A large raucous protest put criticism of Canada’s most damaging international accord back on the public radar.
In response to the opening of North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 70th anniversary Parliamentary Assembly in Montreal 1,500 protested Friday to “Block NATO”. The main banner at the front of the night march stated: “Block NATO: Reject Militarism, Imperialism & Colonialism”. For weeks my neighbourhood was plastered with posters saying “Bloquons L’OTAN”. The Convergence des Luttes anti-capitaliste (CLAC) also produced a sticker with that message and a 16-page anti-NATO paper.
The image at the centre of their material was a boot stepping on NATO. That image, CLAC’s militant history, starting the march at night and a large student strike led to a raucous march. Some protesters probably intended to break windows at the convention centre hosting the NATO meeting. The police initially blamed protesters for setting fires in two cars but it appears tear gas canisters fired by the police were responsible. They must have fired many canisters as I tasted tear gas two blocks away from where the conflict escalated. Beyond the chemical irritants ingested by protesters and passersby, the police injured a handful of protesters.
While I’ve generally been opposed or ambivalent towards property destruction at demonstrations, Friday’s window breaking drew significant attention to a message rarely heard in recent years. A Radio Canada headline after the night march read “Une manifestation pour le retrait du Canada de l’OTAN dégénère à Montréal” (A demonstration calling for Canada’s withdrawal from NATO degenerates in Montreal) while La Presse noted, “Une manifestation contre l’OTAN dérape au centre-ville de Montréal” (Anti-NATO demonstration goes off the rails in downtown Montreal). The Associated Press, Reuters, Aljazeera and other international media reported on the protests.
The Mouvement québécois pour la paix’s march planned for the next day received significant coverage. About 150 marched against the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on Saturday with a L’actualité headline noting “Une autre manifestation contre l’OTAN a eu lieu samedi” (Another demonstration against NATO took place on Saturday) and Global News stating, “Anti-NATO protesters in Montreal demand Canada withdraws from alliance”. The Globe and Mail, New York Post and many other outlets published stories about the NATO Assembly with photographs of banners or placards criticizing NATO.
On Sunday multiple media showed up to the counter summit organized by the Canada Wide Peace and Justice Network. Radio Canada’s flagship Téléjournal covered it with their blurb stating, “Demonstrations in opposition to NATO were numerous this weekend on the sidelines of its annual summit in Montreal. Several groups believe the Atlantic Alliance harms global security instead of strengthening it and urge Canada to leave NATO.”
The media attention is important. Despite the alliance being mentioned regularly, there’s almost no hint of criticism of NATO in the dominant media.
The scale and militancy of the protests was due to the fact they coincided with a major student strike for Palestine. Over 40 associations representing 85,000 students across Quebec voted to strike on Thursday and Friday to call on their institutions to end all relations with Israel. Many condemned NATO assistance for Israel and an Israeli delegation led by genocidal Likud Knesset member Boaz Bismuth at the Parliamentary Assembly. Israel has a longstanding partnership with the alliance.
Student strikers targeting NATO is an indication that the popular uprising against Israel’s genocide may be broadening its outlook towards challenging Canadian foreign policy and imperialism. Canada’s support for Israeli violence makes a mockery of Ottawa’s claims to advance human rights or international law. Is it believable that genocide Justin and Joe truly care about Ukrainian sovereignty or people?
One needn’t support Russian militarism to be troubled by NATO’s escalation. Providing logistical and intelligence support for Ukraine to fire NATO missiles deep into Russia is dangerous brinkmanship.
NATO is a belligerent alliance pushing Canada to increase its military spending. This weekend’s protests may not have “blocked NATO” but they definitely thrust opposition to the alliance into the spotlight.
The position of a state broadcaster, one funded directly by taxpayers from a particular country, places it in a delicate position. The risk of alignment with the views of the day, as dictated by one class over another; the danger that one political position will somehow find more air than another, is ever present. The pursuit of objectivity can itself become a distorting dogma.
Like its counterpart in the United Kingdom, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation can count itself lucky to be given a place of such dominance in the media market. None of that gimmickry to boost subscriber numbers. No need for annual, or half-yearly fund drives.
Why, then, did the ABC chairman, Kim Williams, do it? And by doing it, this involved attacking US-based podcaster Joe Rogan in an address to the National Press Club in Canberra, a foolish, bumbling excursion into the realms of broadcasting and podcasting the ABC might do well to learn from.
In the question session, when asked about the influence of Rogan (“the world’s most influential podcaster”, sighs the ABC journalist), Williams shows little interest in analysis. Rather than understanding the scope of his appeal, one that drew Donald Trump to the microphone in a meandering conversational epic of waffle and disclosure lasting three hours, he “personally” found “it deeply repulsive, and to think that someone has such remarkable power in the United States is something that I look at in disbelief.” He further felt a sense of “dismay that this can be a source of public entertainment when it’s really treating the public as plunder for purposes that are really quite malevolent.”
Williams makes a point of juxtaposing the weak, impressionable consumer of news – one who will evidently be set straight by the likes of his network – and those of Rogan and his tribe of entrepreneurial podcasting fantasists who “prey on all the elements that contribute to uncertainty in society”, suggesting that “conspiracy outcomes” are merely “a normal part of social narrative”.
It is worth noting here that Williams is a former chief executive of an organisation that loved (and still loves) preying on anxieties, testing the waters of fear, and pushing absurdly demagogic narratives in boosting readership and subscriptions. That most unscrupulous outfit is a certain News Corp, its imperishable tycoon Rupert Murdoch still clinging to the pulpit with savage commitment.
Once Williams crossed the commercial river to become ABC chair, he had something of a peace-loving conversion, all part of a festival of inclusivity that has proven tedious and meretricious. The public broadcaster, he said in June this year, should become “national campfire” to enable a greater understanding of Australia’s diverse communities.
It did not take long for the Williams show of snark to make its way to Rogan Land and his defenders, notably Elon Musk, who spent time with Rogan in the lead-up to November’s US presidential election spruiking the credentials of Trump. Showing how Williams had exposed his flank, and that of the organisation he leads, the tech oligarch, relevantly the director of X Corp (formerly Twitter), was bound to say something given his ongoing skirmishes with Australian regulators and lawmakers in their efforts to regulate access to social media.
From such infantilising bureaucrats as eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to the spluttering Williams who bemoans the “Joe Rogan effect”, Musk is being given, rather remarkably, a whitewash of respectability. Their efforts to protect Australians from any prospect of being offended, mentally corrupted, unduly influenced and one might even say being excited, is of such an order as to beggar belief. With little imagination, Musk retorted with boring predictability: “From the head of Australian government-funded media, their Pravda.”
Williams remains truly dumbfounded by this. “You make a comment in response to a legitimate question from a journalist, you answer it concisely and give an honest answer in terms of what your own perception of what [Rogan] is and suddenly I get this huge pile-on from people in the most aggressive way”. Accusations include having “a warped outlook on the world”, being “an embarrassment” and showing signs of being “unhinged”. Ignorance would be the better distillation here.
There is something to be said about Williams being hermetic to media forms that have prevented him from getting to the national campfire he championed. He speaks of communities and users as vague constructions rather than accessible groups. He also ignores, for instance, that Rogan was open to allowing Trump’s opponent, the Democrat contender, Kamala Harris, to come onto his program conducted in his Texas podcast studio during the campaign. This offer was eventually withdrawn given the conditions Harris, ever terrified by unscripted formats and lengthy interviews, demanded Rogan follow. The strategists and handlers had to have their say, and for their role and for Harris’s caution, she paid a price.
For a man with a News Corp pedigree and one no doubt familiar with the Murdoch Empire’s creepy techniques of influence and seduction exercised over the electorates and political processes of other countries – the United States, the UK and Australia immediately come to mind – Williams has shown himself the media iteration of a bamboozled, charmless Colonel Blimp.
Williams might best focus on the problems at his own broadcaster, the organisation the Australians call Auntie. It boasts, constantly, that it is the place where “news” can be found, but more importantly, “news you can trust”. But the current iteration of news remains bland, benign and pitifully regulated. It is clear what the talking points are when it comes to reporting on such areas of the world as the Middle East. Killings by the Israeli Defence Forces, even if they do involve the liquidation of whole buildings and villagers, are never massacres but measures of overzealous self-defence. Hamas and Hezbollah, being Israel’s adversaries, are always prefaced as indulgent terrorists. The list goes on, and, it would seem, the problems Williams is facing.
New York, November 27, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Georgia’s Parliament to lift all restrictions on journalists’ entry into the parliament building, introduced on November 25 amid widespread protests against alleged fraud in the country’s October parliamentary elections.
“At a crucial juncture in Georgia’s history, steps to restrict journalists’ access to Parliament are concerning and threaten to hamper citizens’ right to be informed about vital political processes,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Georgia’s Parliament should withdraw the excessive entry restrictions on the media and ensure that the press is able to work freely.”
Under the measures announced by Parliament, only accredited broadcast journalists are permitted to enter the Parliament building. Journalists from non-broadcast media are reportedlybarred from entry for an indefinite period. The restrictions also limit entrances to two teams from each broadcaster, with selected teams only allowed to report on parliamentary sessions from a designated area and not permitted to broadcast live.
The purpose of the restrictions is “to ensure a safe and secure working environment” in the building, according to Parliament’s statement.
Georgia’s Parliament has similarly restricted journalists’ access on several occasions since amendments allowing it to do so were introduced in early 2023, notably during protests over a controversial “foreign agents” law in 2023 and 2024.
Georgian opposition parties have alleged fraud and are protesting the results of the October 26 parliamentary election, in which the ruling Georgian Dream party was declared winner, and police have beaten and obstructed the work of multiple journalists covering the protests.
CPJ emailed Georgia’s Parliament for comment, but did not immediately receive a reply.
“Flashpoint” in a foreign news story usually brings to mind the Middle East or the border between North and South Korea. It is not a term usually associated with New Zealand but last week it was there in headline type.
News outlets around the world carried reports of the Hīkoi and protests against Act’s Treaty Principles Bill, with the overwhelming majority characterising the events as a serious deterioration in this country’s race relations.
The Associated Press report carried the headline “New Zealand’s founding treaty is at a flashpoint: Why are thousands protesting for Māori rights?”. That headline was replicated by press and broadcasting outlets across America, by Yahoo, by MSN, by X, by Voice of America, and by news organisations in Asia and Europe.
Reuters’ story on the hikoi carried the headline: “Tens of thousands rally at New Zealand parliament against bill to alter indigenous rights”. That report also went around the world.
So, too, did the BBC, which reaches 300 million households worldwide: “Thousands flock to NZ capital in huge Māori protest”.
The Daily Mail’s website is given to headlines as long as one of Tolstoy’s novels and told the story in large type: “Tens of thousands of Māori protesters march in one of New Zealand’s biggest ever demonstrations over proposed bill that will strip them of ‘special rights’”. The Economist put it more succinctly: “Racial tensions boil over in New Zealand”.
In the majority of cases, the story itself made clear the Bill would not proceed into law but how many will recall more than the headline?
An even bleaker view
Readers of The New York Times were given an even bleaker view of this country by their Seoul-based reporter Yan Zhuang. He characterised New Zealand as a country that “veers sharply right”, electing a government that has undone the “compassionate, progressive politics” of Jacinda Ardern, who had been “a global symbol of anti-Trump liberalism”.
Critiquing the current government, The Times story stated: “In a country that has been celebrated for elevating the status of Māori, its indigenous people, it has challenged their rights and prominence of their culture and language in public life, driving a wedge into New Zealand society and setting off waves of protests.”
Christopher Luxon may have judged “limited” support for David Seymour’s highly divisive proposed legislation as a worthwhile price to pay for the numbers to give him a grip on power. For his part, Seymour may have seen the Bill as a way to play to his supporters and hopefully add to their number.
Did either man, however, consider the effect that one of the most cynical political ploys of recent times — giving oxygen to a proposal that has not a hope in hell of passing into law — would have on this country’s international reputation?
Last week’s international coverage did not do the damage. Those outlets were simply reporting what they observed happening here. If some of the language — “flashpoint” and “boiling over” — look emotive, how else should 42,000 people converging on the seat of government be interpreted?
The damage was done by the architect of the Bill and by the Prime Minister giving him far more freedom than he or his proposal deserve.
Nor will the reputational damage melt away, dispersing in as orderly manner like the superbly organised Hīkoi did last Tuesday. It will endure even beyond the six months pointlessly given to select committee hearings on the Bill.
Australia’s ABC last week signalled ongoing protest and its story on the Treaty Principles Bill would have left Australians bewildered that a bill “with no path forward” could be allowed to cause so much discord. Image: AJ screenshot APR
Alerted to the story
International media have been alerted to the story and they will continue to follow it. Many have staff correspondents and stringers in this country or across the Tasman who will be closely monitoring events.
Australia’s ABC last week signalled ongoing protest and its story on the Treaty Principles Bill would have left Australians bewildered that a bill “with no path forward” could be allowed to cause so much discord.
“The Treaty Principles Bill may be doomed,” said the ABC’s Emily Clark, “but the path forward for race relations in New Zealand is now much less clear.”
So, too, is New Zealand’s international reputation as a country where the rights of its tangata whenua were indelibly recognised by those that followed them. Even though imperfectly applied, the relationship is far more constructive than that which many colonised countries have with their indigenous peoples.
We are held by many to be an example to others and that is part of the reason New Zealand has a position in the world that is out of proportion to its size and location.
Damage to that standing is a very high price to pay for giving a minor party a strong voice . . . one that will be heard a very long way away.
Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies.He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century.
China’s defense minister Dong Jun has been placed under investigation for alleged graft, British daily Financial Times reported on Wednesday, quoting U.S. sources.
If confirmed, Dong would be the third consecutive minister of defense to be investigated for corruption, after Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, in what seems to be a wider anti-graft operation across the top ranks of the Chinese military.
Thenewspaper quoted current and former U.S. officials familiar with the situation as saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping was “conducting a wave of investigations” into the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, but it remained unclear what kind of corruption allegations Dong was facing.
China’s embassy in Washington declined to comment on the news.
A former admiral and commander of the Chinese navy, Dong was appointed minister of national defense in December 2023, replacing Li Shangfu who was removed in October 2023 after just seven months in office.
The last time Dong appeared in public was on Nov. 21 when he attended the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus in Vientiane, Laos.
While holding talks with the defense chiefs of New Zealand, India, and Malaysia, as well as the ASEAN Secretary-General, Dong refused a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Beijing blamed it on Washington for undermining China’s “core interests” by providing weapons to Taiwan.
Wei Fenghe (L), Dong Jun (C) and Li Shangfu (R).
Wider probe
A native of Shandong province from where Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan also hails, Dong – as well as his predecessor Li Shangfu – was believed to be appointed by Xi.
Yet “Dong was not promoted to the Central Military Commission, the top military leadership of the Communist Party, nor was he appointed to the State Council, or the national cabinet,” political analyst Willy Lam told Radio Free Asia, while cautioning that one should be careful not to speculate too much over the alleged investigation.
In China, defense ministers are usually members of both those bodies and Dong’s non-appointment had raised questions about his position.
The FT quoted U.S. military officers and officials as suggesting that such investigations into the PLA’s top officials “were undermining Xi’s confidence in his military” and raising doubts about its capabilities.
Lyle Morris, senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center for China Analysis, wrote on X that in his opinion, “this is not a normal shake-up” and more purges are coming.
Former ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe were expelled from the Communist Party for “grave discipline violations” such as taking bribes and causing great damage to the images of the party and its senior leaders, according to official statements.
Since Li’s sacking from the defense chief’s post last October, there was a series of restructurings at high levels of the Chinese military establishment.
Just after Dong was appointed, China expelled nine military officials from its parliament, including three former commanders or vice commanders of the PLA Rocket Force, one former Air Force chief and one Navy commander responsible for the South China Sea.
Analysts said they believed that the expulsions were related to the corruption over equipment procurement by the rocket force.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
From whole-cucumber salads to scallion coffee, TikTok trends often introduce creative spins on everyday ingredients, and the latest viral dish—the whole roasted onion, or “onion boil”—has captivated food enthusiasts.
This trend involves seasoning and roasting whole onions filled with butter until they are tender, sweet, and richly flavored. No complicated steps, no fancy gadgets—just good old onions, roasted to golden perfection.
Johanna Angman, RD, views the trend positively, though with some caveats. “Eating whole roasted onions as a snack or appetizer is an intriguing trend,” Angman tells VegNews. “From a health perspective, I think it has some benefits.”
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Angman notes, however, that moderation is key. “Eating large amounts could cause digestive discomfort for some, especially those sensitive to foods that can increase bloating or reflux,” she says.
The preparation also plays an essential role in determining how healthy this dish can be. “While I love seeing vegetables take center stage, the preparation really matters,” Angman says.
Whole onions get the TikTok treatment
Onions are having a moment, and it’s about time. These tear-inducing vegetables are getting the recognition they deserve, not just as the supporting cast of soups and sautés, but as the main event. Roasting brings out their sweetness, making them caramelized and rich. And, Angman explains, they come with some hefty health benefits.
“Onions are packed with antioxidants like quercetin, which helps fight inflammation, and they’re a great source of fiber and prebiotics, which support gut health,” she says.
Cooking onions by roasting enhances their natural sweetness while softening their sharpness, making them ideal for experimenting with different spices and seasonings. The choice of fat used in preparation, however, has a significant impact on the dish’s health value.
Why plant-based fats work better than butter
Traditional versions of the onion boil often use butter as the fat of choice. However, Angman recommends caution when using the dairy product. “Butter is high in saturated fats, which can raise LDL cholesterol—the ‘bad’ kind that’s linked to an increased risk of heart disease,” Angman explains. “While enjoying butter occasionally won’t necessarily harm your health, regularly using it in generous amounts might contribute to higher cholesterol levels over time.”
For those aiming to maximize health benefits, reducing butter or substituting it entirely is advisable. Angman suggests keeping an eye on portion sizes and choosing alternatives when possible to make this dish both flavorful and heart-healthy.
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Replacing butter with plant-based fats, such as olive oil, offers a healthier alternative while preserving the rich texture and flavor of the dish. “Plant-based substitutes like olive oil or vegan butter can be excellent options here,” Angman says. “Olive oil, in particular, is a powerhouse for heart health with its high monounsaturated fat content. It can help lower LDL cholesterol while boosting the good HDL cholesterol.”
Vegan butters can also be suitable replacements, as many have less saturated fat compared to traditional butter. “I often suggest looking for vegan butters free of trans fats or enriched with omega-3s,” Angman adds.
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This swap doesn’t just make your roasted onion TikTok-worthy; it keeps things fun and lets you join the trend without overthinking the health details. Plus, the drizzle of olive oil makes those onions all the more Instagrammable—or, well, TikTok-able—with their glistening, golden edges.
And Angman agrees, saying: “These swaps are easy ways to enjoy recipes like this without compromising on flavor or health.”
How to make a plant-based onion boil
Adapting the onion boil to a plant-based version is a simple process. By substituting butter for healthier fats and using a variety of spices, this dish can be nutritious and satisfying. Here’s how to get started.
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1Pick the right onion
Sweet onions such as Vidalia bring a mellow flavor, while red onions provide a sharper bite. Yellow onions offer a balance of sweetness and sharpness and caramelize beautifully.
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2Prep the onion
Remove the outer skin and lightly score and core the onion to allow seasonings to penetrate. Drizzle the onion with olive oil or fill the opening with another fat such as vegan butter.
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3Season generously
Popular seasonings include garlic powder, smoked paprika, and black pepper for a savory kick. For a global twist, try adding chaat masala or Cajun-inspired spices.
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4Roast to perfection
Wrap the onion in foil to retain moisture, or leave the top open for a crispier edge. Roast at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the onion and desired tenderness.
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5Add a finishing touch
For added texture, sprinkle toasted breadcrumbs or crushed nuts over the onion before serving.
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein has been permanently banned from Twitter after publishing hacked documents from the Trump campaign, and now his material is being forbidden on Google and Meta. Plus, disgraced former Senator Bob Menendez is begging the court to toss out his recent felony convictions by claiming that he actually had the right to […]
“On the campaign trail, she [María Corina Machado] was received almost as a religious figure, often wearing white, promising to restore democracy and reunite families torn apart by an economic crisis and mass migration. ‘María!’ her followers shouted, before falling into her arms,” the New York Times reverently reported.
Indeed, Machado’s personally chosen surrogate to contend in last July’s Venezuelan presidential election, Edmundo González, did fall into her arms. But that was because her infirm disciple had trouble, both literally and figuratively, standing on his own two feet.
Machado was the main Venezuelan opposition figure backed by the US. Her platform of extreme neoliberal shock therapy was rejected by the electorate. Most Venezuelans oppose her call to privatize nearly all state institutions serving the people – schools, hospitals, public housing, food assistance, and the state oil company, which funds social programs. Nor is there any popular appetite for Machado’s plan to radically reorient foreign policy to subordination to Washington and support of US imperial wars in Ukraine and Palestine.
A hagiography, such as this one by the Times, includes an investigation into the life and miracles attributed to the would-be saint. The article on Machado, penned by one Julie Turkewitz, does just that and more. The article also unintentionally reveals that the far-right opposition advocates foreign intervention to overthrow the democratic will of the Venezuelan people. Its title clearly states: “Trump to Save Her Country.”
It took the US until November 19, nearly four months, to declare González as the legitimate president-elect of Venezuela. The recognition likely signals a shift in the lame-duck Biden administration’s policy from negotiation to all-out hostility towards Venezuela, paving the way for a smooth handover to the new Trump team. Previously, Washington simply called for a “peaceful transition.”
The miraculous opposition primary
Turkewitz reported that Machado won “an overwhelming victory in a primary race.” She uses the weasel-construction “a primary” rather than “the primary,” because Machado’s “primary” was not one conducted by the official Venezuelan electoral authority, the CNE. Rather, it was a private affair administered by the NGO Súmate. That NGO, as the article admits, is funded by the US.
Machado prevailed in a crowded field of 13 candidates with a miraculous 92% of the vote. When some of the other candidates called fraud, Machado had the ballots destroyed. She could do so because Súmate is her personal organization.
The Times intimates that Machado “galvanized a nation” around an opposition agenda. That is something Uncle Sam has so far failed to achieve despite a quarter of a century of meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs.
The empire’s newspaper of record reports that Machado is “wildly popular.” But that’s in the halls of the US Congress, where she was vetted and then anointed “leader of the opposition” even before the so-called primary in Venezuela. Unfortunately for Machado that popularity with the Yankee politicos did not travel as well back home. In Venezuela, even within her corner of the far-right, Machado is resented. Far from unified, the opposition in Venezuela is today ever more divided.
Contested election results
The official Venezuelan electoral authority (CNE) declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro the winner with 52% of the vote. That outcome was subsequently audited and confirmed by the Venezuelan supreme court (TSJ).
González, the person whom the Times declared the winner, came in second with 43% of the vote, according to the official count. González claimed that he had evidence that proved he won the presidency, but he refused to show it to the TSJ, even when he was summoned to do so.
Moreover, the Times reports that the US-backed opposition has tallies from some 80% of the precincts, which were published on a private blog site. Sources supporting the Venezuelan government then published analyses showing that evidence to be bogus, while counter claims from those favoring regime change purport to confirm their validity.
The problem of privately posting evidence, while refusing to submit it to official channels, is that it leaves the Venezuelan authorities no constitutional path for accepting it even if it were valid. The question ignored by the article is: If “their team collected and published vote-tally receipts” proving its victory, why did they not settle the matter by submitting them?
The answer, not one that the Times would admit to, is that the far-right opposition and its US handlers never made a good faith attempt to win the election.
Washington’s strategy was to delegitimize the election, not to win it
The opposition’s platform could never be a winning ticket, which they knew. The only way to achieve it would be an extra-legal regime-change operation predicated on delegitimizing the democratically-elected government. And that is precisely what is being played out today in Venezuela.
There were a number of more moderate opposition figures with experience and popular followings. Had the US been interested in simply an electoral defeat of the ruling Socialist Party, they could have backed a less extreme candidate and offered to ease their punishing “sanctions” on Venezuela. Instead, Washington backed the far right, which took the supremely unpopular position of advocating for yet more sanctions on their own country to precipitate regime-change.
With nine other contenders on the presidential ballot, name recognition was important. Literally nobody had heard of González until Machado personally chose him as her surrogate. She had been disqualified from running back in 2015 for constitutionally mandates offenses.
Machado’s political party, Vente Venezuela, lacked ballot status because her party had boycotted recent Venezuelan elections in keeping with the far-right’s stance that the Venezuelan state is not legitimate. Once the party decided to again participate in the electoral arena in 2024, she could have petitioned for recognition of her party. But she didn’t bother.
González, who had been in retirement, had no political following or experience. He had been a Venezuelan diplomat to El Salvador back in the 1980s, where he had been implicated in supporting US-backed death squads.
Maduro crisscrossed the country in an all-out campaign effort, exhaustingly visiting over 300 municipalities. His ruling Socialist Party, in power since 1999, had cadre in every corner of the country who were mobilized. They didn’t need to be told that an opposition victory could mean not only loss of a job, but they might face retribution from the far right.
In contrast to Maduro’s strong ground game, the US-backed opposition was weak in the streets. González himself sat out the campaign in Caracas, while Machado barnstormed the hinterlands with a paper poster bearing his visage. Indicative of popular following were the turnouts at political rallies, both during the campaign and after, where Maduro attracted many times more supporters than González.
Forecast
The Times not only maintains that González “won the July vote by a wide margin” but he “should be taking office in January.” González, too, claims he’ll be back in Caracas for the inauguration. After the election, he voluntarily left Venezuela for Spain in a transfer negotiated with Caracas and Madrid governments.
The Times further reports that Machado predicts Maduro will voluntarily “negotiate his own exit.” Even more fantastic, the Times asserts González “garnered almost 70 percent of the vote.”
In a revealing lapse from her otherwise editorializing, Turkewitz correctly reported that Machado “has spent roughly two decades trying to remove Mr. Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, from power.” Conveniently omitted is that effort included a number of coup attempts, including the 2002 US-backed coup that temporarily deposed then President Chávez. Machado signed the infamous Carmona Decree then, which voided the constitution and disbanded the courts, the legislature, and executive.
That 2002 coup lasted less than 48 hours because the people of Venezuela spontaneously rose up and confronted the traitorous military. If Machado indeed had the backing of 7 in 10 Venezuelans, she too could have taken the presidential palace regardless of the official election report.
The Timescalls her Venezuela’s “Iron Lady” for her “steely resolve.” Meanwhile Hinterlaces,reporting from Venezuela, speculates Machado has fled the country:
The failure of the insurrectionary strategy in the absence of a social explosion or a rupture in the Bolivarian civic-military alliance, the lack of convincing evidence on Edmundo González’s alleged electoral victory, since they do not really have the minutes to demonstrate it, convinced Machado to leave the country.
Nicolás Maduro will be inaugurated on January 10. As confirmed by the Venezuelan supreme court, the majority voted for him to continue Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution.
Indonesia has officially asked Russia if it could buy more of its weapons, Russian media reported, signaling what an analyst said was an aim to diversify its sources of arms while retaining its non-aligned status.
Vladimir Bulavin, head of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, who is also a senator, was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying that Indonesia’s request for weapons and military equipment from Russia over the 2025-2030 period was “under review.”
The official did not disclose details of the request but Indonesian security analyst Khairul Fahmi said Jakarta “is likely to focus on less politically sensitive purchases, such as armored vehicles and short-range defense systems, while deferring high-profile acquisitions like fighter jets or advanced missile systems to minimize geopolitical fallout.”
Indonesia began receiving arms and military equipment from the Soviet Union in the late 1950s but relations between the two countries cooled during the Cold War.
According to Bulavin, Indonesia’s arms acquisition resumed in the 2000s, marked by significant contracts, including the delivery of Su-27 and Su-30 fighters and BMP-3F armored vehicles.
The first arms delivery from Moscow to Jakarta was in 1958, of 100 GAZ-69 military cross-country vehicles.
From 1992 to 2018, Russia delivered weapons worth more than US$2.5 billion to Indonesia. They included BTR-80A armored personnel carriers and BMP-3F infantry fighting vehicles, 100th series Kalashnikov assault rifles, Su-27SK and Su-27SKM, Su-30MK and Su-30MK2 planes, Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters, and other weapon systems and military hardware, according to Alexander Mikheyev, CEO of the state arms exporter Rosoboronexport.
Indonesia reportedly wanted to buy 10 Su-35 multirole fighters to replace outdated U.S. F-5 Tiger aircraft that had been in operation with its air force since 1980 but it is unclear whether there has been any progress on the purchase.
Fahmi, co-founder of the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies, told BenarNews, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia, that Indonesia’s decision to procure military equipment from Russia reflected a strategic effort to diversify its defense procurement while maintaining a non-aligned foreign policy.
Fahmi pointed to practical and strategic factors driving the purchase, noting that Russia’s military technology was known for its reliability and affordability compared with Western alternatives.
“Russia offers a cost-effective solution that allows Indonesia to maximize its defense budget. Additionally, their flexible payment terms, including commodity barter deals involving palm oil and rubber, make these acquisitions more feasible,” he said.
The analyst dismissed suggestions that deepening defense ties with Russia signal a shift in Indonesia’s foreign policy.
“Indonesia’s non-aligned stance remains firm. Partnerships with Russia or any other nation are driven purely by strategic needs and are not indicative of bloc alignment,” he said.
Indonesia’s military modernization priorities include fighter jets, submarines, air defense systems, and attack helicopters but it is believed to be seeking other suppliers for big-ticket items.
Yet the Russia-Indonesia military ties seem likely to grow, especially in the maritime domain. This month, the two countries conducted their first joint naval exercises, titled “Orruda-2024,” in Surabaya.
Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA and BenarNews Staff.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has submitted a report on the state of press freedom and journalist safety in Kyrgyzstan to the United Nations Human Rights Council ahead of its 2025 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session.
CPJ’s submission, together with Austria-based human rights group Freedom for Eurasia and the Free Russia Foundation, highlights the sharp deterioration in media freedom in Kyrgyzstan, once vaunted as a relative Central Asian safe haven for free press, since the country’s 2020 UPR review.
Detained Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai testified on Wednesday for the first time in his trial on charges of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces”, telling a court he and his now-defunct newspaper had always stood for freedom.
Lai, 76, is facing charges under the 2020 National Security Law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony a year after it was rocked by anti-government protests. He faces life imprisonment.
“We were always in support of movements for freedom,” Lai, wearing a gray blazer and glasses, told the West Kowloon Magistrates Court, the Reuters news agency reported.
Scores of Lai’s supporters lined up outside the court in the rain early on Wednesday, hoping to get in to show their support, media reported.
The founder of the now-closed Apple Daily, a Chinese-language tabloid renowned for its pro-democracy views and criticism of Beijing, pleaded not guilty on Jan. 2 to “sedition” and “collusion” under the security law.
The United States, Britain and other Western countries have denounced Lai’s prosecution and called for his release.
Human rights groups say Lai’s trial is a “sham” and part of a broad crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong that has all but destroyed its reputation as the only place in Greater China where the rule of law and freedoms of speech and assembly were preserved.
The hearing comes a day after a Hong Kong court jailed 45 democracy supporters for up to 10 years for subversion at the end of the city’s biggest national security trial.
Those sentences drew international condemnation and calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the political crackdown in the city.
Trump vow
Lai is a British citizen who, despite being born in the southern province of Guangdong, has never held Chinese citizenship. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised concerns about Lai’s health when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday at a G20 meeting in Brazil.
Beijing said the 2020 security law was necessary to safeguard the Asian financial hub’s economic success.
But critics say crackdowns on dissent and press freedom that followed its introduction sounded the death knell for the “one country, two systems” formula under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, that was meant to safeguard freedoms not enjoyed elsewhere in China for 50 years.
Lai has been in prison for nearly four years. He was jailed for nearly six years in 2022 on a fraud conviction linked to his media business.
Lai has long advocated for the U.S. government, especially during the first term of President Donald Trump, to take a strong stance in supporting Hong Kong’s civil liberties, which he viewed as essential to the city’s role as a gateway between China and global markets.
Prosecutors, however, allege that Lai’s activities and his newspaper’s articles constituted lobbying for sanctions against Beijing and Hong Kong, a violation of the national security law. Lai’s lawyers argue that he ceased such actions after the law took effect on June 30, 2020.
Trump has vowed to secure Lai’s release, media reported.
During Trump’s first term, the U.S. revoked Hong Kong’s special trade status and enacted legislation allowing sanctions on the city’s officials in response to China’s crackdown on the city.
During the peak of the 2019 protests, Lai visited Washington and met then-Vice President Mike Pence and other U.S. politicians to discuss Hong Kong’s political crisis.
“Mr President, you’re the only one who can save us,” Lai said in an interview with CNN in 2020 weeks before his arrest.
“If you save us, you can stop China’s aggressions. You can also save the world.”
International media coverage of Aotearoa New Zealand’s national Hīkoi to Parliament has largely focused on the historic size of the turnout in Wellington yesterday and the wider contention between Māori and the Crown.
Some, including The New York Times, have also pointed out the recent swing right with the election of the coalition government as part of the reason for the unrest.
The Times article said New Zealand had veered “sharply right”, likening it to Donald Trump’s re-election.
“New Zealand bears little resemblance to the country recently led by Jacinda Ardern, whose brand of compassionate, progressive politics made her a global symbol of anti-Trump liberalism.”
The challenging of the rights of Māori was “driving a wedge into New Zealand society”, the article said.
“However, it has prompted widespread anger among the public, academics, lawyers and Māori rights groups who believe it is creating division, undermining the treaty, and damaging the relationship between Māori and ruling authorities,” it said.
‘Critical moment’
Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT World said New Zealand “faces a critical moment in its journey toward reconciling with its Indigenous population”.
New Zealand MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performed a haka in a powerful speech during her first appearance in parliament.
Maipi-Clarke is Aotearoa’s youngest MP since 1853 and is seen as representing the ‘kohanga reo’ generation of young Māori. pic.twitter.com/sWwbS1FsBI
While Al Jazeera agreed it was “a contentious bill redefining the country’s founding agreement between the British and the Indigenous Māori people”.
The Washington Post pointed out that the “bill is deeply unpopular, even among members of the ruling conservative coalition”.
“While the bill would not rewrite the treaty itself, it would essentially extend it equally to all New Zealanders, which critics say would effectively render the treaty worthless,” the article said.
The Hīkoi, and particularly the culmination of more than 42,000 people at Parliament, was covered in most of the mainstream international media outlets including Britain’s BBC and CNN in the United States, as well as wire agencies, including AFP, AP and Reuters.
Across the Ditch, the ABC headline called it a “flashpoint” on race relations. While the article went on to say it was “a critical moment in the fraught 180-year-old conversation about how New Zealand should honour the promises made to First Nations people when the country was colonised”.
More than 35,000 people today gathered as Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hīkoi mō te Tiriti overflowed from Parliament’s grounds and onto nearby streets in the capital Wellington Pōneke.
Eru Kapa-Kingi told the crowd “Māori nation has been born” today and that “Te Tiriti is forever”.
ACT leader David Seymour was met with chants of “Kill the bill, kill the bill” when he walked out of the Beehive for a brief appearance at Parliament’s forecourt, before waving to the crowd and returning into the building.
The Treaty Principles Bill architect, Seymour, said he supported the right to protest, but thought participants were misguided and had a range of different grievances.
Interviewed earlier before Question Time, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was up to Parliament’s justice committee to decide whether the select committee process on the Treaty Principles Bill should be shortened.
The select committee will receive public submissions until January 7, and intends to complete hearings by the end of February.
Waitangi Day uncertainty
It means the Prime Minister will head to Waitangi while submissions on the bill are still happening.
Luxon was asked whether he would prefer if the bill was disposed of before Waitangi Day commemorations on February 6
“It’ll be what it will be.
“Let’s be clear — there is a strong depth of emotion on all sides of this debate.
“Yes, [the bill] is not something I like or support, but we have come to a compromise.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
We go now to Deir al-Balah in Gaza, where we’re joined by Arwa Damon, founder of INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza. She previously spent 18 years at CNN, including time as a senior international correspondent.
Thanks so much for being with us, Arwa. This is your fourth trip back to Gaza since October 7, 2023. Tell us what you see there:
ARWA DAMON: You know, Amy, you think you can’t get worse, and then it does. You think people, quite simply, could never cope with these deteriorating conditions, and yet somehow they do. It’s a situation that they have been forced into.
Arguably, the conditions when it comes to access of humanitarian organisations and our ability to distribute aid, aid actually getting into the strip, we’re talking about the lowest levels yet. And this is exactly during the timeframe that the US had given to Israel to actually improve the situation. We’ve seen it getting significantly worse.
We’re not just talking about a shortage in things like flour, food, water, fresh vegetables, you know, hygiene kits. We’re also talking about shortages in what’s available on the commercial market. So, even if you somehow had money to be able to go buy what you need, it quite simply isn’t here.
These hospitals that we keep talking about as being partially functioning, what does that actually mean? It means that if you show up bleeding, someone inside is going to try to stop the bleed, but do they actually have what they need to save your life? No. I was inside visiting some kids here at Al-Aqsa earlier today and over the weekend.
There’s a little 2-year-old boy here whose brain you can see pulsing through his skin. His skull bone was removed. This little boy was not stabilising properly because the ICU was missing a pediatric-sized tracheostomy tube. Now, luckily, we were able to, you know, source some of them, and he has now stabilised, and he is off the ventilator.
Palestinians feel they are being ‘slowly exterminated’. Video: Democracy Now!
But this really gives you an idea of just how serious the situation here is.
People are gathering to demonstrate for things like flour, for bread, for whatever it is that you can imagine. Winter is coming. The rains are coming. This means flooding is coming.
And on top of just, you know, water flooding, we’re also anticipating that the sewage sites are going to be flooding, as well. Aid organizations need to be able to have the capacity and the ability to, you know, shift those sites to areas where they’re not going to pose even more of a health hazard to the community.
So, I mean, it’s a complete and total nightmare. It’s beyond being a nightmare.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about this latest report? The special UN committee says Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” coming at the same time as a Human Rights Watch report, and UNRWA talks about famine being imminent in northern Gaza.
ARWA DAMON: So, if we’re talking specifically about the north, the northern province of Gaza, this is an area where Israel launched its military operation there nearly four weeks ago. We have seen people repeatedly being forcibly displaced from their homes. There is very little access to medical assistance there.
There has been absolutely no humanitarian assistance delivered there for about the last month. People are starving. They are dying. And it’s not just bombs that are killing people, it’s also disease.
‘Bombs kill quickly, but disease and starvation, they are slow killers. And that is what a lot of people are facing here.’
— Arwa Damon, founder of INARA,
So, when we look at the nature of what is happening in Gaza, you can’t spend a day here, Amy, and not come away with the notion that you are witnessing a population that is being slowly exterminated. And I say “slowly” because, yes, bombs kill quickly, but disease and starvation, they are slow killers. And that is what a lot of people are facing here.
And talk to anybody in Gaza, and there’s absolutely no doubt in their mind that, one, they are living through their own annihilation, and, two, what Israel is doing in the northern part is going to be repeated elsewhere.
And this is also part of why you see a reluctance among the population to want to evacuate, because Gazans know, Palestinians know that when they leave, they’re not going to be able to go back home. This is what history has taught them.
And there is this very real, ingrained fear among the population here right now that what they’re going through at this moment is not the end. There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.
And they feel completely and totally abandoned by the international community, by global leaders, not to mention the United States. And everyone is convinced that right now Israel is going to have even more free rein to do whatever it is that it wants here.
When you talk to people about what it is that they’re going through, they do feel as if every single aspect of trying to survive here has been carefully orchestrated by Israel so that it is able to sort of meet America’s bare minimum of standards, to allow America sufficient cover to say, “Oh, no, there’s improvement that’s happening.”
And yet, actually, at the core of it is just another way to continue to kill the population.
AMY GOODMAN: And as you talk about the United States, which has given tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, they did recently set a 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza, but the US has decided to keep arming Israel despite this and despite the number of officials in the State Department and other parts of the US government who have quit over this.
ARWA DAMON: Yeah, and let’s just look at the numbers. Let’s just look at what happened when the US started the clock for that 30-day deadline to improve humanitarian assistance. We saw, very shortly afterwards, the number of trucks accessing Gaza dip significantly, down to 30 a day, keeping in mind that one of the key demands that the US had was that aid be increased to at least 350 trucks.
So we saw this, you know, decrease consistent of roughly 30 trucks a day for most of the month of October. Now, in November, that number did go up to around 60-70, but we’re still talking about, you know, falling extraordinarily short, providing barely 20% of what it is that the population here needs.
We saw less access to these besieged areas in the north, where people are effectively trapped or having to basically risk their lives. We’ve had numerous instances where aid has been delivered to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north, for example, where, shortly after medical evacuation teams have arrived there, there have been strikes.
You have this very ingrained fear that exists among people right now, especially in the north, where some of them are saying, “Don’t deliver anything, because right after you’re delivering, strikes are happening.”
And just to illustrate how it is that we try to move, so if we’re moving from south to north, for example, or even if we’re moving within the northern areas, those movement requests have to be approved by Israel. And aid organisations are increasingly wary of moving around with what we call soft-skin cars, which is basically your normal vehicle that we use to move around in, because of the increasing frequency of instances at Israeli checkpoints where aid convoys have been shot at by IDF troops after receiving the green light.
The OK to cross through, which means that for a lot of aid organizations, movement is limited to those who have access to armoured vehicles, vehicles that are more secure. And those don’t really exist in Gaza in high numbers at all. And we’re not allowed to bring in more to sort of beef up our capacity to be able to move around safely.
I mean, no matter which way you look at it, Amy, you’re constantly faced by numerous obstacles that don’t need to be there. It feels very deliberate, not to mention the complete and total breakdown of security. Now we have numerous looting instances of aid trucks.
We’ve repeatedly asked the Israeli side to be able to use alternative routes, to be able to use secured routes. Those requests are not being met.
I mean, it’s just — it’s such an impossible situation to operate in. I feel like I keep saying the same thing over and over and over again each time I come in. And the words to demonstrate how much worse it’s getting, quite simply, lack in our vocabulary.
AMY GOODMAN: You also wrote a piece recently, “The Devastation of Lebanon,” for New Lines. And we had this headline, The Washington Post reporting a close aide to Netanyahu told Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon as a gift to Trump ahead of his January inauguration. Your response to the significance of Trump’s election and what it means to the people of Lebanon and Gaza?
ARWA DAMON: You know, first of all, anyone who lives in the Middle East and anyone who’s kind of been focusing on the Middle East knows very well that it really doesn’t matter who’s in the White House. Whether it’s Republican or Democrat, that really is not going to change significantly US policy towards this region.
But the thing that we’ve been hearing, specifically when it comes to the re-election of Donald Trump, is at least he’s not lying to us. At least whatever America is going to let Israel do, it’s going to be done faster. So, if our end is coming, at least it’s going to come faster.
Whereas when it comes to, you know, specifically the Biden administration, the sense is that the Democrats are far more willing to allow this slower, more painful death. But the end result, no matter who it is, people are fully convinced, is exactly the same.
And all people really want right now is for this to end. People are suffocated. They’re crushed. They cannot keep going like this. And they very much feel as if, you know, no matter what it is, no matter who it is, Arabs are viewed by the United States and by the Western world as somehow being less than . . . their lives are not that valuable.
You constantly hear people in Gaza — and we were hearing the same thing in Lebanon — making comments like, “Well, you know, America, it doesn’t care if we live or die. It doesn’t care how much we suffer. Our lives don’t matter to them.” And that is not really a perspective that changes all that much, no matter who is sitting in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, Arwa. Why did you give up journalism for humanitarian work? What do you think you can accomplish at INARA that you couldn’t do as a journalist?
ARWA DAMON: There’s a certain sort of privilege of being able to spend extensive periods of time with people and really get to know who they are. And I feel as if, you know, moving around in the humanitarian sphere, I’m getting a different understanding of sort of people’s emotional journeys, what it actually takes to be able to provide them with assistance.
And it’s provided me a different way of being able to continue to sort of share people’s stories and experiences, but also be able to immediately at least try to provide assistance. You know, the challenge that we have when we’re out in the field as journalists is that you don’t always see the impact.
But when you’re in the humanitarian space, there’s a certain kind of magic when you’re able to just bring a smile to a child’s face. And I needed that.
AMY GOODMAN: Arwa Damon, we thank you so much for being with us. Stay safe. An award-winning journalist, she was with CNN for 18 years but now has founded INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza, speaking to us from Deir al-Balah in Gaza outside Al-Aqsa Hospital.
This article is republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.
By Georgia Brown, Queensland University of Technology
Fijian newsrooms are under pressure to adapt as audiences shift away from traditional media such as newspapers, radio, and television, in favour of Facebook and other social media platforms.
Radio and television still exceeded Facebook, but surveys during the pandemic reveal the increasing significance of Facebook and other social media, such as Twitter, YouTube and TikTok as widely used sources of news, particularly for Fijians younger than 45.
A survey revealed that of Fiji’s 924,610 population, 551,000 were social media users in January 2023. Facebook, the country’s most popular platform, limits access to people aged 13 and older. Of those eligible in Fiji to create an account in 2023, 71 percent used Facebook.
Australian National University researcher Jope Tarai attributes the rise in social media usage in the 2010s to the 2006 coup and subsequent change in Fijian leadership, suggesting it “cultivated a culture of self-censorship”.
“The constrained political context saw the emergence of blogging as a means of disseminating restricted information that would have conventionally informed news reporting,” Tarai says.
Tarai says concerns about credibility of blogs meant this avenue was replaced by Facebook, “which was more interactive, accessible via handheld devices and instantaneous”.
Increased media freedom
With the increased media freedoms that have arisen following Fiji’s change in government at the end of 2022, newspapers and other traditional newsrooms should be poised to reassert themselves, but they face significant challenges due to the global shift in how people consume information.
As audiences migrate to newer digital platforms, newsrooms that have traditionally depended on physical newspaper sales and advertising revenue are now under increasing pressure to adapt.
Fiji Times editor-in-chief Fred Wesley says news outlets are struggling to capture the attention of younger audiences through conventional formats, prompting a shift towards social media platforms to enhance audience engagement and boost traffic.
“Young people are not going to news websites or reading physical papers,” he says. “Young people are getting their news from social media.”
The University of the South Pacific’s technical editor and digital communication officer, Eliki Drugunalevu, says he has observed a growing preference among the general Fijian population for receiving news through social media as opposed to traditional outlets.
“When people refer to a certain news item that came out that day or even the previous day, they just go to their social media pages and search for that news item or even go to the social media page of that particular news outlet to read/access that story,” he says.
Drugunalevu identifies two contributors to this shift.
‘At your fingertips’
“Everything is just at your fingertips, easily accessible,” he says. “Internet charges in Fiji are affordable now so that you can pretty much be online 24/7.”
Newsrooms across Fiji are not oblivious to this shift. Editors and journalists are recalibrating their strategies to meet the demands of a digital audience.
Islands Business managing editor Samantha Magick says the abundance of readily available online content has resulted in young people refraining from paying for it.
“I think there’s a generational shift. My daughter would never pay for any news, would never buy a newspaper to start with. She would probably never think about paying for media, unless its Netflix,” she says.
However, Magick believes social media can be leveraged to fulfil evolving audience demands while offering fresh advantages to her organisation.
“Social media for us is a funnel to get people to our website or to subscribe,” she says. “Facebook is still huge in the region, not just in Fiji [and] that’s where a lot of community discussions are happening, so it’s a source as well as a platform for us.”
Magick says incorporating social media in her organisation requires her to stay more vigilant on analytics, as it significantly influences her decision-making processes.
‘Understanding content’s landing’
“There’s all that sort of analytic stuff that I feel now I have to be much more across whereas before it was just generating the content. Now it’s understanding how that content’s landing, who’s seeing it, making decisions based on that,” she says.
Fiji TV digital media specialist Edna Low says social media data analytics like engagement and click-through rates provide valuable insight into audience preferences, behaviours and demographics.
“Social media platforms often dictate what topics are trending and what content resonates with audiences, which can shape editorial decisions and coverage priorities,” she says.
Fiji TV’s director of news, current affairs and sports, Felix Chaudhary, echoes this.
“We realise the critical importance of engaging with our viewers and potential viewers via online platforms,” he says. “All our new recruits/interns have to be internet and social media savvy.”
Transitioning his organisation to a fully online model is the path forward in the digital era, Chaudhary says.
“Like the world’s biggest news services, we are looking in the next five to ten years to transitioning from traditional TV broadcast to streaming all our news and shows,” he says. “The world is already moving towards that, and we just have to follow suit or get left behind.”
It is clear that newsrooms and journalists must either navigate the evolving digital trends and preferences of audiences or risk becoming old news.
Catrin Gardiner contributed research to this story. Georgia Brown and Catrin Gardiner were student journalists from the Queensland University of Technology who travelled to Fiji with the support of the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan Mobility Programme. This article is published in a partnership of QUT with Asia Pacific Report, Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and The University of the South Pacific.
Imagine an experienced Ukrainian surgeon breaking down in front of a committee of British MPs as he related how Russian forces had been deliberately targeting Ukrainian children.
Imagine the surgeon had had to operate in desperate conditions on young children who had been lying injured after a Russian bombing attack and who were then ‘picked off’ by Russian drones. The atrocity claims would be headline news all across Western media.
Here, in the real world, the horrific testimony of a British surgeon who had operated on children in Gaza targeted by Israeli drones after Israeli bombing attacks– something that happened ‘day after day after day’ – has been largely blanked.
Professor Nizam Mamode, a retired NHS surgeon who recently returned after working at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, said he had ‘never seen anything on this scale, ever’. He has worked in a number of conflicts around the world, including the genocide in Rwanda.
Prof Mamode worked for a month between August and September as a volunteer for the charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians. In a hearing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, he told members of the UK parliamentary International Development Committee :
‘Drones would come down and pick off civilians, children. This is not an occasional thing. This was day after day after day operating on children who would say, “I was lying on the ground after a bomb dropped and this quadcopter [a small, remotely-piloted helicopter drone] came down and hovered over me and shot me”.’
Prof Mamode told MPs he saw children with sniper injuries to the head. He also noted that the pellets fired by most drones were more destructive than bullets which would go straight through a victim’s body. Instead, the pellets would bounce around inside bodies, creating much more extensive damage.
A seven-year-old boy, who had been caught up in an Israeli bombing and then deliberately hit by an Israeli drone, came into the hospital with his stomach hanging out of his chest. He had further injuries to his liver, spleen, bowel and arteries.
‘He survived that and went out a week later. Whether he is still alive, I don’t know.’
The surgeon broke down three times during his testimony. He described one case of an 8-year-old girl who was bleeding to death during surgery: ‘I asked for a swab and they said, “No more swabs”’.
Simple medical items, such as sterile gloves and painkillers, are in short supply because of Israel’s blocking of aid into Gaza, said Prof Mamode. This also applies to basic items like soap and shampoo, leading to unhygienic conditions.
He added:
‘I saw I don’t know how many wounds with maggots in [them]. One of my colleagues took maggots out of a child’s throat in intensive care. There were flies in operating theatre landing in wounds.’
He told MPs that he had spent the entire month in the hospital, partly because it was not safe to travel around. But also because, in January 2024, Israel had bombed the guest house used by Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The surgeon believes that this was done deliberately by Israeli forces:
‘All of those guest houses are in the Israeli army’s computers and are designated safe houses, so my assumption is that it was a deliberate attack and the aim behind it is to discourage aid workers from coming.’
He said the same applied to five Israeli attacks on UN convoys, including one while he was in Gaza.
Labour MP and committee chair Sarah Champion asked Prof Mamode if he meant that rogue snipers were shooting at the armoured vehicles.
‘No, no. This is the Israeli army coming up as a unit and deliberately shooting.’
Prof Mamode’s Palestinian colleagues told him that when Israeli forces attacked the hospital in February, they killed members of staff and deposited them in a mass grave with dead patients. Many other colleagues were taken away. The surgeon related one such case:
‘They [Israeli soldiers] just took him away and killed him. That’s what’s going on. As far as I can see, it doesn’t matter who you are in Gaza. If you are a Palestinian in Gaza, you are a target.’
‘The Committee will do all we can to act on Professor Mamode’s extraordinary testimony and ensure his experiences are heard loud and clear. If leaders are not yet listening, they should be by now.’
This should have generated massive coverage across national news media, with the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Minister David Lammy being bombarded by questions from journalists on what action the UK government would now take. Instead, there has been virtual silence. As far as we can tell, there was no broadcast coverage on BBC News, Sky News or ITV, although Channel 4 News did include an item on Prof Mamode’s testimony, at least on its X feed (we could not find a broadcast item, however, on the Channel 4 News programme catch-up page). We do not have the resources to monitor all television and radio programmes, so we cannot rule out that there was a passing mention on the BBC World Service or elsewhere.
Nor were there any editorials or significant coverage in major news reports in UK national newspapers. Prof Mamode’s appearance before the parliamentary committee was reported in a live Guardian blog about Gaza on 12 November, but his most compelling and harrowing evidence was omitted or glossed over. To his credit, Owen Jones mentioned the surgeon’s account in a Guardian opinion piece.
The appalling lack of serious coverage is actually highlighted by the fact that there was one article on the BBC News website about Prof Mamode’s testimony to the committee (we were alerted to it by a post on X by one of our followers). The article was titled, ‘Gaza surgeon describes drones targeting children’. As is often the case, the word ‘Israel’ or ‘Israeli’ – as in ‘Israeli drones’ – was missing from the headline. In other words, the perpetrator of violence was missing. Moreover, rather than refer to Prof Mamode as a British surgeon, he was labelled as a ‘Gaza surgeon’, perhaps implying that he was employed by the ‘Hamas-run health ministry’, the phrase that is routinely deployed in BBC News reports.
But here was the most glaring feature of the piece: rather than being placed on the front page or even somewhere in the section marked, ‘Israel-Gaza war’, a glaring misnomer for an ongoing genocide, it appeared deep inside the BBC’s ‘Local News’ category on the page for ‘Hampshire & Isle of Wight’. (As far as we know, it never appeared in a more prominent place on the BBC News website. But the fact that the bottom of the article contains the line, ‘Get in touch: Do you have a story BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight should cover?’, suggests that it was immediately placed in that section). The same treatment was afforded to an earlier BBC News article in October, shortly after the surgeon had returned from Gaza, but with the most disturbing details about the deliberate targeting of children omitted.
Why place such an important story in the ‘Hampshire & Isle Of Wight’ local news section of the BBC website? The ostensible reason is that Prof Mamode comes from Brockenhurst, a New Forest village in Hampshire. But surely the real reason was to minimise public attention and thus evade pressure from the powerful Israel lobby. After all, as we have mentioned before, senior BBC News staff have admitted to ‘waiting in fear for the phone call from the Israelis’. The Israel lobby’s weaponising of antisemitism, which was deployed to prevent Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, is being used to suppress or silence criticism of Israel. This has had a crippling effect on journalism and free speech.
Regular readers will recall the dearth of media coverage given to the harrowing testimony provided by Professor Nick Maynard, a UK surgeon who works as a consultant gastrointestinal surgeon at Oxford University Hospital, when he returned from Gaza earlier this year. He had described the clear, deliberate targeting of hospital and healthcare facilities; but also the actual execution of Palestinian surgeons and other medical staff.
In April, Prof Maynard said that Israeli forces are: ‘systematically targeting healthcare facilities, healthcare personnel and really dismantling the whole healthcare system.’
He described what had happened to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza where he had previously worked, and where around 400 Palestinians had reportedly been killed in a brutal two-week attack by Israeli forces:
‘Every single part of the hospital has been destroyed. The whole infrastructure of the hospital has been destroyed. When I spoke to Marwan [a Palestinian colleague] yesterday, he told me there were 107 patients, 60 medical staff. God only knows what has happened to them. I think we’ve seen some of the pictures. Surgeons I know have been executed in the last 48 hours there. Bodies have been discovered in the last 12-24 hours who had been handcuffed, with their hands behind their back. [Our added emphasis].’
He added: ‘And so, there is no doubt at all, that multiple healthcare workers have been executed there in the last few days.’
All of the above, taken together with the media’s recent gaslighting about a supposed ‘pogrom’ against rampaging Israeli football fans chanting genocidal, anti-Arab slogans in Amsterdam last week – disinformation expertly dissected by Richard Sanders for Double Down News – reveals like never before the monstrous, genocide-enabling reality of ‘mainstream’ news media.
Meanwhile, Israel appears able to continue unimpeded in its brutal drive towards a ‘Greater Israel’, openly espoused by Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians, which would require the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians ‘from the Jordan to the sea’.
A media studies professor at Qatar’s Doha Institute for Graduate Studies has completed empirical studies examining Western media coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza — and his findings have been highly critical.
Professor Mohamad Elmasry found that Western media have failed to do much more than “parrot Israeli propaganda regarding al-Shifa Hospital [in Gaza City] and the war more generally”.
Western news outlets, such as BBC, CNN, Sky News, MSNBC, Fox News — and others that are frequent sources of news in New Zealand — “tended to rely overwhelmingly on Israeli and pro-Israeli sources,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Palestinian sources were mostly neglected as were pro-Palestinian sources.
“It’s not a conspiracy; it’s not as though journalists are showing up to work and saying, ‘we’re really going to make the Israelis look good today’.
“But there is a structural problem [in the media] today,” Dr Elmasry added.
“Western news organisations simply do not get Israel-Palestine right.”
US ‘scoffs’ at international law
In a separate interview yesterday, Dr Elmasry blamed the United States for ignoring international law to lead the world to “where we are” over the ongoing Gaza genocide with no end in sight.
“About 95 percent of Israel’s weapons come from the United States and Germany, so as long as those countries scoff at the idea of international law, we won’t get anywhere with the calls for an arms embargo against Israel,” Dr Elmasry said.
Professor Mohamad Elmasry on why there is a stalemate over Gaza genocide. Video: Al Jazeera
“There has been a suggestion that there might be a draft resolution put forward at the United Nations Security Council,” he added.
“There is no question in my mind that nearly all of the countries on the Security Council would support that resolution”.
All countries except for the US, Dr Elmasry added.
“There is also no question in my mind that the United States would veto it, so one of the reasons why we are where we are is because of the United States.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined two other press freedom organizations in calling on authorities in Guinea-Bissau to accept and implement recommendations to improve its press freedom record at the country’s January 2025 Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
The UPR is a peer review mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council, through which the human rights records of the Council’s member states are reviewed every 4.5 years, and recommendations are made for improvement.
Since January 2020, authorities in Guinea-Bissau have undermined press freedom through physical and verbal attacks, arbitrary detention of journalists, and legal harassment, according to the October 2024 submission by CPJ, the local journalists’ union (Sinjotecs), and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
The three organizations recommend that Guinea-Bissau improve its press freedom record by investigating and ensuring accountability for past attacks on the press, ending arbitrary detentions and media shutdowns, repealing laws that criminalize journalism, and allowing the press to establish self-regulatory mechanisms.
Local Government NZ, a body representing most councils, said the programme should be expanded to all communities.
“Community newspapers have long played a key role in councils sharing what’s happening locally — from roading, parks and emergency management to big decisions about the future of their region,” LGNZ president Sam Broughton said in a statement.
Broughton was concerned NZME’s plan to shut 14 papers would have a devastating impact on a combined 850,000 readers.
“We are concerned that a move like this could have a negative impact on turnout in next year’s local elections.”
Isolating rural communities
Central Hawke’s Bay mayor Alex Walker said the lack of news coverage would isolate rural communities.
“The axeing of the 14 newspapers would mean that communities like Hawke’s Bay are left with a single subscription-only news outlet, that’s focused more on urban areas,” she said.
“These newspapers are also an effective two-way communication tool between council and the people they serve; particularly our older or more remote population who do not always have access to electronic media.”
The group suggested that the LDR programme’s scope be expanded to cover the rest of the country.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
In times of war the corporate media play a salient role in shaping public opinion. There are worthy and unworthy victims. Muslims, Arabs, and Iranians generally fall into that latter category whereas Washington and its allies are worthy victims that we support and empathize with. The current phase of the Gaza war did not begin on October 7 as the media repeat ad nauseum. But to dig into the underlying causes and provide context and history rarely occurs because it would undermine the dominant propaganda. Thus the Norah O’Donnells, Wolf Blitzers, Lester Holts and other corporate news anchors don’t question the embedded assumptions and simply mimic, with few exceptions, the dominant official line. Interviewed by David Barsamian.
This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.
Berlin, November 14, 2024—A local business owner and his security guards insulted and attacked journalist Ana Raičković after following her and her family to their car outside a restaurant in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, on Sunday, November 10.
One man grabbed Raičković, editor for online newspaper Pobjeda, by her throat and threatened her and her family with physical violence and death; another grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head against the car door. Raičković filed a report with police the night of the attack, and police arrested three suspects.
“It is a welcome development that Montenegrin authorities acted swiftly in response to the physical attack against journalist Ana Raičković. They must now ensure that all those responsible are held accountable,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Threatening or attacking a journalist because of their reporting is completely unacceptable. Montenegrin authorities must send a clear signal that violence against journalists will not be tolerated.”
Pobjeda reported that the attack was in response to Raičković’s reporting and TV appearances. about the business owner’s dealings and court cases.
She was treated in an emergency room for neck bruising, head lacerations, and a swollen arm.
The independent trade group Trade Union of Media of Montenegro said the business owner has a “history of aggression towards journalists” and that the police investigation of previous threats he made against a journalist in 2019 ended without “criminal or misdemeanor responsibility.”
CPJ’s email to the press department of the Ministry of the Interior in Podgorica did not receive a reply.
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New Zealand MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performed a haka in a powerful speech during her first appearance in parliament.