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Category: Indigenous

  • Marape calls US climate backtracking ‘irresponsible’ in rethink plea to Trump

    PNG Post-Courier

    In a fervent appeal to the global community, Prime Minister James Marape of Papua New Guinea has called on US President Donald Trump to “rethink” his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and current global climate initiatives.

    Marape’s plea came during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland, on 23 January 2025.

    Expressing deep concern for the impacts of climate change on Papua New Guinea and other vulnerable Pacific Island nations, Marape highlighted the dire consequences these nations face due to rising sea levels and increasingly severe weather patterns.

    “The effects of climate change are not just theoretical for us; they have real, devastating impacts on our fragile economies and our way of life,” he said.

    The Prime Minister emphasised that while it was within President Trump’s prerogative to prioritise American interests, withdrawing the United States — the second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide– from the Paris Agreement without implementing measures to curtail coal power production was “totally irresponsible”, Marape said.

    “As a leader of a major forest and ocean nation in the Pacific region, I urge President Trump to reconsider his decision.”

    He went on to point out the contradiction in the US stance.

    US not closing coal plants
    “The United States is not shutting down any of its coal power plants yet has chosen to withdraw from critical climate efforts. This is fundamentally irresponsible.

    “The science regarding our warming planet is clear — it does not lie,” he said.

    Marape further articulated that as the “Leader of the Free World,” Trump had a moral obligation to engage with global climate issues.


    PNG Prime Minister James Marape’s plea to President Trump.  Video: PNGTV

    “It is morally wrong for President Trump to disregard the pressing challenges of climate change.

    He must articulate how he intends to address this critical issue,” he added, stressing that effective global leaders had a responsibility not only to their own nations but also to the planet as a whole.

    In a bid to advocate for small island nations that are bearing the brunt of climate impacts, PM Marape announced plans to bring this issue to the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

    He hopes to unify the voices of PIF member countries in a collective statement regarding the US withdrawal from climate negotiations.

    US revived Pacific relations
    “The United States has recently revitalised its relations with the Pacific. It is discouraging to see it retreating from climate discussions that significantly affect our region’s efforts to mitigate climate change,” he said.

    Prime Minister Marape reminded the international community that while larger nations might have the capacity to withstand extreme weather events such as typhoons, wildfires, and tornadoes, smaller nations like Papua New Guinea could not endure such impacts.

    “For us, every storm and rising tide represents a potential crisis. Big nations can afford to navigate these challenges, but for us, the stakes are incredibly high,” he said.

    Marape’s appeal underscores the urgent need for collaborative and sustained global action to combat climate change, particularly for nations like Papua New Guinea, which are disproportionately affected by environmental change.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel jeopardising ‘any prospect of peace’, says UNRWA chief

    The New Arab

    Implementation of Israel’s ban on the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA will be disastrous, the aid agency’s chief has told the Security Council, saying Israel’s actions jeopardise “any prospect of peace”.

    The ban is set to come into force tomorrow after months of an intensified Israeli campaign against UNRWA, which it has claimed supports terrorism without providing evidence.

    “In two days, our operations in the occupied Palestinian territory will be crippled,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the 15-member Security Council.

    UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini
    UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini . . . “In two days, our operations in the occupied Palestinian territory will be crippled.” Image: UN

    “Full implementation of the Knesset legislation will be disastrous.”

    Lazzarini also slammed Israel’s “propaganda” campaign against UNRWA, which has seen Tel Aviv invest in billboards in major cities and Google Ads.

    “The absurdity of anti-UNRWA propaganda does not diminish the threat it poses to our staff, especially those in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza — where 273 of our colleagues have been killed,” he said.

    Seven European nations jointly condemn Israel
    Seven European Union countries — Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain — have told the UN Security Council they “deeply deplore” Israel’s decision to shut down UNRWA’s operations in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

    In a joint statement, they condemned Israel’s withdrawal from its 1967 agreement with UNRWA and any efforts to obstruct its UN-mandated work.

    The group also called for the suspension of Israeli laws banning the agency, arguing they violate international law and the UN Charter.

    However, Israel vowed at the UN to push ahead with the controversial ban.

    “UNRWA must cease its operations and evacuate all premises it operates in Jerusalem, including the properties located in Maalot Dafna and Kafr Aqab,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told the council.

    “Israel will terminate all collaboration, communication and contact with UNRWA or anyone acting on its behalf,” he said.

    UNRWA said operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank will also suffer. It provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

    ‘Irresponsible’
    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council have described UNRWA as the backbone of the humanitarian aid response in Gaza, which has been decimated by 15 months of Israel’s war on the enclave.

    The United States, under new President Donald Trump, supports what it called Israel’s “sovereign right” to close UNRWA’s offices in occupied east Jerusalem, acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the Security Council.

    Under Trump predecessor Joe Biden, the United States provided military support for Israel’s war, but urged Israel to pause implementation of the law against UNRWA.

    “UNRWA exaggerating the effects of the laws and suggesting that they will force the entire humanitarian response to halt is irresponsible and dangerous,” Shea said.

    “What is needed is a nuanced discussion about how we can ensure that there is no interruption in the delivery of humanitarian aid and essential services,” she said.

    “UNRWA is not and never has been the only option for providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” she said.

    Other agencies working in Gaza and the West Bank include the children’s organisation UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization and the UN Development Programme.

    Who fills the gap?
    But the UN has repeatedly said there is no alternative to UNRWA and that it would be Israel’s responsibility to replace its services. Israel, whose creation in 1948 was preceded by the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland during the Nakba, rejected that it was responsible for replacing UNRWA’s services.

    “Since October 2023, we have delivered two-thirds of all food assistance, provided shelter to over a million displaced persons and vaccinated a quarter of a million children against polio,” Lazzarini told the Security Council.

    “Since the ceasefire began, UNRWA has brought in 60 percent of the food entering Gaza, reaching more than half a million people. We conduct some 17,000 medical consultations every day,” he said.

    Israel has long been critical of UNRWA, claiming that the agency’s staff took part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel. The UN has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved and were fired.

    The UN has vowed to investigate all accusations and repeatedly asked Israel for evidence, which it says has not been provided.

    Lazzarini also said today that UNRWA had been the target of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “portray the agency as a terrorist organisation”.

    Republished under a Creative Commons licence.

  • PSNA’s Minto hits back at Gaza ‘genocide hotline’ critics, insists NZ should deny Israeli soldier visas

    Asia Pacific Report

    A national Palestine advocacy group has hit back at critics of its “genocide hotline” campaign against soldiers involved in Israel’s war against Gaza, saying New Zealand should be actively following international law.

    The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) dismissed a “predictable lineup of apologists for Israel” for their criticisms of the PSNA campaign.

    “Why is concern for the sensitivities of soldiers from a genocidal Israeli campaign more important than condemning the genocide itself?,” asked PSNA national chair John Minto in a statement.

    The Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters, the Chief Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow and the New Zealand Jewish Council have made statements “protecting” Israeli soldiers who come to New Zealand on “rest and recreation” from the industrial-scale killing of 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza until a truce went into force on January 19.

    “We are not surprised to see such a predictable lineup of apologists for Israel and its genocide in Gaza from lining up to attack a PSNA campaign with false smears of anti-semitism,” Minto said.

    He said that over 16 months Peters had done “absolutely nothing” to put any pressure on Israel to end its genocidal behaviour.

    “But he is full of bluff and bluster and outright lies to denounce those who demand Israel be held to account.”

    Deny illegal settler visas
    Minto said that if Peters was doing his job as Foreign Minister, he would not only stop Israeli soldiers coming to Aotearoa New Zealand — as with Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war — he would also deny visas to any Israeli with an address in an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    The Human Rights Commission had issued a “disingenuous media release”, he said.

    “Our campaign has nothing to do with Israelis or Jews — it is a campaign to stop Israeli soldiers coming here for rest and recreation after a campaign of wholesale killing of Palestinians in Gaza,” Minto said.

    “To imply the campaign is targeting Jews is disgusting and despicable.

    “Some of the soldiers will be Druse, some Palestinian Arabs and others will be Jews.”

    The five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, shot 355 times by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024
    The five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, shot 355 times by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024. Image: @Onlyloren/Instagram

    Israeli soldiers are facing a growing risk of being arrested abroad for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza, with around 50 criminal complaints filed so far in courts in several countries around the world.

    Earlier this month, a former Israeli soldier abruptly ended his holiday in Brazil and was “smuggled” out of the country after a Federal Court ordered police to open a war crimes investigation against him. The man fled to Argentina.

    A complaint lodged by the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) included more than 500 pages of court records linking the suspect to the demolition of civilian homes in Gaza.

    ‘Historic’ court ruling against soldier
    The foundation called the Brazilian court’s decision “historic”, saying it marked a significant precedent for a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to enforce Rome Statute provisions domestically in the 15-month Israeli war on Gaza.

    The foundation is named in honour of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab who was killed on 29 January 2024 by Israel soldiers while pleading for help in a car after her six family members were dead.

    According to The New Arab, the foundation has so far tracked and sent the names of 1000 Israeli soldiers to the ICC and Interpol, and has been pursuing legal cases in a number of countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Cyprus, France, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

    In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, together with a former Hamas commander, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Minto accused the New Zealand Jewish Council of being “deeply racist” and said it regularly “makes a meal of false smears of anti-semitism”.

    “It’s deeply problematic that this Jewish Council strategy takes attention away from the real anti-semitism which exists in New Zealand and around the world.

    “The priority of the Jewish Council is to protect Israel from criticism and protect it from accountability for its apartheid policies, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

    “We are demanding that accountability.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Deep freeze: Pacific ‘alarm’ as Trump leaves US diplomats with little to offer

    COMMENTARY: By Tess Newton Cain

    It didn’t come as a surprise to see President Donald Trump sign executive orders to again pull out of the Paris Agreement, or from the World Health Organisation, but the immediate suspension of US international aid has compounded the impact beyond what was imagined possible.

    The slew of executive orders signed within hours of Trump re-entering the White House and others since have caused consternation for Pacific leaders and communities and alarm for those operating in the region.

    Since Trump was last in power, US engagement in the Pacific has increased dramatically. We have seen new embassies opened, the return of Peace Corps volunteers, high-level summits in Washington and more.

    All the officials who have been in the region and met with Pacific leaders and thinkers will know that climate change impacts are the name of the game when it comes to security.

    It is encapsulated in the Boe Declaration signed by leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum in 2018 as their number one existential threat and has been restated many times since.

    Now it is hard to see how US diplomats and administration representatives can expect to have meaningful conversations with their Pacific counterparts, if they have nothing to offer when it comes to the region’s primary security threat.

    The “on again, off again” approach to cutting carbon emissions and providing climate finance does not lend itself to convincing sceptical Pacific leaders that the US is a trusted friend here for the long haul.

    Pacific response muted
    Trump’s climate scepticism is well-known and the withdrawal from Paris had been flagged during the campaign. The response from leaders within the Pacific islands region has been somewhat muted, with a couple of exceptions.

    Vanuatu Attorney-General Kiel Loughman called it out as “bad behaviour”. Meanwhile, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape has sharply criticised Trump, “urging” him to reconsider his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, and plans to rally Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders to stand with him.

    It is hard to see how this will have much effect.

    The withdrawal from the World Health Organisation – to which the US provides US$500 million or about 15 percent of its annual budget – creates a deep funding gap.

    In 2022, the Lowy Pacific aid map recorded that the WHO disbursed US$9.1 million in the Pacific islands across 320 projects. It contributes to important programmes that support health systems in the region.

    In addition, the 90-day pause on disbursement of aid funding while investments are reviewed to ensure that they align with the president’s foreign policy is causing confusion and distress in the region.

    Perhaps now the time has come to adopt a more transactional approach. While this may not come easily to Pacific diplomats, the reality is that this is how everyone else is acting and it appears to be the geopolitical language of the moment.

    Meaningful commitment opportunities
    So where the US seeks a security agreement or guarantee, there may be an opportunity to tie it to climate change or other meaningful commitments.

    When it comes to the PIF, the intergovernmental body representing 18 states and territories, Trump’s stance may pose a particular problem.

    The PIF secretariat is currently undertaking a Review of Regional Architecture. As part of that, dialogue partners including the US are making cases for whether they should be ranked as “Strategic Partners” [Tier 1] or “Sector Development Partners [Tier 2].

    It is hard to see how the US can qualify for “strategic partner” status given Trump’s rhetoric and actions in the last week. But if the US does not join that club, it is likely to cede space to China which is also no doubt lobbying to be at the “best friends” table.

    With the change in president comes the new Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He was previously known for having called for the US to cut all its aid to Solomon Islands when then Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare announced this country’s switch in diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China.

    It is to be hoped that since then Rubio has learned that this type of megaphone diplomacy is not welcome in this part of the world.

    Since taking office, he has made little mention of the Pacific islands region. In a call with New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters they “discussed efforts to enhance security cooperation, address regional challenges, and support for the Pacific Islands.”

    It is still early days, a week is a long time in politics and there remain many “unknown unknowns”. What we do know is that what happens in Washington during the next four years will have global impacts, including in the Pacific. The need now for strong Pacific leadership and assertive diplomacy has never been greater.

    Dr Tess Newton Cain is a principal consultant at Sustineo P/L and adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. She is a former lecturer at the University of the South Pacific and has more than 25 years of experience working in the Pacific islands region. This article was first published by BenarNews and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Trump 2.0 chaos and destruction — what it means Down Under

    What will happen to Australia — and New Zealand — once the superpower that has been followed into endless battles, the United States, finally unravels?

    COMMENTARY: By Michelle Pini, managing editor of Independent Australia

    With President Donald Trump now into his second week in the White House, horrific fires have continued to rage across Los Angeles and the details of Elon Musk’s allegedly dodgy Twitter takeover began to emerge, the world sits anxiously by.

    The consequences of a second Trump term will reverberate globally, not only among Western nations. But given the deeply entrenched Americanisation of much of the Western world, this is about how it will navigate the after-shocks once the United States finally unravels — for unravel it surely will.

    Leading with chaos
    Now that the world’s biggest superpower and war machine has a deranged criminal at the helm — for a second time — none of us know the lengths to which Trump (and his puppet masters) will go as his fingers brush dangerously close to the nuclear codes. Will he be more emboldened?

    The signs are certainly there.

    Trump Mark II: Chaos personified
    President Donald Trump 2.0 . . . will his cruelty towards migrants and refugees escalate, matched only by his fuelling of racial division? Image: ABC News screenshot IA

    So far, Trump — who had already led the insurrection of a democratically elected government — has threatened to exit the nuclear arms pact with Russia, talked up a trade war with China and declared “all hell will break out” in the Middle East if Hamas hadn’t returned the Israeli hostages.

    Will his cruelty towards migrants and refugees escalate, matched only by his fuelling of racial division?

    This, too, appears to be already happening.

    Trump’s rants leading up to his inauguration last week had been a steady stream of crazed declarations, each one more unhinged than the last.

    He wants to buy Greenland. He wishes to overturn birthright citizenship in order to deport even more migrant children, such as  “pet-eating Haitians” and “insane Hannibal Lecters” because America has been “invaded”.

    It will be interesting to see whether his planned evictions of Mexicans will include the firefighters Mexico sent to Los Angeles’ aid.

    At the same time, Trump wants to turn Canada into the 51st state, because, he said,

    “It would make a great state. And the people of Canada like it.”

    Will sexual predator Trump’s level of misogyny sink to even lower depths post Roe v Wade?

    Probably.

    Denial of catastrophic climate consequences
    And will Trump be in even further denial over the catastrophic consequences of climate change than during his last term? Even as Los Angeles grapples with a still climbing death toll of 25 lives lost, 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures destroyed and 16,425 hectares (about the size of Washington DC) wiped out so far in the latest climactic disaster?

    The fires are, of course, symptomatic of the many years of criminal negligence on global warming. But since Trump instead accused California officials of “prioritising environmental policies over public safety” while his buddy and head of government “efficiency”, Musk blamed black firefighters for the fires, it would appear so.

    Will the madman, for surely he is one, also gift even greater protections to oligarchs like Musk?

    Trump has already appointed billionaire buddies Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to:

     “…pave the way for my Administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal agencies”.

    So, this too is already happening.

    All of these actions will combine to create a scenario of destruction that will see the implosion of the US as we know it, though the details are yet to emerge.

    Flawed AUKUS pact sinking quickly
    The flawed AUKUS pact sinking quickly . . . Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with outgoing President Joe Biden, will Australia have the mettle to be bigger than Trump. Image: Independent Australia

    What happens Down Under?
    US allies — like Australia — have already been thoroughly indoctrinated by American pop culture in order to complement the many army bases they house and the defence agreements they have signed.

    Though Trump hasn’t shown any interest in making it a 52nd state, Australia has been tucked up in bed with the United States since the Cold War. Our foreign policy has hinged on this alliance, which also significantly affects Australia’s trade and economy, not to mention our entire cultural identity, mired as it is in US-style fast food dependence and reality TV. Would you like Vegemite McShaker Fries with that?

    So what will happen to Australia once the superpower we have followed into endless battles finally breaks down?

    As Dr Martin Hirst wrote in November:

    ‘Trump has promised chaos and chaos is what he’ll deliver.’

    His rise to power will embolden the rabid Far-Right in the US but will this be mirrored here? And will Australia follow the US example and this year elect our very own (admittedly scaled down) version of Trump, personified by none other than the Trump-loving Peter Dutton?

    If any of his wild announcements are to be believed, between building walls and evicting even US nationals he doesn’t like, while simultaneously making Canadians US citizens, Trump will be extremely busy.

    There will be little time even to consider Australia, let alone come to our rescue should we ever need the might of the US war machine — no matter whether it is an Albanese or sycophantic Dutton leadership.

    It is a given, however, that we would be required to honour all defence agreements should our ally demand it.

    It would be great if, as psychologists urge us to do when children act up, our leaders could simply ignore and refuse to engage with him, but it remains to be seen whether Australia will have the mettle to be bigger than Trump.

    Republished from the Independent Australia with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG media policy ‘new era journalism’ draft law ready, says Masiu

    NBC News in Port Moresby

    Papua New Guinea’s cabinet has officially given the green light to the PNG media policy, which will soon be presented to Parliament for formal enactment.

    Minster for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Timothy Masiu believes this policy will address ongoing concerns about sensationalism, ethical standards, and the portrayal of violence in the media.

    In an interview with NBC News in Port Moresby, Masiu outlined the urgent need for a shift in the nation’s media practices.

    “We must be more responsible in how we report and portray the issues that matter most to our country. It’s time for Papua New Guinea’s media to evolve and reflect the values that truly define us,” he said.

    “Sensational headlines, graphic images of violence, and depictions of suffering do nothing to build our national identity. They only hurt our reputation globally.”

    Minister Masiu said the policy aimed to regulate sensitive contents and shift towards “more constructive and informative” coverage.

    According to Masiu, the policy’s long-term goal was to protect the public from harmful content while empowering journalists to play a positive role in nation-building.

    “This policy isn’t about stifling press freedom. It’s about ensuring that media in Papua New Guinea serves the public good by upholding the highest standards of integrity and professionalism,” Masiu said.

    Meanwhile, the policy also acknowledged the media’s significant influence on public opinion and its role in national development.

    Masiu added that once the policy was passed into law, it would become a guiding framework for media institutions across the nation, laying the foundation for a new era of journalism in Papua New Guinea.

    Republished from NBC News.

    Persistent criticism
    Pacific Media Watch reports that the draft media policy law and consultation process have been controversial and faced persistent criticisms from journalists, the PNG Media Council (MCPNG) and Transparency international PNG.

    Version 5 of the policy is here, but it is not clear whether that is the version Masiu says is ready.

    PNG dropped 32 places to 91st out of 180 countries in the 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index and the Paris-based world press freedom watchdog RSF called on the Marape government to withdraw the draft law in February 2023.

    Civicus references an incident last August when a PNG journalist was barred from a press briefing by the visiting Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto and said this came “amid growing concern about the government’s plan to regulate the press under its so-called media development policy”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Electronic Intifada: Bringing Israeli genocide perpetrators to justice

    This article was written before The Electronic Intifada’s founding editor Ali Abunimah was arrested in Switzerland on Saturday afternoon for “speaking up for Palestine”. He has since been released and deported.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Ali AbunimahIsrael smuggled one of its soldiers out of Cyprus, apparently fearing his detention on charges related to the genocide in Gaza, according to Dyab Abou Jahjah, the co-founder of The Hind Rajab Foundation.

    Abou Jahjah, a Belgian-Lebanese political activist and writer, told The Electronic Intifada livestream last week that his organisation was stepping up efforts all over the world to bring to justice Israeli soldiers implicated in the slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children over the last 15 months.

    You can watch the interview with Abou Jahjah and all of this week’s programme in the video above.


    Gaza Ceasefire Day 5. Video: The Electronic Intifada

    Speaking from Gaza, Electronic Intifada contributor Donya Abu Sitta told us how people there are coping following the ceasefire, especially those returning to devastated homes and finding the remains of loved ones.

    She shared a poem inspired by the hopes and fears of the young children she continued to teach throughout the genocide.

    Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to attack Palestinians in some parts of Gaza. That was among developments covered in the news brief from associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman, along with the efforts to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation.

    Israel’s genocidal war has orphaned some 40,000 children in Gaza.

    Contributing editor Jon Elmer covered the latest ceasefire developments and the resistance operations in the period leading up to it.

    We also discussed whether US President Donald Trump will force Israel to uphold the ceasefire and what the latest indications of his approach are.

    And this writer took a critical look at Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde.

    She has been hailed as a hero for urging Donald Trump to respect the rights of marginalised groups, as the new president sat listening to her sermon at Washington’s National Cathedral.

    But over the last 15 months, Budde has parroted Israeli atrocity propaganda justifying genocide, and has repeatedly failed to condemn former President Joe Biden’s key role in the mass slaughter and did not call on him to stop sending weapons to Israel.

    Pursuing war criminals
    In the case of the soldier in Cyprus, The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint, and after initial hesitation, judicial authorities in the European Union state opened an investigation of the soldier.

    “When that was opened, the Israelis smuggled the soldier out of Cyprus,” Abou Jahjah said, calling the incident the first of its kind.

    “And when I say smuggling, I’m not exaggerating, because we have information that he was even taken by a private jet,” Abou Jahjah added.

    The foundation is named after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was in a car with members of her family, trying to escape the Israeli onslaught in Gaza City, when they were attacked.

    The story of Hind, trapped all alone in a car, surrounded by dead relatives, pleading over the phone for rescue, a conversation that was recorded by the Palestinian Red Crescent, is among the most poignant and brazen crimes committed during Israel’s genocide.

    According to Abou Jahjah, lawyers and activists determined to seek justice for Palestinians identified a gap in the efforts to hold Israel accountable that they could fill: pursuing individual soldiers who have in many cases posted evidence of their own crimes in Gaza on social media.

    The organisation and its growing global network of volunteers and legal professionals has been able to collect evidence on approximately 1000 Israeli soldiers which has been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    In addition to filing cases against Israeli soldiers traveling abroad, such as the one in Cyprus, and other recent examples in Brazil, Thailand and Italy, a main focus of the foundation is individuals who hold both Israeli and another nationality.

    “Regarding the dual nationals, we are not under any restraint of time,” Abou Jahjah explained. “For example, if you’re Belgian, Belgium has jurisdiction over you.”

    Renouncing their second nationality cannot shield these soldiers, according to Abou Jahjah, because courts will take into account their citizenship at the time the alleged crime was committed.

    Abou Jahjah feels confident that with time, war criminals will be brought to justice. The organisation is also discussing expanding its work to the United States, where it may use civil litigation to hold perpetrators accountable.

    Unsurprisingly, Israel and friendly governments are pushing back against The Hind Rajab Foundation’s work, and Abou Jahjah is now living under police protection.

    “Things are kind of heavy on that level, but this will not disrupt our work,” Abou Jahjah said. “It’s kind of naive of them to think that the work of the foundation depends on a person.”

    “We have legal teams across the planet, very capable people. Our data is spread across the planet,” Abou Jahjah added. “There’s nothing they can do. This is happening.”

    Resistance report
    In his resistance report, Elmer analysed videos of operations that took place before the ceasefire, but which were only released by the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, after it took effect.

    He also previewed Saturday, 25 January, when nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for four Israeli female soldiers.

    Will Trump keep Israel to the ceasefire?
    Pressure from President Trump was key to getting Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal it had rejected for almost a year. But will his administration keep up the pressure to see it through?

    There have been mixed messages, with Trump recently telling reporters he was not sure it would hold, but also intriguingly distancing himself from Israel. “That’s not our war, it’s their war.”

    We took a look at what these comments, as well as a renewed commitment to implementing the deal expressed by Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy, tell us about what to expect.

    As associate editor Asa Winstanley noted, “this ceasefire is not nothing.” It came about because the resistance wore down the Israeli army, and statements from Witkoff hinting that the US may even be open to talking to Hamas deserve close attention.

    ‘Largely silent’
    By her own admission, Bishop Mariann Budde has remained “largely silent” about the genocide in Gaza, except when she was pushing Israeli propaganda or engaging in vague, liberal hand-wringing about “peace” and “love” without ever clearly condemning the perpetrators of mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians, demanding that the US stop the flow of weapons making it possible, or calling for accountability.

    This type of evasion serves no one.

    You can watch the programme on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Trump’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ Gaza idea dismissed by analysts – rejected by Jordan, Egypt on ‘Day of Return’

    Asia Pacific Report

    UN President Donald Trump’s idea of mass expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt has been dismissed by analysts as unacceptable “ethnic cleansing” and rejected by the governments of both neigbouring countries.

    Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident research fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and commentator specialising in Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict, said the US and Israel would “fail” over such a plan.

    President Trump’s suggestion had been to “clean out” Gaza and move 1.5 million Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt.

    “Even if [President Trump] applies pressure on Jordan and Egypt, I think their leaderships will recognise the price of going along with Trump is going to be much greater than the price of resisting him — in terms of the survival of their leaderships for participating in something like this,” Rabbani told Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s plan as “ethnic cleansing”.

    The rebuttals to the Trump idea came as Gaza experienced an historic day with jubilant scenes as tens of thousands of Palestinians crossed the so-called Netzarim Corridor to return home in the north showing their determination to survive under the 15-month onslaught by Israel’s military.

    Al Jazeera journalist Tamer al-Misshal said it was a “significant and historic moment” for the Palestinians.

    “It’s the first time since 1948 those who have been forced out of their homes and land managed to get back — despite the destruction and despite the genocide,” he said.

    He quoted one Palestinian man who returned as saying he would erect a tent on his destroyed home, “which is much better than being forcibly displaced from Gaza”.

    Al-Misshal noted Hamas recently said 18 more Israeli captives were alive and would be returned each Saturday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners over the next few weeks.

    He said the next main step was to get the Rafah land crossing opened so aid could flow and thousands of badly wounded Palestinians could get medical treatment abroad.

    ‘Blanket refusal’

    Analyst Mouin Rabbani
    Analyst Mouin Rabbani . . . “Israel is not going to succeed in ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip after a war.” Image: Middle East Council on Global Affairs

    Analyst Mouin Rabbani told Al Jazeera about the Trump displacement idea: “This isn’t going to happen because Israel is not going to succeed in ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip after a war, after having failed to do so during a war.”

    When former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went on a tour of Arab states to promote this idea late last year, he had been met with a “blanket refusal”, Rabbani added.

    Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was feeling the heat from his coalition partners over the ceasefire deal who view the Israeli leader as succumbing to US demands, the analyst said.

    “I think there’s a kind of a mix of personal, political and ideological factors at play,” Rabbani said.

    "Day of victory" . . . reports Al Jazeera
    “Day of victory” . . . How Al Jazeera reported the return of Palestinians to north Gaza today. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    “But ultimately, I think the key relationship to look at here is not that between Netanyahu and his coalition partners, or between Israelis and Palestinians, but between Washington and Israel — because Washington is the one calling the shots, and Israel has no choice but to comply.”

    A senior Hamas official, Basem Naim, has described the “return” day as “the most important day in the current history of this conflict”.

    He said that Israel was “for the first time” obliged to allow Palestinians to return to their houses after being forced “by the resistance”, in a similar way that it was “forced to release” Palestinian prisoners.

    Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reporting
    Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reporting on the “Day of Return” for Palestinians going back to north Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Very symbolic day’ in conflict
    “This is, I think, a very symbolic day,” he said. “This is a very important day in how to approach this conflict with the Israelis, which language they understand.”

    Naim also reaffirmed Hamas’s commitment to the ceasefire agreement and said the group was “ready to do the maximum to give this deal a chance to succeed”.

    He also accused Netanyahu and the Israeli government of playing “dirty games” in a bid to “sabotage the deal”.

    Jordanian officials have rejected President Trump’s “clean out” Gaza suggestion with
    Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi saying that all talk about an alternative homeland for the Palestinians was rejected and “we will not accept it”.

    Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum reports
    Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Salah al-Din Road, Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    He said any attempt to displace Palestinians from their land would not bring security to the region.

    The Jordanian House of Representatives said: “The absurdity and denial of Palestinian rights will keep the region on a simmering and boiling plate.”

    Jordan would not be an alternative homeland for displacement attempts against “the patient Palestinian people”.

    In Cairo, the Foreign Ministry reaffirmed in a statement Egypt’s “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”

    It “rejected any infringement on those inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land, or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”

    The 1948 Nakba
    The 1948 Nakba . . . more than 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and become exiles in neighbouring states and in Gaza. Many dream of their UN-recognised right to return. Image: Wikipedia

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Support for changing date of Australia Day softens, but remains strong among young people — new research

    ANALYSIS: By David Lowe, Deakin University; Andrew Singleton, Deakin University, and Joanna Cruickshank, Deakin University

    After many years of heated debate over whether January 26 is an appropriate date to celebrate Australia Day — with some councils and other groups shifting away from it — the tide appears to be turning among some groups.

    Some local councils, such as Geelong in Victoria, are reversing recent policy and embracing January 26 as a day to celebrate with nationalistic zeal.

    They are likely emboldened by what they perceive as an ideological shift occurring more generally in Australia and around the world.

    But what of young people? Are young Australians really becoming more conservative and nationalistic, as some are claiming? For example, the Institute for Public Affairs states that “despite relentless indoctrination taking place at schools and universities”, their recent survey showed a 10 percent increase in the proportion of 18-24 year olds who wanted to celebrate Australia Day.

    However, the best evidence suggests that claims of a shift towards conservatism among young people are unsupported.

    The statement “we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26” was featured in the Deakin Contemporary History Survey in 2021, 2023, and 2024.

    Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement level. The Deakin survey is a repeated cross-sectional study conducted using the Life in Australia panel, managed by the Social Research Centre. This is a nationally representative online probability panel with more than 2000 respondents for each Deakin survey.

    Robust social survey
    With its large number of participants, weighting and probability selection, the Life in Australia panel is arguably Australia’s most reliable and robust social survey.

    The Deakin Contemporary History Survey consists of several questions about the role of history in contemporary society, hence our interest in whether or how Australians might want to celebrate a national day.

    Since 1938, when Aboriginal leaders first declared January 26 a “Day of Mourning”, attitudes to this day have reflected how people in Australia see the nation’s history, particularly about the historical and contemporary dispossession and oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

    In 2023, we found support for Australia Day on January 26 declined slightly from 2021, and wondered if a more significant change in community sentiment was afoot.

    With the addition of the 2024 data, we find that public opinion is solidifying — less a volatile “culture war” and more a set of established positions. Here is what we found:

    This figure shows that agreement (combining “strongly agree” and “agree”) with not celebrating Australia Day on January 26 slightly increased in 2023, but returned to the earlier level a year later.

    Likewise, disagreement with the statement (again, combining “strongly disagree” and “disagree”) slightly dipped in 2023, but in 2024 returned to levels observed in 2021. “Don’t know” and “refused” responses have consistently remained below 3 percent across all three years. Almost every Australian has a position on when we should celebrate Australia Day, if at all.

    Statistical factors
    The 2023 dip might reflect a slight shift in public opinion or be due to statistical factors, such as sampling variability. Either way, public sentiment on this issue seems established.

    As Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta writer Nayuka Gorrie and Amangu Yamatji woman associate professor Crystal McKinnon have written, the decline in support for Australia Day is the result of decades of activism by Indigenous people.

    Though conservative voices have become louder since the failure of the Voice Referendum in 2023, more than 40 percent of the population now believes Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26.

    In addition, the claim of a significant swing towards Australia Day among younger Australians is unsupported.

    In 2024, as in earlier iterations of our survey, we found younger Australians (18–34) were more likely to agree that Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26. More than half of respondents in that age group (53 percent) supported that change, compared to 39 percent of 35–54-year-olds, 33 percent of 55–74-year-olds, and 29 percent of those aged 75 and older.

    Conversely, disagreement increases with age. We found 69 percent of those aged 75 and older disagreed, followed by 66 percent of 55–74-year-olds, 59 percent of 35–54-year-olds, and 43 percent of 18–34-year-olds. These trends suggest a steady shift, indicating that an overall majority may favour change within the next two decades.

    What might become of Australia Day? We asked those who thought we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26 what alternative they preferred the most.

    Among those who do not want to celebrate Australia Day on January 26, 36 percent prefer replacing it with a new national day on a different date, while 32 percent favour keeping the name but moving it to a different date.

    A further 13 percent support keeping January 26 but renaming it to reflect diverse history, and 8 percent advocate abolishing any national day entirely. Another 10 percent didn’t want these options, and less than 1 peecent were unsure.

    A lack of clarity
    If the big picture suggests a lack of clarity — with nearly 58 percent of the population wanting to keep Australia Day as it is, but 53 percent of younger Australians supporting change — then the task of finding possible alternatives to the status quo seems even more clouded.

    Gorrie and McKinnon point to the bigger issues at stake for Indigenous people: treaties, land back, deaths in custody, climate justice, reparations and the state removal of Aboriginal children.

    Yet, as our research continues to show, there are few without opinions on this question, and we should not expect it to recede as an issue that animates Australians.The Conversation

    Dr David Lowe is chair in contemporary history, Deakin University; Dr Andrew Singleton is professor of sociology and social research, Deakin University; and Joanna Cruickshank is associate professor in history, Deakin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ Palestinian network co-founder Janfrie Wakim praises ‘heroic Gaza’, calls for more action

    Asia Pacific Report

    A co-founder of a national Palestinian solidarity network in Aotearoa New Zealand today praised the “heroic” resilience and sacrifice of the people of Gaza in the face of Israel’s ruthless attempt to destroy the besieged enclave of more than 2 million people.

    Speaking at the first solidarity rally in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau since the fragile ceasefire came into force last Sunday, Janfrie Wakim of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) also paid tribute to New Zealand protesters who have supported the Palestine cause for the 68th week.

    “Thank you all for coming to this rally — the first since 7 October 2023 when no bombs are dropping on Gaza,” she declared.

    “The ceasefire in Gaza is fragile but let’s celebrate the success of the resistance, the resilience, and the fortitude — the sumud [steadfastness] — of the heroic Palestinian people.

    “Israel has failed. It has not achieved its aims — in the longest war [15 weeks] in its history — even with $40 billion in aid from the United States. It has failed to depopulate the north of Gaza, it has a crumbling economy, and 1 million Israelis [out if 9 million] have left already.”

    Wakim said that the resistance and success in defeating Israel’s “deadly objectives” had come at a “terrible cost”.

    “We mourn those with families here and in Gaza and now in the West Bank who made  the ultimate sacrifice with their lives — 47,000 people killed, 18,000 of them children, thousands unaccounted for in the rubble and over 100,000 injured.

    Grieving for journalists, humanitarian workers
    “We grieve for but salute the journalists and the humanitarian workers who have been murdered serving humanity.”


    Janfrie Wakim speaking at today’s Palestine rally in Tamaki Makaurau. Video: APR

    She said the genocide had been enabled by the wealthiest countries in the world and the Western media — “including our own with few exceptions”.

    “Without its lies, its deflections, its failure to report the agonising reality of Palestinians suffering, Israel would not have been able to commit its atrocities,” Wakim said.

    “And now while we celebrate the ceasefire there’s been an escalation on the West Bank — air strikes, drones, snipers, ethnic cleansing in Jenin with homes and infrastructure being demolished.

    “Checkpoints have doubled to over 900 — sealing off communities. And still the Palestinians resist.

    “And we must too. Solidarity. Unity of purpose is all important. Bury egos. Let humanity triumph.”

    Palestinian liberation advocate Janfrie Wakim
    Palestinian liberation advocate Janfrie Wakim . . . “Without its lies, its deflections, its failure to report the agonising reality of Palestinians suffering, Israel could not have been able to commit its atrocities.” Image: David Robie/APR

    90-year-old supporter
    During her short speech, Wakim introduced to the crowd the first Palestinian she had met in New Zealand, Ghazi Dassouki, who is now aged 90.

    She met him at a Continuing Education seminar at the University of Auckland in 1986 that addressed the topic of “The Palestine Question”. It shocked the establishment of the time with Zionist complaints and intimidation of staff which prevented any similar academic event until 2006.

    Wakim called for justice for the Palestinians.

    “Freedom from occupation. Liberation from apartheid. And peace at last after 76 years of subjugation and oppression by Israel and its allies,” she said

    She called on supporters to listen to what was being suggested for local action — “do what suits your situation and energy. Our task is to persist, as Howard Zinn put it”.

    “When we organise with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress,” she said.

    “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

    Introduced to the protest crowd . . . Ghazi Dassouki
    Introduced to the Auckland protest crowd today . . . Ghazi Dassouki, who is now aged 90.

    As a symbol for peace and justice in Palestine, slices of water melon and dates were handed out to the crowd.

    Calls to block NZ visits by IDF soldiers
    Among many nationwide rallies across Aotearoa New Zealand this weekend, were many calls for the government to suspend entry to the country from soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).

    “New Zealand should not be providing rest and recreation for Israeli soldiers fresh from the genocide in Gaza,” said PSNA national chair John Minto.

    “We wouldn’t allow Russian soldiers to come here for rest and recreation from the invasion of Ukraine so why would we accept soldiers from the genocidal, apartheid state of Israel?”

    As well as the working holiday visa, since 2019 Israelis have been able to enter New Zealand for three months without needing a visa at all.

    This visa-waiver is used by Israeli soldiers for “rest and recreation” from the genocide in Gaza.

    Minto stressed that IDF soldiers had killed at least 47,000 Palestinians — 70 percent of them women and children.

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared Israeli actions a “plausible genocide”; Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have branded the continuous massacres as genocide and extermination; and the latest report from UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestine Territories Francesca Albanese has called it “genocide as colonial erasure”.

    Watermelon slices for all
    Watermelon slices for all . . . a symbol of peace, the seed for justice. Image: David Robie/APR

    War crimes red flags
    Also, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    “All these red flags for genocide have been visible for months but the government is still giving the green light to those involved in war crimes to enter New Zealand,” Minto said.

    Last month, PSNA again wrote to the government asking for the suspension of travel to New Zealand for all Israeli soldiers and reservists.

    Meanwhile, 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails have been set free under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Seventy of them will be deported to countries in the region, reports Al Jazeera.

    Masses of people have congregated in Ramallah, celebrating the return of the released Palestinian prisoners.

    A huge crowd waved Palestinian flags, shouted slogans and captured the joyful scene with their phones and live footage shows.

    The release came after Palestinian fighters earlier handed over four female Israeli soldiers who had been held in Gaza to the International Red Cross in Palestine Square.

    The smiling and waving soldiers appeared to be in good health and were in high spirits.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Vanuatu AG condemns Trump’s Paris climate treaty exit as ‘troubling precedent’

    By Harry Pearl of BenarNews

    Vanuatu’s top lawyer has called out the United States for “bad behavior” after newly inaugurated President Donald Trump withdrew the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gasses from the Paris Agreement for a second time.

    The Pacific nation’s Attorney-General Arnold Loughman, who led Vanuatu’s landmark International Court of Justice climate case at The Hague last month, said the withdrawal represented an “undeniable setback” for international action on global warming.

    “The Paris Agreement remains key to the world’s efforts to combat climate change and respond to its effects, and the participation of major economies like the US is crucial,” he told BenarNews in a statement.

    The withdrawal could also set a “troubling precedent” regarding the accountability of rich nations that are disproportionately responsible for global warming, said Loughman.

    “At the same time, the US’ bad behavior could inspire resolve on behalf of developed countries to act more responsibly to try and safeguard the international rule of law,” he said.

    “Ultimately, the whole world stands to lose if the international legal framework is allowed to erode.”

    20241202 Arnold Loughman Vanuatu ICJ.jpg
    Vanuatu’s Attorney-General Arnold Loughman at the International Court of Justice last month . . . “The whole world stands to lose if the international legal framework is allowed to erode.” Image: ICJ-CIJ

    Trump’s announcement on Monday came less than two weeks after scientists confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first in which average temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

    Agreed to ‘pursue efforts’
    Under the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, leaders agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming under the 1.5°C threshold or, failing that, keep rises “well below” 2°C  by the end of the century.

    Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said on Wednesday in a brief comment that Trump’s action would “force us to rethink our position” but the US president must do “what is in the best interest of the United States of America”.

    Other Pacific leaders and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) regional intergovernmental body have not responded to BenarNews requests for comment.

    The forum — comprising 18 Pacific states and territories — in its 2018 Boe Declaration said: “Climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific and [we reaffirm] our commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement.”

    20250122 Rabuka Fiji Govt.jpg
    Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka speaks at the opening of the new Nabouwalu Water Treatment Plant this week . . . Trump’s action would “force us to rethink our position”. Image: Fiji govt

    Trump’s executive order sparked dismay and criticism in the Pacific, where the impacts of a warming planet are already being felt in the form of more intense storms and rising seas.

    Jacynta Fa’amau, regional Pacific campaigner with environmental group 350 Pacific, said the withdrawal would be a diplomatic setback for the US.

    “The climate crisis has for a long time now been our greatest security threat, especially to the Pacific,” she told BenarNews.

    A clear signal
    “This withdrawal from the agreement is a clear signal about how much the US values the survival of Pacific nations and all communities on the front lines.”

    New Zealand’s former Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, said that if the US withdrew from its traditional leadership roles in multilateral organisations China would fill the gap.

    “Some people may not like how China plays its role,” wrote the former Labour MP on Facebook. “But when the great USA withdraws from these global organisations . . . it just means China can now go about providing global leadership.”

    Analysts and former White House advisers told BenarNews last year that climate change could be a potential “flashpoint” between Pacific nations and a second Trump administration at a time of heightened geopolitical competition with China.

    Trump’s announcement was not unexpected. During his first term he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, only for former President Joe Biden to promptly rejoin in 2021.

    The latest withdrawal puts the US, the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, alongside only Iran, Libya and Yemen outside the climate pact.

    In his executive order, Trump said the US would immediately begin withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and from any other commitments made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

    US also ending climate finance
    The US would also end its international climate finance programme to developing countries — a blow to small Pacific island states that already struggle to obtain funding for resilience and mitigation.

    20250120 trump inauguration WH screen grab.jpg
    Press releases by the Biden administration were removed from the White House website immediately after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Image: White House website/Screen capture on Monday

    A fact sheet published by the Biden administration on November 17, which has now been removed from the White House website, said that US international climate finance reached more than US$11 billion in 2024.

    Loughman said the cessation of climate finance payments was particularly concerning for the Pacific region.

    “These funds are essential for building resilience and supporting adaptation strategies,” he said. “Losing this support could severely hinder ongoing and future projects aimed at protecting our vulnerable ecosystems and communities.”

    George Carter, deputy head of the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University and member of the COP29 Scientific Council, said at the centre of the Biden administration’s re-engagement with the South Pacific was a regional programme on climate adaptation.

    “While the majority of climate finance that flows through the Pacific comes from Australia, Japan, European Union, New Zealand — then the United States — the climate networks and knowledge production from the US to the Pacific are substantial,” he said.

    20241112 george carter COP29 sera sefeti.jpeg
    Sala George Carter (third from right) hosted a panel discussion at COP29 highlighting key challenges Indigenous communities face from climate change last November. Image: Sera Sefeti/BenarNews

    Climate actions plans
    Pacific island states, like all other signatories to the Paris Agreement, will this year be submitting Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, outlining their climate action plans for the next five years.

    “All climate actions, policies and activities are conditional on international climate finance,” Carter said.

    Pacific island nations are being disproportionately affected by climate change despite contributing just 0.02 percent of global emissions, according to a UN report released last year.

    Low-lying islands are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events like cyclones, floods and marine heatwaves, which are projected to occur more frequently this century as a result of higher average global temperatures.

    On January 10, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed that last year for the first time the global mean temperature tipped over 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.

    WMO experts emphasised that a single year of more than 1.5°C does not mean that the world has failed to meet long-term temperature goals, which are measured over decades, but added that “leaders must act — now” to avert negative impacts.

    Harry Pearl is a BenarNews journalist. This article was first published by BenarNews and is republished at Asia Pacific Report with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • After the Crash

    A police officer chased a Native teen to his death. Days later, the police force shut down without explanation.

    In 2020, Blossom Old Bull was raising three teenagers on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. Her youngest son, Braven Glenn, was 17, a good student, dedicated to his basketball team.

    That November, Old Bull got a call saying Glenn was killed in a police car chase that resulted in a head-on collision with a train. Desperate for details about the accident, she went to the police station, only to find it had shut down without any notice.  

    “The doors were locked. It looked like it wasn’t in operation anymore—like they just upped and left,” Old Bull said. “It’s, like, there was a life taken, and you guys just closed everything down without giving the family any answers?”

    This kicks off a yearslong search to find out what happened to Glenn and how a police force could disappear overnight without explanation. This week on Reveal, Mother Jones reporter Samantha Michaels’ investigation into the crash is at once an examination of a mother’s journey to uncover the details of her son’s final moments and a sweeping look at a broken system of tribal policing.

    This is an update of an episode that originally aired in April 2024. 

    Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • RNZ Pacific – 35 years of broadcasting trusted news to the region

    By Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor, RNZ Pacific manager

    RNZ International (RNZI) began broadcasting to the Pacific region 35 years ago — on 24 January 1990, the same day the Auckland Commonwealth Games opened.

    Its news bulletins and programmes were carried by a brand new 100kW transmitter.

    The service was rebranded as RNZ Pacific in 2017. However its mission remains unchanged, to provide news of the highest quality and be a trusted service to local broadcasters in the Pacific region.

    Although RNZ had been broadcasting to the Pacific since 1948, in the late 1980s the New Zealand government saw the benefit of upgrading the service. Thus RNZI was born, with a small dedicated team.

    The first RNZI manager was Ian Johnstone. He believed that the service should have a strong cultural connection to the people of the Pacific. To that end, it was important that some of the staff reflected parts of the region where RNZ Pacific broadcasted.

    He hired the first Pacific woman sports reporter at RNZ, the late Elma Ma’ua.

    (L-R) Linden Clark and Ian Johnstone, former managers of RNZ International now known as RNZ Pacific, Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor, current manager of RNZ Pacific.
    Linden Clark (from left) and Ian Johnstone, former managers of RNZ International now known as RNZ Pacific, and Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor, current manager of RNZ Pacific . . . strong cultural connection to the people of the Pacific. Image: RNZ

    The Pacific region is one of the most vital areas of the earth, but it is not always the safest, particularly from natural disasters.

    Disaster coverage
    RNZ Pacific covered events such as the 2009 Samoan tsunami, and during the devastating 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption, it was the only news service that could be heard in the kingdom.

    More recently, it supported Vanuatu’s public broadcaster during the December 17 earthquake by providing extra bulletin updates for listeners when VBTC services were temporarily out of action.

    Cyclones have become more frequent in the region, and RNZ Pacific provides vital weather updates, as the late Linden Clark, RNZI’s second manager, explained: “Many times, we have been broadcasting warnings on analogue shortwave to listeners when their local station has had to go off air or has been forced off air.”

    RNZ Pacific’s cyclone watch service continues to operate during the cyclone season in the South Pacific.

    As well as natural disasters, the Pacific can also be politically volatile. Since its inception RNZ Pacific has reported on elections and political events in the region.

    Some of the more recent events include the 2000 and 2006 coups in Fiji, the Samoan Constitutional Crisis of 2021, the 2006 pro-democracy riots in Nuku’alofa, the revolving door leadership changes in Vanuatu, and the 2022 security agreement that Solomon Islands signed with China.

    Human interest, culture
    Human interest and cultural stories are also a key part of RNZ Pacific’s programming.

    The service regularly covers cultural events and festivals within New Zealand, such as Polyfest. This was part of Linden Clark’s vision, in her role as RNZI manager, that the service would be a link for the Pacific diaspora in New Zealand to their homelands.

    Today, RNZ Pacific continues that work. Currently its programmes are carried on two transmitters — one installed in 2008 and a much more modern facility, installed in 2024 following a funding boost.

    Around 20 Pacific region radio stations relay RNZP’s material daily. Individual short-wave listeners and internet users around the world tune in directly to RNZ Pacific content which can be received as far away as Japan, North America, the Middle East and Europe.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Mars, watch out — President Trump’s coming for you too

    COMMENTARY: By Belén Fernández

    It was a cold day in Washington, DC, on Tuesday when Donald Trump was sworn in for his second stint as President of the United States of America.

    On account of freezing temperatures, the inauguration ceremony was moved indoors to the Capitol Rotunda, and the weather became a primary focus of much pre-inauguration media commentary.

    The Reuters news agency reported that this was “one of the coldest inauguration days the US has experienced in the past few decades”, while also providing other crucial ceremony updates such as that “Mike Tyson snacked on a banana in the overflow room”.

    I, myself, watched the event on my computer in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where it is precisely the opposite of cold and where I have spent the past several days battling the scorpion population that has taken up residence in my house.

    By the end of Trump’s swearing-in, however, I was undecided as to what was less pleasant: killing scorpions or watching the next episode of American dystopia unfold.

    I tuned in at 11am, meaning I had a full hour before Trump took centre stage; for much of this time, the audience in the rotunda was treated to musical selections befitting a carousel or a circus.

    The frigid weather outside was, meanwhile, at least probably good practice for life on Mars, a territory Trump would soon claim for the United States during his inaugural speech: “And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

    Not the only territorial conquest
    This, to be sure, was not the only territorial conquest Trump promised. He also reiterated his determination to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” as well as to seize control of the Panama Canal because “American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape, or form”.

    President Donald Trump
    President Donald Trump . . . “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”. Image: The Conversation

    But the Mars comments earned a maniacal grin from one person in the audience: the gazillionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, known for such ideas as that the “next really big thing is to build a self-sustaining city on Mars and bring the animals and creatures of Earth there”.

    Musk was one of various representatives of the earthly super-elite who — unlike poor Mike Tyson — made the cut for a spot in the rotunda. Also present were Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok.

    As Al Jazeera noted the day prior to the inauguration, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly donated $1 million to the ceremony, while “Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have said they would donate $1 million, along with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who donated $1 million”.

    As of January 8, Trump’s inauguration fund had already racked up a record $170 million.

    Anyway, what better way to “Make America Great Again” than by supercharging the plutocracy?

    Declaring at the start of his speech that “the golden age of America begins right now”, Trump went on to express numerous other hallucinations, including that “national unity is now returning to America”. Never mind that the tyranny of an astronomically wealthy minority is not exactly, um, unifying.

    Luckily on Planet Trump, reality is whatever he says it is. And Trump says that “sunlight is pouring over the entire world”.

    ‘Historic executive orders’
    In his speech, Trump announced a “series of historic executive orders” that according to him, will jumpstart the “complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense”.

    Among these executive orders was the declaration of “a national emergency at our southern border”, paving the way for the deportation of “millions and millions of criminal aliens” and entailing the deployment of the US military “to repel the disastrous invasion of our country”.

    Under Trump’s command, the US “will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organisations”. Then there’s the new “official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female”.

    And of course, the more emergencies, the better: “[T]oday I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.”

    Recoiling at the very thought of environmentalism, Trump proclaimed: “We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”

    And if we happen to destroy Earth in the process, well, there’s always Mars.

    As usual, the continuous invocation of God during the inauguration ceremony made a fine mockery of the ostensible separation of church and state in the US, and Trump revealed the reason he had survived a July assassination attempt in the state of Pennsylvania: “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

    Overlap with Martin Luther King Jr Day
    Last but not least, Trump took advantage of the overlap of his inauguration with Martin Luther King Jr Day, celebrated annually in the US on the third Monday of January, to pledge that “we will make his dream come true” — which would probably be easier if Trump himself weren’t a bona fide racist.

    Indeed, Trump’s notion that “our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable” would seem to be distinctly at odds with King’s assessment of the US as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world”.

    None of this is to imply that the Democrats have not done their part in terms of purveying global violence or upholding plutocracy, perpetuating brutal inequality, terrorising refuge seekers, and so on.

    But Tuesday’s inaugural charade was an exercise in nihilism — and, as I return to my scorpions and Trump goes about making dystopia great again, I think I’ll take Mars over the “golden age of America” any day.

    Belén Fernández is the author of Inside Siglo XXI: Locked Up in Mexico’s Largest Immigration Detention Center (OR Books, 2022), Checkpoint Zipolite: Quarantine in a Small Place (OR Books, 2021), and Martyrs Never Die: Travels through South Lebanon (Warscapes, 2016). She writes for numerous publications and this article was first published by Al Jazeera.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji solidarity network welcomes Gaza ceasefire but calls for ‘justice, accountability’

    Asia Pacific Report

    The Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network (FPSN) and its allies have called for “justice and accountability” over Israel’s 15 months of genocide and war crimes.

    The Pacific-based network met in a solidarity gathering last night in the capital Suva hosted by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre and issued a statement.

    “A moment of reflection . .. for us as we welcome the ceasefire but emphasise that true peace requires justice and accountability for the Palestinian people,” it said.

    “There can be no just and lasting peace without full accountability for the war crimes and human rights violations committed against the Palestinian people.”

    The temporary ceasefire began last Sunday with an exchange of three Israeli women hostages held by the freedom fighter movement Hamas for 90 Palestinian women and children held by the Israeli military — most of them without charge or trial — and a massive increase in humanitarian aid.

    The Fiji solidarity network said the path to peace must address the root causes — “Israel’s ongoing colonisation of Palestine, its apartheid system and illegal occupation that began with the Nakba 77 years ago.”

    The network appealed for continued pressure for Palestinian statehood.

    “We urge all supporters of justice and human rights to continue to stand up for Palestine and maintain pressure on our government and institutions until Palestine is free,” it said.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Al Jazeera says correspondent’s arrest latest bid to gag Jenin coverage

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Al Jazeera Network has condemned the arrest of its occupied West Bank correspondent by Palestinian security services as a bid by the Israeli occupation to “block media coverage” of the military attack on Jenin.

    Israeli soldiers have killed at least 12 Palestinians in the three-day military assault that has rendered the refugee camp “nearly uninhabitable” and forced displacement of more than 2000 people. Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the Jenin operation was a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights”.

    Al Jazeera said in a broadcast statement that the arrest of its occupied West Bank correspondent Muhammad al-Atrash by the Palestinian Authority (PA) could only be explained as “an attempt to block the media coverage of the occupation’s attack in Jenin”.

    “The arbitrary actions of the Palestinian Authority are unfortunately identical to the occupation’s targeting of the Al Jazeera Network,” it said.

    “We value the positions and voices that stand in solidarity and defend colleague Muhammad al-Atrash and the freedom of the press.”

    The network said the journalist was brought before a court in Hebron after being arrested yesterday while covering the events in Jenin “simply for doing his professional duty as a journalist”.

    “We confirm that these practices will not hinder our ongoing professional coverage of the facts unfolding in the West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s statement added.

    The Israeli occupation has been targeting Al Jazeera for months in an attempt to gag its reporting.

    Calling for al-Atrash’s immediate release, the al-Haq organisation (Protecting and Promoting Human Rights & the Rule of Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory) said in a statement: “Freedom of opinion and expression cannot be guaranteed without ensuring freedom of the press.”

    Rage over AJ ban
    Earlier this month journalists expressed outrage and confusion about the PA’s decision to shut down the Al Jazeera office in the occupied West Bank after the Israeli government had earlier banned the Al Jazeera broadcasting network’s operation within Israel.

    “Shutting down a major outlet like Al Jazeera is a crime against journalism,” said freelance journalist Ikhlas al-Qarnawi.

    Also earlier this month, award-winning Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab criticised the Israeli government for targeting journalists and attempting to “cover up” the assassination of five Palestinian journalists last month.

    He said a December 26 press statement by the Israeli army attempted to “justify a war crime”.

    “It unabashedly admitted that the military incinerated five Palestinian journalists in a clearly marked press vehicle outside al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip,” Kuttab said in an op-ed article.

    Many Western publications had quoted the Israeli army statement as if it was an objective position and “not propaganda whitewashing a war crime”, he wrote.

    “They failed to clarify to their audiences that attacking journalists, including journalists who may be accused of promoting ‘propaganda’, is a war crime — all journalists are protected under international humanitarian law, regardless of whether armies like their reporting or not.”

    Israel not only refuses to recognise any Palestinian media worker as being protected, but it also bars foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

    “It has been truly disturbing that the international media has done little to protest this ban,” wrote Kuttab.

    “Except for one petition signed by 60 media outlets over the summer, the international media has not followed up consistently on such demands over 15 months.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Northern Mariana Islands advocates hit back at Trump diversity directives

    By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent

    Two LGBTQIA+ advocates in the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) are up in arms over US President Donald Trump’s executive order rolling back protections for transgender people and terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government.

    Pride Marianas founder Roberto Santos said Trump’s initiatives against the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policy were no surprise.

    “While we know policies and practices promoting these values have proven to be positive, we know how futile it is to convince Trump or his supporters that diversity, equity and inclusion are human rights.”

    President Donald Trump
    President Donald Trump . . . “We will forge a society that is colourblind and merit based. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Transgender rights have become a contentious political topic in recent years. During November’s election season, many Republicans campaigned on reversing transgender laws with a particular focus on transgender women participating in sports.

    In his inauguration speech, Trump said: “This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.

    “We will forge a society that is colourblind and merit based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female.”

    Last month, the US Supreme Court tackled a major transgender rights case, and its conservative justices asked tough questions of lawyers challenging the legality of a Republican-backed ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

    Challenging argument
    Santos presented an argument to Trump’s position on two genders and his declaration they could not be changed.

    “To speak specifically to his statement about there being two and only two genders, I believe he’s referring to what we call biological or anatomical sex, and the construct of male and female as gender is a social construction,” Santos said.

    “So, the inaccurate terminology he’s using is a testament to how ill-informed he is on the matter.”

    Marianas Business Network president and founder PK Phommachanh-Daigo, meanwhile, discussed his journey as a Southeast Asian refugee from Laos in response to the diversity question under the second Trump administration.

    “My family and I were sponsored by an Irish family in a small, conservative town in northeastern Connecticut. Growing up as the youngest of six children, with my eldest sibling 15 years older, we were culturally accustomed to a straightforward view of gender — male, female, or ladyboy, a concept common in Southeast Asia.

    “It’s clear that the current debate over gender and DEI programmes is more politically charged in the US, especially among Republican and liberal factions.”

    On Trump’s announcement to recognise only two genders and eliminate DEI programmes, Phommachanh-Daigo said it was not surprising “given the ongoing cultural war between the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement and the so-called ‘woke’ culture”.

    “The elimination of DEI programmes could potentially lead to a regression into systematic exclusion and discrimination, perpetuating cycles of inequity and racism.”

    Cultural richness
    He said this was in sharp contrast to the CNMI community, which was deeply rooted in cultural richness and familial bonds.

    “We are generally accepting of people regardless of their gender or sexual orientation,” he said.

    “Societal issues often stem from external influences rather than within our tight-knit local community. While the immediate impact on our government workforce may be minimal due to strong familial ties and the predominance of local employees, the long-term implications of eliminating DEI initiatives could erode the inclusive environment we strive to maintain.”

    The message to the LGBTQIA+ community in the CNMI message is for them to just focus on personal growth, family, and positive contributions to society, regardless of the policies of the new Trump administration.

    “Be a role model for others, and continue to foster a community that values acceptance, understanding, and mutual respect.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Climate crisis: The carbon footprint of the Gaza genocide

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Jeremy Rose

    The International Court of Justice heard last month that after reconstruction is factored in Israel’s war on Gaza will have emitted 52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. A figure equivalent to the annual emissions of 126 states and territories.

    It seems somehow wrong to be writing about the carbon footprint of Israel’s 15-month onslaught on Gaza.

    The human cost is so unfathomably ghastly. A recent article in the medical journal The Lancet put the death toll due to traumatic injury at more than 68,000 by June of last year (40 percent higher than the Gaza Health Ministry’s figure.)

    An earlier letter to The Lancet by a group of scientists argued the total number of deaths — based on similar conflicts — would be at least four times the number directly killed by bombs and bullets.

    Seventy-four children were killed in the first week of 2025 alone. More than a million children are currently living in makeshift tents with regular reports of babies freezing to death.

    Nearly two million of the strip’s 2.2 million inhabitants are displaced.

    Ninety-six percent of Gaza’s children feel death is imminent and 49 percent wish to die, according to a study sponsored by the War Child Alliance.

    Truly apocalyptic
    I could, and maybe should, go on. The horrors visited on Gaza are truly apocalyptic and have not received anywhere near the coverage by our mainstream media that they deserve.

    The contrast with the blanket coverage of the LA fires that have killed 25 people to date is instructive. The lives and property of those in the rich world are deemed far more newsworthy than those living — if you can call it that — in what retired Israeli general Giora Eiland described as a giant concentration camp.

    The two stories have one thing in common: climate change.

    In the case of the LA fires the role of climate change gets mentioned — though not as much as it should.

    But the planet destroying emissions generated by the genocide committed against the Palestinians rarely makes the news.

    Incredibly, when the State of Palestine — which is responsible for 0.001 percent of global emissions — told the International Court of Justice, in the Hague, last month, that the first 120 days of the war on Gaza resulted in emissions of between 420,000 and 650,000 tonnes of carbon and other greenhouse gases it went largely unreported.

    For context that is the equivalent to the total annual emissions of 26 of the lowest-emitting states.

    Fighter planes fuel
    Jet fuel burned by Israeli fighter planes contributed about 157,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

    Transporting the bombs dropped on Gaza from the US to Israel contributed another 159,000 tonnes of CO2e.

    Those figures will not appear in the official carbon emissions of either country due to an obscene exemption for military emissions that the US insisted on in the Kyoto negotiations. The US military’s carbon footprint is larger than any other institution in the world.

    Professor of law Kate McIntosh, speaking on behalf of the State of Palestine, told the ICJ hearings, on the obligations of states in respect of climate change, that the emissions to date were just a fraction of the likely total.

    Once post-war reconstruction is factored in the figure is estimated to balloon to 52 million tonnes of CO2e — a figure higher than the annual emissions of 126 states and territories.
    Far too many leaders of the rich world have turned a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza, others have actively enabled it but as the fires in LA show there’s no escaping the impacts of climate change.

    The US has contributed more than $20 billion to Israel’s war on Gaza — a huge figure but one that is dwarfed by the estimated $250 billion cost of the LA fires.

    And what price do you put on tens of thousands who died from heatwaves, floods and wildfires around the world in 2024?

    The genocide in Gaza isn’t only a crime against humanity, it is an ecocide that threatens the planet and every living thing on it.

    Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and his Towards Democracy blog is at Substack.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Decolonise’ aid urgent call from Fiji’s Prasad to face Pacific climate crisis

    By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad has told an international conference in Bangkok that some of the most severely debt-stressed countries are the island states of the Pacific.

    Dr Prasad, who is also a former economic professor, said the harshest impacts of global economic re-engineering are being felt by the poorest communities across this region.

    He told the conference last month that the adaptation challenges arising from runaway climate change were the steepest across the atoll states of the Pacific — Kiribati, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands.

    Dr Prasad said at no time, outside of war, had economies had to face a 30 to 70 percent contraction as a consequence of a single cyclone, but Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga had faced such a situation within this decade.

    He said the world must secure the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    “There is no Plan B. The two options before the world are to either secure the goals, or face extreme chaos,” he said.

    “There is nothing in the middle. Not this time.”

    Extreme chaos risk
    Prasad said there will be extreme chaos if the world went ahead and used the same international financial architecture it had had in place for years.

    “And if we continue with the same complex processes to actually access any grant funding which is now available, then we cannot address the issue of this financing gap, as well as climate finance — both for mitigation and adaptation that is badly needed by small vulnerable economies.”

    More and more Pacific states would approach a state of existential crisis unless development funding was sorted, he said.

    Dr Prasad said many planned projects in the region should already be in place.

    “We don’t have time on our hands plus the delay in accessing financing, particularly climate resilient infrastructure and for adaptation — then the situation for these countries is going to get worse and worse.”

    He wants to “decolonise” aid, giving the developing countries more control over the aid dollars.

    More direct donor aid
    This would involve more donor nations providing aid directly into the recipient nation’s budgets.

    Dr Prasad, who is also the Fiji Finance Minister, has welcomed the budget funding lead taken by Australia and New Zealand, and said Fiji’s experience with Canberra’s putting aid into the Budget had been a great help for his government.

    “It allows us, not only the flexibility, but also it allows us to access funding and building our Budget, building our national development planned strategy, and built in with our own locally designed, and locally led strategies.”

    He said the new Pacific Resilience Facility, to be set up in Tonga, is one way that this process of decolonising aid could be achieved.

    Prasad said the region had welcomed the pledges made so far to support this new facility.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel has ramped up West Bank raids to ‘distract’ from ceasefire, says analyst

    Asia Pacific Report

    Israeli forces have been ramping up operations in the occupied West Bank– mainly the Jenin refugee camp – to “distract” from the Gaza ceasefire deal, says political analyst Dr Mohamad Elmasry.

    The Qatari professor said the ceasefire was being viewed domestically as a “spectacular failure” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    “The ceasefire in Gaza was kind of a defeat for Netanyahu. Israeli media reports are calling it an embarrassment for him to have Hamas, after all these months, still very much alive and well and operational in Gaza,” Dr Elmasry, professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera in an interview.

    “Now what the Israeli government is doing is trying to distract from that and sort of overcompensate by escalating in the West Bank.”

    Elmasry highlighted that since the ceasefire began on Sunday, Israel had made dozens of arrests in the West Bank, — offsetting the release of 90 prisoners under the agreement so far.

    “This is a way for the Israeli government to show its ardent supporters and especially those on the right wing that this is only temporary in Gaza and [Israel is] still able to do whatever we wants in the West Bank,” he said.

    Dr Elmasry also said indications were growing that Israel was not taking the terms of the ceasefire seriously and was planning to restart fighting in Gaza before phase two of the agreement comes into effect.

    “What we have to keep our eye on is violations,” Dr Elmasry said.

    “Yesterday, there was video circulating of [Israeli forces] shooting a Palestinian [in Gaza]. It’s a clear violation, but we didn’t hear any sort of condemnation from the US, [which] is supposed to be sort of ensuring that the ceasefire continues.

    “The other thing we have to keep an eye on,” Dr Elmasry added, “is what happens after phase one.

    “There are increasing indications that Israel has every intention of continuing the war. They’ve apparently said as much. And then we’ve got US President Donald Trump after his inauguration saying: ‘Look, it’s their war’.

    “I read that as a statement that the US is kind of washing its hands — it’s not going to intervene.”

    ‘Starting lives from scratch’
    Meanwhile, one of several Palestinian journalists reporting on the ground for Al Jazeera, Hind Khoudary, said from Nuseirat, central Gaza:

    “You can’t imagine how destroyed the infrastructure across the Gaza Strip is. Sewage is filling the streets.

    “In some places, there’s a lack of water. Desalination plants are not working any more. The infrastructure has completely collapsed.

    “Yesterday was the first day Israel let in heavy machinery. But civil defence teams, engineers and others working [on recovery efforts] do not know where to start.

    “In every single street, neighbourhood, city infrastructure is destroyed. Palestinians are going to have to start their lives from scratch.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Palestinians return home to Gaza ashes – if we want peace, face the truth

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    Celebration time. Some Palestinian prisoners have been released. A mother reunited with her daughter. A young mother reunited with her babies.

    Still in prison are people who never received a fair trial, people that independent inquirers say are wrongly imprisoned. Still in prison kids who cursed soldiers who walked into their villages wielding guns.

    Still imprisoned far too many Palestinians who threw stones against bullets. Still imprisoned thousands of Palestinian hostages.

    Many of us never knew how many hostages had been stolen, hauled into jails by Israel before 7 October 2023. We only heard the one-sided story of that day. The day when an offence force on a border was taken by surprise and when it panicked and blasted and bombed.

    When that army guarding the occupation did more to lose lives than save lives.

    Many never knew and perhaps never will know how many of the Palestinians who were kidnapped before and after that day had been beaten and tortured, including with the torture of rape.

    We do know many have been murdered. We do know that some released from prison died soon after. We do not know how many more Palestinians will be taken hostage and imprisoned behind the prison no reporter is allowed to photograph.

    Israelis boast over prison crime
    The only clue to what happens inside is that Israelis have boasted this crime on national television. The clue is that Israeli soldiers have been tried for raping their own colleagues.

    Make no mistake, this is a mean misogynist mercantile army. No sensible rational caring person would wish to serve in it.

    No mother on any side of this conflict should lose her child. No father should bury his daughter or son. No grandparent should grieve over the loss of a life that should outlive them.

    The crimes need to be exposed. All of them. Our media filters the truth. It does not provide a fair or full story. If you want that switch for pity’s sake go to Al Jazeera English.

    When Radio New Zealand reports that people who fled are returning to Gaza it should report the full truth and not redact any part of the statement.

    The Palestinian people were forced to flee their homes in Gaza. Those who were never responsible for any crime were bombed out of their homes, they fled as their families were murdered, burned to death, shot by snipers. They fled while soldiers mocked their dead children.

    They return home to ashes. If we want peace we must face the truths that create conflict. We are all connected in peace and war and peace.

    Peace is the strongest greeting. It sears the heart and soars the soul.

    It can only be achieved when we recognise and stop the anguish that causes oppression.

    Saige England is a freelance journalist and author living in the Aotearoa New Zealand city of Ōtautahi.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gaza and the Western media – complicit in genocide

    COMMENTARY: By Steven Cowan, editor of Against The Current

    New Zealand’s One News interviewed a Gaza journalist last week who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide.

    For some 15 months, the Western media have framed Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza as a “legitimate” war.

    Pretending to provide an objective and impartial view of “the Gaza War”, the Western media has failed to report on the atrocities that the Israel has committed in Gaza. The true face of Israel’s genocidal assault has been hidden behind the Western media’s determination to sanitise genocide.


    Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed’s appeal to the world and the Western media. Video: Dawn News

    Even the deliberate targeting of journalists by the Israeli “Defence” Force (IDF), a war crime, has not moved the Western media to take action. More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza and the Western media has remained silent.

    The New Zealand and Pacific media also have nothing to be proud of in their coverage of events in Gaza. They, too, have consistently framed Israel’s genocidal rampage as a legitimate war and swept Israel’s war crimes under the carpet.

    Some news outlets, like NZ’s Newstalk ZB, have gone as far as to defend Israel’s actions.

    With the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza last week, One News, for the first time since Israel began its murderous assault, chose to talk live to a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. That journalist was 22-year-old Abubaker Abed.

    Ignored by Western media
    While One News introduced him as a reporter for the Associated Press, most of Abed’s reports have been for Palestinian news outlets like The Electronic Intifida.

    On January 11, Abed made a speech condemning the Western media’s complicity in genocide. While the speech has been widely circulated in the social media, it has been ignored by the Western media.

    In New Zealand, the important speech has failed to make it to the One News website.

    Abubaker Abed
    One News interviewing Gaza journalist Abubaker Abed who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide.

    This article was first published on Steven Cowan’s website Against The Current. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Leonard Peltier to Be Freed After Half-Century in Prison: “A Day of Victory for Indigenous People”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Leonard Peltier to Be Freed After Half-Century in Prison: “A Day of Victory for Indigenous People”

    Seg5 tilsenandpeltier

    Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier is coming home after nearly half a century behind bars. Just minutes before leaving office, former President Joe Biden granted Peltier clemency and ordered his release from prison to serve the remainder of his life sentence in home confinement. In a statement, Peltier said, “It’s finally over — I’m going home. I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.” Biden’s historic decision came after mounting calls by tribal leaders and supporters, and a community-led campaign that fought for Peltier’s freedom for decades. We speak with the NDN Collective’s Nick Tilsen, who just visited Leonard Peltier in prison after news of his sentence commutation, about fighting for Peltier’s freedom, his health and Trump’s executive orders attacking environmental rights and Indigenous sovereignty. “Indigenous people, we’re going to be on the frontlines fighting this administration.”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Marwan Barghouti – the world’s most important hostage – must be freed

    COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

    A litmus test of Israel’s commitment to abandon genocide and start down the road towards lasting peace is whether they choose to release the most important of all the hostages, Marwan Barghouti.

    During the past 22 years in Israeli prisons he has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.

    What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian — a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

    As reported last week, Egypt, Qatar and Hamas are all insisting Barghouti, the most popular leader in Palestine, be among the thousands of Palestinian hostages to be freed as part of the ceasefire agreement.

    His release or retention in captivity will say volumes about which path the US and Israel wish to take: either more land thieving, more killings, more lawlessness or steps towards ending the occupation and choosing peace over territorial expansion.

    Why is Barghouti potentially so important?  Despite long years in Israeli jails, he is a political giant who bestrides the Palestinian cause. He is an intellectual and both a fighter and a peace activist.

    He is respected by all factions of the Palestinians. He is by far the most popular figure in Palestine and as such he is almost uniquely positioned to complete the vital task of uniting his people.

    Back in July last year the Chinese government pulled off a diplomatic masterstroke by getting 14 factions, including Hamas and Fatah, to successfully come together for reconciliation talks and ink the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity. Now they need a unifying leader to move forward together.

    Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas is despised as a US-Israeli tool by most Palestinians, 90 percent of whom, according to polling, want him gone. Hamas has represented the most effective resistance to Israel but the time may have come for them to accept partnership with, even leadership by, someone who can negotiate peace.

    How Gaza and the West Bank is governed should be determined by the Palestinian people not by anyone else, especially not by Israeli leaders currently under investigation for genocide or US leaders who should join them in the dock for arming them.

    Hypocritical rejection of Hamas
    Barghouti, however, could untie the Gordian knot that has formed around the West’s hypocritical rejection of Hamas on one hand and the Palestinian people’s determination not to be dictated to by their oppressors on the other.

    Barghouti may also be a saviour for the Israelis.  Their society has turned into a psychotic perversion of the great hope Jews around the world placed in the Israeli state.

    As Israeli soldiers have shown us in countless Tik-tok videos the IDF has become an army of rapists and child killers — these very deeds celebrated by the highest political and religious leaders in the country.

    Israel is now the greatest killer of journalists in the history of war, the remorseless destroyer of hospitals and their patients and staff, the desecrator of countless churches and mosques.  Tens of thousands of women have been killed for the sake of killing.

    Israel is guilty of the crime of crimes — genocide — and needs a way out of the mess it has created.

    For all these reasons Marwan Barghouti is a very dangerous man to Netanyahu and the most fanatical Zionists.  He believes in peace.

    In my profile of him a year ago I quoted his wife, lawyer and activist Fadwa Barghouti: “Marwan’s goal has always been ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Marwan Barghouti believes in politics. He’s a political and national leader loved by his people.

    ‘Fought for peace’
    “He fought for peace with bravery and spent time on the Palestinian street advocating for peace. But he also believes in international law, which gives the occupied people the right to fight for their independence and freedom.”

    Alon Liel, formerly Israel’s most senior diplomat, proposed freeing Barghouti because he is “the ultimate leader of the Palestinian people,” and “he is the only one who can extricate us from the quagmire we are in.”

    Marwan Barghouti has the moral, political and popular stature to reach out to the Israelis, to see past their crimes and to sit down with them. If only. If only. If only.

    The horrible reality is Israel and the US have been led by war criminals who fail to grasp the fact that peace is only possible if they abandon the vilification of the Palestinian people and their leaders; that a better world is only possible if the Palestinians are finally given freedom and dignity.

    It will be a relief to everyone to see the remaining few dozen Israelis held by Hamas and other groups released.  They deserve to be home with their families.

    It will be a relief that thousands of Palestinian hostages be freed, many of them, according to Israel’s leading human rights organisation B’tselem, victims of torture, sexual violence and medieval conditions.  Hundreds of Palestinian child hostages — all of them traumatised — will be returned to their families.

    All these are welcome developments.  Strategically, however, Marwan Barghouti stands apart.

    Palestinian Marwan Barghouti . . . a symbol of his people’s "legendary steadfastness"
    Palestinian Marwan Barghouti . . . a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz/

    Uniquely suited to lead Palestine
    Long considered the “Palestinian Mandela” — not least because of his 22-years continuous imprisonment — the former Fatah leader, the former military leader, has attributes that make him almost uniquely suited to lead Palestine to freedom — if Israel and the US are prepared to abandon the Greater Israel project and accept peace can only come with justice for all.

    That’s a big “If”.

    Barghouti, returned to jail in 2002, after being convicted in what is considered by many scholars an illegal and deeply flawed Israeli show trial on five counts of murder.  He denies the charges and does not recognise the court.

    He has lived for more than 22 years in conditions far more barbaric than the great South African leader had to endure on Robben Island.  According to Israeli human rights groups, family and international lawyers, Barghouti has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.

    What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian – a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resistance to the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

    Marwan Barghouti is the same age as me — 65 — and it fills me with horror that a man who has spent decades fighting for freedom, and, if possible, peace, has been subjected to the horrors of an Israeli gulag for so long.

    I am not sure I would have had the physical or mental strength to endure what he has but — like Mandela — he kept his humanity and has remained an advocate for peace.

    We should never forget that seven million Palestinians remain as hostages held in brutal conditions by the US and Israel.  Most are hostages without human rights, political rights, territorial rights.

    As Palestinians have pointed out: imprisonment is now part of Palestinian consciousness. But — as Marwan Barghouti has shown with his iron will, his human decency, his determination to continue to be an advocate for peace with Israel — you can imprison the Palestinians but not their struggle.

    I’ll give the last word to his son, Arab Barghouti who told Mehdi Hasan on Zeteo this week, “My father used to always tell me that hope is sometimes a privilege, but being ‘hope-less’ is a privilege that we can’t have as Palestinians.”

    In the same interview he also said:

    “If any Israeli leader really wants an end to this and to have peace for the region, they would see that my father is someone that would bring that and is someone who still believes in the tiny chance left for the two-state solution.”

    Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Vanuatu risks return to all-male parliament in snap election in spite of strong ‘ vot woman’ campaign

    By Leah Lowonbu in Port Vila

    Vanuatu’s only incumbent female parliamentarian has lost her seat in a snap election leaving only one woman candidate in contention after an unofficial vote count.

    The unofficial counting at polling locations indicated the majority of the 52 incumbent MPs have been reelected but also with some high profile departures.

    Former deputy prime minister Jotham Napat, head of the Leaders Party, has secured up to nine MPs, putting him in poll position to try to form a coalition government.

    Vanuatu’s snap election last Thursday was called in November and held in spite of a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that devastated the capital Port Vila in December.

    The election results will be confirmed by the official count of votes in the capital once all ballot boxes have been transported from electorates to Port Vila.

    Former female MP Julia King from the Efate constituency has likely lost her seat.

    She made international headlines in 2022 as the first woman elected in Vanuatu in more than a decade and only the sixth woman to serve in Parliament since the nation’s independence in 1980.

    Only hope for women
    Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

    Campaigners for women parliamentarians hold “Vot Woman” t-shirts
    Campaigners for women parliamentarians hold “Vot Woman” t-shirts on polling day last week to support Marie Louise Milne in the Efate electorate. Image: BenarNews

    “The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

    “There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

    The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

    Electoral officers verifying voters identity.jpeg
    Electoral officers confirm voters’ eligibility to vote in Vanuatu’s snap election last Thursday. Image: Leah Lowonbu/BenarNews

    Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

    “The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

    “There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

    Gender disappointment
    The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

    “We will wait for the official results, and if that turns out to be true, it is a sad reality for our country (that) women continue to face significant challenges in entering Parliament,” Naupa told BenarNews.

    “We really need to look back at systems we have in place to help facilitate voices of women and vulnerable groups in our society.

    “This means the new legislature needs to pull up its socks to listen to all people, at every level of society.”

    This election there were seven women among the 217 candidates contesting, matching the number in 2022 but down from 18 in 2020.

    473674208_8807896776003221_701210077056575808_n.jpg
    “Thumbs up . . . Jotham Napat and his wife Lettis Napat after voting in Vanuatu’s snap election last week. Image: BenarNews

    Several high profile MPs losing seats
    The unofficial results show several high profile MPs are likely to lose their seats, including four-time prime minister Sato Kilman, head of the People’s Progressive Party.

    Leaders from seven parties were re-elected including former prime minister Charlot Salwai from the Reunification Movement for Change, former prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau of the Union of Moderate Parties and former foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu of the Graon mo Jastis Pati.

    “I am happy to return again and start working very soon — that’s all I have to say for now,” Regenvanu told BenarNews.

    Other leaders thanked their voters on social media for their re-election.

    Hopes for a generational change in Parliament rest with the few new MPs who look likely to be elected, including Matai Kaltabang in Julia King’s former electorate in Efate.

    If elected, the member of the Iauko Group will be the youngest person in the 14th Parliament, at the age of 28 years old, and one of the youngest ever elected.

    Parliamentary standing orders require the first sitting of the house be convened within 21 days of the election.

    Despite the setbacks in the unofficial results for women, Milne remains optimistic, urging the six other female candidates who participated in the elections to persevere.

    “I encourage them to never give up, build on what they have, and continue to make a difference in their communities so that in four years, we can see more women represented in Parliament,” she said.

    Leah Lowonbu is a BenarNews contributor. Stefan Armbruster contributed to this report from Brisbane. Copyright BenarNews 2025 and republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gaza ceasefire: RSF calls for open borders for journalists – end to impunity for Israel’s war crimes

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based world media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for international journalists to be given open access to the besieged Gaza Strip enclave and has reaffirmed its demand that the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutes the perpetrators of Israeli war crimes against journalists.

    RSF has already filed four complaints with the ICC and has declared it will continue its efforts to work for justice and support Palestinian journalism.

    In 15 months of the Israeli war on Gaza, the military has killed more than 150 Palestinian journalists — the Gazan Media office says more than 210 — including at least 41 who were killed while working.

    The ceasefire that began on Sunday has ended — for the moment — the war that turned Palestine into the “most dangerous territory” in the world for journalists, according to RSF’s 2024 Round-up.

    “For 15 months, journalists in Gaza have been displaced, starved, slandered, threatened, injured, and killed by the Israeli army,” said RSF’s director-general Thibaut Bruttin.

    “Despite these dangers, they have continued to inform their fellow citizens and the world while foreign journalists were denied access to the territory.

    “Gaza’s reporters are the pride of journalism. With the ceasefire agreement, the work of local and international reporters is more crucial than ever — it will go hand in hand with the work of the justice system.

    Independent access needed
    “To this end, international journalists must be given independent access to the besieged territory as quickly as possible.

    “To avoid increasing this war’s terrible death toll, the Israeli authorities must immediately authorise the hospitalisation of journalist Fadi al-Wahidi outside the Gaza Strip.”

    Bruttin said that RSF, which had filed four complaints with the ICC since 7 October 2023, called on the court once again to prosecute the perpetrators of war crimes against journalists in Gaza.”

    Al Jazeera journalist Fadi al-Wahidi, who was gravely injured on 9 October 2024 while reporting from the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, is fighting for his life as the Israeli authorities continued to refuse his transfer to a hospital abroad, despite repeated calls from RSF.

    Also, two Palestinian photojournalists, Haytham Abdel Wahed and Nidal al-Wahidi, have been missing since 7 October 2023.

    Need to rebuild media
    Gazan journalists have been working in makeshift newsrooms in tents set up near hospitals in order to have access to electricity and internet.

    Despite their incredible hardship, they have continued to inform the world from a devastating landscape.

    “If the ceasefire agreement is to translate into lasting peace, considerable resources will need to be allocated to rebuilding the infrastructure of Gaza’s media,” RSF said in a statement.

    This reconstruction cannot take place without concrete action against impunity for the crimes Israel continued committing for over a year.

    On 24 September 2024, RSF filed its fourth complaint with the ICC for war crimes committed against journalists in Gaza by the Israeli army; the first complaint was filed on 1 November 2023.

    Arrests in West Bank, pressure in Israel
    Overshadowed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza, the West Bank has been the target of multiple abuses by Israeli authorities and settlers that did not spare journalists and media outlets.

    According to RSF’s 2024 Round-up, the arrests of Palestinian journalists in the West Bank have made Israel one of the world’s largest jails for media professionals.

    The far-right Israeli government has used the state of war as an excuse to strengthen its grip on the media landscape.

    In an op-ed published in Haaretz, The Seventh Eye and Le Monde, RSF condemned draft laws that repress the media as well as the intimidation of Israeli journalists who criticise their government’s actions.

    Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Leaders Party on track to be Vanuatu’s largest bloc as coalition talks underway

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Port Vila and Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    Vanuatu’s Parliament is starting to take shape according to preliminary election results.

    As of Saturday, the Leaders Party was on track to becoming the largest in Parliament with 11 MPs.

    Vanua’aku Party is next with seven, and United Moderates and Reunification Movement for Change are tied on six seats each.

    Iauko Group had five and Graon Mo Jastis, four.

    Coalition talks, already underway, are set to be complicated because in the last Parliament at least two parties had MPs split across both the government and opposition benches.

    Ballot boxes from all around the country have been transported back to Port Vila where the Vanuatu Electoral Commission is conducting the official count.

    Many Port Vila voters spoken to by RNZ Pacific said they wanted leaders who would act quickly to rebuild the quake-stricken city.

    Others said they were sick of political instability.

    Last week’s snap election was triggered by a premature dissolution of Parliament last year — the second consecutive time President Nike Vurobaravu has acted on a council of ministers’ request to dissolve the House in the face of a leadership challenge.

    Counting the latest election Vanuatu will have had five prime ministers in five years.

    Last June, a referendum agreed to two changes to the country’s constitution aimed at helping to settle the troubled political arena.

    Ni-Vanuatu voters in New Caledonia
    Meanwhile, New Caledonia’s diaspora also voted in Vanuatu’s snap poll to renew the 52-seat Parliament.

    The only polling station, set up in the capital Nouméa near the Vanuatu Consulate-General, counted as part as the Vanuatu capital Port Vila’s constituency.

    It was open to voters last Thursday from 7:30am to 8pm.

    For New Caledonia, the estimated number of ni-Vanuatu registered voters is about 1600.

    Bus shuttles were also organised for ni-Vanuatu voters residing in the Greater Nouméa area (Mont-Dore, Dumbéa and Païta).

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

  • Australia still claims ‘not responsible’ for detainees, after UN body rulings

    By Margot Staunton, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    The Australian government denies responsibility for asylum seekers detained in Nauru, following two decisions from the UN Human Rights Committee.

    The UNHRC recently published its decisions on two cases involving refugees who complained about their treatment at Nauru’s regional processing facility.

    The committee stated that Australia remained responsible for the health and welfare of refugees and asylum seekers detained in Nauru.

    “A state party cannot escape its human rights responsibility when outsourcing asylum processing to another state,” committee member Mahjoub El Haiba said.

    After the decisions were released, a spokesperson for the Australian Home Affairs Department said “it has been the Australian government’s consistent position that Australia does not exercise effective control over regional processing centres”.

    “Transferees who are outside of Australia’s territory or its effective control do not engage Australia’s international obligations.

    “Nauru as a sovereign state continues to exercise jurisdiction over the regional processing arrangements (and individuals subject to those arrangements) within their territory, to be managed and administered in accordance with their domestic law and international human rights obligations.”

    Australia rejected allegations
    Canberra opposed the allegations put to the committee, saying there was no prima facie substantiation that the alleged violations in Nauru had occurred within Australia’s jurisdiction.

    The committee disagreed.

    “It was established that Australia had significant control and influence over the regional processing facility in Nauru, and thus, we consider that the asylum seekers in those cases were within the state party’s jurisdiction under the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights),” El Haiba said.

    “Offshore detention facilities are not human-rights free zones for the state party, which remains bound by the provisions of the Covenant.”

    Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul said this was one of many decisions from the committee that Australia had ignored, and the UN committee lacked the authority to enforce its findings.

    Detainees from both cases claimed Australia had violated its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), particularly Article 9 regarding arbitrary detention.

    The first case involved 24 unaccompanied minors intercepted at sea, who were detained on Christmas Island before being sent to Nauru in 2014.

    High temperatures and humidity
    On Nauru they faced high temperatures and humidity, a lack of water and sanitation and inadequate healthcare.

    Despite all but one being granted refugee status that year, they remained detained on the island.

    In the second case an Iranian asylum seeker and her extended family arrived by boat on Christmas Island without valid visas.

    Although she was recognised as a refugee by the authorities in Nauru in 2017 she was transferred to mainland Australia for medical reasons but remains detained.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Netanyahu’s war on Hamas backfires as Gaza resistance holds strong

    An Al-Jazeera Arabic special report translated by The Palestine Chronicle staff details how Israel’s military strategy in Gaza, aimed at dismantling Hamas and displacing Palestinian civilians, has failed after 470 days of conflict.

    ANALYSIS: By Abdulwahab al-Mursi

    On May 5, 2024, nearly seven months into Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the main goal of the war was to destroy Hamas and prevent it from controlling Gaza.

    However, over 250 days since this statement, and 470 days into the Israeli aggression, it has become clear that Netanyahu’s promises have faded into illusions.

    In the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire on Sunday, Israeli military radio reported that Hamas forces were reasserting their control over Gaza, stating that Hamas, which had never lost control of any part of the territory during the war, was using the ceasefire to strengthen its grip.

    This development highlights the gap between Israel’s strategic objectives and the reality on the ground, as images from Gaza continue to reveal widespread devastation and loss of life, yet Hamas remains firmly in control.

    Popular Support: The backbone of Hamas
    Military literature highlights the concept of “Center of Gravity” (COG) for military organisations, a concept that can vary depending on the organisation and context.

    In the case of Hamas and Palestinian Resistance, the central element of their strength lies in the support of the local population.

    This grassroots support provides Hamas with invaluable social depth, a continuous supply of human resources, and strong strategic backing.

    The popular support and belief in the resistance’s strategic choices and leadership have allowed Hamas to maintain its popular mandate to achieve Palestinian national goals.

    Recognising this, Israel has targeted Gaza’s civilian infrastructure both militarily and psychologically, aiming to raise the costs of supporting the resistance and weaken Hamas’s popular base.

    Israel has treated Gaza’s entire civilian infrastructure as military targets, believing that expanding the death toll among civilians and inflicting maximum suffering would force the population to turn against Hamas.

    Yet, despite these efforts, images of celebrations in Gaza, even in areas heavily targeted by Israel, underscore the exceptional nature of the Gaza situation, where resistance culture is deeply rooted and unyielding.

    The strategic consciousness of Gaza’s people
    There appears to be a collective strategic awareness among Gaza’s people to maintain a victorious image at all costs, even in the midst of devastating humanitarian crises.

    This desire to project an image of resistance and triumph, despite the overwhelming tragedy, has led to spontaneous public displays of support for Hamas and resistance forces, reinforcing their resolve against the Israeli onslaught.

    Failure of forced displacement plans
    In the initial weeks of the war, Israel revealed its plan to forcibly relocate Gaza’s population.

    Israeli media outlets reported in October 2023 that Netanyahu had proposed relocating Gaza’s residents to other countries.

    However, after months of war, Gaza’s residents have shown an unshakable determination to remain, with displaced individuals in refugee camps celebrating their return to their homes, despite the widespread destruction they have suffered.

    In northern Gaza, particularly in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, and Shuja’iyya, Israel’s attempts to prevent the return of displaced residents became a significant obstacle to a ceasefire agreement, delaying it for months.

    Israel’s plan, known as the “Generals’ Plan” by former Israeli military advisor Giora Eiland, aimed to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza by applying immense military and living pressures on the population.

    However, as evident from the ongoing images from the region, the displaced population continues to resist and return, undermining Israel’s relocation goals.

    Hamas’s military structure endures
    One of Netanyahu’s primary goals was to dismantle Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

    However, in the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire, images showed Hamas fighters organising military parades in southern Gaza, signalling the resilience of Hamas’s military structure even before the ceasefire officially began.

    Despite Israeli claims of killing thousands of Hamas fighters and destroying significant portions of Gaza’s tunnel network, the rapid and organized emergence of Al-Qassam forces on the ground suggests that these Israeli claims may have been aimed more at reassuring the Israeli public about the progress of the war, rather than reflecting the true situation on the ground.

    Failure of post-war plans
    In December 2023, Netanyahu rejected Palestinian proposals that Hamas be included in Gaza’s post-war governance, insisting, “There will be no Hamas in the post-war period; we will eliminate them.”

    Throughout the war, Israel attempted various unilateral methods to manage Gaza, including direct military administration and creating a new technocratic authority with local leaders, but all efforts failed.

    Israeli military attempts to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza also proved ineffective, as the army struggled to manage these operations.

    As the conflict nears what is supposed to be its final phase, the governance structure in Gaza has not changed.

    Hamas’s leadership, especially the Al-Qassam Brigades, continues to operate effectively, and the ceasefire agreement has allowed for the resumption of local security forces.

    Even after Israel’s targeted assassinations of 723 members of Gaza’s police and security apparatus, the resilience of Gaza’s security forces has remained evident.

    This failure of Israel’s post-war vision was highlighted by a comment from a political analyst on Israeli i24 News, who questioned the results of the prolonged military operation: “What have we achieved in a year and five months?

    “We destroyed many homes, lost many of our best soldiers, and in the end, the result is the same: Hamas rules, aid enters, and the Qassam Brigades return.”

    Republished from The Palestinian Chronicle with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.