About 25 pro-Palestinian protesters picketed the Auckland headquarters of Radio New Zealand today in the second of two demonstrations claiming that media is providing biased coverage of Israeli’s war on Gaza that is now in its fifth month.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott called on RNZ and other media to “tell the full truth” about the Israeli genocide in Gaza that has so far killed 30,800 people, mostly women and children.
Protesters also picketed several media offices in Australian cities today, condemning coverage by the public broadcaster ABC.
‘Selective’ news
In a street placard headlined “Silence is complicity”, the protesters said that New Zealand media “selectively chooses” what was reported and broadcast BBC news feeds that were ‘inaccurate and misleading”.
“The media sculpts information to create public perceptions rather than informing people of the facts,” Scott said.
He said that news media refused to tell New Zealanders about Palestinian rights such as the “right of the occupied to fight occupation”, and that the occupier — Israel — was obligated to provide for the needs of the people under occupation, such as food, water and health.
A Palestinian “silence is complicity” placard outside the foyer of the RNZ House in Auckland’s Hobson Street today. Image: APR
Scott also said Palestinians had the right not to be arrested and held without charge, trial or conviction — and a large number of Palestinian detainees were being held under “administrative detention”, effectively Israeli hostages.
Scott said that there had been more than 20 weeks of rallies and vigils against the war in New Zealand, “averaging 25 rallies and events per week”, but they had been barely covered by media.
In Sydney, high profile Australian-Lebanese broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf, who has publicly challenged the ABC over its coverage and was ousted for perceived sympathy for the Palestinian plight, said she was “incredibly humbled and moved” by the demonstrations in front of ABC studios.
Incredibly humbled and moved to see many demonstrations of support today. Outside of FWC in Sydney but also in front of ABC studios across various cities and regions in Australia.
This legal process has been incredibly hard, and the support means more than I can express pic.twitter.com/lOcXz3kmf1
— Antoinette Lattouf (@antoinette_news) March 8, 2024
Tonga has been locked in a political standoff between the country’s King Tupou VI and Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni Hu’akavameiliku which erupted into a heated row in Parliament this week with two MPs being suspended. Here Kaniva News editor Kalino Latu gives his recent reaction to an ultimatum by the Tongan nobles.
EDITORIAL:By Kalino Latu, editor of Kaniva Tonga
Tonga’s nobles have demanded the Prime Minister and his Minister of Foreign Affairs resign immediately in order to assuage King Tupou VI’s disappointment with their ministerial roles.
The letter, which was purportedly signed by Lord Tu’ivakanō, described Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku’s refusal to accept the King’s show of power as very concerning and intimidating the peace of the country.
“We are the king’s cultural preservers (‘aofivala). Therefore, we propose that you and your government respect the king’s desire,” the letter read in Tongan.
“The king has withdrawn his confidence and consent from you as Defence Minister as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Tourism Fekitamoeloa ‘Utoikamanu.
“We urge you to resign immediately from the Ministry of Defence as well as Fekitamoeloa ‘Utoikamanu to resign from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tourism”.
The letter demanded a response from the Prime Minister no later than February 27.
The letter came after the King said earlier this month in a memo that he no longer supported Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku as the Minister for His Majesty’s Armed Forces and Hon. Fekitamoeloa Katoa ‘Utoikamanu as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Tourism.
PM still confident
Responding, the government said the Prime Minister was still confident in the Minister of Foreign Affairs and that the King’s wish clashed with the Constitution.
While the King’s nobles are free to express their opinion on the issue, some people may think that the lack of references to the Constitution to support their argument in their letter was more provoking and inciting than what they allege Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku has done.
This is because the Prime Minister said he was responding according to what the related clause in the Constitution said about His Majesty’s concerns. It is the Constitution which ensures that those who make decisions are making them on behalf of the public and will be held accountable to the people they serve.
Some people may see that the nobility’s departure from the constitution and citing the Tongan practice of faka’apa’apa’i e finangalo ‘o e tu’i (respecting the King’s wish) means the nobles are urging us to dump Tonga’s Constitution and live by the law of the jungle in which those who are strong and apply ruthless self-interest are most successful.
Our Tongan tradition of faka’apa’apa (respect the King no matter what) has no clear system of rules, limits and boundaries for us to follow, which leaves the door open for the powerful to practice immorality and unlawful activities.
Since the King’s memo was leaked to the public, some have argued that it was explicitly unconstitutional. There is nothing in the Constitution to say that the King has to show that he gives his consent or has confidence in a ministerial nominee proposed by the Prime Minister before he appoints them.
Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku . . . under royal pressure. Image: Kaniva News
However, some argued that there was nothing wrong with the King expressing his wish as he did to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The problem with this kind of attitude is that it urges the King to publicly show his disagreement with the Constitution whenever he wants.
Breaching royal oath?
The King could be seen in such a situation to be breaching his royal oath which, according to the Constitution, clause 34, says: “I solemnly swear before Almighty God to keep in its integrity the Constitution of Tonga and to govern in conformity with the laws thereof.”
The word “integrity” included in the Constitution is worth mentioning here.
It is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as: “The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change”.
Some people may believe that for the King to have integrity in the constitution, he must have a strong sense of judgment and trust in his own accord.
To keep the Constitution honest the King must desist from saying things to the public which are not written in the Constitution and may cause concern and confusion.
The best example was his memo. It has caused a stir among the public but what was most concerning is that no one knows what was the reason behind the King’s withdrawal of his consent and confidence in the Prime Minister and his Minister of Foreign Affairs.
We have previously seen His Majesty make several wrong decisions which are said to have been influenced by his Privy Councillors or his nobility members, including Lord Tu’aivakanō’s abortive advice to dissolve the government in 2017.
Do the right thing
The nobility must do the right thing and advise the King according to the Constitution and not our old fashioned cultural practices.
It was the Tu’ivakano government which hired Commonwealth Legal Consultant Peter Pursgloves to review our 2010 constitution, which he said was the “poorest written Constitution” among all Commonwealth countries.
The Tu’ivakanō government vowed to follow Pursglove’s report and made significant changes to the Constitution which was said to have been agreed by the King in 2014.
When the ‘Akilisi Pohiva government ousted the Tu’ivakanō government in late 2014 they processed the Pursglove report and submitted it to Parliament through six new bills to be approved. However, it was the same people in the Tu’ivakanō government who strongly opposed the submission from the Opposition bench. They went further and falsely accused Pōhiva of secretly trying to remove some of the King’s powers.
Critics argued that this was because of the nobility’s long-time hatred against Pōhiva because of his tireless campaign to remove the executive power of the King and give it to a democratic government.
The nobles later apologised and withdrew their accusation against Pōhiva in the House after months of debates and public consultations. They finally said they wanted to support the submission after Pōhiva revealed in the House his government has lodged an application for a judicial review of the decision made by Lord Tu’ilakepa to block the new bills.
That submission has yet to be approved by the House and the nobility has a duty to push for it to be approved. This would bring Tonga a more democratic system that would help keep the King and the government at peace.
The nobles must refrain from using cultural practices to resolve our constitutional issues as that would send us back to the dark ages.
This editorial was published by Kaniva Tonga on February 29 and is published by Asia Pacific Report with permission.
The Israeli army has raided dozens of homes in the West Bank and detained 20 Palestinians, including two women — journalist Bushra al-Taweel and activist Sumood Muteer.
Quoting witness accounts, Quds News Network reported that al-Taweel was beaten up by an officer who insulted her before she was arrested.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said 57 journalists have been detained since October 7, with 38 of them still in jail. The organisation added that 22 of them were detained without charge.
Since October 7, at least 424 Palestinians, including 113 minors, three women and 12 prisoners in Israeli custody, have been killed in the West Bank alone.
At least 7450 Palestinians have been detained since the start of the war in Gaza.
Female Palestinian journalist and ex-prisoner Bushra Tawil was arrested by Israeli occupation soldiers last night during a raid into the city of Al-Bireh in the occupied West Bank.
According to eyewitnesses, Al-Tawil was subjected to a brutal attack by soldiers during a field… pic.twitter.com/59aRvQLrgA
The Israeli army targeted a group of journalists including AlJazeera’s crew, a colleague from another agency was killed and two of our colleagues at Aljazeera were injured, along with several others.
An Israeli tank crew fired shells at a clearly marked group of journalists near the border, killing one Reuters reporter and wounding six others, including two Al Jazeera reporters and an Agence France-Presse reporter.
An analysis by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), commissioned by Reuters, has found that the journalists were also targeted with machineguns, likely fired by the same Israeli forces.
“It is considered a likely scenario that a Merkava tank, after firing two tank rounds, also used its machine gun against the location of the journalists,” TNO’s report said.
“The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of [the machinegun] fire could not be established.”
AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd, reacting to the finding, said: “If reports of sustained machine gun fire are confirmed, this would add more weight to the theory this was a targeted and deliberate attack.”
The Israeli army has raided dozens of homes in the West Bank and detained 20 Palestinians, including two women — journalist Bushra al-Taweel and activist Sumood Muteer.
Quoting witness accounts, Quds News Network reported that al-Taweel was beaten up by an officer who insulted her before she was arrested.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said 57 journalists have been detained since October 7, with 38 of them still in jail. The organisation added that 22 of them were detained without charge.
Since October 7, at least 424 Palestinians, including 113 minors, three women and 12 prisoners in Israeli custody, have been killed in the West Bank alone.
At least 7450 Palestinians have been detained since the start of the war in Gaza.
Female Palestinian journalist and ex-prisoner Bushra Tawil was arrested by Israeli occupation soldiers last night during a raid into the city of Al-Bireh in the occupied West Bank.
According to eyewitnesses, Al-Tawil was subjected to a brutal attack by soldiers during a field… pic.twitter.com/59aRvQLrgA
The Israeli army targeted a group of journalists including AlJazeera’s crew, a colleague from another agency was killed and two of our colleagues at Aljazeera were injured, along with several others.
An Israeli tank crew fired shells at a clearly marked group of journalists near the border, killing one Reuters reporter and wounding six others, including two Al Jazeera reporters and an Agence France-Presse reporter.
An analysis by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), commissioned by Reuters, has found that the journalists were also targeted with machineguns, likely fired by the same Israeli forces.
“It is considered a likely scenario that a Merkava tank, after firing two tank rounds, also used its machine gun against the location of the journalists,” TNO’s report said.
“The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of [the machinegun] fire could not be established.”
AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd, reacting to the finding, said: “If reports of sustained machine gun fire are confirmed, this would add more weight to the theory this was a targeted and deliberate attack.”
America’s Lawyer E88: Jon Stewart returned to the Daily Show recently and immediately drew the wrath of Democrats who don’t want to hear any criticism of President Biden’s age. We’ll tell you why ignoring this problem isn’t going to make it go away. Corporate media outlets are preparing for a big pay day with election […]
Television New Zealand will start talks from tomorrow with staff who will lose their jobs in the state broadcaster’s bid to stay “sustainable”.
It is proposed that up to 68 jobs will be cut which equates to 9 percent of its staff.
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell told staff today that “tough economic conditions and structural challenges within the media sector” have hit the company’s revenue.
She said “difficult choices need to be made” to ensure the broadcaster remained “sustainable”.
Changes like those proposed today were incredibly hard, but TVNZ needed to ensure it was in a stronger position to transform the business to meet the needs of viewers in a digital world.
RNZ understands a hui for all TVNZ news and current affairs staff will be held at 1pm tomorrow. This follows separate morning meetings for Re: News, Fair Go, and Sunday.
A TVNZ staffer told RNZ it was not yet clear what the meetings meant for those programmes — whether they were to be fully cut or face significant redundancies.
RNZ also understands 1News Tonight might also be affected.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said of the job cuts: “It’s incredibly unsettling”.
He said he felt for the staff there and acknowledged some would be at his media standup in Wellington.
Luxon said all media companies here and around the world were wrestling with a changing media environment.
Minister Shane Jones interrupted and said “a vibrant economy will be good for the media, bye bye”.
More than TVNZ 60 roles to go with 6pm news & current affairs threatened. Increasingly hard for free to air public broadcasters to survive commercially. Time to bite bullet & accept that as with BBC & Oz ABC, public broadcasting needs 2 be publicly funded? https://t.co/oL7awc7ag2
Former prime minister Helen Clark said on X it was becoming increasingly hard for free to air public broadcasters to survive commercially.
She asked if it was time to accept that, as with the BBC and ABC, public broadcasting should be publicly funded.
‘Dire implications for our democracy’ Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo said the news of jobs possibly being axed was “awful”.
“It’s devastating not just for our business, it’s devastating for what it means for our wider society.”
She said along with the likely demise of Newshub it had “dire implications for our democracy”.
When cuts were being made in news programmes at the state broadcaster that indicated how dire things had become.
“I’m very very concerned about what the landscape looks like going forward.”
A TVNZ news staffer who spoke to RNZ on the condition of anonymity said the most disappointing part of the process was finding out there would be job cuts via other media, such as RNZ and The New Zealand Herald.
“Our bosses didn’t have the decency to be transparent about what was going on. You know, they say that they’ve been forthcoming over the past month over what’s going to happen in this company and whatnot — they haven’t.
‘What sort of vision?’
“So it’ll be an interesting day tomorrow to see how widely the team’s affected, and to see what sort of vision they have for TVNZ, because in the time that I’ve been working there they keep talking about this digital transformation, and I haven’t seen any transformation yet.”
The mood among current staff this morning was “pretty pissy”, particularly from those affected.
“Obviously, not impressed,” the person said.
Media commentator Duncan Greive said some TVNZ staff were hopeful an argument could be made against the job losses.
Greive, who also founded The Spinoff, told RNZ’s Midday Report TVNZ staff working on Fair Go, Sunday and Re: News were invited to meetings today, and told to bring support people.
He said staff have told him the news was devastating, but said they didn’t yet know how deep and widespread the cuts would be — leaving them hopeful their teams would not be as impacted on as they feared.
Meanwhile, an organisation supporting news media staff said the hundreds of people facing redunancy would struggle to find new work in the industry.
Deeply unsettling
Media chaplaincy general manager Elesha Gordon said it was deeply unsettling for those whose livelihoods were on the line.
She said 368 people (from Newshub and TVNZ) with very specialised skillsets would be stepping out into an industry that would not have jobs for them.
Gordon said the proposed cuts were a “cruel and unfair symptom” of the industry’s financial state.
Last week, TVNZ flagged further cost cutting as it posted a first half-year loss linked to reduced revenue and asset write-offs.
Its net loss for the six months ended December was $16.8m compared to a profit of $4.8m the year before.
O’Donnell said the broadcaster’s management had tried to cut operating costs over the last year but there was now no option other than to look at job losses.
‘No easy answers’
“There are no easy answers, and media organisations locally and globally are grappling with the same issues. Our priority is to support our people through the change process — we’ll take the next few weeks to collect, consider and respond to feedback from TVNZers before making any final decisions.”
A confirmed structure is expected to be finalised by early April.
TVNZ staff arrive to hear the news from their bosses. Image: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee told RNZ Checkpoint yesterday she had spoken to TVNZ bosses last week but it was not up to her to reveal details of the conversation.
She declined to comment on Newshub’s offer to TVNZ to team up in some ways to cut costs, nor suggestions TVNZ could cut its 6pm news to half-an-hour or cancel current affairs programming.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A report by a media watchdog has revealed the United Kingdom’s media bias in covering the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel’s five-month genocidal bombardment and ground assault in response.
“Much of the news coverage of 7 October refers to Hamas’s attacks on Southern Israel as ground zero, with guests or commentators who try and explain the 75-year-old occupation of Palestine being accused by some presenters and columnists as justifying the attacks,” the report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) said.
By ignoring the context and history of the occupation of Palestine and Gaza in particular, the report said the media landscape had been “favourable to an Israeli narrative which has constantly promoted the attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank as a war between light and darkness”, reports Al Jazeera.
Titled “Media Bias Gaza 2023-24”, the report also called out treating the Israeli military as a “credible source” without subjecting it to further verification as “one of the glaring failures of journalists and media outlets”.
Cover of the Media Bias Gaza 2023-24 report . . . latest publication on Israel’s “favourable narrative” in the media.
Difference in the use of language has also been a regular feature of coverage, the report says, with Palestinian deaths often underplayed compared with those of Israelis.
Pro-Palestinian voices and activists have been routinely denounced, misrepresented and targeted by many national media outlets, it says.
The report adds that the right-wing media have been particularly hostile towards pro-Palestinian voices, framing them as supporters of terrorism and anti-Semites as well as being hostile to British values.
Key findings include:
Language use: Emotive language describes Israelis as victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians.
Framing of events: Most TV channels overwhelmingly promote “Israel’s right” to defend itself, overshadowing Palestinian rights to defend itself and other rights by a ratio of 5 to 1.
In broadcast TV, Israeli perspectives were referenced almost three times more than Palestinian ones.
In online news, it was almost twice as much.
Contextual framing: 76 percent of online articles frame the conflict as an “Israel-Hamas war,” while only 24 percent mention “Palestine/Palestinian,” indicating a lack of context.
Misrepresentation and undermining: Pro-Palestinian voices face misrepresentation and vilification by media outlets, perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
Right-wing news channels and right-wing British publications were at the forefront of misrepresenting pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic, violent or pro-Hamas.
Fiji’s Women’s Minister Lynda Tabuya says the decision by the People’s Alliance executive council to remove her as deputy leader of the governing party is “unfair as it is based solely on allegations . . . generated by opponents from outside the party”.
Tabuya, who has been at the centre of an alleged sex and drug scandal with the sacked Education Minister Aseri Radrodro, was removed from the position on Monday.
According to the People’s Alliance, the scandal and associated allegations involving Tabuya had caused “potentially irreparable damage” to the party.
However, in a statement to RNZ Pacific today, Tabuya said she was “disappointed with the two lawyers in the legal and disciplinary subcommittee who have based their recommendations on allegations published on social media which is aimed to weaken the Coalition and weaken the party”.
“It is a dangerous precedent to set that by applying the constitution of the party they have based their decision to remove me as deputy party leader on allegations which they perceive as potentially causing damage,” she said.
“This comes as no surprise as these very same people opposed my appointment to be deputy party leader before the elections in 2022, so they have pounced on this opportunity to do so.
“It’s most unfortunate that as a woman I continue to be targeted with my removal last year as leader of government business and now as deputy party leader.”
She said the party must stand for fairness and justice and applying the law equally based on evidence and facts, not allegations
RNZ Pacific has contacted the People’s Alliance general secretary for comment.
Reaction expected The publisher of Grubsheet, Graham Davis, who first reported — along with Fijileaks — about the scandal involving Tabuya and Radrodro, said Tabuya was attempting to “muddy the waters” with her reaction.
“It is telling that Lynda Tabuya doesn’t directly address the allegations against her that the PAP executive council has found to be proven on the recommendation of its disciplinary committee — including at least two lawyers — after a detailed examination of the evidence first reported by Fijileaks and Grubsheet,” he told RNZ Pacific.
“To turn her fire on the PAP in a vain attempt to muddy the waters is to be expected.”
Meanwhile, Tabuya remains a cabinet minister despite being removed as PAP deputy party leader.
According to the Fiji Sun newspaper, only Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka can remove her from cabinet, as per the 2013 Constitution.
“The Fiji Sun has been reliably informed that the PM is seeking legal opinion before making his call,” the newspaper reported.
Rabuka is currently on official travel in Australia.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The University of the South Pacific will host a major Pacific International Media conference in July to address critical issues in the regional news media sector in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic and digital disruption.
The conference, in Suva, Fiji, on July 4-6 is the first of its kind in the region in two decades.
With the theme “Navigating challenges and shaping futures in Pacific media research and practice”, the event seeks to respond to some entrenched challenges in the small and micro news media systems of the Pacific.
Associate Professor Shailendra Singh . . . the Pacific has among the highest attrition rate of journalists in the world. Image: USP
Organised in partnership with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Asia-Pacific Media Network (APMN), the conference is a gathering of academics, media professionals, policymakers and civil society organisation representatives to engage in critical discussions on news media topics.
Conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of the USP journalism programme, some of these challenges are due to the small population base in many island countries, limited advertising revenue, and marginal profits.
This makes it difficult for media organisations to reinvest, or pay competitive salaries to retain good staff.
Dr Singh said their research indicated that the Pacific region had among the highest rate of journalist attrition in the world, with mostly a young, inexperienced and under-qualified journalist cohort in the forefront of reporting complex issues.
Media rights, free speech important
He said that issues relating to media rights and freedom of speech were also still important in the region.
Big power competition between China and the United States playing out in the Pacific was another complexity for the Pacific media sector to negotiate, added Dr Singh.
PINA president Kora Nou . . . timely as “we consider measures to improve our media landscape post-covid”. Image: NBC
PINA president and CEO of Papua New Guinea’s national broadcaster NBC Kora Nou said the conference was timely as “we consider measures to improve our media landscape post-covid”.
Nou said it was important for journalism practitioners, leaders, academia, and key stakeholders to discuss issues that directly impacted on the media industry in the Pacific.
“Not all Pacific Island countries are the same, nor do we have the same challenges, but by networking and discussing shared challenges in our media industry will help address them meaningfully,” he said.
Nou added that journalism schools in the Pacific needed more attention in terms of public funding, new and improved curricula that were consistent with technological advances.
He said that research collaboration between journalism schools and established newsrooms across the region should be encouraged.
Better learning facilities
According to Nou, funding and technical assistance for journalism schools like USP in Fiji, and Divine Word and UPNG in Papua New Guinea, would translate into better learning facilities and tools to prepare student journalists for newsrooms in the Pacific.
Dr Heather Devere . . . “the Pacific is having to deal with numerous conflicts where journalists are not only incidental casualties but are even being deliberately targeted.” Image: ResearchGate
APMN chair Dr Heather Devere believes this is a vital time for journalism, and crucial for academics and media professionals and practitioners to unite to address global and local issues and the specific impacts on the Pacific region.
“Often neglected on the world stage, the Pacific is itself having to deal with numerous conflicts where journalists are not only incidental casualties but are even being deliberately targeted in vicious attacks,” she said.
“Humanity, the environment, our living spaces and other species are in imminent danger.
“APMN supports the initiative presented by the University of the South Pacific for us all to unify, stand firm and uphold the values that characterise the best in our people,” said Dr Devere.
Critical time for global journalism
According to Asia Pacific Report editor and founder of the Pacific Media Centre, Professor David Robie, this conference comes at a critical time for the future and viability of journalism globally.
Professor David Robie . . . “climate crisis reportage . . . is now an urgent existential challenge for Pacific countries.” Image: APMN
Dr Robie said it was a “tremendous initiative” by USP’s School of Pacific Arts, Communication and Education to partner with the media industry and to help chart new pathways for journalism methodologies and media freedom in the face of growing geopolitical rivalries over Pacific politics and economic resources.
“We need to examine the role of news media in Pacific democracies today, how to report and analyse conflict independently without being sucked in by major power agendas, and how to improve our climate crisis reportage, given this is now an urgent existential challenge for Pacific countries.
“In a sense, the Pacific is a laboratory for the entire world, and journalism and media are at the climate crisis frontline.”
Dr Robie, who was the recipient of the 2015 AMIC Asia Communication Award, highlighted that many human rights issues were at stake, such as the future of West Papua self-determination, that needed media debate and research.
Organisers are calling for abstracts and conference papers, and panel proposals on the following topics and related themes in the Asia-Pacific:
Media, Democracy, Human Rights and Governance:
Media and Geopolitics
Digital Disruption and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Media Law and Ethics
Media, Climate Change and Environmental Journalism
Indigenous and Vernacular Media
Social Cohesion, Peacebuilding and Conflict-Prevention
Covid-19 Pandemic and Health Reporting
Media Entrepreneurship and Sustainability
Abstracts can be submitted to the conference chair, Dr Singh, by April 5, 2024 and panel and full paper submissions by May 5 and July 4 respectively.
Monika Singhis editor-in-chief of Wansolwara, the online and print publication of the USP Journalism Programme. Republished in partnership with Wansolwara.
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 21 rights groups and journalists’ organizations on Monday in a joint statement calling on social media platforms to prioritize the free flow of information and ideas, and to resist government censorship ahead of the March 31 municipal elections in Turkey.
“As important country-wide local elections loom, the Turkish authorities are once again intensifying efforts to control social media platforms through use of the restrictive internet law, demanding the blocking of content critical of the government,” the joint statement said and made a call of unity: “Social media platforms should take a firm, united stance against formal and informal pressure targeting expression protected under international human rights law and adopt heightened transparency in the face of increasing online censorship.”
The municipal elections is a critical test for the opposition parties of Turkey considering the leading Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its partners’ victory in parliamentary and presidential elections last year. On the opposing side, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP wants to win back the metropolitan municipalities of Turkey’s capital Ankara and biggest city Istanbul from the opposition.
The United States-backed Israeli siege and genocide in Gaza is entering its sixth month. Israel’s relentless bombings and executions by Israeli snipers and soldiers have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with thousands more uncounted and decomposing under the rubble, and more than 70,000 injured. Reports by nonprofit agencies and organizations have detailed the Israeli military’s…
For years news media bosses warned the creaking business model backing journalism would fail at a major local outlet. It finally happened this week when Newshub’s owners proposed scrapping it. Then TVNZ posted losses prompting warnings of more cuts to come there. Can TV broadcasters pull a crowd without news? And what might the so-far ambivalent government do?
After Warner Bros Discovery top brass broke the bad news to staff on Wednesday, Newshub at 6 that night became a news event in itself.
After Warner Bros Discovery top brass broke the bad news to staff on Wednesday, Newshub at 6 that night became a news event in itself.
In her report, political reporter Amelia Wade reminded viewers more than 30 years of TV news and current affairs — spanning the entire period of commercial TV here — could come to an end in June.
Before TV3 launched in 1989, state-owned TVNZ had been the only game in town.
But for most of its recent history, TV3’s parent company MediaWorks was owned by private equity funds and it was hamstrung with debts.
There were periodic financial emergencies too which seemed to signal the end.
In 2015, the boss Mark Weldon axed the current affairs shows Campbell Live and 3D and replaced them with ones that didn’t pull in more viewers or pull up many trees with their reporting.
“Reports of our death at 6pm have been greatly exaggerated”, host Hilary Barry responded to reports 3 News might be for the chop the following year.
But Weldon persuaded the owners to stump up a significant sum to launch Newshub instead.
When the huge global company Discovery bought MediaWorks loss-making TV channels in December 2020, many in the media were pleased a major media outfit was now in charge.
Using the Official Information Act, Newsroom later reported the Overseas Investment Office fast tracked Discovery’s application and sought no guarantees of a commitment to local news.
“Tova O’Brien breaking stories on CNN NZ at 6pm, before an evening of local reality TV souped up by global budgets and distribution — with major sports and drama rights for good measure,” was one scenario.
“It could also swing the other way, with the New Zealand linear asset seen as too small and obscure,” he warned.
After losses including a $35 million one last year, the owners now “propose” to slice out the entire on-screen and online news operation. New Zealand could lose more than 15 percent of its full-time journalists in one go.
Beginning of the end?
Current affairs journalist Eugene Bingham . . . “this was a moment we’ll look back on as a watershed moment in democracy and journalism.” Image: RNZ
“Oh, the irony, right? When those so-called ‘vulture funds’ had it, the operation still continued, albeit always run on the smell of an oily rag. Then a big media organisation was the one which axed it,” long-serving TV3 current affairs journalist Eugene Bingham told Mediawatch.
“I’ve been around long enough to see death by a thousand cuts over the years. But this was a moment we’ll look back on as a watershed moment in democracy and journalism,” Bingham said.
Former MediaWorks executive Andrew Szusterman told RNZ’s Morning Report the next day this decision would also ripple out to local drama and entertainment.
“We’re going to start to see how this is going to impact the production sector. Irrevocably, possibly,” said Szusterman, now the chief executive at production company South Pacific Pictures.
Does Newshub’s demise also kill off Three?
Mediaworks chief news officer Hal Crawford . . . “The loss of the newsroom represents the loss of the ability to respond to any event in real time.” RNZ
There’s been no shortage of people this week pointing out the appetite for TV news — and linear TV in general — is not what it was. That’s the main reason for the ad revenue slump cited by WBD.
Some who do tune in to Three (and WBD’s other channels) for The Block, Married at First Sight and free movies may not miss the news shows from June 30. So maybe Three will be fine?
“The loss of the newsroom represents the loss of the ability to respond to any event in real time. That is the heart and soul of a traditional TV broadcaster,” Hal Crawford — chief news officer at MediaWorks (and effectively Newshub’s boss) until early 2020 — told Mediawatch.
“When the Queen dies you can send a team to London, you can have someone in the studio talking about it, you can interact in a way that makes people feel like it is alive and a real human entity.”
Warner Bros Discovery executives Glen Kyne (left) and Jamie Gibbons fronting up on Newshub at 6pm last Wednesday. Image: Newshub at 6 screenshot/RNZ
Channels without the live element news brings are effectively just “content databases”, Crawford told Mediawatch.
“News is the one programme that runs 365 days a year . . . which the schedule is going to rely on to lead into prime time. So the rest of your schedule is going to dwindle. Ratings are gonna fall off and everything is going to go to pieces.
“It really is going to dwindle as a cultural entity in New Zealand because you’re not going to be able to justify the funding from NZ on Air if you aren’t getting audiences. It’s hard for me to see a way out of Three basically going away as a cultural force in New Zealand.”
But TV-style news and current affairs is also now being done online.
After Eugene Bingham’s TV3 show 3D was axed in 2016, four members formed the Stuff Circuit investigative team. Its video documentary productions won awards until it was axed by Stuff late last year.
“Of course, there have been changes in viewing habits . . . but there’s still a reason that the ‘1’ and the ‘3’ on remotes around the country are worn down. Hundreds of thousands of people at six o’clock flip the channel. Without a TV bulletin there, doesn’t (Three) just become like Bravo, where there’s just programmes running and you either switch on or you don’t?”
In the end, journalists have to confront the fact that not quite enough people these days care about what they do — including executives at media companies, politicians not inclined to intervene and members of the public.
Most New Zealanders are happy to use services like Netflix or Google search or Facebook that carry news and local content but contribute almost nothing to it.
“But I don’t think people quite understand the depth of the problem facing media and the implications. That certainly came through to me watching the broadcasting minister saying, well, people can still watch programmes like Sky for news,” Bingham said.
The National Party went into the last election without a media or broadcasting policy or any specific manifesto commitments.
What should/could the government do?
Media minister Melissa Lee . . . a case of a private company taking action because “their business model actually wasn’t working”. Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
While Wednesday’s announcement shocked the 300-odd staff, the local chief executive Glen Kyne — close to tears on Newshub at 6 — told Newshub’s Michael Morrah he had known about the possibility since January.
The government also got a heads-up earlier this week.
Media minister Melissa Lee told reporters WBD made no requests for help, prompting Glen Kyne to tell Newshub WBD did ask both the current and previous government for assistance, such as a reduction in the multi-million dollar fee paid to state-owned transmission company Kordia.
Lee later clarified her comment but was firm that the government had no role to play because this was a case of a private company taking action because “their business model actually wasn’t working.”
On Morning Report, Andrew Szusterman disagreed.
“Channels 7,9 and 10, SBS, ABC, and Fox in Australia all run news services. I don’t think their government would let the last commercial free-to-air news broadcaster just walk away. The fact the broadcasting minister hasn’t fronted . . . it’s quite shameless,” he told RNZ’s Morning Report.
Stuff’s Tova O’Brien — who famously turned on her former employer MediaWorks on air in real time last year when it closed Today FM — called the minister’s response “cold and tone-deaf” and accused the government of a “glib shrug”.
That was partly because Lee’s first response to the Newshub announcement was to tell reporters: “There’s Sky as well, there’s a whole lot of other media about.”
Sky contracts Newshub to produce its 5.30pm free-to-air news bulletin — and Sky subscribers won’t find any locally-made news on Sky TV’s pay channels.
Lee should have known that. She was a programme-maker before she was an MP and was National’s spokesperson on broadcasting for years in opposition.
Lee declined all interview requests this week — including from Mediawatch — but did tell reporters at Parliament: “I wasn’t as articulate as I could have been. But I am taking this seriously.”
The PM told Stuff he is expecting an update at Cabinet on Monday. The media will be watching that space with pens and cameras poised.
There is legislation currently before a select committee which could compel the big online tech platforms to pay local producers of news for it.
In opposition, Lee opposed it and called it “literally a shakedown” in Parliament. (This weekend Facebook’s owner Meta announced it would not do any more deals with media under Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, prompting a likely confrontation with the government there.)
“The government’s position on this will obviously take into account these latest developments in terms of the wider media landscape. This government is committed to working with the sector on ways to ensure sector sustainability, while still preserving the independence of a fourth estate and avoiding market interference,” Lee said in Parliament on Thursday when questioned.
The government already heavily intervenes in the market by overseeing the state-owned broadcasters and agencies — including TVNZ — and putting over a quarter of a billion dollars every year onto broadcasting, programmes and other content.
The former government also put $80 million over two years into Māori media content, partly in the expectation there might also be a new public media entity to broadcast it.
His chief executive also urged the government to intervene. AM show host Duncan Garner switched the studio lights off as an on-air stunt.
Crawford is now a digital media consultant based in his native Australia. The broadcasting funding agency in NZ On Air hired him in 2021 to review its own spending of public money on the media.
“It’s not a good idea for governments to knee jerk and sponsor particular commercial companies in some sort of bailout,” he said.
“To give money to the people who are in financially the worst position is the most ineffective and unfair use of public money that I can think of. If the market is telling you that something isn’t wanted and needed, you have to listen to that.
“But it doesn’t mean that you have to always listen to the market and do things that have never been done before.”
He cites the Public Interest Journalism Fund which put $55 million into new content and created new jobs for cash-strapped news media companies.
Crawford’s fact-finding report on the planned PIJF in 2021 records media managers feared cuts and possible closures to come.
“Many of our interviewees believed that if an organisation could show that cuts were imminent, they should be able to apply for funded roles under the PIJF. Many saw the dangers in this non-incremental funding, but argued for exceptions in extreme circumstances. Although these arguments are compelling, Funding could evaporate quickly trying to keep the newsrooms of big commercial companies afloat if this became the primary aim of the fund.”
“Around the world and in New Zealand, there’s ample evidence that public funding of journalism is becoming more essential. There has to be a way there, because what we’re seeing with the the planned closure of Newshub is the end result of the factors that we’ve known about for at least a decade,” Crawford told Mediawatch.
“Direct subsidy from the government to a commercial newsroom isn’t going to work. The government has to find a way to sensibly finance news and structure it so that it doesn’t become a political football.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Several conservative media outlets have filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s State Department, alleging that they are actively trying to censor them by having the government label them “misinformation.” Plus, experts are ringing the alarm bells about A.I. creating deep fake videos, sound clips, and images that could have a significant impact on the […]
An alleged spy for China living in Istanbul evaded detection by Turkish authorities for years, Sadiq Memeteziz’s undercover work taking him to Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and Xinjiang in China’s far-west, Turkish media reports said, citing official documents.
Memeteziz, or Shadeke Maimaitiaizazi in Chinese, was one of six arrested on Feb. 20 for allegedly spying for China, Turkey’s Habertürk newspaper and TV channel said Wednesday.
Habertürk revealed the identities of four the six men arrested earlier this week, indicating they met with Chinese intelligence officials in Saudi Arabia.
The media reports didn’t identify the ethnicity of the men, but Radio Free Asia has confirmed that they are all Uyghurs. One of the six, named Ehmetjan, was later released. A seventh one is still at large and wanted by police.
The suspects are accused of spying on prominent Uyghurs and Uyghur associations in Turkey and passing the information to Chinese intelligence officers. The arrests follow a probe by the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigation Bureau, media reports said.
If they are indeed shown to have spied for China, the case would illustrate the lengths that Beijing will go to gather information on Uyghurs abroad as part of its transnational repression.
Uyghur diaspora
With roughly 50,000 Uyghurs living in Turkey — the largest Uyghur émigré population outside Central Asia — the Muslim-majority countryhas become a focus for Chinese espionage.
Radio Free Asia in February 2023 reported on how the Chinese government’s efforts to coerce Uyghurs to gather information on each other undermines trust and can dampen social and cultural gatherings, preventing Uyghur refugees from rebuilding their communities abroad.
In the past, Turkey offered Uyghurs a safe place to live outside China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and is the only Turkic and Muslim country that has consistently raised the issue of the plight of Uyghurs at the United Nations and in bilateral talks with China.
So this crackdown on alleged spies for China represents a shift on Turkey’s part.
The Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office would not comment on the ongoing investigation. RFA could not reach the Chinese Embassy in Ankara for comment.
Family is shocked
Memeteziz’s son, who lives in Istanbul, told RFA that he does not believe his father is a criminal, and that it is premature to call him such until judicial authorities issue a verdict.
“We also recently came across the news and were shocked by it,” said the son, who declined to be named for fear of retribution. “It was a mix of sadness and disbelief, as we never imagined such a thing could happen.”
The son said he has lived apart from his father for two-and-a-half years, balancing work and studies, and that they occasionally checked in with each other.
“As of now, we haven’t received any updates from the police or the judicial bodies,” he said. “There was no concrete evidence or confirmation, and judicial bodies haven’t said anything like what was reported in the news reports yet. All we’ve heard is that he was arrested.”
“Personally, I find this hard to believe because he has been running his own business for over 20 years,” the son added. “He has his own brand and products, and even when we lived together, he focused on his business and trade with Central Asia. Politics was never his concern due to his business commitments. Hence, I doubt the accuracy of these news reports.”
Details of alleged activities
Based on an arrest notice issued by the Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigation Bureau, Memeteziz, in his mid- to late 50s, moved to Turkey from Xinjiang – where 11 million Uyghurs live – in the 2000s and had contact with someone from the Ministry of National Security, China’s spy agency.
He met with an official named Li from the Chinese Communist Party’s Kargilik (Yecheng in Chinese) County Committee in Xinjiang’s Kashgar prefecture, both via phone and in person, the notice said.
According to information from the Turkish National Intelligence Service, it appears that Memeteziz met with Chinese intelligence officials outside Turkey. He traveled to Hong Kong in February 2023, then proceeded to Xinjiang’s Kargilik county, where he had face-to-face meetings with two spies named Li and Alimjan.
Subsequently, Memeteziz met with Alimjan again in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. To conceal these meetings, Chinese intelligence officials in China and Saudi Arabia provided Memeteziz with two different passports, the Turkish news reports said.
Records indicate that Memeteziz continued to travel to and from Xinjiang with ease, particularly after 2017 when Chinese authorities began detaining Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims en masse in “re-education” camps under the guise of preventing religious extremism and terrorist activities, the reports said.
In 2023, Memeteziz received US$7,000 in Beijing and US$15,000 in Saudi Arabia in exchange for his espionage activities for China, said the reports.
Upon his return to Turkey in August 2023, Memeteziz obtained information about Uyghur organizations and their meetings, and the addresses of prominent Uyghurs living in Turkey. He collected photos and documents to share with Chinese intelligence officials, the news reports said.
The notice from the chief prosecutor’s office said that Memeteziz, under instructions from the Chinese intelligence agency, tried in January 2023 to move to an area where Uyghur religious teacher Abduqadir Yapchan resided, but he could not find accommodations.
China had accused Yapchan of being part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a Muslim separatist group that the U.S. State Department dropped from its list of terrorist organizations in October 2020 because of a lack of credible evidence that it continued to exist. Turkish police arrested him in August 2016 on charges of being a “terrorist” and kept him in detention or under house arrest.
The arrest warrant for a second suspect, Hebibulla Ürümci, said he acted as an intermediary in transferring money from a spy named Alimjan to Memeteziz. It also indicated that Ürümci collaborated with Memeteziz in Pakistan and made multiple international trips, according to Turkish media.
Hashim Sabitoğlu, the third man arrested, recently traveled to Saudi Arabia under the guise of making an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city for Muslims, but instead met with Chinese intelligence operatives. Memeteziz received payments from China through Hashim under the guise of business funds.
Abdullah Nasir, the fourth suspect, was reported to have continuously met with a Chinese intelligence officer named Zhong Xuegang, who identified himself as a Chinese consulate officer.
Nasir was said to have stayed with Zhong in a hotel in Bursa, a city in Turkey about 92 kilometers (57 miles) south of Istanbul. Nasir was also acquainted with a spy named Alimjan and had a significant number of passport records on file, Turkish media said.
Memeteziz was assigned to gather information about Uyghurs in Syria by using Abdullah, an employee at a Uyghur bakery in Zeytinburnu, a working-class area on the European side of Istanbul.
When RFA contacted Abdullah – the bakery worker, not the suspect Abdullah Nasir – he said he didn’t know Memeteziz but mentioned someone from Kargilik who visited the bakery every two or three days, trying to gather information about Uyghurs in Turkey and in other countries.
“He would chat with me while buying naan,” Abdullah said, referring to Uyghur flatbread. “One day, he mentioned wanting to help people in need and asked if there were any religious kids from Kargilik. He asked me to let him know if I knew any. I told him I didn’t know any.”n
“I can’t confirm if he’s a spy because there’s a lot of gossip in the community,” Abdullah said. “I did’t have a close relationship with him. He didn’t live in Zeytinburnu, and he told me he was coming from the Aksaray area to buy naan.”
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Arslan Tash for RFA Uyghur.
In the age of disinformation and artificial information, Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post (WaPo) manages to have some credibility. After its February 22 editorial, “Mr. Xi is tanking China’s economy,” Jeff Bezos would be wise to sell the newspaper. If those who lead the Editorial Board make childish mistakes and recite obvious falsehoods, can anyone believe in what they read?
Before scolding WAPO’s spurious description of Xi’s world, in which none of the charges are backed with proof, permit the presentation of one of the most serious errors in journalism history. Doubtful the WaPo staff will ever recover from this faux pas. The editorial states:
China recorded a respectable 5.2 percent economic growth rate last year, but the real rate is lower when adjusted for falling prices. Rather than being an economic juggernaut, China seems likely to be entering a period of deflation, the sorts of conditions that led to Japan’s “lost decade.”
Having the real rate of growth to go down with deflation is equivalent to having an auto slow down when the gas pedal is more heavily pressed. How many hands, eyeballs, and minds at WAPO did not know that “inflation occurs when nominal GDP is higher than real GDP and deflation happens when real GDP is higher than nominal GDP.”
Real GDP= Nominal GDP/R
where: GDP=Gross domestic product
R=GDP deflator (R<1 during deflation and >1 during inflation)
Examine the opening paragraph:
For the past decade, Americans have worried increasingly about China, not least because Chinese President Xi Jinping has centralized power, silenced critics, stalled private-sector reforms and taken an increasingly combative posture toward the rest of the world
Saying that Xi Jinping silenced critics, without specifying who and how is meaningless. To gain office, all politicians try to overcome critics. A good politician silences critics. China is different; the government runs on consensus, and when a decision is made, including who will be president, there are no remaining critics.
Again, without specifying the nature of Xi’s “increasingly combative posture toward the rest of the world?” how can his nature be evaluated? Have the Africans, Latinos, Europeans, Eskimos, and most of Asia found Xi combative or does the WaPo editorial board think Washington is the world?
Instead, Mr. Xi’s China is less free, less prosperous and less competently governed than it would have been had he taken a different course — one not inspired by rivalry with the West or fear of his own people.
“Mr. Xi’s China is less free.”
The intentional insult of replacing President Xi with Mr. XI demeans WaPo.
Western media always considered China devoid of freedom. How can a country be less free when it has always been considered not free? Consider who is setting the criteria and doing the evaluation. If Chinese authorities set the criteria and evaluated freedom in the United States how would they consider freedom of thought in the U.S. after the rise of Trumpism and his cohorts?
“Less prosperous.”
GDP is up 60 percent since Xi’s time in office; how could Xi have made China “less prosperous?”
China GDP (Trillions of US Dollars)
From Trading Economics
“and less competently governed than it would have been had he taken a different course.”
How does anyone know what will happen and what is the different course?” This is speculative speculation, a ridiculous assumption that does not pass the smell test.
Despite Mr. Xi lifting the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions at the end of 2022, construction in China has slowed, manufacturing prices have declined and consumer spending has flattened. China’s stock market has lost $6 trillion in value in three years.
Reciting a decline in manufacturing prices and a flattening of consumer spending, as if they are always negatives, is not clever thinking. If a recession occurred, then they might be a result of an economic decline. No recession has occurred and their relation is due to consumer prices having dropped, maybe due to increased efficiency and productivity. Consumer transactions have increased and the total sales remained static, or did they? Beijing reports contradictory information and data does not indicate a flattening of consumer spending.
Robust consumption has been thriving and helping to underpin China’s economic recovery, while the country is energetically spurring consumer spending to strengthen one of the pillars needed to support high-quality growth. China’s total retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of the country’s consumption strength, climbed 7.2 percent year on year to reach 47.15 trillion yuan (about 6.63 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2023, an obvious sign of the Chinese people’s growing readiness to purchase.
China Consumer-spending in CNY hundred million
As for the stock market, it lost popularity in 2009, long before Xi Jinping gained the presidential office, exhibited a 100 percent increase in a year after he took the helm, and has been static since then. Nothing significant there.
The last of many spurious remarks
To reduce the falling birthrate, he prefers exhorting young women to stay home and have more babies as their patriotic duty.
Another insulting remark to a nation’s president. Falling birthrate is a problem in all advanced nations, and no country seems to have a solution. A mendacious and callous WaPo distorted Xi’s words. At a recent All-China Women’s Federation meeting, President Xi Jinping told the cadres:
…to “guide women to play their roles in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation” and “in establishing good family traditions.” They should “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and child-bearing” among women, so they can “respond to the aging of the population.”
Big difference between WaPo’s interpretation and the actual spoken words.
The experts on Xi Jinping China follow up the bashing with tools for him to use, and advice on how Xi can extricate himself and his nation from the damage he caused. Imagined failures solicit imagination of how to cure a patient who is not sick. Noting that, since 1978, except for one year during the COVID-19 epidemic, China had no recessions, while the U.S. suffered a recession every ten years, I doubt the Chinese government needs lectures on how to run their economy. China has a major housing crisis, not much different in scope than the 2008 mortgage crisis in the United States. The latter crisis provoked a huge banking crisis and sent the U.S. into a major recession. China’s housing crisis is now several years old and has not provoked a banking or economic crisis.
Describing people in a totally negative manner and not reciting known positive characteristics is biased editorializing. Xi has guided China to become the leading world power outdistancing the U.S. in the more important GDP/PPP.
Gross Domestic Product at Purchasing Power parity ($Trillions)
Xi probably was not personally involved and criticizing him for “the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions at the end of 2022,” is a subjective appraisal. An objective appraisal mentions his administration’s holding the number of Covid cases to 503,302 and deaths to 5,272 compared to U.S. cases of 111,426,318 and deaths of 1,199,436. Use per capita figures of 90,273 cases/1 million population and 896 deaths/1 million population for China and 333,802 cases/1 million population and 3,582 deaths/1 million population for the United States, and a bright light shines on China’s president.
The WaPo editorial, “Mr. Xi is tanking China’s economy,” is informative. It informs us that WaPo cannot be trusted. It has an agenda and will distort, lie, do somersaults, and deceive its audience to pursue the agenda.
The International Court of Justice (ICC) has held its last day of hearings examining the legality of Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian lands.
Fifty two countries and three international organisations have addressed the court in the hearings that ended on Monday.
Most called for Israel’s occupation to be declared illegal and for it to end, with some calling for reparations to be paid by Israel to the state of Palestine.
Only the representatives of the United States, United Kingdom and Fiji claimed the occupation was legal while non-government organisations and opposition politicians in Fiji condemned their country’s surprise position.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst and a Middle East expert, said the final legal arguments had “demolished the shameless defences” of Israel’s illegal occupation.
“Ireland, Algeria and South Africa . . . projected their own experience, their own narrative, their own history, their own struggle with [colonial] occupation, and their own experience with liberation as well,” he said.
“Hence it was both instructive, if you will, not I mean liberating, not depressing.
ICJ hearing: Final Israeli occupation arguments. Video: Al Jazeera
“I want to say it was instructive that they did share with us that but then we had this disingenuous, selective, mind boggling, if not, you know, mind insulting presentations by the United States and the United Kingdom that I think set everyone back.
“You know they were trampling over international law, expropriating international law, confiscating international legality in order to fit their own little geopolitical calculus on behalf of their little client Israel.
“So it was a bit shameful, it was a bit shameless to be honest and that’s why today we’ve heard from the Arab League and the [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)], legal opinions that were basically set or apparently revised in order to counter the arguments of the UK and the US and in that way I thought it was brilliant and it was entertaining almost.”
The African Union lawyers argued that “occuopatiion” and “self-determination” could not exist in the same place at the same time.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Judges urged to keep proceedings as open as possible in case relating to Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey
Allegations that UK police and intelligence spied on investigative journalists to identify their sources will be heard by a secret tribunal on Wednesday, with judges urged to ensure as much as possible takes place in open court.
Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey asked the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) to look into whether police in Northern Ireland and Durham, as well as MI5 and GCHQ, used intrusive surveillance powers against them.
In 2020, it took over the New Zealand channel’s assets which had been then part of Mediaworks.
Staff were called to a meeting at Newshub at 11am, RNZ News reported on its live news feed.
They were told that the US conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery, owners of Newshub, was commencing consultation on a restructuring of its free-to-air business
This included the closure of all news operations by its Newshub operation
All local programming would be made only through local funding bodies and partners.
James Gibbons, president of Asia Pacific for Warner Bros Discovery, said it was a combination of negative events in NZ and around the world. The economic downturn had been severe and there was no long hope for a bounce back
Staff leave the Newshub office in Auckland today after the meeting about the company’s future. Image: RNZ/Rayssa Almeida
Revenue has ‘disappeared quickly’
“Advertising revenue in New Zealand has disappeared far more quickly than our ability to manage this reduction, and to drive the business to profitability,” he said.
He said the restructuring would focus on it being a digital business
ThreeNow, its digital platform, would be the focus and could run local shows
All news production would stop on June 30.
The consultation process runs until mid-March. A final decision is expected early April.
“Deeply shocked’
Interviewed on RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme, a former head of Newshub, Mark Jennings, said he was deeply shocked by the move.
Other media personalities also reacted with stunned disbelief. Rival TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver said: “Thinking of my friends and colleagues from Newshub.
“So many super talented wonderful people. Its a terrible day for our industry that Newshub [will] close by June, we will be all the much poorer for it. Much aroha to you all.”
TVNZ Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver reacts to news about the plan to close Newshub’s newsroom. Image: Barbara Dreaver/FB
Newshub has broken some important Pacific stories over the years.
Jennings told RNZ a cut back and trimming of shows would have been expected — but not on this scale.
“I’m really deeply frankly shocked by it,” said Jennings, now co-founder and editor of Newsroom independent digital media group.
He said he expected all shows to go, including AM Show and investigative journalist Patrick Gower’s show.
Company ‘had no strategy’
“I think governments will be pretty upset and annoyed about this, to be honest.”
“Unless they have been kept in the loop because we’re going to see a major drop in diversity.
“Newshub’s newsroom has been, maybe not so much in recent times, but certainly in the past, a very strong and vibrant player in the market and very important one for this country and again as [RNZ Mediawatch presenter] Colin [Peacock] points out, who is going to keep TVNZ’s news honest now?
“I think this is a major blow to media diversity in this country.”
“First of all, Discovery and then Warner Bros Discovery, this has been an absolute shocker of entry to this market by them. They came in with what I could was . . . no, I couldn’t see a strategy in it and in the time they owned this company, there has been no strategy and that’s really disappointing.
“If this had gone to a better owner, they would have taken steps way sooner and maybe we wouldn’t be losing one of the country’s most valued news services.”
Loss of $100m over three years
Jennings said his understanding was the company had lost $100 million in the past three years, which was “really significant”.
“I wonder if it had been a New Zealand owner, whether the government might have taken a different view around this, but I guess because it’s owned by a huge American, multi-national conglomerate, they would’ve been reluctant to intervene in any way.”
He said Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee, a former journalist who ran the Asia Down Under programme for many years, faced serious questions now.
“It’ll be her first big test really, I guess, in that portfolio.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fiji’s Women and Children’s Minister Lynda Tabuya says Pacific island countries need to “strengthen our laws” on online harassment.
Tabuya spoke to RNZ Pacific on the sidelines of the Pacific Women in Power forum taking place in Auckland this week.
She said the issue that she was dealing with — which is allegations of a sex and drug scandal between her and former cabinet minister Aseri Radrodro — was currently with the police.
“And it just so happens that a person who was causing this harassment online lives in Sydney,” she said.
She said she was able to get the assistance of Australia’s online safety watchdog to issue the notice to the person to take down the content — images — because it is a crime in Australia.
“If you put up content that is or appears to be the person, so then the person [who published it] needs to take the content down otherwise they can face prosecution,” she said.
‘Grateful for swift action’
“That was the process I followed and I’m grateful to the Safety Commissioner of Australia for the swift action.”
However, she said the situation she found herself in was not exclusive to her.
“It’s me today, it could be someone else tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be a minister or public figure.
“But if you have women in Fiji or across the Pacific who are facing this, and they’re being attacked — especially for populations where there are more people outside of the country than in [the] country.
Tabuya said therefore there was a need for strong policies, not just in Fiji, but across the region.
“You get more attacks from people who live overseas. Women MPs need to reach out to those countries where those people are attacking them live because the laws are much stronger.
“But it’s also a lesson for us within to strengthen our laws so that we can stand up against online bullying.
“The world is unfair and being a woman in politics, we face a lot of unfairness and injustices. But I think it also makes us so much more determined to stand up and be heard,” she added.
Meanwhile, Tabuya is currently the subject of an inquiry by her political party following the sex and drug allegation, the outcome of which has yet to be released.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
There’s no way around it – Americans are tired of watching the news. A new report says that news consumption for local news, cable news, newspapers, and even online news has gone way down since just last year. Plus, the immigration debate is one that has been going on in America for decades with no […]
Women have borne the brunt of the Taliban’s repressive laws in Afghanistan, where the extremist group has imposed constraints on their appearances, freedom of movement, and right to work and study.
But women who are unmarried or do not have a “mahram,” or male guardian, face even tougher restrictions and have been cut off from access to health care, banned from traveling long distances, and pressured to quit their jobs.
The Taliban’s mahram rules prohibit women from leaving their home without a male chaperone, often a husband or a close relative such as a father, brother, or uncle.
Single and unaccompanied women, including an estimated 2 million widows, say they are essentially prisoners in their homes and unable to carry out the even the most basic of tasks.
Among them is Nadia, a divorced woman from the northern province of Kunduz. The mother of four has no surviving male relatives.
“These restrictions are stifling for women who now cannot do the simple things independently,” Nadia told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
The 35-year-old said women also need to have a male escort to visit a doctor, go to government offices, or even rent a house.
She said she had to pay a man to be her chaperone in order to meet a realtor and sign a rental agreement.
An Afghan girl stands among widows clad in burqas.
Nadia also paid a man in her neighborhood around 1,000 afghanis, or $15, to accompany her to the local passport office. But the Taliban refused her passport application and ordered her to return with her father, who died years ago.
“Even visiting the doctor is becoming impossible,” she said. “We can only plead [with the Taliban] or pray. All doors are closed to us.”
Mahram Crackdown
Women who violate the Taliban’s mahram requirements have been detained or arrested and are often released only after signing a pledge that they will not break the rules again in the future.
In its latest report, the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the Taliban’s notorious religious police was enforcing the rules by carrying out inspections in public spaces, offices, and education facilities as well as setting up checkpoints in cities.
Released on January 22, the report said three female health-care workers were detained in October because they were traveling to work without a mahram.
In December, women without male chaperones were stopped from accessing health-care facilities in the southeastern province of Paktia, the report said.
And in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban visited a bus terminal and checked if women were traveling with a male relative, the report said.
In late 2021, the Taliban said women seeking to travel more than 72 kilometers should not be offered transport unless they were accompanied by a close male relative.
In another incident, the Taliban advised a woman to get married if she wanted to keep her job at a health-care facility, saying it was inappropriate for a single woman to work, the report said.
In a report issued on January 18, the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) said the Taliban’s restrictions on single and unaccompanied women has ensured that female-led households receive less income and food.
“Their share of employment has nearly halved, decreasing from 11 percent in 2022 to 6 percent” in 2023, the report said.
The report noted that female-headed households typically care for more children and get paid less for their work and consume lower quantities of food.
“Female-headed households have greater needs for humanitarian assistance and yet report more restrictions to accessing such assistance,” the report said.
“Unaccompanied access by women to public places such as health facilities, water points, and markets has declined in the past two years,” the report added.
‘Deeply Insulting’
Parisa, an unmarried woman, takes care of her elderly parents in the northeastern province of Takhar.
With her father bedridden and her two brothers working in neighboring Iran, she has been forced to take care of the family’s needs.
But she said she has been repeatedly harassed by the Taliban while trying to buy groceries in the local market, located some 10 kilometers away from her house.
Afghan women wait to receive aid packages that include food, clothes, and sanitary materials, distributed by a local charity foundation in Herat, on January 15.
“What can women do when men in their families are forced to leave the country for work?” she told Radio Azadi, giving only her first name for security reasons.
“I have no choice but to look after my family’s basic needs. The Taliban’s attitude is deeply insulting and extremely aggressive.”
Parisa said she has pleaded with local Taliban leaders to relax the mahram requirements. But she said her efforts have been in vain.
“They start abusing and threatening us whenever we try to tell them that we have to leave our houses to meet our basic needs,” she said.
Parasto, a resident of Kabul, said the Taliban’s restrictions are preventing single women from seeking the limited health care that is available.
“The doctors in the hospitals and clinics are reluctant to see unaccompanied women,” she told Radio Azadi.
Parasto said the Taliban’s mounting restrictions on women, especially those who are unmarried or do not have a male guardian, have made life unbearable.
“Single women are trying to survive without rights and opportunities,” she said.
Written by Abubakar Siddique in Prague based on reporting by Naqiba Barakzai, Abida Spozhmai, and Khujasta Kabiri of RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
Abuja, February 22, 2024—Nigerian authorities must comply with a federal high court judgment ordering the government to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for attacking journalists in Nigeria, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
In 2021 Nigerian local press freedom group Media Rights Agenda (MRA) filed a lawsuit requesting the court to compel the federal government to investigate and prosecute attacks on the press. On February 16, the court ruled in favor of MRA, calling “the failure of the federal government of Nigeria to take effective legal and other measures to investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators of attacks against journalists and other media practitioners” a breach of the government’s statutory duty, according to the ruling, which CPJ reviewed. The court ordered the government to “to take measures to prevent attacks on journalists and other media practitioners.”
“Authorities in Nigeria must take swift and transparent steps to comply with the federal high court ruling instructing them to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for attacking and killing journalists,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program, in New York. “Investigations that deliver justice for slain or attacked journalists would be a demonstration of political will on the part of Nigeria’s government to improve press freedom in the country.”
While the judgment addressed journalists’ rights generally, MRA’s lawsuit listed several examples of unsolved journalist killings, including NewsWatch magazine co-founder Dele Giwa, killed by a letter bomb in 1986; Bolade Fasasi, shot dead in 1998; and Omololu Falobi, shot dead in 2006.
In August 2023, CPJ wrote to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu requesting “swift and deliberate actions to improve conditions for the press in Nigeria.” The letter highlighted the killing of at least 22 journalists in Nigeria since 1992, as well as twoothers who are missing and presumed dead. At least 12 of these journalists are confirmed to have been killed in connection with their work.
CPJ called Federal Ministry of Justice Spokesperson Kamarudeen Ogundele, but he declined to comment. Nigeria’s former Attorney General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami previously misrepresented CPJ’s research on attacks against journalists, erroneously stating that no journalist had been killed in the country.
Nigerian authorities have a track record of disregarding court rulings in support of journalists, their families, and press freedom. Last year, an Abuja high court ordered Nigeria’s police to compensate the family of Regent Africa Times editor Alex Ogbu, who was shot and killed by police officers in January 2020. In 2021, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice ordered authorities to compensate CrossRiverWatch publisher Agba Jalingo for his prolonged detention and maltreatment in custody. Nigerian authorities have yet to comply with these rulings.
Gaza. Palestinians. Israel. Genocide. Taylor Swift? This odd cobbling of words is the extent celebrities make a mockery of serious conversation, even in such middle-brow outlets as Australia’s Radio National. Admittedly, it was breakfast, and the presenter a seasoned impressionist of journalism, but surely listeners did not have to know that Swift’s private jet had just arrived in Melbourne, making it an occasion of national significance?
Ground had already been tilled, and seeds scattered, by desperate academics keen to draw gold dust from the Swift worship machine at Melbourne’s Swiftposium 2024. Seriousness was not the order of the day and papers such as “Taylor Swift and the Nuremberg Effect on Teenage Girls” were never going to feature on any panels. Instead, it was an event to give academic circuitry – and sophistry – its deservedly bad name. “We thought we’d be having a small conference with 50 researchers in two rooms in our Faculty,” remarked Eloise Faichney, chair of the Swiftposium Steering Committee. “Then, when we ended up in publications like Rolling Stone and The Guardian, demand from the academic community to take part was like nothing I’ve ever seen before for an academic conference.” Faichney evidently knows little about the bandwagon effect of the academic scavenger, always engaged in a futile quest to find false novelty among the same bones of an argument.
And they were not the only ones. Members of the fourth estate, and many offshoots of that once revered profession, have fallen for the Swiftian rhetoric, be it in terms of the harmony effect or economic stimulus. Forget monetary or fiscal policy; get Swift to do a tour and she will add tens of millions of dollars to the country’s cash registers. Take, for instance, the following, near shameful selection of predicted returns, which the Australian historian, Humphrey McQueen, valuably gathers for us: the Australian Financial Review, A$140 million; the Daily Telegraph, A$130 million to New South Wales; the Herald-Sun, a staggering, fanciful A$1.2 billion for the state of Victoria alone.
A less noted fact is that the Swift phenomenon is costly, inflationary and exploitative. As The Daily Telegraphreported in January, airlines such as Virgin, Qantas and Jetstar were all cashing in on spiked prices, hoping to squeeze every little bit of cash from passengers, Swifties or otherwise. A one-way flight from Brisbane to Sydney with Jetstar would cost anywhere between A$399 to A$460 on the planned Sydney tour date on February 23, as compared to A$92 to A$123 the week prior. Hotels were hardly going to miss out either on the lucrative bonanza: the Marriott Sydney Harbour’s prices, for instance, rising from the pre-Swift level of $A589 to an unforgivable $A1039.
All of this served as the teaser for Swift’s mid-February arrival. Bulletins, even of such self-professed, serious news hounds as those at the twenty-four-hour ABC network, would furnish updates on the songstress’s movements. Every banal detail became significant, the fans worthy of top billing as interviewees.
Political maturity and cultivated disinterestedness also went out the window, expelled with glee. Here was a chance to get close to the phenomenon and cultivate voters – current and future – and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was not going to miss out. In an interview with Hit WA FM, he professed his delight and anticipation in attending one of Swift’s shows. “I am going to Tay Tay,” he sighed. In cringingly shallow fashion and for pure effect, he even suggested that opposition leader Peter Dutton might have a preference for the Canadian rock band Nickelback, a truly wicked contrast. “Or, the angry death metal stuff.”
Newspapers such as The Guardian Australia even urged the PM to get with the Swift program, as her “ubiquity in a fragmented world might carry some broader lessons for a man with a more modest megaphone at his disposal.” She offers, for instance, lessons in collaboration. She had “used her fame to build a network of grassroots support that has its own power, energy and agency.” And, in case you were not listening, Mr Albanese, she offered a “sense of shared joy” instead of privileging conflict.
On the other side of this gushing sludge, the Swift phenomenon manifests as a brooding presence for reactionaries worried that her influence is clandestine and planned by a politburo central committee. Or, perhaps, the Pentagon. Steady yourself, warn the likes of Jesse Watters of Fox: he has evidence that “the Pentagon psychological-operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset.” In some GOP circles, the singer is a deeply embedded psyop with collusion from the NFL. The lunacy comes full circle and Swift is very happy to tease it, tellingTheWashington Post in 2022 that she, and her legion of fans, have “descended into color coding, numerology, word searches, elaborate hints, and Easter eggs.” Threatening stuff.
This Styrofoam performer, this master of magisterial vacuity, who is all machine, promotion and blare, has perfected the insubstantial, promoted a competent formula and boosted it. In some ways, she has the hallmarks of Tony Blair and the New Labour experiment: start solidly, proclaim a genre, an ideology – then subvert it, discarding most of it on the way. Sincerity evaporates in the heat of its confection. Her success lies in her ability – and that of the Swift dissemination army – to mobilise the image of Swift. Everything else is just costumery, flying private jets, victimising people who monitor her flight paths, and being given stock market advice by Daddy.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says Muslim Americans are “running out of words” to decry the US president’s support for the “genocide” in Gaza.
“The latest US veto of a UN ceasefire resolution is shameful,” CAIR director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
“President Biden should stop acting like Benjamin Netanyahu’s defence lawyer and start acting like the President of the United States,” reports Al Jazeera.
“We call on the American people to continue expressing their opposition to the Biden administration’s support for the Israeli government’s war crimes by contacting the White House and their elected officials and calling on them to demand a ceasefire, access to humanitarian aid, and the pursuit of a just, lasting peace.”
Meanwhile, Palestine’s envoy to the United Nations broke down in tears when giving a chilling address to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Riyad Mansour, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN, said that the “future of freedom, justice and peace can begin here and now”.
“A finding from this distinguished court that the occupation is illegal and drawing the legal consequences from this determination would contribute to bringing it to an immediate end, paving the way to just and lasting peace.”
Some people are literally making a killing in Enga.
Yes, they really are.
Hired gunmen are getting rich by the day and picking up women and girls as payments as well, leaving deaths and destruction in their wake in what is apparently becoming a booming industry.
The news is disturbing, to say the least, for a province that has got so much going at the moment.
As the illegal industry takes root by the day, we do not see this deadly business which is already stretching the limits of tolerance and the resources of the law and justice sector, ending soon.
Police Commissioner David Manning promised more manpower will be deployed into the province to assist those on the ground to curb the tribal fighting.
At the same time, he is asking for help from the provincial leaders to get down to their communities to stop the fighting and killing.
Grabbed world attention
The recent massacre in Wapenamanda has grabbed world attention again and this time the Australian government, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese describing the event as “very disturbing”, promising more technical aid to PNG to address this madness.
Tribal fighting has always been a curse in Enga for years. What started as bow and arrow affairs in the past have now gone high-tech with the deployment of drones, Google maps and high-powered guns, resulting in the high number of deaths
Genocide is the word to describe what is happening.
Horror . . . the bodies of tribesmen killed in Wapenamanda piled up alongside the Highlands Highway. Image: PNG Post-Courier
Powerful tribes are eliminating the weak, and leaving the disciplinary forces helplessly watching by the roadsides as the massacre continues to go.
There is no concern for the lives killed, the injuries or the plight of the hundreds of mothers and children caught up in this mayhem.
In the words of Provincial Police Commander, Superintendent George Kakas, businessmen, educated elites and well-to-do people fund these activities, hire gunmen and purchase firearms and ammunitions.
We would like to add politicians to the list because we suspect that they procured the weapons and left them with their supporters during the elections and these guns are now coming out.
How could they sleep peacefully?
How could these people find the peace to sleep peacefully in the night when their money, the technology, the guns and bullets they supplied are killing in big numbers and the murderers are uploading images of the dead bodies online for the world to see?
Prime Minister James Marape recently promised new legislation to curb domestic terrorism and we wait to see whether this law will ever get passed by Parliament.
This law is needed now to make the facilitators and the killers account for their actions.
In the interim, the government must declare a State of Emergency in Enga to deploy the full force of the law into the fighting zones to deal with the perpetrators.
They are known to the police, the leaders and even the Prime Minister.
What is stopping the police from arresting these culprits? Are they above the law? Are they protected species, vested with the power to end lives of other people in this manner?
Entire tribes wiped out
What are we waiting for?
To see entire tribes wiped out from the face of Enga before we move in to collect the bodies, take the women and children to care centres and keep watching from the roadsides.
Enough is enough. Declare the SOE in Enga. Enact the domestic terrorism legislation. Arrest those that facilitate and kill.
So much is going for Enga today and if nothing is done to end this ugly disease, Enga is doomed.
This PNG Post-Courier editorial was originally published under the title “Genocide in Enga” on 21 February 2014. Republished with permission.
A major new report has revealed that the drug makers behind Ozempic and Wegovy are doling out huge sums of money to doctors to get them to increase their prescriptions. Then, Facebook’s parent company Meta wants to sell your child’s data to the highest bidder, and they are prepared to go to court to fight […]
Lawyers seek permission at high court to appeal against WikiLeaks founder’s extradition
Julian Assange faces the risk of a “flagrant denial of justice” if tried in the US, his lawyers have told a permission to appeal hearing in London, which could result in the WikiLeaks founder being extradited within days if unsuccessful.
Assange, who published thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, could be jailed for up to 175 years – “a grossly disproportionate punishment” – if convicted in the US, the high court heard on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has presented North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with a Russian-made passenger car, according to the North Korean media, the latest sign of the enhanced ties between the two nations.
The gift was handed over to Workers’ Party Secretary Park Chung Chol and the leader’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong on Jan. 18, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday.
The KCNA cited Kim Yo Jong as saying it was “a most excellent gift and a clear demonstration of the close friendship between the two leaders of the DPRK and Russia.”
DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is North Korea’s official name.
“Kim Yo Jong respectfully conveyed to the Russian side the greetings of gratitude from Comrade Kim Jong Un to Comrade President Putin,” the news agency added.
Putin introduced Kim Jong Un to a Russian-made luxury passenger car, the Aurus, during his visit to Pyongyang last year, though it is unclear whether he presented that specific vehicle to the North Korean leader.
The Aurus is a luxury car brand that has been described as the “Russian equivalent of Rolls-Royce,” and Kim Jong Un sat in the back seat with Putin at the time.
According to the U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea, the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of transport to the North is also prohibited under Security Council Resolution 2397, adopted in Dec. 2017.
Separately, the KCNA reported on the same day that delegations led by senior North Korean government officials in charge of technology, fisheries and sports affairs have left for Russia, another indication of the expanded bilateral cooperation between the two.
The North’s Information and Trade Minister Ju Yong Il and other delegates left Pyongyang on Monday to attend a global IT forum in Moscow, the report said.
According to a schedule posted on the forum’s website, the 20-21 event will be attended by Russian government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, as well as officials from Iran, Armenia, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Thailand.
Another delegation led by Vice Fisheries Minister Son Song-kuk departed for Russia the previous day to discuss ways to promote bilateral cooperation in the fisheries sector. In addition, Vice Sports Minister O Kwang Hyok headed to Russia to attend a ceremony to sign a 2024 sports exchange protocol between the two countries.
Since the North Korea-Russia summit in September last year, the two countries have stepped up the pace of bilateral exchanges on various sectors, including military, political, economic and cultural fronts.
Pyongyang is believed to have supplied artillery and munitions to Russia for its conflict in Ukraine, potentially in return for Russia transferring weapons technology.
Edited by Elaine Chan.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
