Far-right Israelis have protested the arrest of IDF soldiers for the alleged gang rape and abuse of a Palestinian detainee. Protestors stormedIsrael’s Sde Teiman detention facility, where Israeli police had arrested nine soldiers.
Israeli police took the soldiers to the Beit Lid military base, which also saw demonstrations. The protestors included reservist soldiers. But also far-right government minister Amichai Eliyahu and parliamentarian Zvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionist movement took part.
The Palestinian detainee was taken to hospital, where “his injuries included a ruptured intestine, severe injury to the anus and lungs, and broken ribs”, according to Israeli outelt Haaretz.
Israel soldiers: “warriors”
Israeli minister of economy Nir Barkat called the arrests a “despicable show trial” and the soldiers “brave warriors”.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich also called for the “heroic warriors” to be free.
The Israeli organisation Breaking the Silence had a different approach. It said the protests were “essentially issuing a full-throated endorsement of unimaginably brutal abuse of Palestinians”.
The organisation continued, stating Palestinian detainees face “indefinite restraints resulting in amputations; medical procedures with no anesthesia; sleep deprivation; brutal beatings; sexual torture”.
UN report on detention
A UN report, published on 31 July, found Israel arbitrarily held 3,377 Palestinian people by the end of June, without charge or trial. They are among 9,440 Israel categorised as “security detainees”. Of them, Israel called 1,415 “unlawful combatants”.
The UN reported Israel subjected detainees to torture, violence, sexual abuse, and ill-treatment, much of which was “systematic”.
Palestinian detainees told the UN of constant blindfolding and deprivation of food, sleep, water, and medical attention. They also spoke of “prolonged exposure to the cold, being forced to kneel on gravel, deliberate humiliation, blackmailing”. They further said Israeli guards burnt them with cigarettes.
The sexual abuse they faced included guards forcing “nudity of both men and women”. And guards then beating them while they’re naked, including on the genitals, as well as electrocuting them on the genitals and anus.
Moussa Dadis Camara convicted of crimes against humanity after ordering 2009 crackdown on unarmed protesters
A court in Guinea has found the former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara and seven other military commanders guilty of crimes against humanity in a long-awaited verdict relating to a notorious massacre and mass rape that took place in 2009.
In a ruling in the capital, Conakry, the initial charges, including murder, rape and kidnapping, were recategorised as crimes against humanity. Afterward, Camara and his former police chief Moussa Tiegboro Camara were given 20-year prison sentences for ordering a crackdown on thousands of unarmed protesters, who were aggrieved that he had decided to stand in the presidential election the following year.
The nauseating stench of dried blood hung in the air as we arrived in Karida village, a few kilometers outside of Tari in Papua New Guinea’s Hela province.
Through the landcruiser window, I could see two men carrying a corpse wrapped in blue cloth and a tarpaulin. They were walking towards the hastily dug graveyard.
A longstanding tribal fight by various factions in the Tagali area of the Hela province had triggered this attack. Several armed men came at dawn. The residents, mostly women and children, bore the brunt of the brutality.
The then Provincial Administrator, William Bando, advised us against travelling alone when we arrived in Tari. He requested a section of the PNG Defence Force to take us to Karida where the killings had happened less than 24 hours before.
Two men carrying the corpse, hesitated as we arrived with the soldiers. One of the soldiers ordered the men to disarm. The others who carried weapons fled into the nearby bush.
On the side of the road, the bodies of 15 women and one man lay tightly wrapped in cloth. The older men and women came out to meet the soldiers.
The village chief, Hokoko Minape, distraught by the unimaginable loss, wept beside the vehicle as he tried to explain what had happened.
“This, I have never seen in my life. This is new,” he said in Tok Pisin.
Complexity of tribal conflicts and media attention For an outsider, the roots of tribal conflicts in Papua New Guinea are difficult to understand. There are myriad factors at play, including the province, district, tribe, clan and customs.
But what’s visible is the violence.
The conflicts are usually reported on when large numbers of people are killed. The intense media focus lasts for days . . . maybe a month . . . and then, news priorities shift in the daily grind of local and international coverage.
Some conflicts rage for years and sporadic payback killings continue. It is subtle as it doesn’t attract national attention. It is insidious and cancerous — slowly destroying families and communities. In many instances, police record the one off murders as the result of alcohol related brawls or some other cause.
The tensions simmer just below boiling point. But it affects the education of children and dictates where people congregate and who they associate with.
Although, the villagers at Karida were not directly involved in the fighting, they were accused of providing refuge to people who fled from neighboring villagers. The attackers came looking for the refugees and found women and children instead.
According to a source, military guns are a fairly recent addition to tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea. Image: RNZ
The ‘hire man’ and small arms Over the next few weeks, local community leaders drew attention to the use of “hire men” in the conflicts. They are mercenaries who are paid by warring tribes to fight on their behalf. Their most valued possessions are either assault rifles or shotguns paid for by political and non-political sponsors.
The Deputy Commissioner for Police responsible for specialist operations, Donald Yamasombi, who has personally investigated instances of arms smuggling, said the traditional trade of drugs for guns along the eastern and southern borders of Papua New Guinea is largely a thing of the past.
“People are paying cash for guns. They are bringing in the weapons and then legitimising them through licensing,” Yamasombi said. “The businessmen who fund them actually run legitimate businesses.”
The involvement of political players is a subject many will state only behind closed doors.
In the highlands, the hire men are a recent addition to the complex socio-political ecosystem of tribal and national politics. Political power and money have come to determine how hire men are used during elections. They are tools of intimidation and coercion. The occupation is a lucrative means of money making during what is supposed to be a “free and fair” electoral process.
“Money drives people to fight,” Yamasombi said. “Without the source of money, there would be no incentive. There is incentive to fight.”
Rules of war At the end of elections, the hire men usually end up back in the communities and continue the cycle of violence.
In February, Papua New Guineans on social media watched in horror as the death toll from a tribal clash in Enga province rose from a few dozen to 70 in a space of a few hours as police retrieved bodies from nearby bushes.
The majority of the men killed were members of a tribe who had been ambushed as they staged an attack.
Traditional Engan society is highly structured. The Enga cultural center in the center of Wabag town, the Take Anda, documents the rules of war that dictated the conduct of warriors.
Traditionally, mass killings or killings in general were avoided. The economic cost of reparations were too high, the ongoing conflicts were always hard to manage and were, obviously, detrimental to both parties in the long run.
Engans, who I spoke to on the condition of anonymity, said high powered guns had changed the traditional dynamics.
Chiefs and elders who once commanded power and status were now replaced by younger men with money and the means to buy and own weapons. This has had a direct influence on provincial and national politics as well as traditional governance structures.
A roadblock is set-up in Wabag, the provincial capital of Enga. Image: Paul Kanda/FB/RNZ
Tribal conflicts, not restricted to the Highlands In 2022, a land dispute between two clans on Kiriwina Island, Milne Bay province, escalated into a full on battle in which 30 people were killed.
The unusual level of violence and the use of guns left many Papua New Guineans confused. Milne Bay province, widely known as a peaceful tourism hub, suffered a massive PR hit with embassies issuing travel warnings to their citizens.
In Pindiu, Morobe province, the widespread use of homemade weapons resulted in the deaths of a local peace officer and women and children in a long running conflict in 2015.
The Morobe Provincial Government sent mediators to Pindiu to facilitate peace negotiations. Provincial and national government are usually hesitant to intervene directly in tribal conflicts by arresting the perpetrators of violence.
This is largely due to the government’s inability to maintain security presence in tribal fighting areas for long periods.
Angoram killings Two weeks ago, 26 women and children were killed in yet another attack in Angoram, East Sepik.
Five people have been arrested over the killings. But locals who did not wish to be named said the ring leaders of the gang of 30 are still at large.
Angoram is a classic example of a district that is difficult to police.
The villages are spread out over the vast wetlands of the Sepik River. While additional police from Wewak have been deployed, there is no real guarantee that the men and women who witnessed the violence will be protected if they choose to testify in court.
Will new legislations and policy help? The Enga massacre dominated the February sitting of Parliament. Recent changes were made to gun laws and stricter penalties prescribed. But while legislators have responded, enforcement remains weak.
The killers of the 16 people at Karida remain at large. Many of those responsible for the massacre in Enga have not been arrested even with widely circulated video footage available on social media.
In April, the EU, UN and the PNG government hosted a seminar aimed at formulating a national gun control policy.
The seminar revisited recommendations made by former PNG Defence Force Commander, retired Major-General Jerry Singirok.
One of the recommendations was for the licensing powers of the Police Commissioner as Registrar of Firearms to be taken away and for a mechanism to buy back firearms in the community.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The climate-wrecking East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is already wreaking havoc on wildlife in a biodiverse national park.
A new report has exposed how key fossil fuel infrastructure associated with the project is impacting the park’s iconic species. To make matters worse, oil drilling activities are driving conflict between wildlife and communities residing in the park.
EACOP: a biodiversity disaster waiting to happen
The EACOP project involves a 930-mile long pipeline that will transport oil from Uganda to a port in Tanzania. French fossil fuel firm TotalEnergies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd (CNOOC), and Uganda’s state oil company are partnering on the pipeline.
In August 2023, the company started operations in Murchison Falls National Park, in the Lake Albert region. There, the EACOP joint venture companies have discovered oil fields containing approximately 1.7bn barrels of recoverable oil. These are the Tilenga and Kingfisher oilfields on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo – and the project involves drilling hundreds of wells across the area.
This is where EACOP then comes in. The companies are developing the pipeline to deliver the extracted crude to Tanzania for international export.
However, the national park is home to 76 mammal species and 451 different species of bird – all at risk from the oil drilling and construction activities.
So as the Canary previously highlighted, the fossil fuel operations have enormous ramifications for biodiversity. In particular, a 2022 report expressed how EACOP would impact nearly 2,000 square kilometres of protected wildlife habitats. On top of this, it would damage a further 500 kilometres of wildlife corridors, used by
Of course, this would include the wildlife living in Murchison Falls National Park. Now, nearly a year since companies began operations, the impacts are already plain to see.
Displacing elephants and harming communities
The Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) has released a new report investigating the impacts of the project on wildlife across the park.
The study assessed the impact or risks presented by development of the key fossil fuel infrastructure to biodiversity conservation in the park. These included: oil rigs, wellpads, oil roads, and the Victoria Nile Pipeline Crossing.
The latter pipeline is supposed to be constructed under the Victoria Nile, and it will affect the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Ramsar site, a wetland site vital for bird life. This has been proposed for UNESCO World Heritage status.
Satellite imagery of the projects in the report revealed how at least two of the ten wellpads are less than a kilometre from this protected wetland site.
What’s more the fossil fuel infrastructure is showing signs of displacing the local elephant population. Notably the report emphasised the impact this was also having on local communities:
Oil host communities that live around the park report that elephants are moving from MFNP and are invading communities. The elephants destroy croplands and as many as five people were killed by the elephants between 2023 and April 2024
In effect, the oil drilling activities have distressed elephants and driven them into local villages.
On top of this, light pollution from the project is also affection local communities and threatening nocturnal wildlife. Locals have reported that light from the Tilenga drilling rig can be seen as far as 13.9km away.
Conservationists and other contributors to the report raised concerns of the impacts this could have on the feeding pattern and behaviour of leopards, lions, birds and other species, stating that:
These could migrate from the park, or suffer worse impacts such as death.
Murchison Falls National Park is ‘dying’
Overall, the report concluded that the perfect storm of the climate crisis, poaching, and fossil fuel projects are destroying Murchison Falls National Park.
Crucially, the report expressed how study participants observed that:
while MFNP was famous for sighting of huge populations of wildlife such as hippos, crocodiles, elephants, giraffes, buffaloes and others before the COVID-19 pandemic, intense flooding of River Nile in the park between 2020 and 2021 and before oil activities picked up in the park, much smaller populations can be sighted today.
As a result, one respondent stated that:
Murchison Falls National Park is dying
Given the impacts EACOP and its associated oil projects have already unleashed, AFIEGO concluded:
TotalEnergies and the Ugandan government should stop oil exploitation activities in MFNP to reduce the pressures faced by biodiversty in the park so as to promote conservation
Alongside this, it called for TotalEnergies to compensate oil host communities whose livelihoods the project has decimated.
The StopEACOP campaign has echoed these demands. Commenting on the report, it said that:
There is little time left for Murchison Falls National Park. We should not sit still while this natural wonder is sacrificed for short-term gains and benefit a few people at the expense of the majority of Ugandans. We must all unite and secure this irreplaceable ecosystem for our descendants.
Significantly, StopEACOP also railed against Standard Bank’s recent decision to finance the project. It stated that:
This research by AFIEGO is quite timely because Standard Bank was recently reported as having agreed to fund this controversial project, which it had postponed for years in the name of doing due diligence. How did their due diligence miss these impacts? We urge them and other financial institutions to read this research, reconsider funding this project, and save the iconic Murchison Falls National Park. The fate of Uganda’s wildlife and the millions earning a livelihood from wildlife conservation efforts and fishing hangs in the balance.
Of course, none of this is surprising. Local people, climate activists, scientists, and conservation organisations have been warning this would happen all along. So now, the EACOP fossil fuel project is destroying a fragile area of biodiversity, harming communities, and fueling the climate crisis. AFIEGO’s report bears witness to this – and only proves why communities and activists are right to keep up the fight.
Detention of reporters for covering sensitive news is having a ‘chilling’ effect on free media in Somalia, say rights groups
The arrest of a journalist for reporting on drug use in the Somali military is the latest incident in an apparent clampdown on critical reporting in the country, which is having a “chilling” effect on Somalia’s media, rights campaigners said.
AliNur Salaad was detained last week and accused of “immorality, false reporting and insulting the armed forces”, after publishing a now-deleted video suggesting that soldiers were vulnerable to attacks by al-Shabaab militants because of widespread use of the traditional narcotic khat.
By Mark Charlton, net-zero research theme director, De Montfort University
In the unlikely event I ever run another marathon, I wouldn’t want to do it at night. But some famous global running events, including the world championships in Doha, are having to reschedule races to avoid participants having to run in extreme heat conditions.
Midnight long-distance running is just one stark example highlighted by sports ecologist Madeleine Orr in her new book, Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport. Elite and professional sports are being affected by changing environmental issues – and she explains how global sports movements can do something about that.
It’s a timely publication. May 2024 was the warmest May on record around the world, with a global average surface air temperature 0.65°C above the 1991–2020 average. It also marked the 12th consecutive month for which the global average temperature reached a record value for the corresponding month in the previous year.
This is not the sort of record-breaking streak the world needs. And this summer, millions of sports fans are watching an action-packed season of sport from the Euro 2024 football tournament in Germany and the Wimbledon tennis championships to the Paris Olympics and the Tour de France cycling challenge.
Further afield, there’s the Copa America South American football championship, major league baseball’s All-Star Game and the US tennis open in New York City, the women’s football world cup in Colombia and the rugby championship in Australia.
These competitions showcase top-tier athletic performances, attracting billions of viewers numbers that are predicted to rise. And all of these sporting events are being affected by climate in some way.
Organisers and athletes alike take action
Courtesy: Michael Kleinsasser/Pixabay
Already this year, football in the UK has been hit by heavy rainfall and flooding, while tennis players in the US have had to endure blistering temperatures. The Tour de France, meanwhile, was marred by melting road surfaces, and routes were cut short for rider safety as temperatures in La Route d’Occitanie in southern France soared in July 2022.
If the tournaments themselves don’t provide concessions for extreme weather this year, the athletes’ preparations almost certainly already have. For example, the kits that sports men and women wear are changing.
It was once the domain of the designer to create clothing that was agile and give competitors the edge, now they are tasked with creating garments that wick sweat away and keep body heat down in competitions such as running, cycling and football, as temperatures peak.
In her book, Orr shows how the world of sport is being affected by climate change in bizarre and unusual ways. For example, alcoholism has increased among staff working on ski slopes, because a warming planet is causing snow to melt and ski seasons to end sooner. The resulting reduction in ski training times is literally driving staff to drink.
In golf, course designers are now factoring in flood control measures as part of designing the greens. Plastic pollution is even becoming part of the obstacle course for Olympic water sports. In the 2016 Olympics, sailors had to learn to dodge trash in the sea off the Rio De Janeiro coastline in their bid for gold.
Sport is shifting
Courtesy: Dmitrijs Bindemanis/Shutterstock
With a title that hints at an athletes’ need to warm-up and our planet’s warming climate, this book also gives me hope that the world of sport is collectively warming up to the idea that things have to change. Like the young amateur footballers I work with to make grassroots clubs more sustainable, the elites now want to do their bit.
Many are in a far better position to take a stand and make changes that will hopefully see the world take notice. One top coach at the famous US Oregon athletics training camp is banning staff from issuing press releases with phrases such as “unprecedented” and “natural disaster” when apologising for race cancellations. Instead, he highlights that there’s nothing natural about the climate crisis. Such problems are now commonplace and very much human-made.
Orr showcases lots of captivating stories from competitive sports around the world that are facing environmental challenges and finding ways to adapt accordingly. It is now hard to imagine any sport in the world that isn’t facing the prospect of making serious concessions to extreme weather, either now or in the future. Most sports will need to make changes in some way.
Orr’s book drives home the message that the problem is already grave and won’t improve without serious effort. This needs to include everyone from the global athletic elite right down to the hotdog-munching, coke-guzzling fans in the stands. Her concluding chapter outlines a to-do list for sport that goes way beyond the recent targets set out by the United Nations’ environment programme inits handbook Sports for Nature: Setting a Baseline.
Her ideas really humanise the idea of sustainable development in sport, with people-centred approaches that prioritise the wellbeing and equality of participants, to protect athletes, staff, and fans from extreme heat and other climate hazards and creating incentives for greener practices to ensure that all stakeholders in the sports industry are aware of, and committed to, reducing their environmental impacts.
I have read dozens of books on the threat of climate change. Most follow a similar formula – they personalise the story, explain the science, provide hope and solutions, then conclude that actually human nature means we’ll probably sort it out at the last minute.
This is no such book. Instead, lots of real life stories illustrate why all is not well in the world of sport. There’s a smattering of hope towards the end, of course, and the practical call to action, but the reader is certainly left with a sense that this our problem, and that we all must change. Perhaps sport, and the global obsession with it, is a good place to start.
Indictment comes as nine other soldiers appear in Israeli military court over allegations of sexual abuse of detainee
Israel’s military has charged a reservist with aggravated abuse of Palestinian prisoners, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, as nine other soldiers appeared in military court for an initial hearing over allegations they had sexually abused a detainee from Gaza.
The new indictment alleges that the unnamed soldier, assigned to escort handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinians, used a baton and his assault rifle to attack prisoners on multiple occasions.
Both the political and military establishments in Israel have been willing to deny or turn a blind eye to the repeated allegations of torture at Sde Teiman
Civil society actors across the world frequently operate in challenging or hostile environments in their efforts to defend human rights. The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) supports members of the SOS-Torture network, along with local actors, working to end torture and impunity and to support the rehabilitation of victims. We provide support by:
Engaging in joint activities and campaigns.
Sharing expertise and capacity-building opportunities.
Providing financial support to local actors, individuals, organisations, and initiatives, primarily outside the European Union.
This assistance enables them to carry out their crucial work in defending human rights and ending torture.
Our activities in support of the human rights movement are made possible by the generous contributions of our donors.
As we mark Nelson Mandela Day and #StandAsMyWitness campaign anniversary, the number of countries to legally harass and put activists behind bars nearly doubled in five years.
José Rubén Zamora is the latest defender featured in the international #StandAsMyWitness campaign calling for the release of 14 leading human rights defenders.
Earlier this week, two featured Eswatini activists, Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, were brutally sentenced to long prison terms for pushing democratic reforms.
As we mark Nelson Mandela Day on 18 July and #StandAsMyWitness campaign anniversary, the number of countries abusing laws to harass and put activists behind bars has nearly doubled in five years. At least 66 countries prosecuted activists last year, up from 36 in 2019, according to the CIVICUS Monitor. In 2023, at least 63 countries detained human rights defenders (HRDs), up from 38 five years ago.
The jarring growth of repression comes as a stark contrast to the vision of President Mandela. #StandAsMyWitness, launched on Nelson Mandela Day four years ago, calls for the release of leading global human rights defenders who languish behind bars for speaking truth to power.
Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora is now added as the 14th activist in the campaign. “As we add José Rubén Zamora to the #StandAsMyWitness campaign, we grow ever concerned that the world is becoming a more dangerous place for human rights defenders. He is a courageous journalist who has dedicated his life to exposing corruption and defending human rights in Guatemala,” said Isabel Rosales, Latin America advocacy officer at CIVICUS. Zamora has been languishing behind bars for two years and the newspaper he founded, el Periódico, was shut down.
Earlier this week, two #StandAsMyWitness Eswatini activists Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube were respectively sentenced to 25 and 18 years in jail. The two pro-democracy parliamentarians were convicted for demanding democratic reforms. Eswatini is an absolute monarchy where political parties are banned from elections and activists face jail, torture, and death for demanding their rights.
The 14 human rights defenders featured in the campaign represent a wave of persecution sweeping against civic freedoms and human rights around the world. Abuse of law for the prosecution of activists is ranked among the top ten rights violations according to CIVICUS Monitor.
Their stories are no different from many other activists who were silenced for standing up for human rights and justice. Among others still languishing behind bars are #StandAsMyWitness icons:
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who has received a total of 31 years of prison sentence for standing up for women’s empowerment and promoting the abolition of the death penalty in Iran.
Hong Kong Pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-Tung, who was arrested and detained on June 4, 2021, for publishing two social media posts calling on the public to join the peaceful vigil for the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of civilians and protesters in Beijing.
Khurram Parvez, voted one of the 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2022, has dedicated his life to nonviolence in one of the most militarized regions in the world. He remains in jail under charges of terrorism and conspiracy in India.
This clampdown on defenders paints a bleak picture, with only two percent of the global population living in countries with open civic spaces. A staggering 72% of people in the world lived in authoritarian regimes in 2023. CIVICUS finds a discernible rise in the closure of civic spaces around the world, with the highest number of people living in closed countries since 2019.
Full list of HRDs featured in the #StandAsMyWitness campaign:
AFRICA:
Eswatini: Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube – MPs who campaigned for democratic reform
Burundi: Floriane Irangabiye – a journalist serving a 10-year prison sentence for her work
ASIA:
Hong Kong: Chow Hang-Tung – pro-democracy activist, sentenced for organising unauthorised Tiananmen Square Massacre commemoration vigil
India: Khurram Parvez – Kashmiri rights activist; listed in Time magazine’s 100 ‘Most Influential People 2022
CENTRAL ASIA:
Belarus: Viasna Human Rights Defenders – members of Viasna human rights centre; jailed for exercising their right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression
Tajikistan: Buzurgmehr Yorov – human rights lawyer representing members of the opposition; recipient of Homo Homini human rights prize
Tajikistan: Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov – human rights lawyer serving a 16-year-long prison sentence in retaliation for his human rights work.
LATIN AMERICA:
Mexico: Kenia Hernandez – Indigenous and women’s rights activist; arrested after protest
Guatemala – José Rubén Zamora a journalist and founder of the newspaper elPeriodico. He has been detained since 29 July 2022.
MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA:
Algeria: Kamira Nait Sid – Indigenous and women’s rights activist campaigning for the rights of the Amazigh people in Algeria
Bahrain: Abdul-Hadi al-Khawaja – detained after democracy protests in 2011; recipient of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award 2022 for human rights defenders
Egypt: Hoda Abdel Moneim – human rights lawyer and former member of Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights
Iran: Narges Mohammadi – Journalist and human rights activist who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2023
United Arab Emirates: Ahmed Mansoor – on the advisory boards for Human Rights Watch and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights; imprisoned for publishing information on social media
To find out how to get involved, check out CIVICUS’s campaign webpage: Stand As My Witness.
LGBTQ+ and human rights campaigner ‘delighted and honoured’ to have painting by Sarah Jane Moon on display
A vibrant portrait of the LGBTQ+ and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has been hung in the National Portrait Gallery’s History Makers gallery as part of a drive to better reflect the diversity of the UK.
The painting by Sarah Jane Moon shows Tatchell in a casual pose, seated with his hands clasping his left calf. The 72-year-old activist is sporting a rainbow tie to celebrate almost six decades of fighting for LGBTQ+ rights.
Fundamental rights body warns of flawed approach to credible accounts of ill-treatment and loss of life
Authorities in EU member states are not doing enough to investigate credible reports of violations of human rights, including deaths, on their borders, an EU human rights body has said.
The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) said human rights agencies and NGOs were reporting “serious, recurrent and widespread rights violations against migrants and refugees during border management” but despite “credible” reports many were not investigated.
Forget a 10-month genocide in Gaza. Only when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians living under its military occupation are we supposed to start worrying about the ‘consequences’, writes Jonathan Cook.
ANALYSIS:By Jonathan Cook
BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights last Saturday has been intentionally misleading.
The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.
I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell — and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory).
It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel’s acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of “conflict”, rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of unusual, pre-emptive form of self-defence.
The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan.
Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: “This attack shows the true face of Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer.”
Except, as the BBC failed to mention in its report, Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza in 2014.
Much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs.
Panic as Israeli strike hits near Gaza school playground. Video: The Guardian
Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football 0- especially as it is one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around.
So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?
Note too the way the western media are so ready to accept unquestioningly Israel’s claim that Hizbullah was responsible for the blast – and dismiss Hizbullah’s denials.
Viewers are discouraged from exercising their memories. Any who do may recall that those same media outlets were only too willing to take on faith Israeli disinformation suggesting that Hamas had hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital back in October, even when all the evidence showed it was an Israeli air strike.
(Israel soon went on to destroy all Gaza’s hospitals, effectively eradicating the enclave’s health sector, on the pretext that medical facilities there served as Hamas bases – another patently preposterous claim the western media treated with wide-eyed credulity.)
It’s not just ‘unlikely’ that a Palestinian rocket destroyed the Gaza hospital. It’s impossible. The media know this, they just don’t dare say it. My latest:
The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: “This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months — that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war.”
So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven’t been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their very noses in Gaza, or its consequences.
A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant “magnitude”.
Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its “war”, are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.
Update – ‘Tightening the noose’: Facebook instantly removed a post linking to this article — and for reasons that are entirely opaque to me (apart from the fact that it is critical of the BBC and Israel).
Facebook’s warning, threatening that my account may face “more account restrictions”, suggests that I was misleading followers by taking them to a “landing page that impersonates another website”. That is patent nonsense. The link took them to this Substack page.
As I have been warning for some time, social media platforms have been tightening the noose around the necks of independent journalists like me, making our work all but impossible to find. It is only a matter of time before we are disappeared completely.
Substack has been a lifeline, because it connects readers to my work directly — either through email or via Substack’s app — bypassing, at least for the moment, the grip of the social-media billionaires.
If you wish to keep reading my articles, and haven’t already, please sign up to my Substack page.
Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net. This article was first published on Substack and is republished with the permission of the author.
In the days after October 7, 2023, the U.S. mainstream media and political establishment — both the Republicans and Democrats — launched once again into anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic rhetoric. Ignoring the conditions of siege, occupation and settler colonialism under which Palestinians in Gaza already lived, Joe Biden’s administration offered full diplomatic, military and financial backing to…
Civil society organisations demand home secretary protects the ‘safety valve’ of democracy
Environmental groups are among 92 civil society organisations who have warned Yvette Cooper against “the steady erosion of the right to protest” in the UK, and called on her to reverse the previous government’s crackdown on peaceful protest.
“The right to protest is a vital safety valve for our democracy and an engine of social progress,” the letter, delivered on Friday, said. “The achievements of peaceful protest are written on the labour movement’s own birth certificate.”
Leading Māori figures from across New Zealand have sounded the alarm over the government’s changes to policies that affect Māori, after analysis by the Guardian highlighted the far-reaching scope of the proposals.
The policy shifts proposed by the rightwing coalition have been described by experts as “chilling” and “dangerous” and have created a “deeply fractured” relationship between Māori and the crown, or ruling authorities.
On a hastily-erected wall in the Marshall Islands International Conference Centre hang the names of dead women, victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
At least 300 Pacific women were killed in 2021, many at the hands of intimate partners or male relatives, yet there are but 14 names on the board after four days of a Triennial Conference.
Have these women died in obscurity, their deaths confined to the dust heap somewhere in the region’s collective memory?
Does the memory of their deaths invoke such pain or, perhaps, guilt, that it is impossible for delegates to pick up a pen and put names to paper?
Have these women become mere statistics, their names forgotten as civil society spreadsheets and crime reports log the death of yet another woman.
Or have the deaths of women due to gender-based violence become so common that in the minds of delegates it is normal for a woman to die at the hands of a husband, boyfriend, father or brother?
Falling victim to violence
It has been a conference attended largely by women — ministers, administrators, civil society representatives and local grassroots representatives. Each day there have been more than 200 women at the event.
The 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women addressed at its core the need to improve the health of women and children. That includes the need for better access to services and treatment of women who fall victim to violence.
JENELYN KENNEDY (Papua New Guinea) . . . a 19-year-old mother murdered in Port Moresby in 2020. Image: Netani Rika
Gender-based violence is also a key focus of the talks. It is that violence — past, present and future – which results in death.
Yet three times a day for three days, on their way to grab a quick coffee or indulge in lunch, friendly conversations or bilateral dialogue, delegates have walked past the wall paying scant attention to the names of their dead Pacific sisters.
No names have been added to the wall since the initial appeal on Day One for attendees to remember the dead, to memorialise women whose lives were cut short in actions which were largely avoidable.
In Fiji, 60 percent of women and girls endure violence in their lifetime. Two of every three experience physical or sexual abuse from intimate partners and one in five have been sexually harassed in the workplace.
The trend is common throughout the region with Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands recording the highest incidence of crimes against women.
LOSANA McGOWAN (Fiji) . . . a journalist who was murdered aged 32 during a domestic argument in 2015. Image: Netani Rika
Not one asked for silence
Delegates know these figures. The statistics are, sadly, nothing new.
On the third day, delegates quibbled over the nuances of language and the appropriate terms with which to populate a report on their deliberations. Yet not one asked for a moment of silence to remember the people whose names hung accusingly on a wall outside the meeting chamber.
When delegates left the convention centre on Friday afternoon, it is unlikely they would have remembered even one of the names on the wall.
Those names and the memories of all the women who have suffered violent deaths will await a team of cleaners, strangers, who will bury the Pacific’s collective shame in the sand of Majuro Atoll.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
On a hastily-erected wall in the Marshall Islands International Conference Centre hang the names of dead women, victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
At least 300 Pacific women were killed in 2021, many at the hands of intimate partners or male relatives, yet there are but 14 names on the board after four days of a Triennial Conference.
Have these women died in obscurity, their deaths confined to the dust heap somewhere in the region’s collective memory?
Does the memory of their deaths invoke such pain or, perhaps, guilt, that it is impossible for delegates to pick up a pen and put names to paper?
Have these women become mere statistics, their names forgotten as civil society spreadsheets and crime reports log the death of yet another woman.
Or have the deaths of women due to gender-based violence become so common that in the minds of delegates it is normal for a woman to die at the hands of a husband, boyfriend, father or brother?
Falling victim to violence
It has been a conference attended largely by women — ministers, administrators, civil society representatives and local grassroots representatives. Each day there have been more than 200 women at the event.
The 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women addressed at its core the need to improve the health of women and children. That includes the need for better access to services and treatment of women who fall victim to violence.
JENELYN KENNEDY (Papua New Guinea) . . . a 19-year-old mother murdered in Port Moresby in 2020. Image: Netani Rika
Gender-based violence is also a key focus of the talks. It is that violence — past, present and future – which results in death.
Yet three times a day for three days, on their way to grab a quick coffee or indulge in lunch, friendly conversations or bilateral dialogue, delegates have walked past the wall paying scant attention to the names of their dead Pacific sisters.
No names have been added to the wall since the initial appeal on Day One for attendees to remember the dead, to memorialise women whose lives were cut short in actions which were largely avoidable.
In Fiji, 60 percent of women and girls endure violence in their lifetime. Two of every three experience physical or sexual abuse from intimate partners and one in five have been sexually harassed in the workplace.
The trend is common throughout the region with Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands recording the highest incidence of crimes against women.
LOSANA McGOWAN (Fiji) . . . a journalist who was murdered aged 32 during a domestic argument in 2015. Image: Netani Rika
Not one asked for silence
Delegates know these figures. The statistics are, sadly, nothing new.
On the third day, delegates quibbled over the nuances of language and the appropriate terms with which to populate a report on their deliberations. Yet not one asked for a moment of silence to remember the people whose names hung accusingly on a wall outside the meeting chamber.
When delegates left the convention centre on Friday afternoon, it is unlikely they would have remembered even one of the names on the wall.
Those names and the memories of all the women who have suffered violent deaths will await a team of cleaners, strangers, who will bury the Pacific’s collective shame in the sand of Majuro Atoll.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
Former New Zealand attorney-general David Parker spoke on day 295 of Israel’ genocidal war on Gaza in Auckland today, condemning the National-led government’s inaction over the ongoing crisis.
Responding to the recent International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory ruling that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem — Occupied Palestine — was illegal and must end as soon as possible, Parker said he was disappointed in New Zealand’s “equivocal” response.
He also called on the government to recognise the state of Palestine, along with some 145 countries around the world that have already done so.
A large banner at the rally illustrated the massive global support for Palestine statehood, with a map showing the main countries that have not supported recognition to be the white English-speaking settler colonial nations such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.
The map banner at today’s Auckland rally showing NZ among a minority of US-led countries that have failed so far to recognise Palestinian statehood. At least 145 countries – an overwhelming majority of United Nations members – have already recognised Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR
Among the speakers were two Palestinian teenagers, Lujain Al-Badry, who spoke of the litany of the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza — but she also highlighted the “forgotten” atrocities by illegal settlers and the military in the West Bank — and the other a poet who spoke passionately of the constant evictions of Palestinians from their own homes and land.
More than 700 Israelis have illegally settled on Palestinian land since the territory was occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of repeated UN resolutions declaring the settlements unlawful.
Lujain Al-Badry, 14, spoke of the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza and of the “forgotten” atrocities by illegal settlers in the West Bank at today’s rally. Image: David Robie/APR
Irish activist and trade unionist Joe Carolan, just back from a visit to Ireland, spoke of the political drift to the right in France and other European Union countries and reminded the crowd that support for the Palestinian cause and against colonialism was “liberation for all”.
The crowd marched around the block to protest outside the US consulate in Auckland, calling on Washington to end its support and funding for the Israeli genocide.
At least 39,324 Palestinians have been killed and 90,830 others wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Protesters at today’s Auckland rally calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s nine-month war on Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR
The Surafend massacre
Meanwhile, an RNZ podcast released at the weekend has revealed new insights into what has been described as the worst New Zealand military atrocity — the Surafend massacre during the First World War in Palestine in 1918.
According to the new season RNZ’s Black Sheep podcast, New Zealand and Australian soldiers “murdered upwards of 40 Arab civilians in a Palestinian village” in December 2018.
“But,” continued the podcast report, “more than 100 years later, we still don’t know exactly who did it, or why.
“We investigate what one military historian describes as ‘by far the worst war crime ever committed by New Zealand military personnel’ — The Surafend massacre — and other allegations of war crimes against Anzacs in the Middle East and North Africa.”
Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report.
Watermelon protest placards at today’s pro-Palestinian rally in downtown Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR
Climate justice and gender equality cannot be achieved separately, a Pacific women’s conference heard this week.
Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine said the climate crisis faced in the region and the world would make gender equality more difficult to attain.
“For example, we know that we cannot have gender equality without climate justice, and vice versa,” Dr Heine told delegates at the the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women gathered in the Northern Pacific for the first time in 40 years.
“We have convened on Majuro because of one of those aspirations is the empowerment of Pacific women and girls in all their diversities and ultimately to reach gender parity in our region.”
President Heine said that for gender parity to be achieved, every Pacific woman’s ability, talent dreams would need to be harnessed.
“We must draw on the resourcefulness of Pacific women, rich in our diverse cultures and traditions, to map a way forward for us, tapping into our region’s diversity and creativity to find solutions that are embedded in our Pacific philosophies and world views,” she said.
“We know that the climate crisis will make achieving gender equality even harder — and that we cannot solve the climate crisis without gender equality.”
Women hit fastest, hardest
Heine said women were often hit fastest and hardest by climate impacts.
“They are the first responders of the family, responsible for ensuring that the family is taken care of and healthy,” she said.
“As climate change brings droughts, they are charged with securing water; when children or the elderly are affected by extreme heat, it is women who are the primary caregivers.
Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine … women among strongest voices for climate ambition. Image: PresidentOfficeRMI
“In the Marshalls, where women often participate in the informal economy through the production of handicrafts, for example, we know that the material used for those handicrafts are at risk as sea levels rise and salt water inundates our arable land.
“Women are also central to the solutions to the climate crisis.”
Dr Heine said Pacific women had been some of the strongest voices for climate ambition at the international level while at home they were caretakers for solar panels, providing communities with clean energy.
She described them as being at the heart of securing climate justice.
Women’s health, gender-based violence, and climate justice are key challenges Pacific women continue to face. Image: RNZI/Giff Johnson
‘Gains are far from consistent’ Two regional meetings took place on Majuro Atoll this week — the 8th Ministers for Women meeting and the 3rd PIF Women Leaders Meeting.
Political commentators said this showed that regional leaders recognised the importance of gender equality and the meetings provided opportunities to collectively discuss how to advance their commitments to the issue at national, regional and international levels.
President Heine acknowledged that the Pacific had made what she described as remarkable progress on women’s rights on many fronts in recent decades.
“But these gains are far from consistent and much more remains to be done,” she warned.
Women’s health, gender-based violence, and climate justice were the themes for discussion during the conferences and highlight some of the key challenges Pacific women continue to face.
Dr Heine said all these issues aggravated the impacts of inequalities faced by women and girls as a result of existing social norms and structures.
She said the triennial conference and the Pacific Ministers for Women meeting were important platforms at which to unpack these and other barriers to gender equality.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
The thing I hate about Western electoral politics in general and US presidential races in particular is that they take the focus off the depravity of the US-centralised Empire itself, and run cover for its criminality.
In the coming months you’re going to be hearing a lot of talk about the two leading presidential candidates and how very very different they are from each other, and how one is clearly much much worse than the other.
But in reality the very worst things about both of them will not be their differences — the worst things about them will be be the countless ways in which they are both indistinguishably in lockstep with one another.
Donald Trump is not going to end America’s non-existent “democracy” if elected and rule the United States as an iron-fisted dictator, and he’s certainly not going to be some kind of populist hero who leads a revolution against the Deep State.
He will govern as your standard evil Republican president who is evil in all the usual ways US presidents are evil, just like he did during his first term.
His administration will continue to fill the world with more war machinery, implement more starvation sanctions, back covert operations, uprisings and proxy conflicts, and work to subjugate the global population to the will of the empire, all while perpetuating the poisoning of the earth via ecocidal capitalism, just as all his predecessors have done.
And the same will be true of whatever moronic fantasies Republicans wind up concocting about Kamala Harris between now and November. She’s not going to institute communism or give everyone welfare, implement Sharia law, weaken Israel, take everyone’s guns, subjugate Americans to the “Woke Agenda” and make everyone declare their pronouns and eat bugs, or any of that fuzzbrained nonsense.
She will continue to expand US warmongering and tyranny while making the world a sicker, more violent, and more dangerous place for everyone while funneling the wealth of the people and the planet into the bank accounts of the already obscenely rich. Just as Biden has spent his entire term doing, and just as Trump did before him.
Caitlin Johnston’s article on YouTube.
The truth is that while everyone’s going to have their attention locked on the differences between Trump and Harris these next few months, by far the most significant and consequential things about each of these candidates are the ways in which they are similar.
The policies and agendas either of them will roll out which will kill the most people, negatively impact the most lives and do the most damage to the ecosystem are the areas in which they are in complete agreement, not those relatively small and relatively inconsequential areas in which they differ.
You can learn a lot more about the US and its globe-spanning empire by looking at the similarities between presidential administrations than you can by looking at their differences, because that’s where the overwhelming majority of the abusiveness can be found.
But nobody’s going to be watching any of that normalised criminality while the drama of this fake election plays out. More and more emotional hysteria is going to get invested in the outcome of this fraudulent two-handed sock puppet popularity contest between two loyal empire lackeys who are both sworn to advance the interests of the Empire no matter which one wins, and the mundane day-to-day murderousness of the Empire will continue to tick on unnoticed in the background.
US military commander’s casual declaration of independence from democratic control.
“Regardless of who’s in our political parties &whatever is happening in that space, it’s allies &partners that are always our priority”
The other day the US Navy’s highest-ranking officer just casually mentioned that the AUKUS military alliance which is geared toward roping Australia into a future US-driven military confrontation with China will remain in place no matter who wins the presidential election.
“Regardless of who is in our political parties and whatever is happening in that space, it’s allies and partners that are always our priority,” said Admiral Lisa Franchetti in response to the (completely baseless) concern that Trump will withdraw from military alliances and make the US “isolationist” if elected.
How could Franchetti make such a confident assertion if the behaviour of the US war machine meaningfully changed from administration to administration? The answer is that she couldn’t, and it doesn’t. The official elected government of the United States may change every few years, but its real government does not.
To be clear, I am not telling you not to vote here. These elections are designed to function as an emotional pacifier for the American people to let them feel like they have some control over their government, so if you feel like you want to vote then vote in whatever way pacifies your emotions.
I’ve got nothing invested in convincing you either way.
Whenever I talk about this stuff I get people accusing me of being defeatist and interpreting this message as a position that there’s nothing anyone can do, but that’s not true at all. I’m just saying the fake election ritual you’ve been given by the powerful and told that’s how you solve your problems is not the tool for the job.
You’re as likely to solve your problems by voting as you are by wishing or by praying — but that doesn’t mean problems can’t be solved. If you thought you could cure an infection by huffing paint thinner I’d tell you that won’t work either, and tell you to go see a doctor instead.
Just because the only viable candidates in any US presidential race will always be murderous empire lackeys doesn’t mean things are hopeless; that’s just what it looks like when you live in the heart of an empire that’s held together by lies, violence and tyranny, whose behavior has too much riding on it for the powerful to allow it to be left to the will of the electorate.
Cultivate A Habit Of Small Acts Of Sedition
Fighting the machine can be disheartening and disappointing as power comes up victorious time and time again. But that doesn’t mean you are powerless, and it doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do.https://t.co/O0vZRHX2ue
Your vote won’t make any difference to the behavior of the empire, but what can make a difference is taking actions every day to help pave the way toward a genuine people’s uprising against the empire later on down the road.
You do this by opening people’s eyes to the reality that what they’ve been taught about their government, their nation and their world is a lie, and that the mainstream sources they’ve been trained to look to for information are cleverly disguised imperial propaganda services.
What we can all do as individuals right here and now is begin cultivating a habit of committing small acts of sedition. Making little paper cuts in the flesh of the beast which add up over time. You can’t stop the machine by yourself, but you can sure as hell throw sand in its gears.
Giving a receptive listener some information about what’s going on in the world. Creating dissident media online. Graffiti with a powerful message.
Amplifying an inconvenient voice. Sharing a disruptive idea. Supporting an unauthorised cause. Organizing toward forbidden ends. Distributing eye-opening literature.
Creating eye-opening literature. Creating eye-opening art. Having authentic conversations about real things with anyone who can hear you.
Every day there’s something you can do. After you start pointing your creativity at cultivating this habit, you’ll surprise yourself with the innovative ideas you come up with.
Even a well-placed meme or tweet can open a bunch of eyes to a reality they’d previously been closed to. Remember: they wouldn’t be working so frantically to restrict online speech if it didn’t pose a genuine threat to the Empire.
Such regular small acts of sabotage do infinitely more damage to the imperial machine than voting, talking about voting or thinking about voting, which is why voting, talking about voting and thinking about voting is all you’re ever encouraged to do.
The more people wake up to the fact that they’re running to nowhere on a hamster wheel built by the powerful for the benefit of the powerful, the more people there will be to step off the wheel and start pushing for real change in real ways that matter — and the more people there will be to help wake up everyone else.
Once enough eyes are open, the people will be able to use the power of their numbers to force real change and shrug off the chains of their abusers like a heavy coat on a warm day.
There is nothing that could stop us once enough of us understand what’s happening. That’s why so much effort goes into obfuscating people’s understanding, and keeping everyone endlessly diverted with empty nonsense like presidential elections.
Pacific leaders have been called on to innovative and be bold to create gender equality and respond to gaps which exist in their efforts to bridge differences.
Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine said gender could not be addressed in isolation.
“We must think also of how it intersects with our other challenges and opportunities and develop our policies and approaches with gender equality in mind,” Heine said at the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women in Majuro this week.
“Our gender equality journey calls on Pacific leadership to be intentional, innovative and bold in our responses to the gaps that we see in our efforts.
“We must take risks, create new partnerships, and be unwavering in our commitment to bring about substantive gender equality for the region.”
The triennial is the latest in a series which was first proposed in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in 1974. Representatives from governments throughout the region are represented at the event which is followed by a meeting of Pacific ministers for women.
“We have come a long way in terms of advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women in the Pacific,” Heine said.
Forces that shape women
“Almost 50 years ago in 1975, 80 women from across the Pacific convened in Suva to talk about forces that shape women in society. ”
The initial meeting of 80 women identified family, culture and traditions, religion, education, media, law and politics as thematic areas which deserved attention and discussion.
Heine challenged Pacific women to extend their role as mothers who nurture and weave society towards nation building.
“A mother helps to nurture and weaves the society, therefore building a nation. That is our role. That is what we do. It is in our DNA,” Heine said.
“Current women leaders stand on the shoulders of those women who came before us, many had no clue about the PPA or what feminism is all about; yet their roles called for them to be involved and to push the boundaries; similarly, it is the responsibility of current women leaders to nurture and to mentor the next generation of women leaders, the leaders of tomorrow.”
Engage men and boys A study across 31 countries has found that 60 percent of males aged 16-24 years believe that women’s equality discriminates against men.
“This finding is troubling and while the study did not include countries in the Pacific, it is important we take note of it and continue to look at ways to better engage men and boys in gender equality efforts in our part of the world,” Pacific Community’s Miles Young said.
Young said men and boys must be involved on a journey of understanding that gender equality benefited everyone.
“Noting the continuing relatively low representation of women across our national parliaments and at the highest levels of decision-making in the private sector, there may be an opportunity this week to discuss revitalising the conversation around affirmative action — or what some term temporary special measures,” he said.
He noted the presence of Tuvalu Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, Marshallese Women’s Minister, Jess Gasper, and United Nations Women Senior Adviser, Asger Rhyl, and “the many other men who are committed to gender equality”.
“There may be an opportunity for discussions around how to more effectively engage men and boys in progressing gender equality,” Young said.
Women make up 8.8 percent of parliamentarians (54 MPs) in the Pacific, up from 4.7 per cent (26 MPs) in 2013.
Young said the Pacific Community stood ready to collaborate with women representatives and development partners to support decisions and the outcomes of the meeting.
“This commitment reflects the highest priority which SPC attaches to supporting gender equality in the region.”
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
A united effort will ensure a world in which every woman and girl is valued, respected, and given the opportunity to thrive.
Envoy for Women, Children and Youth to Marshallese President, Hilda Heine, Senator Daisy Alik-Momotaro, said the most pressing issues for women and children were health, education, climate change and economic stability.
Momotaro made the comments at the opening of the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women. The conference precedes the 8th Meeting of Pacific Ministers for Women.
“Each of you, like individual droplets, contributes to the vast and powerful ocean of change and progress,” Alik-Momotaro said.
“Together, we are capable of creating waves that can transform our world.
“The theme for this year’s 15th Triennial Conference is An Pilinlin Koba Ekaman Lometo, which translates to “a collection of droplets, makes an ocean,” captures the power of collective effort.
Alik-Momotaro noted that the Marshall Islands was a matrilineal society in which women held sacred and indispensable.
Nurturers for well-being
“We are the Kora in Eoeo, the nurturers who ensure the well-being and growth of our families and communities,” she told delegates to the triennial.
“We are the Lejmaanjuri, the peacemakers who resolve conflicts with wisdom and grace.
“As Jined ilo Kobo, we are the protectors who safeguard our heritage and values.”
The Marshallese culture of Aelon Kein ej an Kora, embraces women as owners of the land who hold a spiritual role as providers and preservers of culture, tradition and philosophy.
“These roles are not mere responsibilities; they are the essence of our identity and the pillars of our society,” she said.
Alik-Momotaro recognised the presence of men and boys at the opening ceremony.
She said this underscored the importance of inclusivity and partnership in efforts to advance the wellbeing of women and communities.
Mutual respect, collaboration
“Together, we can foster an environment where mutual respect and collaboration pave the way for a better future,” she said.
“Let us remember that our shared experiences and collective voices are our greatest strengths. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and it is our duty to pave the way for the generations that follow.”
The triennial has received support from traditional leaders on Majuro and throughout the Marshall Islands.
Marshallese women have travelled from throughout the islands to take part in the conference.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
A united effort will ensure a world in which every woman and girl is valued, respected, and given the opportunity to thrive.
Envoy for Women, Children and Youth to Marshallese President, Hilda Heine, Senator Daisy Alik-Momotaro, said the most pressing issues for women and children were health, education, climate change and economic stability.
Momotaro made the comments at the opening of the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women. The conference precedes the 8th Meeting of Pacific Ministers for Women.
“Each of you, like individual droplets, contributes to the vast and powerful ocean of change and progress,” Alik-Momotaro said.
“Together, we are capable of creating waves that can transform our world.
“The theme for this year’s 15th Triennial Conference is An Pilinlin Koba Ekaman Lometo, which translates to “a collection of droplets, makes an ocean,” captures the power of collective effort.
Alik-Momotaro noted that the Marshall Islands was a matrilineal society in which women held sacred and indispensable.
Nurturers for well-being
“We are the Kora in Eoeo, the nurturers who ensure the well-being and growth of our families and communities,” she told delegates to the triennial.
“We are the Lejmaanjuri, the peacemakers who resolve conflicts with wisdom and grace.
“As Jined ilo Kobo, we are the protectors who safeguard our heritage and values.”
The Marshallese culture of Aelon Kein ej an Kora, embraces women as owners of the land who hold a spiritual role as providers and preservers of culture, tradition and philosophy.
“These roles are not mere responsibilities; they are the essence of our identity and the pillars of our society,” she said.
Alik-Momotaro recognised the presence of men and boys at the opening ceremony.
She said this underscored the importance of inclusivity and partnership in efforts to advance the wellbeing of women and communities.
Mutual respect, collaboration
“Together, we can foster an environment where mutual respect and collaboration pave the way for a better future,” she said.
“Let us remember that our shared experiences and collective voices are our greatest strengths. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and it is our duty to pave the way for the generations that follow.”
The triennial has received support from traditional leaders on Majuro and throughout the Marshall Islands.
Marshallese women have travelled from throughout the islands to take part in the conference.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
A 2022 Philippine Commission on Human Rights report links fossil fuel companies to climate change and human rights impacts, boosting climate justice efforts. It calls for stricter regulations, corporate accountability, and reparations for affected communities.
By Elle Guison
“Five years after, my nerves still get the best of me whenever I hear the crash of ocean waves. I get anxious and restless when it rains because I fear that another Haiyan will happen again,” climate activist Marinel Ubaldo recounted during a hearing in New York City in September 2018.
Ubaldo’s experience reflects the devastating impact of climate change on humans. Yet, a common misconception persists that typhoons, floods, heatwaves, and other extreme weather events are simply natural disasters or acts of God.
While the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) definition of climate change emphasizes the influence of human activities, the conversation around accountability for climate-related events remains insufficient.
But on May 6, 2022, a report by the Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR) highlighted the role of large fossil fuel companies, often referred to as “carbon majors,” in worsening climate change and strengthened the case for viewing the climate crisis as a human rights issue.
The report on the National Inquiry on Climate Change (NICC) marked the first instance where a national human rights institution directly addressed the link between the operations of carbon majors and climate change’s impacts on human rights.
“That report was deeply personal for me as a typhoon survivor because it validated the experiences of my community and other affected communities,” Ubaldo said in a recent interview with Climate Tracker Asia.
She added that it reinforced her resolve to fight for climate justice and to advocate for the rights of those who have suffered due to climate-induced disasters.
“It was really a powerful affirmation that our voices and experiences matter in the global climate discourse,” Ubaldo said.
Apart from documentary evidence and expert testimonies, the report also represents findings from community dialogues and interviews with fishing communities, farmers, activists, and typhoon survivors.
Two years after the release of the report, non-governmental organizations and individual petitioners like Ubaldo have already seen positive momentum in the climate justice movement.
Developments toward climate justice
Courtesy: Marinel Ubaldo via Climate Tracker Asia
Climate activists and NGOs leverage the report’s findings in public statements, policy briefs, and advocacy materials to advocate for stricter regulations and reparations for impacted communities.
Greenpeace Philippines, for instance, acknowledges the report’s role in strengthening the organization’s advocacy efforts as the report establishes a clear discourse on climate accountability.
Greenpeace Philippines climate campaigner Jefferson Chua noted that policymakers are finally taking climate accountability seriously following the release of the report.
“The report gave a face to the thousands of people affected by climate change, highlighting the suffering due to climate impacts,” Chua said.
There is also a growing interest in aligning policies with both the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement and the recommendations of the NICC report.
Some of the report’s recommendations directed to the government include discouraging dependence on fossil fuels, collaborating on innovative climate action, and concretizing the responsibility of businesses, among others.
The NICC report has also spurred action at local levels. Cities Makati City as well as Albay province have declared climate emergencies.
Despite offering solutions and recommendations, the CHR report is not legally binding. This makes it difficult to compel carbon majors and other companies to comply.
The report recommends carbon majors and other carbon-intensive corporations to conduct due diligence, make climate change and human rights impact assessments, be more transparent about their operations and disclose GHG emissions, make public pronouncements about their commitments to combat climate change, stop further exploration of new oil fields, and to contribute to funds that finance the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures.
“Even after sending copies of the report to their main offices, we received no reaction. They continue to deny their historical role in human rights harms caused by climate impacts,” Chua said.
However, efforts are underway to establish mechanisms that push carbon majors toward climate alignment.
The Low-Carbon Economy Bill proposes a cap-and-trade mechanism to tax companies for exceeding carbon thresholds.
Meanwhile, the Climate Accountability Act (CLIMA) Bill aims to provide a mechanism to secure reparations from major polluters.
“Companies have been avoiding action since the beginning… This highlights the need for laws to compel them to act. While campaigning raises awareness and pressure, policy and legislation are essential to enforce accountability,” Ubaldo said.
While the CHR report offers valuable insights, its technical language can be a barrier to public understanding.
Recognizing this challenge, Chua said that Greenpeace Philippines is actively creating more accessible and engaging content.
Setting a global precedent
Climate activists serve as panelists at the SB56 Bonn intersessional side event | Courtesy: John Leo Algo via Climate Tracker Asia
The report, being the first of its kind, has also set a global precedent for holding corporations accountable for climate change.
Its findings have been cited in international forums and have been instrumental in pushing countries to make stronger commitments in reducing emissions and supporting vulnerable communities through adaptation strategies as well as loss and damage mechanisms.
In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights recognized climate change protection as a human right. The ruling stated that governments of European Union member states are now responsible for protecting their citizens from the threats and harms of climate change.
With the binding nature of the European court ruling, Greenpeace Philippines is hopeful of other global developments that would influence and bolster local efforts. One of these developments is climate change litigation reaching the highest court of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The ICJ is being asked to draft an advisory opinion on the responsibilities of States concerning climate change. This would enhance accountability by mandating that major greenhouse gas emitters compensate vulnerable nations for the loss and damage caused by climate change, while also protecting fundamental human rights.
While not legally binding, ICJ advisory opinions carry significant “legal weight and moral authority,” shaping the interpretation of international law.
Since a major shortcoming of the CHR report is its lack of legal enforceability, the European court ruling and the potential ICJ advisory opinion are crucial for the Philippines, Ubaldo said. These developments can provide a framework for holding carbon majors accountable and pressing for stronger local policies and actions.
Ubaldo suggested the CHR report could have included more specific recommendations for policymakers and corporations in addressing its findings.
Chua echoed this concern, saying that “while the report calls for fossil fuel companies to phase out, it doesn’t fully address how this transition should be managed justly, especially considering development aggression and human rights harms caused by renewable energy projects.”
Both Chua and Ubaldo encourage communities to speak up and pursue legal claims against polluters. Chua additionally calls for faster passage of legislation like the CLIMA bill to establish binding accountability mechanisms.
“While the Philippines has many idealistic laws, effective implementation and awareness are key to making them impactful. We need to ensure that the partnership between local and national government units continues to support climate justice efforts,” Ubaldo said.
This article by Elle Guison was originally published on Climate Tracker Asia. It is republished here as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.
A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon.
Christina Assi of Agence France-Presse was among six journalists struck by Israeli shelling last October 13 while reporting on an exchange of fire along the border between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants, reports The New Arab.
The same attack killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah.
Assi was severely wounded and had part of her right leg amputated.
AFP videographer Dylan Collins, also wounded in the Israeli attack, pushed Assi’s wheelchair as she carried the torch across the suburb of Vincennes last Sunday. Their colleagues from the press agency and hundreds of spectators cheered them on.
AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera have all accused Israel of targeting their journalists who maintained they were positioned far from where the clashes were raging, and with vehicles clearly marked as “press”.
International human rights organisations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the October 13 attack was deliberate and should be investigated as a war crime.
The Israeli military at the time said that the incident was “under review”, claiming that it did not target journalists.
While Assi does not believe there will be retribution for the events of that fateful October day, she hopes her participation in the Olympic torch relay this week can bring attention to the importance of protecting journalists.
The torch relay, which started in May, is part of celebrations in which thousands of people from various walks of life are chosen to carry the flame across France before the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony later today (5.30am Saturday NZST).
A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon.
Christina Assi of Agence France-Presse was among six journalists struck by Israeli shelling last October 13 while reporting on an exchange of fire along the border between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants, reports The New Arab.
The same attack killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah.
Assi was severely wounded and had part of her right leg amputated.
AFP videographer Dylan Collins, also wounded in the Israeli attack, pushed Assi’s wheelchair as she carried the torch across the suburb of Vincennes last Sunday. Their colleagues from the press agency and hundreds of spectators cheered them on.
AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera have all accused Israel of targeting their journalists who maintained they were positioned far from where the clashes were raging, and with vehicles clearly marked as “press”.
International human rights organisations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the October 13 attack was deliberate and should be investigated as a war crime.
The Israeli military at the time said that the incident was “under review”, claiming that it did not target journalists.
While Assi does not believe there will be retribution for the events of that fateful October day, she hopes her participation in the Olympic torch relay this week can bring attention to the importance of protecting journalists.
The torch relay, which started in May, is part of celebrations in which thousands of people from various walks of life are chosen to carry the flame across France before the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony later today (5.30am Saturday NZST).
Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused devastation on the people and environment of the Marshall Islands.
And, as Pacific women gathered on Majuro this week to discuss ways to end gender-based violence, they heard from local counterparts about a battle for justice older than many of the delegates.
Ariana Kilma, chair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission and descendant of survivors of weapons testing, shared a story of survival, setting the backdrop for the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
“I am here to share with you our story. This is a story not only of suffering and loss, but also of strength, unity, and unwavering commitment to justice,” Kilner told delegates from across the region.
“The conference theme ‘an pilinlin koba komman lometo’(a collection of droplets creates an ocean)” reflects the efforts of the many Marshallese women before me, and together, we call on you, our Pacific sisters and brothers, to stand united in our commitment to justice, healing, and a brighter future for the Pacific.”
The triennial will focus on three specific areas – climate change, gender-based violence, and the health of women and girls.
The current story of Marshallese women began in the aftermath of World War II when the group of atolls in the Northern Pacific was selected as ground zero for a nuclear weapon testing programme. Image: RNZ Pacific
Marshall Islands President, Dr Hilda Heine, acknowledged that nothing less than a collective, regional effort was needed to effectively address the three issues at the centre of the regional conference.
“Our gender equality journey calls on Pacific leadership to be intentional, innovative and bold in our responses to the gaps that we see in our efforts,” Heine said.
‘We must take risks’
“We must take risks, create new partnerships, and be unwavering in our commitment to bring about substantive gender equality for the region.”
In the area of gender equality, young Marshallese women like Kilner are forging pathways to ensure that justice is done, even if the battle for restitution takes another 70 years. In a bold, innovative move, women of the Marshall Islands have taken their cry to the World Council of Churches and the United Nations.
“Marshallese women have shown remarkable resilience and leadership,” Kilma said.
“From the early days of testing, they raised their voices against the injustices inflicted upon our people. They documented health issues, collected evidence, and demanded accountability.”
The current story of Marshallese women began in the aftermath of World War II when the group of atolls in the Northern Pacific was selected as ground zero for a nuclear weapon testing programme.
This was the beginning of a profound and painful chapter which continues today.
“The people of Bikini and later Enewetak were displaced from their home islands in order for the tests to commence,” Kilner said.
Infamous Bravo test
“For a period of 12 years, between 1946 and 1958, 67 nuclear tests were conducted in our islands, including the infamous Bravo test on Bikini Atoll in 1954. Despite a petition from the Marshallese to cease the experiments, the testing continued for another four years with 55 more detonations.”
Containment of nuclear waste in the Marshall Islands. Image: RNZ Pacific
Immediately after the Bravo test, people fell ill — their skin itching and peeling, eyes hurting, stomachs churning with pain, heads split by migraines and fingernails changing colour because of nuclear fallout.
It was not long before women gave birth to what have been described jellyfish babies.
“So deformed, [were our] babies sometimes born resembling the features of an octopus or the intestines of a turtle, in some instances, a bunch of grapes or a strange looking animal,” Kilner told delegates at the regional forum this week.
“The term jellyfish babies was coined after the birth of many babies who were born without limbs or a head, whose skin was so transparent their mothers saw their tiny hearts beating within.
“We were told by those scientists that our babies were a result of incest.”
Despite a 2004 study by the United States National Cancer Institute which concluded that the Marshallese could expect an estimated 530 “excess” cancers, half of which had yet to be detected, the US has made no move towards reparation for the islanders.
The study showed that the fallout resulted in elevated cancer risks, with women being disproportionately affected.
Twenty years after the study, the Marshall Islands continues to fight for justice, women at the forefront of the struggle, just as they have been since 1 March 1954.
If anyone has the resilience to fight for justice, it is the Marshallese women.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women. Published with the author’s permission.
Facebook has reportedly temporarily blocked posts published by an independent online news outlet in Solomon Islands after incorrectly labelling its content as “spam”.
In-Depth Solomons, a member centre of the non-profit OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project), was informed by the platform that more than 80 posts had been removed from its official page.
According to OCCRP, the outlet believes opponents of independent journalism in the country could behind the “coordinated campaign”.
“The reporters in Solomon Islands became aware of the problem on Thursday afternoon, when the platform informed them it had hidden at least 86 posts, including stories and photos,” OCCRP reported yesterday.
“Defining its posts as spam resulted in the removal for several hours of what appeared to be everything the news organisation had posted on Facebook since March last year.”
It said the platform also blocked its users from posting content from the outlet’s website, indepthsolomons.com.sb, saying that such links went against the platform’s “community standards”.
In-Depth Solomons has received criticism for its reporting by the Solomon Islands government and its supporters, both online and in local media, OCCRP said.
Expose on PM’s unexplained wealth
In April, it published an expose into the unexplained wealth of the nation’s former prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare.
In-depth Solomons editor Ofani Eremae said the content removal “may have been the result of a coordinated campaign by critics of his newsroom to file false complaints to Facebook en masse”.
“We firmly believe we’ve been targeted for the journalism we are doing here in Solomon Islands,” he was quoted as saying.
One of the Meta post removal alerts for Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie over a human rights story on on 24 June 2024. Image: APR screenshot
“We don’t have any evidence at this stage on who did this to us, but we think people or organisations who do not want to see independent reporting in this country may be behind this.”
A spokesman for Meta, Ben Cheong, told OCCRP they needed more time to examine the issue.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and permission from ABC.
Pacific Media Watch reports that in other cases of Facebook and Meta blocked posts, Asia Pacific Reports the removal of Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua decolonisation stories and human rights reports over claimed violation of “community standards”.
APR has challenged this removal of posts, including in the case of its editor Dr David Robie. Some have been restored while others have remained “blocked”.
Other journalists have also reported the removal of news posts.
We speak with Palestinian human rights lawyer Noura Erakat about Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, in which he defended Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, lied repeatedly about the dire humanitarian conditions on the ground and refused to talk about how to reach a ceasefire to end the bloodshed. Although more than 100 Democrats skipped the speech, Erakat says the jubilant reaction from lawmakers…
