were subsequently ignored.
Taking this into consideration, the UN itself cannot claim ignorance of the conditions suffered by the people of Gaza, nor could it credibly posit that the United States is a neutral actor capable of enforcing a balanced resolution of what its own experts have found to be a genocide.
This resolution itself is not a peace plan and robs Palestinians of their autonomy entirely; thus, it is anti-democratic in its nature.
It was also passed due in large part to threats from the United States against both Russia and China, that if they vetoed it, the ceasefire would end and the genocide would resume. Therefore, both Beijing and Moscow abstained from the vote, despite the Russian counterproposal and initial opposition to the resolution.
It also gives a green light to what the US calls a “Board of Peace”, which will work to preside over governing Gaza during the ceasefire period. The head of this board is none other than US President Trump himself, who says he will be joined by other world leaders.
Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who launched the illegal invasion of Iraq, has been floated as a potential “Board of Peace” leader also.
Vowed a ‘Gaza Riviera’
On February 4 of this year, President Trump vowed to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip. The American President later sought to impose a plan for a new Gaza, which he even called the “Gaza Riviera”, which was drawn up by Zionist economist Joseph Pelzman.
Part of Pelzman’s recommendations to Trump was that “you have to destroy the whole place, restart from scratch”.
As it became clear that the US alone could not justify an invasion force and simply take over Gaza by force, on behalf of Israel, in order to build “Trump Gaza”, a casino beach land for fellow Jeffrey Epstein-connected billionaires, a new answer was desperately sought.
Then came a range of meetings between Trump administration officials and regional leaderships, aimed at working out a strategy to achieve their desired goals in Gaza.
After the ceasefire was violated in March by the Israelis, leading to the mass murder of around 17,000 more Palestinians, a number of schemes were being hatched and proposals set forth.
The US backed and helped to create the now-defunct so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) programme, which was used to privatise the distribution of aid in the territory amidst a total blockade of all food for three months.
Starving Palestinians, who were rapidly falling into famine, flocked to these GHF sites, where they were fired upon by US private military contractors and Israeli occupation forces, murdering more than 1000 civilians.
The ‘New York Declaration’
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and France were busy putting together what would become the “New York Declaration” proposal for ending the war and bringing Western nations to recognise the State of Palestine at the UN.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, here came Trump’s so-called “peace plan” that was announced at the White House in October. This plan appeared at first to be calling for a total end to the war, a mutual prisoner exchange and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in a phased approach.
From the outset, Trump’s “20-point plan” was vague and impractical. Israel immediately violated the ceasefire from the very first day and has murdered nearly 300 Palestinians since then. The first phase of the ceasefire deal was supposed to end quickly, ideally within five days, but the deal has stalled for over a month.
Throughout this time, it has become increasingly clear that the Israelis are not going to respect the “Yellow Line” separation zone and have violated the agreement through operating deeper into Gaza than they had originally agreed to.
The Israeli-occupied zone was supposed to be 53 percent of Gaza; it has turned out to be closer to 58 percent. Aid is also not entering at a sufficient rate, despite US and Israeli denials; this has been confirmed by leading rights groups and humanitarian organisations.
In the background, the US team dealing with the ceasefire deal that is headed by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff has been juggling countless insidious proposals for the future of Gaza.
Even publicly stating that reconstruction will only take place in the Israeli-controlled portion of the territory, also floating the idea that aid points will be set up there in order to force the population out of the territory under de facto Hamas control. This has often been referred to as the “new Gaza plan”.
The disastrous GHF
As this has all been in the works, including discussions about bringing back the disastrous GHF, the Israelis have been working alongside four ISIS-linked collaborator death squads that it controls and who operate behind the Yellow Line in Gaza.
No mechanisms have been put in place to punish the Israelis for their daily violations of the ceasefire, including the continuation of demolition operations against Gaza’s remaining civilian infrastructure. This appears to be directly in line with Joseph Pelzman’s plan earlier this year to “destroy the whole place”.
The UNSC resolution not only makes Donald Trump the effective leader of the new administrative force that will be imposed upon the Gaza Strip, but also greenlights what it calls its International Stabilisation Force. This ISF is explicitly stated to be a multinational military force that will be tasked with disarming Hamas and all Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip.
The US claims it will not be directly involved in the fighting with “boots on the ground”; it has already deployed hundreds of soldiers and has been reportedly building a military facility, which they deny is a base, but for all intents and purposes will be one.
Although it may not be American soldiers killing and dying while battling Palestinian resistance groups, they will be in charge of this force.
This is not a “UN peacekeeping force” and is not an equivalent to UNIFIL in southern Lebanon; it is there to carry out the task of completing Israel’s war goal of defeating the Palestinian resistance through force.
In other words, foreign soldiers will be sent from around the world to die for Israel and taxpayers from those nations will be footing the bill.
‘Self-determination’ reservation
The only reason why Israel has reservations about this plan is because it included a statement claiming that if the Palestinian Authority (PA) — that does not control Gaza and is opposed by the majority of the Palestinian people — undergoes reforms that the West and Israel demand, then conditions “may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.
A keyword here is “may”, in other words, it is not binding and was simply added in to give corrupted Arab leaderships the excuse to vote yes.
Hamas and every other Palestinian political party, with the exception of the mainstream branch of Fatah that answers to Israel and the US, have opposed this UNSC resolution.
Hamas even called upon Algeria to vote against it; instead, the Algerian leadership praised Donald Trump and voted in favour. Typical of Arab and Muslim-majority regimes that don’t represent the will of their people, they all fell in line and bent over backwards to please Washington.
It won’t likely work As has been the story with every conspiracy hatched against the people of Gaza, this is again destined to fail. Not only will it fail, but it will likely backfire enormously and lead to desperate moves.
To begin with, the invasion force, or ISF, will be a military endeavour that will have to bring together tens of thousands of soldiers who speak different languages and have nothing in common, in order to somehow achieve victory where Israel failed.
It is a logistical nightmare to even think about.
How long would it take to deploy these soldiers? At the very least, it’s going to take months. Then, how long would this process take? Nobody has any clear answers here.
Also, what happens if Israel begins bombing again at any point, for example, if there is a clash that kills Israeli soldiers? What would these nations do if Israeli airstrikes killed their soldiers or put them in harm’s way?
Also, tens of thousands of soldiers may not cut it; if the goal is to destroy all the territory’s military infrastructure, they may need hundreds of thousands. Or if that isn’t an option, will they work alongside the Israeli military?
It is additionally clear that nobody knows where all the tunnels and fighters are; if Israel couldn’t find them, then how can anyone else?
After all, the US, UK, and various others have helped the Israelis with intelligence sharing and reconnaissance for more than two years to get these answers.
How do regimes justify this?
Finally, when Arab, European, or Southeast Asian soldiers return to their nations in body bags, how do their regimes justify this? Will the president or prime minister of these nations have to stand up and tell their people . . . “sorry guys, your sons and daughters are now in coffins because Israel needed a military force capable of doing what they failed to do, so we had to help them complete their genocidal project”.
Also, how many Palestinian civilians are going to be slaughtered by these foreign invaders?
As for the plan to overthrow Hamas rule in Gaza, the people of the territory will not accept foreign invaders as their occupiers any more than they will accept Israelis. They are not going to accept ISIS-linked collaborators as any kind of security force either.
Already, the situation is chaotic inside Gaza, and that is while its own people, who are experienced and understand their conditions, are in control of managing security and some administrative issues; this includes both Hamas and others who are operating independently of it, but inside the territory under its de facto control.
Just as the Israeli military claimed it was going to occupy Gaza City, laying out countless plans to do this, to ethnically cleanse the territory and “crush Hamas”, the US has been coordinating alongside it throughout the entirety of the last two years. Every scheme has collapsed and ended in failure.
It has been nearly a month and a half, yet there are still no clear answers as to how this Trump “peace plan” is supposed to work and it is clear that the Israelis are coming up with new proposals on a daily basis.
There is no permanent mechanism for aid transfers, which the Israelis are blocking. There is no clear vision for governance.
How a US plan envisages Gaza being permanently split into two sections – a green zone and a red zone. Image: Guardian/IDF/X
‘Two Gazas’ plan incoherent
The “two Gazas” plan is not even part of the ceasefire or Trump plan, yet it is being pursued in an incoherent way. The ISF makes no sense and appears as poorly planned as the GHF.
Hamas and the other Palestinian factions will not give up their weapons. There is no real plan for reconstruction. The Israelis are adamant that there will be no Palestinian State and won’t allow any independent Palestinian rule of Gaza, and the list of problems goes on and on.
What it really looks like here is that this entire ceasefire scheme is a stab in the dark attempt to achieve Israel’s goals while also giving its forces a break and redirecting their focus on other fronts, understanding that there is no clear solution to the Gaza question for now.
The United Nations has shown itself over the past two years to be nothing more than a platform for political theatre. It is incapable of punishing, preventing, or even stopping the crime of all crimes.
Now that international law has suffocated to death under the rubble of Gaza, next to the thousands of children who still lie underneath it, the future of this conflict will transform.
This UNSC vote demonstrates that there is no international law, no international community, and that the UN is simply a bunch of fancy offices, which are only allowed to work under the confines of gangster rule.
If the Palestinian resistance groups feel as if their backs are against the wall and an opportunity, such as another Israeli war on Lebanon, presents them the opportunity, then there is a high likelihood that a major military decision will be made.
In the event that this occurs, it will be this UNSC resolution that is in large part responsible.
When the suffering in Gaza finally ends, whether that is because Israel obliterates all of its regional opposition and exterminates countless other civilians in its way, or Israel is militarily shattered, the UN should be disbanded as was the League of Nations. It is a failed project just as that which preceded it.
Something new must take over from it.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specialising in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle and it is republished with permission.
Regional student journalists at the University of the South Pacific have condemned the Samoan Prime Minister’s ban on the Samoa Observer newspaper, branding it as a “deliberate and systemic attempt to restrict public scrutiny”.
The Journalism Students’ Association (JSA) at USP said in a statement today it was “deeply
concerned” about Samoan Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt’s ban on the Samoa Observer from his press conferences and his directive that cabinet ministers avoid responding to the newspaper’s questions.
“The recently imposed suspension signals not merely a rebuke of one newspaper, but a more deliberate and systemic attempt to restrict robust public scrutiny,” the statement said.
“The JSA is especially concerned that these attacks are eroding youth confidence in the [journalism] profession.” Image: JSA logo“It raises serious concerns about citizens’ right to information, as well as the erosion of transparency, accountability, and public trust.”
“We also note reports of physical confrontations involving journalists outside the Prime Minister’s residence, which are deeply troubling. This is an alarming trend and signals a reverse, if not decline in media rights and freedom of speech, unless it is dealt with immediately,” the JSA said.
“With its long-standing dedication to reporting on governance, human rights, and social
accountability issues, the ban on the Samoa Observer strikes at the heart of public discourse and places journalists in a precarious position.
Not an isolated case
“It risks undermining their ability to report freely and without the fear of reprisal.”
Sadly, said the JSA statement, this was not an isolated case.
“Earlier this year, the JAWS president Lagi Keresoma faced defamation charges under Samoa’s libel laws over an article about a former police officer’s appeal to the Head of State.
“Samoa’s steep decline in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index further highlights the ongoing challenges confronting Samoan media.”
JAWS’ recent statement highlighting government attempts to control press conferences through a proposed guide, further added to the growing pattern of restrictions on press freedom in Samoa.
“These recent incidents, coupled with the exclusion of the Samoa Observer, send a chilling
warning to Samoan journalists and establish a dangerous precedent for media subservience at the highest levels,” said JSA.
“Journalists must be able to perform their work safely, without intimidation or assault,
as they carry out their responsibilities to the public. These incidents raise serious
questions about the treatment of media professionals and respect for journalistic work.
“As a journalism student association with many of our journalists and alumni working in
the region, we are committed to empowering the next generation of journalists.
“The JSA is especially concerned that these attacks are eroding youth confidence in the
profession.
“We believe strongly in defending a space where young people can enter a field that is critical to democratic accountability, public oversight, and civic engagement.”
Events to mark the 50th anniversary of dictator’s death are intended to remind Spaniards, particularly the young, of the dangers of fascism
Mingorrubio municipal cemetery, which sits where the suburbs of north-west Madrid fade out into the countryside, must have been something of a comedown for a man who was originally laid to rest with a 150-metre-high cross for a headstone and four enormous bronze archangels to watch over him.
On June 19, 2024, Khaled Mahajneh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, became the first lawyer to visit a notorious detention facility for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, located inside the Sde Teiman military base in the Negev Desert, one of several detention facilities established after October 7, 2023 to hold Palestinians seized in Gaza.
Speaking to +972 Magazine a week after his visit, Mahanjeh drew a pertinent comparison with the treatment of Muslim prisoners in the US’s post-9/11 “war on terror”, but concluded that Israel’s behavior was even worse.
Exclusive: author urges ministers to engage with those on hunger strike, who want better conditions, bail and lifting of ban
Sally Rooney has pleaded with the UK government to address the “shocking mistreatment” of Palestine Action-affiliated prisoners who are on hunger strike, saying she fears for their welfare.
Six prisoners awaiting trial are refusing food, including two who have been on hunger strike for more than two weeks and are already said to have lost considerable weight and be struggling physically. Their demands include improved jail conditions, release on bail and lifting the ban on Palestine Action.
French minister for overseas Naïma Moutchou left New Caledonia at the weekend after a 5-day stay, with an announcement regarding a re-scheduled referendum-like consultation on a project for the French Pacific territory’s political future — but few pledges regarding further French commitment to tackle a dire financial situation.
Her visit also coincided with another formal announcement from one major “moderate” component of the pro-independence movement to officialise an already existing split with the now hard-line FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).
On Friday, November 14, the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) revealed the outcome of its 50th Congress held six days earlier, which now makes official its withdrawal from the FLNKS (a platform it was part of since the FLNKS was set up in 1984).
It originally comprised PALIKA, UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), Union Calédonienne (UC) and Wallisian-based Rassemblement démocratique océanien (RDO).
The PALIKA said it decided to formally split from FLNKS because it had disagreed with the FLNKS approach since the May 2024 riots.
Since the announcement on Friday, PALIKA spokesman Charles Washetine told several local media his party was still supporting a project of “full sovereignty” with France, through negotiation and dialogue.
But “it’s certainly not through destruction that we will build something for our children”, he stressed.
He admitted the Bougival text was “perfectible”.
Distanced from FLNKS
At the time, especially after the FLNKS Congress held in August 2024, two of its significant components, PALIKA and UPM had already distanced itself from the FLNKS and the CCAT, saying it “did not recognise itself”.
The CCAT (Field Action Coordinating Cell) is a group that was then tasked to organise protests against a planned Constitutional change that later degenerated into the riots claimed the lives of 14 people.
At its August 2024 Congress, at which neither PALIKA nor UPM took part, FLNKS also resolved that such “mobilisation tools” as CCAT and several other groups, were officially accepted into the party’s fold.
Christian Téin, who was at the time the CCAT leader, was also elected president of the FLNKS in absentia.
He had been arrested two months earlier and flown to Paris, where he served one year behind bars before judges ruled he could be released, pending his trial at a yet undetermined date.
He is still facing crime-related charges in relation to his alleged role during the May 2024 riots.
UPM held its congress at the weekend and it is widely believed it will make similar announcements regarding its formal withdrawal from FLNKS.
‘I’m not interfering’
“I’m not interfering in local politics, but PALIKA has been a major player in terms of dialogue, forever . . . What matters to me is to know who my interlocutors are,” Moutchou said on PALIKA’s split from FLNKS.
She noted however that in its latest communiqué, FLNKS had still expressed the wish to pursue dialogue.
“But they are rejecting the Bougival agreement, they’re rejecting it in block. They just don’t want to talk on this basis. So the door should stay open.”
During talks with the French minister last week, most of the topics revolved around the so-called Bougival political compromise that resulted in the signing, on July 12 of a document, initially by all political parties, under the auspices of former French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls.
The Bougival text envisages the creation of a “State of New Caledonia”, its collateral “New Caledonian Nationality” and the transfer of a number of French key powers (such as foreign affairs) to the Pacific territory.
But FLNKS, on August 9, formally rejected the text, saying their negotiators’ signatures were now null and void because the text was regarded as a “lure of independence” and that it did not satisfy the party’s demands in terms of short-term full sovereignty.
Since then, as part of a new cabinet let by French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, Manuel Valls was replaced in October by Naïma Moutchou.
FLNKS urged to rejoin negotiation
In this capacity, she travelled to New Caledonia for the first time, saying she did not want to “do without FLNKS”, provided FLNKS did not want to “do without the other (parties)”.
Parties supporting the Bougival document have also urged FLNKS to re-join the negotiating process, even if this means the original July 2025 document has to be modified according to their demands.
During her stay last week, separate meetings (locally described as “bilateral”) were held with every political force in New Caledonia, including FLNKS, and other pro-independence movements (such as the PALIKA and the UPM, regarded as “moderates”), but also the pro-France parties (such as Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement-LR, Calédonie Ensemble and Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien).
The FLNKS declined to join a final roundtable with other political stakeholders on Thursday and Friday last week, saying it was not mandated to negotiate.
True to her approach of “listening first and replying after”, Moutchou refrained from making any comment or announcement during the first three days of her mission.
De facto referendum now comes first But as she prepared to leave on Friday, she spoke to announce that the project of a “citizen’s consultation” (a de facto referendum) would take place sometime in February 2026 to ask the local population whether they supported the Bougival document’s implementation.
The consultation was already in the pipeline as part of the Bougival document, but it was originally planned to happen after a Constitutional review purposed to incorporate the text, ideally before the end of 2025.
But the Constitutional process, which would require the approval of votes from both the French Senate (Upper House) and National Assembly (Lower House), was delayed by instability in the French politic, including the demise of former Prime Minister François Bayrou and the subsequent advent of his successor Sébastien Lecornu.
On Friday, Moutchou also issued a brief communiqué saying that “pro-Bougival” parties had agreed to confirm their support in the implementation of the text and to “hold an anticipated citizens’ consultation”.
“We’re going to ask New Caledonians for their opinion first. This will give more power to what is being discussed”, she told public broadcaster NC la 1ère last Friday.
She said this was to “give back New Caledonians their voice in a moment of tension, because we indeed are in a moment of tension, when political choices are not always understood”.
In a media statement released the same day, the FLNKS reiterates its stance, saying “the so-called Bougival project cannot constitute a working base because it goes against (New Caledonia’s) decolonisation process”.
‘Written in black and white’
“It’s written in black and white in the Bougival agreement project: the decolonisation process goes on”, Moutchou told local media.
The party also warns against “any attempt of forceful passage (passage en force) risks bringing the country to a situation of durable instability”.
In terms of security, Moutchou said “to be very clear, it will be zero tolerance”.
“Security forces will stay as long as needed. We currently have 20 gendarmerie squadrons (more than 2500 personnel). This is 20 out of the 120 squads available for the whole of France”, she told NC la 1ère.
“I’m very attached to the authority of the State. There are rules and they must be respected. You can demonstrate, you can say you don’t agree. But you don’t cross the red line,” she told Radio Rythme Bleu on Friday.
The FLNKS said during the minister’s visit, they had handed over a project for a “framework agreement” that would serve as a basis for “future discussions”.
Favourable reaction
On the pro-France side, several leaders have reacted favourably to Moutchou’s parting release.
“The minister’s visit concludes on a positive note”, Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach wrote on social networks, saying this citizen consultation project will “turn New Caledonians into judges of peace”.
“At this stage, FLNKS does not seem to want to find an agreement with the (French) State and New Caledonia’s political forces. The other forces have therefore made the choice to submit the Bougival agreement to New Caledonians before the (French) Parliament approves a Constitutional Bill”, wrote Les Loyalistes leader Sonia Backès.
However, it remains unclear on what basis this de facto local referendum will be held in terms of electoral role and who will be qualified to vote.
No new economic pledge In the brief communiqué on Friday last week, a “plan to re-launch New Caledonia’s economy” to “address the challenges” is also mentioned as one of the agreed goals.
But there was no announcement regarding further financial assistance from France to salvage New Caledonia’s economy, still bearing the consequences of the May 2024 insurrectional riots and that has caused material losses of over 2 billion euros (about NZ$4 billion), an estimated drop of 13.5 percent of its GDP and thousands of unemployed.
There are also increasingly strident calls to convert the 1 billion euro French loan (bringing New Caledonia to an estimated 360 percent indebtedness rate regarded as “unbearable”) into a grant.
Moutchou said this was currently “not on the agenda”.
The crucial mining industry, which was already suffering industrial issues even before the May 2024 riots, compounded with emerging regional competition, needed to be re-structured in order to overhaul its business model and production costs, she said.
‘We don’t have the financial means to build the new prison’ A 500 million euro project to build a new prison, initially announced in early 2024 for scheduled completion in 2032, will no longer take place, despite numerous condemnations due to the appalling living conditions for prisoners in the current Camp Est prison complex in Nouméa.
The Camp Est suffers an overpopulation ratio of 140 percent.
“I’m not going to tell you stories, in the current (French) budgetary conditions, we don’t have the financial means to build the new prison”, she told NC la 1ère.
Instead, it was now envisaged to set a semi-freedom centre for host inmates serving moderate jail sentences, thus relieving the overcrowded Camp Est premises of an estimated one hundred people.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
As you know, there’s a tiny group of Dame Jacinda Ardern haters in New Zealand who are easily triggered by facts and the ongoing success of the former prime minister on the world stage.
The tiny eeny weeny group is made to look bigger online by an automated army of fake profile bots who all say the same five or six things and all leave a space before a comma.
This automation is imported into New Zealand so many of the profiles are in other countries and simply are not real humans.
Naturally this illusion of “flooding the zone” programmatically on social media causes the non-critical minded to assume they are a majority when they have no such real evidence to support that delusion.
Yet here’s some context and food for thought.
None of the haters have run a public hospital, been a director-general of health during a pandemic, been an epidemiologist or even a GP and many struggle to spell their own name properly let alone read anything accurately.
None of them have read all the Health Advice offered to the government during the covid-19 pandemic. They don’t know it at all.
Know a lot more
Yet they typically feel they do know a lot more than any of those people when it comes to a global pandemic unfolding in real time.
None of the haters can recite all 39 recommendations from the first Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19, less than three of them have read the entire first report, none have any memory of National voting for the wage subsidy and business support payments when they accuse the Labour government of destroying the economy.
Most cannot off the top of their heads tell us how the Reserve Bank is independent of government when it raises the OCR and many think Jacinda did this but look you may be challenged to a boxing match if you try to learn them.
The exact macro economic state of our economy in terms of GDP growth, the size of the economy, unemployment and declining inflation forecasts escape their memory when Jacinda resigned, not that they care when they say she destroyed the economy.
They make these claims without facts and figures and they pass on the opinions of others that they listened to and swallowed.
It’s only a tiny group, the rest are bots.
The bots think making horse jokes about Jacinda is amusing, creative and unique and it’s their only joke now for three years — every single day they marvel at their own humour. In ten years they will still be repeating that one insult they call their own.
Bots on Nuremberg
The bots have also been programmed to say things about Nuremberg, being put into jail, bullets, and other violent suggestions which speaks to a kind of mental illness.
The sources of these sorts of sentiments were imported and fanned by groups set up to whip up resentment and few realise how they have been manipulated and captured by this programme.
The pillars of truth to the haters rest on being ignorant about how a democracy necessarily temporarily looks like a dictatorship in a public health emergency in order to save lives.
We agreed these matters as a democracy, it was not Jacinda taking over. We agreed to special adaptations of democracy and freedom to save lives temporarily.
The population of the earth has not all died from covid vaccines yet.
There is always some harm with vaccines, but it is overstated by Jacinda haters and misunderstood by those ranting about Medsafe, that is simply not the actual number of vaccine deaths and harm that has been verified — rather it is what was reported somewhat subject to conjecture.
The tinfoil hats and company threatened Jacinda’s life on the lawn outside Parliament and burnt down a playground and trees and then stamp their feet that she did not face a lynch mob.
No doors kicked in
Nobody’s door was kicked in by police during covid 19.
Nobody was forced to take a jab. No they chose to leave their jobs because they had a choice provided to them. The science was what the Government acted upon, not the need to control anyone.
Mandates were temporary and went on a few weeks too long.
Some people endured the hardship of not being present when their loved ones died and that was very unfortunate but again it was about medical advice.
Then Director-General of Health Sir Ashly Bloomfield said the government acted on about 90 percent of the Public Health advice it was given. Jacinda haters never mention that fact.
Jacinda haters say she ran away, but to be fair she endured 50 times more abuse than any other politician, and her daughter was threatened by randoms in a café, plus Jacinda was mentally exhausted after covid and all the other events that most prime ministers never have to endure, and she thought somebody else could give it more energy.
We were in good hands with Chris Hipkins so there was no abandoning as haters can’t make up their minds if they want her here or gone — but they do know they want to hate.
Lost a few bucks
The tiny group of haters include some people who lost a few bucks, a business, an opportunity and people who wanted to travel when there was a global pandemic happening.
Bad things happen in pandemics and every country experienced increased levels of debt, wage subsidies, job losses, tragic problems with a loss of income, school absenteeism, increased crime, and other effects like inflation and a cost of living crisis.
Haters just blame Jacinda because they don’t get that international context and the second Royal Commission of Inquiry was a political stunt, not about being more prepared for future pandemics but more about feeding the haters.
All the information it needed was provided by Jacinda, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins but right wing media whipped up the show trial despite appearances before a demented mob of haters being thought a necessary theatre for the right wing.
A right wing who signed up to covid lockdowns and emergency laws and then later manipulated short term memories for political gain.
You will never convince a hater not to hate with facts and context and persuasion, even now they are thinking how to rebut these matters rather than being open minded.
Pandemics suck and we did pretty well in the last one but there were consequences for some — for whom I have sympathy, sorry for your loss, I also know people who died . . . I also know people who lost money, I also know people who could not be there at a funeral . . . but I am not a hater.
Valuing wanting to learn
Instead, I value how science wants to learn and know what mistakes were made and to adapt for the next pandemic. I value how we were once a team of five million acting together with great kotahitanga.
I value Jacinda saying let there be a place for kindness in the world, despite the way doing the best for the common good may seem unkind to some at times.
The effects of the pandemic in country by country reports show the same patterns everywhere — lockdowns, inflation, cost of living increases, crime increase, education impacts, groceries cost more, petrol prices are too high, supply chains disrupted.
When a hater simplistically blames Jacinda for “destroying the economy and running away” it is literally an admission of their ignorance.
It’s like putting your hand up and screaming, ‘look at me, I am dumb’.
The vast majority get it and want Jacinda back if she wants to come back and live in peace — but if not . . . that is fine too.
Sad, ignorant minority
A small sad and ignorant minority will never let it go and every day they hate and hate and hate because they are full of hate and that is who they really are, unable to move on and process matters, blamers, simple, under informed and grossly self pitying.
I get the fact your body is your temple and you want medical sovereignty, I also get medical science and immunity.
It’s been nearly three years now, is it time to be a little less hysterical and to actually put away the violent abuse and lame blaming? Will you carry on sulking like a child for another three years?
It’s okay to disagree with me, but before you do, and I know you will, without taking onboard anything I write, just remember what Jacinda said.
In a global pandemic with people’s lives at stake, she would rather be accused of doing too much than doing too little.
Gerard Otto is a digital creator, satirist and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. This article is republished with permission.
Israel and the US are now dictating their terms over Palestine, and Hamas and various Arab partners are at the receiving end of this diktat, says Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.
The UN Security Council gained 13-0 votes, opening the way for the crucial next steps for the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
However, both China and Russia were highly critical and abstained, citing the vague details of the resolution.
Russia had also circulated a rival resolution stressing that the occupied West Bank and Gaza must be joined as a contiguous state under the Palestinian Authority and underlining the importance of a Security Council role to provide security in Gaza and for implementing the ceasefire.
Bishara said that the stabilisation force would be from countries friendly to Israel and the US.
‘Complicated job’
“And that means their job is not just going to be to keep the peace on the borders but to also find a way to disarm Hamas,” he said.
“I think that’s going to be a complicated job because that also involves Israel acting on its own commitments, which means withdrawing to a narrow corridor on the eastern part of Gaza and so on.
“All of this will be very difficult to implement.”
Bishara said the US would be involved but only from the outside.
“The US doesn’t want to get involved in terms of troops or money. But those countries who are going to contribute soldiers and money, they are going to need guarantees – in terms of a safe passage forward in relation to Hamas.
“This is really important.”
The breakdown of the UN Security Council vote on the US-sponsored Gaza resolution. Image: UN
Bishara said no Arab or Muslim-majority country wanted to be put in a position — even under pressure — of doing Israel’s bidding in Gaza or “doing Israel’s dirty work because Israel failed”.
“After two years of genocide, of killing tens of thousands of people, it failed to disarm Hamas directly on the battlefield.”
‘Important step’
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the Gaza resolution as “an important step in the consolidation of the ceasefire” and called for the diplomatic momentum to be translated into “concrete and urgently needed steps on the ground”.
Stephane Dujarric said the UN was committed to its role in implementing the US resolution, including “scaling up humanitarian assistance” in Gaza and “supporting all efforts to move the parties toward the next phase of the ceasefire”.
He also said Guterres “commends the continued diplomatic efforts of Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, the United States and regional states”.
The secretary-general also “underlines the importance of moving to the next phase of the US plan, leading to a political process for the achievement of the two-state solution in line with previous United Nations resolutions,” he added.
However, the Russian ambassador said this was no day of celebration for the Security Council, and he added thatthe integrity of the council was now in question.
The Chinese ambassador said the resolution that was adopted was vague and unclear.
‘Day of shame for UN’
Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN human rights official, described the vote as a “day of shame for the United Nations”.
“Not a single member of the Council had the courage, principle, or respect for international law to vote against this US-Israel colonial outrage,” Mokhiber said in a post on X.
“This proposal has been rejected by Palestinian civil society and factions, and defenders of human rights and international law everywhere,” he said, adding that the “struggle for Palestinian freedom will continue”.
Mokhiber was the former director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and left his post in 2023 in protest over the UN’s failure to prevent Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The UN Security Council has just adopted the horrific US resolution with 13 yes votes and 2 abstentions. Not a single member of the Council had the courage, principle, or respect for international law to vote against this US-Israel colonial outrage. This proposal has been…
The Algerian ambassador, who voted for the resolution, warned that it was explicit against Israeli annexation, and forced displacement.
Ambassador Amar Bendjama said his country was particularly grateful to Trump “whose personal engagement has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining the ceasefire in Gaza”, which ended almost two years of “unbearable suffering” for the Palestinians.
“But we underline that genuine peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved without justice, justice for the Palestinians who have waited for decades for the establishment of their independent state,” he said.
Bendjama also said the resolution needed to be read in its entirety.
“It clearly affirms no annexation, no occupation, no forced displacement,” he said.
He went on to say that humanitarian aid must be distributed in Gaza “without interference” from Israel.
Israel and the US are now dictating their terms over Palestine, and Hamas and various Arab partners are at the receiving end of this diktat, says Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.
The UN Security Council gained 13-0 votes, opening the way for the crucial next steps for the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
However, both China and Russia were highly critical and abstained, citing the vague details of the resolution.
Russia had also circulated a rival resolution stressing that the occupied West Bank and Gaza must be joined as a contiguous state under the Palestinian Authority and underlining the importance of a Security Council role to provide security in Gaza and for implementing the ceasefire.
Bishara said that the stabilisation force would be from countries friendly to Israel and the US.
‘Complicated job’
“And that means their job is not just going to be to keep the peace on the borders but to also find a way to disarm Hamas,” he said.
“I think that’s going to be a complicated job because that also involves Israel acting on its own commitments, which means withdrawing to a narrow corridor on the eastern part of Gaza and so on.
“All of this will be very difficult to implement.”
Bishara said the US would be involved but only from the outside.
“The US doesn’t want to get involved in terms of troops or money. But those countries who are going to contribute soldiers and money, they are going to need guarantees – in terms of a safe passage forward in relation to Hamas.
“This is really important.”
The breakdown of the UN Security Council vote on the US-sponsored Gaza resolution. Image: UN
Bishara said no Arab or Muslim-majority country wanted to be put in a position — even under pressure — of doing Israel’s bidding in Gaza or “doing Israel’s dirty work because Israel failed”.
“After two years of genocide, of killing tens of thousands of people, it failed to disarm Hamas directly on the battlefield.”
‘Important step’
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the Gaza resolution as “an important step in the consolidation of the ceasefire” and called for the diplomatic momentum to be translated into “concrete and urgently needed steps on the ground”.
Stephane Dujarric said the UN was committed to its role in implementing the US resolution, including “scaling up humanitarian assistance” in Gaza and “supporting all efforts to move the parties toward the next phase of the ceasefire”.
He also said Guterres “commends the continued diplomatic efforts of Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, the United States and regional states”.
The secretary-general also “underlines the importance of moving to the next phase of the US plan, leading to a political process for the achievement of the two-state solution in line with previous United Nations resolutions,” he added.
However, the Russian ambassador said this was no day of celebration for the Security Council, and he added thatthe integrity of the council was now in question.
The Chinese ambassador said the resolution that was adopted was vague and unclear.
‘Day of shame for UN’
Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN human rights official, described the vote as a “day of shame for the United Nations”.
“Not a single member of the Council had the courage, principle, or respect for international law to vote against this US-Israel colonial outrage,” Mokhiber said in a post on X.
“This proposal has been rejected by Palestinian civil society and factions, and defenders of human rights and international law everywhere,” he said, adding that the “struggle for Palestinian freedom will continue”.
Mokhiber was the former director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and left his post in 2023 in protest over the UN’s failure to prevent Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The UN Security Council has just adopted the horrific US resolution with 13 yes votes and 2 abstentions. Not a single member of the Council had the courage, principle, or respect for international law to vote against this US-Israel colonial outrage. This proposal has been…
The Algerian ambassador, who voted for the resolution, warned that it was explicit against Israeli annexation, and forced displacement.
Ambassador Amar Bendjama said his country was particularly grateful to Trump “whose personal engagement has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining the ceasefire in Gaza”, which ended almost two years of “unbearable suffering” for the Palestinians.
“But we underline that genuine peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved without justice, justice for the Palestinians who have waited for decades for the establishment of their independent state,” he said.
Bendjama also said the resolution needed to be read in its entirety.
“It clearly affirms no annexation, no occupation, no forced displacement,” he said.
He went on to say that humanitarian aid must be distributed in Gaza “without interference” from Israel.
The United States was scheduled for its regular review of its human rights violations by the United Nations Human Rights Council on November 7, but it refused to cooperate. As part of the process, activists in the US submitted a shadow report last April called “The Rights to Life and Health: How financing affects the right to health care in the US.” Clearing the FOG speaks with Martha “Marti” Schmidt, a human rights expert and activist, about the findings in the shadow report, the legal basis supporting the human right to health care, the problems with the current healthcare system in the United States and what type of system would honor our right to health care. Schmidt also discusses successful healthcare systems in other countries and the importance of showing solidarity with countries that are targeted by the United States.
For six years, Alternative Jewish Voices has spoken in an aspirational voice. This is intentional. Research shows, the voice that mobilises new political engagement is a voice of moral clarity which invites others to join the work of making a better world.
We ground our voice in facts, and today’s facts are shattering. We share the outrage that we hear. However, outrage alone does not make change. It has to be channeled forward into principled action.
Hope is resistance. AJV met last week to ask where we find that hope now, while grief and anger feel overwhelming.
With unprecedented Western permission and complicity, Israel’s genocide is ongoing. The IDF has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and decimated the built environment of Gaza.
Bombed half a dozen countries
Along the way, Israel has bombed half a dozen countries which are not at war with it.
The silence of governments like ours imagines this dystopia as a new baseline. They will settle for negotiating the speed of Israel’s new crimes against the survivors of Palestine.
We utterly reject their selective amnesia — but each time we call out our complicit government, we need to call them forward and judge them against something better.
We do that by placing the value of human life at the centre of our understanding. People have laboured for a century and a half to embed a rights-based vision of human dignity and equality.
Rights are not an opinion; rights are the basis of international law and institutions. That today’s governments spit on Palestinians’ rights does not invalidate Palestinians’ rights. It raises the stakes.
Now we must fight for the vision even as we wield it.
Our baseline is a world in which people flourish with their basic needs and dignity ensured. We protest the deficits from that standard. We judge Israel and its powerful accomplices against the standard of an accountable, just peace for all who live between the river and the sea.
Daily erosion of our democracy
Even as our allies have taken the step of recognising Palestine, Luxon, Seymour and Peters cosy up to Donald Trump. We are reeling from their daily erosion of our democracy.
Our government’s position on Palestine and the value it places on our own lives follow from a single agenda. This government is harming far more people than it is benefiting. We find hope in the work that brings together a majority for change.
While Palestine has become the cement of a broad global movement, Zionism is shifting. Israel used its years of Zionist-Jewish permission to consolidate new sources of support. It is no longer dependent upon Jewish social licence.
Christian Zionism, long the majority of Zionism, is now an insider shaping American policy. Israel dedicates new budgets to influencing American Christians.
In Aotearoa, Israel’s deputy foreign minister has met with Christian nationalist Brian Tamaki and Alfred Ngaio. There are five rabbis in this country, while 130 Christian Zionist clergy wrote together of their representatives’ time with Winston Peters before Peters declined to recognise Palestine.
In order to lend effective support to the liberation of Palestine, our protest needs to target the evolving structures and financial flows of Aotearoa’s Zionism.
This does not relieve the Zionist-Jewish community of responsibility. Globally, Zionist-Jewish institutions have eagerly wrapped Israel’s violence in the guise of Jewish identity, in order to place Israel’s genocidal actions beyond challenge.
Peace of the graveyard
Aotearoa’s Zionist-Jewish spokespeople still imagine only the peace of the graveyard, after which there might be a nicer Zionism.
A significant segment of Liberal-Zionist Jews seems to have turned against the war — although not against Zionism. That speaks to some capacity for change despite the institutions.
We welcome every effort to end this genocide. However, as principled anti-Zionists our goal is greater than the cessation of firing. In our own community and in Palestine, we must change the conditions that give rise to genocide. We need to decolonise the Jewishness that taught us to stake our future on the oppression and slaughter of others. There is no nicer Zionism.
To realise a liberatory Jewishness, we need new institutions with genuinely new communal leadership. We work for a future without Jewish supremacy or exceptionalism. Two-thirds of Jewish New Yorkers aged 18-44 just voted for Mayor Mamdani in one such act of qualitative, visionary change.
We will not displace this toxic new Right power by emulating their perpetual outrage. That would only turn us into the thing we oppose.
Outrage alone leaves one numb with grief and alienation. It stokes the identity politics which deny that we can live together. It leads to the despair which hardens the status quo.
We will only displace this power with an aspirational, broadly based vision of something better. We learn from the long, great works of our time: the works of peace, Indigenous rights, the common cause of dignified life in the hardest places.
Tangled roots of colonisation
That quality of holistic movement has coalesced around Palestine. We have never heard so many people acknowledge that the change must reach to the tangled roots of colonisation, racism, capitalism and fascism.
AJV brings to this our Jewish inheritance which recognises that social, ecological and material justice are inextricable. Together we will place life and justice at the centre of the work that needs doing, here and there.
In this dark time, hope is resistance and these are our ways forward.
In outrage and in aroha, we are Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa.
Marilyn Garson writes about Palestinian and Jewish dissent. This article was first published by Sh’ma Koleinu – Alternative Jewish Voices and is republished with permission. The original article can be read here.
A recent report by French newspaper Le Monde exposes a stark paradox in Gaza.
Notwithstanding the ceasefire agreement and Israel’s pledge to permit humanitarian aid, the entry of desperately needed items is being blocked.
Toothless humanitarian agreement
Palestinians find themselves trapped between unfulfilled promises and a punishing reality. The west touts the ceasefire as its crowing achievement, oblivious to the conditions of the ground.
The excessive ban — widely perceived as arbitrary, vague, and retributive — has tightened the stranglehold on the Gaza strip.
There are currently two million people living in a besieged city, where the risk of famine and epidemics is more acute than ever.
Le Monde, citing local aid organisations, characterises ‘access denial’ as a tacit strategy.
The newspaper notes that while in full-swing, the ban has not been officially endorsed by Israel’s COGAT apparatus — otherwise known as the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories.
Its ever-expanding scope, many observers note, is justified by the flimsy classification of relief items as ‘dual use’ goods.
The pretext of ‘Dual Use’ strangles Gaza
So what are they? These, as Le Monde reports, include essential daily-use items — tent poles, sterilisation equipment, truck spare parts, greenhouse tarpaulins, vaccination syringes, and potato seeds.
The assumption is items could fall into the wrong hands and used for military purposes. How exactly could a tent or a medical syringe be linked to military use?
This poses a grave threat to the reconstruction effort in Gaza, intentionally obstructed under the pretext of ‘dual use’.
People’s basic needs remain dangerously unmet due to the destruction of critical sectors and public infrastructure. Hospitals urgently need sterilisation equipment to treat serious injuries and surgical complications.
This denial, compounded by winter conditions, exacerbates the suffering of Gazans.
The agricultural sector has nearly collapsed altogether, due to the ban on greenhouse covers and potato seeds. Residents are beholden to aid handouts, limited to what Israel deems acceptable.
War by alternative means
At the same time, construction and supply lines have been severely disrupted. Without spare parts for tanker trucks, fuel and water transport have come to a halt, further damaging basic services and sanitation and impeding their recovery.
Le Monde likens the situation to a slow, attritional war waged through the control of goods entering and leaving the strip.
UN organisations have warned that the ban goes beyond access constraints, which Gazans fear will diminish the prospect of economic self-reliance and increases donor dependency.
Gazans remain caught between a rock and a hard place. They have no protection from violence nor consistent aid to stave off hunger and build their city anew.
In the month of October 2025, there have been 264 settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. This equals an average of eight attacks per day, resulting in material damage and injuries.
This is the highest monthly figure since the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) began documenting settler offences in 2006. OCHA notes that out of the 9,600 settler attacks documented since 2006, 1,500 of occurred this year.
Harvest season turns deadly
The escalation in settler violence coincided with the olive harvest season, which started in mid October.
More than 150 attacks have targeted 77 towns and villages in the occupied West Bank. Settlers have injured around 140 Palestinians, and vandalised more than 4,200 trees and saplings. Zionist settlers are protected by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) many of whom are settlers living in illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
Earlier this week, settlers launched a violent attack in Beita, near Nablus. Al Jazeera correspondent, Mohammad Alatrash was injured while escaping the violence. Speaking of the collusion that underpins settler violence, he told the Canary:
There are clear indications that the Israeli army provides assistance to settlers, helping them complete their attacks, intervening only when there is a real threat to the settlers, and ensuring their safe withdrawal after carrying out these attacks.
According to Israel human right advocacy group Yesh Din, since 2004, 94 percent of settler violence cases were dropped without charge. This figure has sharply risen in the past two years since October 7.
Not all Palestinian victims choose to file complaints due to a lack of faith in the system, or fear of retaliation against them and their families. The true figure is likely to be higher.
ICJ ruling: Israeli occupation is illegal
Settlements, and the settlers that live in them are illegal under international law.
The Israeli regime funds these settlements, and arms the settlers who act with impunity and get away with murder. It pours millions into settlement expansion and infrastructure without any regard for international law.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal, calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The occupation issued this year alone tenders for 5,667 new housing units, a record high, Israeli advocacy organisation, Peace Now, reports. Overall, 30,000 units have been approved and other controversial projects include the E1 settlement plan.
The Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) not only funds illegal outposts but provides them with equipment. This includes all terrain vehicles, floodlights, generators, night vision goggles and drones, to ‘protect’ from unarmed Palestinians.
UK funds sponsoring the illegal settler movement
Commenting on the material support for settlers, Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich has said:
Today we are equipping these pioneers with the tools that will allow them to protect their homes, maintain the territory, and deepen our hold on the Land of Israel.
The Settlement Division directly manages huge amounts of stolen land in the West Bank on behalf of the State, without public oversight. It transfers this land to settlers, and also finances infrastructure, constructs outposts, and distributes subsidies.
Security Minister and leader of the Jewish Power Party, Ben Gvir, launched a policy of arming Israelis, in October 2023. This includes those living in settlements in the West Bank. Posting on X/Twitter last year, he said.
More than 120,000 weapons have been distributed to eligible citizens, while tens of thousands have received conditional approvals.
Ben Gvir has made it easier for Israelis to obtain personal firearm licenses, particularly since October 2023, along with body armour and helmets. Ben Gvir has said the policy will allow “law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their community”.
But arming colonial settlers further threatens the lives of Palestinians, and will only sustain these attacks.
Time for government’s to act
Israel’s military and settlers work hand-in-hand, forcibly displacing Palestinians from their land through intimidation, abuse, and terror. Their ethnic cleansing of Palestinian territories is integral to their supremacist state, and delusions of a “Greater Israel”.
Illegal settlers and the IOF have displaced more than 10,000 Palestinians and killed 1,060 in the West Bank, since October 2023. Systematic aggression and government-backed impunity, are erasing entire communities.
The latest surge, part of a longstanding pattern, is fuelled by deliberate system that thrives on state protection and international inaction.
And powerful allies of the Israeli occupation, such as the UK, continue to enable these crimes UK institutions, including British banks and charities finance, continue to trade with illegal settlements — enabling these crimes.
Without accountability and decisive global intervention, these crimes will continue, deepening Palestinian suffering and eroding any prospect of justice or peace.
UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights cites written evidence submitted by Essex Law School academics on immigration detention The UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) recently conducted legislative scrutiny of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Bill) to assess its compatibility with national and international human rights standards. The Bill, introduced to […]
The world’s largest indigenous education conference has kicked off in Auckland, bringing with it thousands of indigenous educators from around the world.
About 3000 people were welcomed by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei for the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education 2025 (WIPCE) with a pōwhiri at the city’s waterfront on Sunday.
Around 3800 delegates are expected to attend the conference at the Aotea Centre over the week.
Auckland University of Technology (AUT) is hosting the event which is set to be the largest academic conference hosted in New Zealand this year.
WIPCE 2025 attendees fill out Auckland’s Cloud for the beginning of the conference. Image: Tamaira Hook/RNZ
WIPCE 2025 co-chair and AUT vice-chancellor Damon Salesa said it was an honour to host such an extraordinary range of speakers.
“Each kaikōrero brings their unique perspectives and knowledge. This conference is an opportunity to listen, learn and be inspired by those who continue to lead and shape Indigenous education across the world,” he said.
The four-day conference features keynote presentations from a number of Māori academics including educator Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, linguistic and cultural revilitalists Professor Leonie Pihama and Raniera Proctor, legal academic Eru Kapa-Kingi and Māori movie star Cliff Curtis.
There are also a number of break out sessions, guest speakers and panels discussions featuring academics from around the world.
WIPCE 2025 co-chair Damon Salesa (right) at the conference opening. Image: Tamaira Hook/RNZ
WIPCE 2025 co-chair Meihana Durie said the gathering came at a pivotal time for indigenous education and indigenous rights.
“We are immensely grateful for the pōwhiri yesterday hosted by iwi manaaki, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, which highlighted the sheer importance of those themes within the unique dimensions of Indigenous ceremony, language and ritual.”
Professor Meihana Durie . . . “Only educational platform designed specifically for native peoples from around the world to come together to share our stories, our challenges and our successes.” Photo: WIPCE 2025
“WIPCE is the only educational platform designed specifically for native peoples from around the world to come together to share our stories, our challenges and our successes with each other.” he said.
Outside of the conference is the Te Ao Pūtahi, a free, public festival with live performances from Māori artists inlcluding kapa haka rōpu Ngā Tūmanako, Sons of Zion, Corrella, Jackson Owens and Betty-Anne and a number of food and gift stalls.
A public festival with live performances from Māori artists inlcluding kapa haka rōpu Ngā Tūmanako, Sons of Zion, Corrella, Jackson Owens and Betty-Anne and a number of food and gift stalls. Image: Tamaira Hook/RNZ
Twenty-one cultural excursions named Te Ao Tirotiro will also be held across the city, including an onboard waka sailing demonstration and a hāngi.
The conference ends on Thursday.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Home secretary to announce a drastic tightening of rules, including requiring asylum seekers to wait 20 years before getting the right to permanently settle in UK
In her statement to MPs this afternoon Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is due to set out further details of her proposals to legislate to limit the extent to which courts can use article 3 (protection from torture) and article 8 (right to a family life) of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) to restrict removals.
In an interview on the Today programme, Tony Vaughan, the Labour MP and immigration law KC, explained his opposition to Mahmood’s plans. He is particulaly opposed to the idea that people told they can stay in the UK because they are at risk in their home country should have their asylum status continually reviewed.
The numbers of people who are prevented from return by the Strasbourg court are very, very small.
And we need to be realistic about what those sorts of reforms are going to achieve. We can’t promise the public things which it’s not going to deliver.
The countries that we’ve started with are the ones that we’ve named. We wouldn’t rule it out with anybody else.
The reality is, with most countries, we’ve got much better relationships. We need to see these agreements work, and we’re not going to rule anything out in order to make they do.
University of the South Pacific’s Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, who edited the inaugural edition of Pacific Media journal along with co-editor Dr Amit Sarwal, has responded to the publication with a Q and A.
The new journal has replaced the Pacific Journalism Review, which was founded by Professor David Robie at the University of Papua New Guinea and published for 30 years.
This new publication, supported by Tuwhera Open Access at Auckland University of Technology, was also founded by Dr Robie and the Asia Pacific Media Network and it is hoped that it will offer greater community media access and flexibility.
What does this new publication, Pacific Media, signal?
Dr Shailendra Singh: It signals an ongoing commitment to research on Pacific media, development, and democracy — just when such research is most urgently needed to understand the impact of multiple forces reshaping the region. These include artificial intelligence, misinformation and disinformation, the intensifying geopolitical contest between China and the West, the drugs and HIV epidemic, and the existential threat of climate change. With the world on track for a three-degree Celsius temperature rise, some reports describe this as a “death sentence” for Pacific reefs, food security, and livelihoods.
Yet, even as Pacific media confront one of the most complex and challenging reporting environments in history, they remain financially fragile, due to the impacts of digital disruption and covid-19.
The 2024 Pacific Media International Conference was quite an innovative step — bringing media academics and the industry together. How has that helped the region?
It created greater awareness of the challenges facing Pacific news media and exposed some of the industry’s structural weaknesses. Importantly, it fostered a better understanding — and hopefully, greater empathy — among the public toward the difficult conditions under which Pacific journalists operate. The conference underscored the importance of ongoing research, provided direction for future studies, and demonstrated the power of regional collaboration by amplifying Pacific voices and ideas.
How does the partnership between the USP Journalism Programme and the Pacific Media publishers, Asia Pacific Media Network, contribute to journalism excellence in the region?
Pacific Media – congratulations from USP Journalism. Image: USP
Research on Pacific media is as scarce as it is vital for the development of Pacific journalism. The USP Journalism Programme and the Asia Pacific Media Network are the only two entities consistently conducting dedicated research on Pacific media, democracy, and development. Historically, both have been vocal about threats to media freedom and the welfare of journalists. They have documented the impact of coups and other forms of repression, while advocating for journalist safety, ethical standards, and media independence through awareness and education.
What next?
The next step is to consolidate and expand research, and training and development. This means deepening partnerships between academia and industry, mentoring a new generation of Pacific media researchers and journalists, and securing sustainable funding for long-term studies.
It also involves strengthening regional collaboration so that Pacific voices lead the global conversation about the region — rather than being spoken to and for. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that Pacific media remain resilient, independent, and equipped to serve their communities in the face of profound social, technological, and environmental change.
The next edition of Pacific Media, edited by Khairiah A Rahman and Dr Rachel Khan, will also be published shortly.
Republished from Pacific Media journal’s website.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
On 14 November 2025, ARTICLE 19 and the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) expressed alarm about the arrests of and use of force against human rights defenders and residents who attempted to prevent the demolition of houses in Kampung Jalan Papan, which began on 11 November in the Malaysian state of Selangor. We call on the authorities to immediately release human rights defenders and end investigations into their activities.
On 14 November, two human rights defenders and seven local residents were arrested under Section 186 of Malaysia’s Penal Code for allegedly obstructing public servants from discharging their duties – a clause that carries a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment and/or a maximum fine of RM10,000 (approximately USD 2,410). The two activists are Yee Shan from Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) and Jernell Tan from the human rights organisation SUARAM. The seven local residents are Than Bee Hooi, Than Kim Kim, Lim Wee Chun, Ser Li Fang, Lim Eng Hui, Teoh Ah Guat, and Ng Ban Ping.
This follows previous arrests earlier in the week. On 13 November, 10 people were arrested, also under Section 186 of the Penal Code: PSM Secretary-General Sivaranjani Manickam, PSM National Treasurer Soh Sook Hwa, PSM activist Aein Aneera Anuar, PSM activist Ramasamy Karupan, PSM activist Tan Ka Wei, PSM activist Hridhay Praveen, activist Wong Kueng Hui from the non-governmental organisation Mandiri, local resident Tang Bing Ai, and activist Fakrurrazzi Khairur Rijal from the advocacy group Himpunan Advokasi Rakyat Malaysia. They were detained at the Pandamaran and Pelabuhan Klang police stations and later released on 14 November .
On 12 November, Deputy Chairperson of PSM Arutchelvan Subramaniam, also known as Arul, activist M. Mythreyar, and M. Logesvaran, a representative for the residents affected by the demolition, were arrested under Section 186 of the Penal Code. They were remanded one day before release on 13 November under police bail.
‘This is a blatant attack against human rights defenders who dare speak out on behalf of local communities living in a climate where forced evictions and development pressures are being used to displace long-time residents. The arbitrary arrests of the activists highlight the risks faced by human rights defenders advocating housing rights. These actions seem intended to intimidate others and discourage efforts to stop forced evictions,’ said Nalini Elumalai, Senior Malaysia Programme Officer at ARTICLE 19. ‘Using such forms of intimidation to silence human rights defenders and the residents not only threatens their safety but also undermines the ability of communities to assert their right to adequate housing and partake in meaningful decisions that affect their lives.’
This case stems from a 1995 agreement between the Selangor government and private limited company TPPT, under which affected families were to be given homes after the state government transferred 95 acres of land to the company. More than 30 years on, the residents have yet to receive their promised homes. Residents, known as Kampung Papan settlers, have lived in the area for decades, since 1939 – before Malaysia’s independence from the British in 1957. Despite a court ruling allowing the eviction, the Selangor government has said that demolition work should only be limited to vacant houses and business premises. Despite this promise, demolition work began on 10 November and as of 13 November, at least 15 occupied houses had been demolished. Residents of 44 out of 83 homes have obtained an interim injunction against the demolition.
The authorities’ actions violate the United Nation’s Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and other related resolutions, including General Assembly resolution 70/161 on human rights defenders in the context of the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Among other things, the resolution urged States to ensure the rights and safety of human rights defenders in exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.
Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) 
