Stockholm, March 15, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday condemned a series of court decisions in Azerbaijan extending the pre-trial detention of six journalists with the anti-corruption investigative news outlet Abzas Media.
“As Azerbaijan sweeps up and detains critical journalists across the country, this latest decision to extend the incarceration of Abzas Media staff illustrates authorities’ steadfast determination to censor its best and brightest reporters by locking them up,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities in Azerbaijan should immediately drop all charges against Abzas Media staff, release all unjustly jailed journalists, and end their crackdown on the independent press.”
If found guilty, the six journalists, who have all been charged with conspiracy to smuggle currency, could face up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
In separate hearings on March 14 and 15, the Khatai District Court in the capital, Baku, extended by three months the detention of Abzas Media director Ulvi Hasanli, chief editor Sevinj Vagifgizi, and project manager Mahammad Kekalov, according to newsreports and a Facebook post by Abzas Media.
In recent weeks, the courts also issued three-month extensions for the detention of three of Abzas Media’s journalists. Rulings were made in early March for Hafiz Babali, and Elnara Gasimova, who were arrested in December and January, and in February for Nargiz Absalamova, who was arrested in December.
The crackdown on Abzas Media—an outlet known for investigating allegations of corruption among senior state officials—began in November when police raided its offices and accused staff of illegally bringing Western donor money into Azerbaijan.
Abzas Media said that the raid was part of President Ilham Aliyev’s pressure on the outlet for “a series of investigations into the corruption crimes of the president and officials appointed by him.” The outlet has continued publishing with a new team in Europe and with the support of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based group that pursues the work of imprisoned journalists.
The Abzas Media staff are among 10 journalists from three independent media outlets currently jailed in Azerbaijan, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
Earlier in March, police raided Toplum TV’s office and a court ordered that founder Alasgar Mammadli and editor Mushfig Jabbar be detained for four months pending investigation on currency smuggling charges.
Broadcaster Kanal 13’s director Aziz Orujov, and reporter Shamo Eminov have been in jail since November and December, respectively, on the same charges.
The union representing Television New Zealand staff is calling on the public to join a campaign protesting the broadcaster’s plans to axe programmes and cut jobs.
Last week TVNZ announced plans to cut up to 68 jobs — and scrap several long-running shows, including Fair Go and Sunday.
E Tū union spokesperson Michael Wood has told Midday Report the Save Our Stories campaign united workers, viewers and supporters to remind TVNZ of its responsibilities.
“TVNZ isn’t just some business, it’s a vital part of our society and Kiwis need a strong TVNZ to tell Aotearoa’s stories and hold power to account.
“This is about everyone — every single New Zealander is a stakeholder in this, so we invite everybody who wants to build and protect a strong media landscape to support the campaign.”
People could help by signing an open letter to TVNZ, and sharing the campaign video, he said.
“So many people have reached out to our union to show their support for TVNZ workers and ask how they can help. From prominent public figures, to people whose lives have been changed thanks to TVNZ’s coverage, to dedicated viewers who don’t want to see their favourite shows get the axe,” he said.
“These people can help by signing the open letter, sharing our video, and sending the message to decision-makers that our media is worth protecting.”
TVNZ staff from the E Tū union voted unanimously to reject the proposals.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan warns U.S. media coverage of the 2024 election is largely unable to capture the threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump and the modern Republican Party. “We need to speak very clearly about what that fascist threat is,” says Hasan, who warns media outlets cannot “normalize his extremism and racism and bigotry,” because the right to free press itself could be under threat if he regains power. “One of our two major parties has been fully radicalized and is now in bed with white supremacists. … Let’s be plain about that.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
The United States’ airdrops of aid into Gaza are a textbook case of cognitive dissonance on the part of the US administration — dropping food while continuing to send Israel bombs with which to pulverise Gaza, reports Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post.
And, says the media watch programme presenter Richard Gizbert, the gulf between what is happening on the ground and the mainstream media’s reportage continues to widen.
Gizbert criticises the airdrops, what he calls the “optics of urgency, the illusions of aid”.
“An absurd spectacle as the US drops aid into Gaza while also arming Israel,” he says.
Gizbert critically examines the Israeli disinformation strategy over atrocities such as the gunning down of at least 116 starving Gazans in the so-called “flour massacre” of 29 February 2024 — first denial, then blame the Palestinians, and finally accept only limited responsibility.
“The US air drops into the Gaza Strip are pure theatre. The US has been supplying thousands of tonnes into the Gaza Strip — but those have been high explosives,” says Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya.
“And then to claim that somehow it is ameliorated by 38,000 meals ready to eat is quite obscene to put it politely.
“People have compared these scenes to The Hunger Games and for good reason.”
‘Who is the superpower?’
Australian author Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, says: “When I saw the US drop food, my first response was really anger; it was horror that this is apparently the best the US can do.
Absurd Aid Air Drops in Gaza. Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post, 9 March 2024
“Who is the superpower here? Is it the US or Israel? There is no place that is safe. There is no place where you can find reliable food, where people can get shelter.
“Gazans are exhausted, angry and scared, and do not buy this argument that the US is suddenly caring about them by airdropping a handful of food.”
“People have compared these scenes to The Hunger Games and for good reason.
Contributors: Laura Albast — Fellow, Institute for Palestine Studies Mohamad Bazzi — Director of NYU’s Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies Antony Loewenstein — Author, The Palestine Laboratory Mouin Rabbani — Co-editor, Jadaliyya
On Our Radar:
Since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, the war has been a delicate subject for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The war has led to censorship of news coverage and suppression of public protest. Meenakshi Ravi reports.
Israel’s cultural annihilation in Gaza The Listening Post has covered Israel’s war on Gaza through the prism of the media, including the unprecedented killing of Palestinian journalists. But there is another level to what is unfolding in Gaza: the genocidal assault on Palestinian history, existence and culture.
Featuring: Jehad Abusalim – Executive director, The Jerusalem Fund
The War on Gaza will be etched in the memories of generations to come — the brutality of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, and the ferocity of Israel’s retaliation.
In this Four Corners investigative report, The Forever War, broadcast in Australia last night, ABC’s global affairs editor John Lyons asks the tough questions — challenging some of Israel’s most powerful political and military voices about the country’s strategy and intentions.
The result is a compelling interview-led piece of public interest journalism about one of the most controversial wars of modern times.
Former prime minister Ehud Barak says Benjamin Netanyahu can’t be trusted, former Shin Bet internal security director Ami Ayalon describes two key far-right Israeli ministers as “terrorists”, and cabinet minister Avi Dichter makes a grave prediction about the conflict’s future.
Is there any way out of what’s beginning to look like the forever war? Lyons gives his perspective on the tough decisions for the future of both Palestinians and Israelis.
‘The Forever War’ – ABC Four Corners. ABC Trailer on YouTube
Television New Zealand’s chief executive has been challenged by the public broadcaster’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver at a fiery staff meeting over job cuts and axing of high profile programmes, reports The New Zealand Herald.
Writing in his Media Insider column today, editor-at-large Shayne Currie reported that Dreaver, one of TVNZ’s most respected and senior journalists, had made the challenge over the planned layoffs and axing of shows such as the current affairs Sunday and consumer affairs Fair Go.
Dreaver reportedly asked chief executive Jodi O’Donnell if she would apologise to staff — “apparently for referring to her watch during an earlier staff meeting on Friday”.
“TVNZ would not confirm specific details last night, but it is understood O’Donnell pushed back during yesterday’s meeting, along the lines that perhaps she might also be owed an apology,” wrote Currie, a former Herald managing editor.
“One source said she talked at one stage about the response she had been receiving.”
Media Insider quoted a TVNZ spokeswoman as saying: “We expect sessions like this to be robust, but to give all TVNZers the opportunity to be free and frank in their participation, we don’t comment on the details of these internal meetings to the media.”
Dreaver told 1News last night: “We need really strong leadership and we expect to get it. And I’m quite happy to call out and challenge it [and] my own bosses when we don’t get that, just as I would a politician or any other person who deserves it.”
A ‘legend, icon, queen’
Media Insider reported that in a social media post today, Sunday journalist Kristin Hall had described Kiribati-born Dreaver as a “legend, icon, queen” for her Pacific reporting.
In November 2022, Dreaver was named Reporter of the Year at the New Zealand Television Awards and in 2019 she won two awards at the Voyager Media Awards for her coverage of the Samoa measles outbreak.
Yesterday’s TVNZ meeting came amid a strained relationship between the TVNZ newsroom and management over the way the company has handled the announcement of up to 68 job cuts, as least two-thirds of them journalists.
The shock news followed a week after the US-based Warner Bros Discovery announced that it would be closing its entire Newshub newsroom at the end of June.
Stockholm, March 11, 2024—Azerbaijani authorities should release Toplum TV’s founder Alasgar Mammadli and journalist Mushfig Jabbar, drop all charges against the independent news outlet’s staff, and allow the media to work freely and without reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.
On March 6, dozens of plainclothes police officers in the capital, Baku, raided Toplum TV’s editorial office at around 1:30 pm, confiscated its equipment and the phones of all staff who were present, and took at least 10 of them to Baku City Police Department for questioning, according to newsreports and Toplum TV’s chief editor, Khadija Ismayilova, who spoke to CPJ by phone.
All of the journalists were freed at around midnight except for video editor Jabbar, reporter Farid Ismayilov, and social media manager Elmir Abbasov, according to Ismayilova, a multipleaward-winning investigative journalist, who was jailed from 2014 to 2016 in retaliation for her work.
The police claim to have found 3,200 euros (US$3,500) in Jabbar’s apartment, 3,100 euros (US$3,390) in Ismayilov’s apartment, and 2,700 euros (US$2,950) in Abbasov’s home, according to the regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel (Caucasian Knot).
On March 8, the Khatai District Court in Baku ordered Jabbar to be detained for four months pending investigation on currency smuggling charges, while Ismayilov and Abbasov were released on bail.
Also on March 8, plainclothes police arrested Toplum TV’s founder Mammadli and took him away in an unmarked vehicle as he left a clinic where he was receiving treatment for suspected cancerous tumours, according to multiplemediareports and footage of the arrest.
On March 9, the Khatai District Court ordered Mammadli — who is also the founder of Media Rights Group, a local press freedom NGO — to be detained for four months pending investigation on currency smuggling charges, after police said they found 7,300 euros (US$7,970) in cash in his apartment, those sources said.
“Following similar attacks on Abzas Media and Kanal 13, the raid on Toplum TV and arrest of its journalists indicate that Azerbaijani authorities are intent on eradicating the last vestiges of the country’s independent press. Reports that police detained the outlet’s founder Alasgar Mammadli while he was receiving treatment for suspected cancer are particularly outrageous,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator in New York. “Authorities in Azerbaijan should immediately release Mammadli and Jabbar, drop all charges against Toplum TV staff, and stop retaliating against independent media for their reporting.”
Third media outlet to face smuggling charges
Toplum TV is one of the last significant independent media outlets in the country, reporting on politics, investigations into official corruption, and allegations of voting irregularities during February’s presidential elections, in which President Ilham Aliyev won a fifth term.
It is the third independent news outlet in Azerbaijan to face currency smuggling charges in recent months, as relations decline between Azerbaijan and the West. Since November, six members of anticorruption investigative outlet Abzas Media and two journalists with independent broadcaster Kanal 13 have been detained after authorities accused them of illegally bringing Western donor money into Azerbaijan
Azerbaijani authorities have not publicly accused Toplum TV of illicit Western funding but the state-affiliated Azerbaijani Press Agency reported that Toplum TV illegally received half a million dollars from Western donors to foment unrest.
Since the initial arrests of Abzas Media staff in November, pro-government media that Ismayilova has said are acting on instructions from Azerbaijani authorities have repeatedlyclaimed Toplum TV and Ismayilova represent another Western-funded “network of subversion” and were misleadingyoung journalists into anti-state activity ahead of the February elections.
Shortly after the police raid, Toplum TV’s Instagram account was deleted and its YouTube channel was renamed and all of its content deleted, Ismayilova said, adding that this “shows authorities’ real intention,” which is to “silence any platform where criticism is expressed.”
Toplum TV’s office remains sealed by police, who have yet to return any of the outlet’s confiscated equipment or journalists’ phones, she said, describing the charges against Toplum staff as “absolutely absurd.” None of the searches of journalists’ homes were conducted with lawyers present as police denied entry to some, Ismayilova told CPJ.
CPJ’s email requesting comment on the case from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which responds on behalf of the police, did not immediately receive a reply.
A United Nations (UN) report recently emerged making damning claims of sexual violence allegedly committed by Hamas. But not all is as it seems. The report has some glaring epistemological problems, all of which seem to serve the Israeli narrative that its genocide in Gaza is somehow justified. Moreover, the report fits within a wider modus operandi on the part of the world’s preeminent international institution. A more comprehensive examination of the history of the UN’s role in the conflict in Palestine reveals its supposed pro-Palestinian bias is not as clearcut as it’s commonly presented. Indeed, there is evidence that the UN has, if anything, been more a tool of Israel than the other way round.
Shocking accusations swiftly weaponized by Israel
The UN released the report on March 4, almost six months after the surprise October 7 attack when members of Hamas’ paramilitary wing breached the Gaza border. Co-authored by its special envoy on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, the document claims there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Hamas engaged in rape and other forms of sexual violence during the attack. Patten gave a statement in which she said that this took place in “at least three locations” including “the Nova music festival site and its surroundings, Road 232, and Kibbutz Re’im.”
The following day, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, publicly condemned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for supposedly failing to respond in an adequate manner. Specifically, he criticized Guterres for failing to immediately call for a UN Security Council meeting about the report’s findings. However, as multiple media outlets have pointed out, Guterres does not have the authority to convene a General Assembly meeting. A UN spokesperson responded that “in no way, shape, or form did the secretary-general do anything to keep the report ‘quiet.’” She added that Katz’s announcement was made a matter of hours before a press conference about the report’s contents was scheduled to be held.
Recalling UN ambassador and launching ‘hasbara’ propaganda campaign
Israel has also withdrawn its ambassador to the UN, claiming that the organization’s leadership is attempting to “silence” the allegations. Katz said in a statement: “”I [have] ordered our ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, to return to Israel for immediate consultations regarding the attempt to keep quiet the serious UN report on the mass rapes committed by Hamas and its helpers on Oct. 7.”
Nonetheless, there are already signs that the Israeli government is seizing on the report as part of its ongoing propaganda campaign to deflect criticism from its committal of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. On March 7, the Jerusalem Postreported that Katz, “has directed all embassies within the State of Israel to begin a large-scale hasbara (public diplomacy) campaign immediately… in light of the findings of the UN report on sexual violence in the Hamas massacre on October 7.”
An inversion of the Israeli narrative about the UN
The development represents an inversion of what Israel and Western media commonly characterize as the usual dynamic between the UN and the various parties to the conflict in Palestine. According to this narrative, the UN has a viciously anti-Israel agenda and consistently singles out Israel for criticism. Indeed, hardline Zionists have long complained that the UN is “biased” or even prejudiced against Israel, which often goes alongside the usual conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
One US-based Israel supporter even set up an NGO called “UN Watch,” which according to its executive director “holds the UN to account” for its supposed anti-Israel bias. Indeed, we will presumably soon hear an Israeli narrative that presents the fact that the UN has produced such a report in spite of such a bias as the most definitive proof possible that its findings are correct. But a deeper investigation shows that the report is, in fact, deeply flawed in both its methods and conclusions.
A compendium of unverified anecdotes and repetition of Israeli lies
It has already emerged, for instance, that the team of UN personnel who produced the report did not conduct their own research. Tellingly, press reports have also revealed that they did not even meet with any survivors of sexual violence that allegedly took place on October 7. Rather, they relied to a large extent on anecdotal and unverified reports from institutions in Israel. According to CNN, the UN team met with a total of 33 Israeli institutions. One of these was a “search and rescue” organization that has previously been accused of spreading misinformation about the October 7 Hamas attack. This same organization, for example, had earlier claimed that it found a pregnant woman who had been stabbed in the stomach in an apparent attack on her fetus, which turned out to be unverified.
Foreign Policy magazine pointed out that the report furthermore “did not attribute the sexual violence to any specific armed group.” In other words, even if the allegations are true, they could have been committed by Palestinians (or, indeed, non-Palestinians) who were not affiliated with Hamas or any other Palestinian paramilitary organization. Foreign Policy added that “the U.N. team behind the report had not been tasked with an investigative mission” and that “[s]uch attribution would require a fully-fledged investigative process.”
A similar story plays out at the New York Times
The report was released in the same week that it emerged that significant sections of a New York Times article published in December of last year, which contained similar claims, were in fact false. The story, titled “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.,” claimed that members of the Be’eri kibbutz in southern Israel near the Gaza border had been raped by Hamas assailants during the course of the October 7 attack.
But The Interceptreported on March 7 that at least two of the three women “were not in fact victims of sexual assault,” according to a spokesperson of the kibbutz. The Intercept article adds that some of the initial reports about sexual violence came from an anonymous paramedic who had been connected to the international media by a representative of the Israeli government (which, of course, makes this person’s testimony highly suspect). It also states that the kibbutz spokesperson herself “disputed the graphic and highly detailed claims of the Israeli special forces paramedic who served as the source for the allegation, which was published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and other media outlets.”
Not an isolated incident, but the latest chapter in a long history
Neither the UN report nor the erroneous New York Times article would be the first cases of Western institutions or its corporate-owned media spreading misinformation on Israel’s behalf. Indeed, there is a long history of The New York Times specifically taking orders from the Israeli government and its NGO proxies in the Israel lobby. In 2014, for example, the Timesdeliberately failed to report on the arrest of a Palestinian journalist by Israeli authorities because Israel had ordered it to do so. In 2022, the Timesfired a Palestinian photographer on its staff at the behest of the pro-Israel NGO Honest Reporting.
Even when there is no direct evidence of Israeli intervention, leadership of mainstream corporate media across the West seem to have an almost automatic tendency to sideline, silence and/or fire any of its staff who fail to toe the pro-Israel line. In 2018, CNN fired Marc Lamont Hill for making a pro-Palestinian remark at a UN meeting held on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The Washington-based publication The Hillsacked Katie Halper in 2022 after she described Israel as an apartheid state (a charge that has become mainstream even within Israel). And the UK’s Guardian newspaper fired Nathan J. Robinson in 2021 after he posted a satirical comment about the US’s military funding to Israel on social media.
Countless resolutions but never any concrete sanction
As for the UN, though there have been many resolutions condemning Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians, the organization has seldom imposed any concrete punitive measures against the country in response. Indeed, as political scientist Norman Finkelstein has pointed out, the reason why the UN keeps issuing so many resolutions condemning Israel is because Israel (with the encouragement of its backers in Washington) simply ignores them and continues to violate Palestinian human rights and international law.
In any case, it is the UN General Assembly, rather than the UN’s leadership or staff, that usually issues these condemnations. The UN General Assembly is made up of representatives of governments around the world and so is more representative of global public opinion than the UN’s internal bureaucracy. In any case, General Assembly resolutions can be vetoed by permanent members of the UN Security Council. Since one of those permanent members is the United States (whose number one ally is Israel), it always vetoes any resolution that condemns Israel anyway.
UN staff slammed by leadership when critical of Israel
Even when UN officials themselves criticize Israel, they sometimes do so only to get silenced or sidelined by the UN’s hierarchy. For instance, international relations scholar at Princeton University Richard Falk served for decades as a UN expert on the conflict in Palestine. Yet his work has often been thwarted by figures within the UN leadership and administration.
In 2017, for example, Falk published a report on Israel’s human rights violations through the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA). The head of UNESCWA, Rima Khalaf, said that the report represented the first time that any UN report has “clearly and frankly conclude[d] that Israel is a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people.”
The fact that Israel is practicing apartheid in the occupied territories is so obvious that former US president Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even Israel’s own human rights organization, B’Tselem, have said so. Even some figures from Israel’s own political, military, intelligence, and legal elite have said so too. Yet in spite of this, Secretary General António Guterres demanded that Khalaf withdraw Falk’s report.
Legitimizing the two-state charade while deplatforming the one-state alternative
Another way that the UN subtly serves the Israeli narrative is its elevation of a two-state solution as the best, and indeed only, means of resolving the conflict. Every resolution passed by the UN General Assembly calling for a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is predicated on one Israeli state and one Palestinian state divided by the borders that existed prior to the June 1967 war. This would deliver to Israel 78% of the land that made up historic Palestine while leaving the Palestinians with the remaining 22%. In addition to giving the two sides a completely unfair share of the land (especially considering the rough parity in population numbers), this division would also reward the Zionist landgrab and subsequent ethnic cleansing that took place in the latter half of the 1940s.
The traditional solution that was proffered by all Palestinian nationalist parties before the 1993 Oslo accord, meanwhile, (that is, a single, secular, non-sectarian democratic state with equal rights for all encompassing the whole of historic Palestine) has been systematically suppressed and deplatformed by the UN’s leadership. Former official Craig Mokhiber was essentially forced to resign for reasons of conscience before publicly voicing his support for the rival one-state solution – again highlighting how the UN hierarchy sidelines those who it considers too pro-Palestinian.
In a public letter published just as he resigned, Mokhiber stated that the two-state solution has become an “open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people.” During a media interview shortly after he added: “When people [who work at the UN] are not talking from official talking points, you hear increasingly about a one-state solution.”
The two-state smokescreen
This deliberate deplatforming of the one-state solution and narrow focus on its two-state rival serves an important purpose for Israel. Though Israel opposes even the resolutions in favor of two states (presumably because they insist that such a settlement should be based on internationally recognized borders), it nonetheless benefits from the elevation of the two-state solution. This is because it creates a convenient smokescreen for Israel to deliberately stall on making peace while continuing to displace Palestinians in the West Bank, establish settlements in their place, and build infrastructure for the exclusive use of Israeli settlers – all of which is illegal under international law.
Israel does this as part of a duplicitous sleight of hand in which it publicly proclaims support for a two-state solution while simultaneously itself creating a situation on the ground that makes that solution impossible. It does this for the simple reason that the goal of Zionism from the outset has been the establishment of a Jewish-majority state encompassing all of historic Palestine with the Palestinians ethnically cleansed out of it. As political scientist Rosalind Petchesky puts it in A Land With A People, “the settler colonial project to ‘de-Arabise Palestine’ and bring all of historic Palestine under Zionist sovereignty long pre-dated both the Nakba and worldwide knowledge of the Nazi holocaust.”
Time to rethink the role of the UN
Given the UN’s role in providing cover for the continuation of this process all while posturing as the primary locomotive toward peace, it is high time that Palestinians and their supporters stop looking up to it as a source of truth and meaningful condemnation of Israel’s human rights violations. Clearly, there is growing evidence that the supposed anti-Israel bias of the UN is a myth concocted to benefit Israel. Evidently, if there’s any bias at the world’s preeminent international institution, it is against the Palestinians rather than the other way round.
Google was recently forced to halt the rollout of their AI image generator, Gemini, after claims of the software’s bias against white people. Mike Papantonio is joined by Independent newspaper publisher Rick Outzen to discuss. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: Gemini, the Gemini controversy with Google, this […]
Papua New Guinea and Indonesia have formally ratified a defence agreement a decade after its initial signing.
PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and the Indonesian ambassador to the Pacific nation, Andriana Supandy, convened a press briefing in Port Moresby on February 29 to declare the ratification.
The agreement enables an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
According to Tkatchenko as reported by RNZ Pacific citing Benar News, “The Joint border patrols and different types of defence cooperation between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea of course will be part of the ever-growing security mechanism.”
“It would be wonderful to witness the collaboration between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, both now and in the future, as they work together side by side. Indonesia is a rising Southeast Asian power that reaches into the South Pacific region and dwarfs Papua New Guinea in population, economic size and military might,” added the minister.
In recent years, Indonesia has been asserting its own regional hegemony in the Pacific amid the rivalries of two superpowers — the United States and China.
Indonesia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi reiterated Indonesia’s commitment to bolster collaboration with Pacific nations amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region during the recent 2024 annual press statement held by the minister for foreign affairs at the Asian-African Conference in Bandung.
Diverse Indigenous states
The Pacific Islands are home to diverse sovereign Indigenous states and islands, and also home to two influential regional powers, Australia and New Zealand. This vast diverse region is increasingly becoming a pivotal strategic and political battleground for foreign powers — aiming to win the hearts and minds of the populations and governments in the region.
Numerous visible and hidden agreements, treaties, talks, and partnerships are being established among local, regional, and global stakeholders in the affairs of this vast region.
The Pacific region carries great importance for powerful military and economic entities such as China, the United States and its coalition, and Indonesia. For them, it serves as a crucial area for strategic bases, resource acquisition, food, and commercial routes.
For Indigenous islanders, states, and tribal communities, the primary concern is around the loss of their territories, islands, and other vital cultural aspects, such as languages and traditional wisdom.
The crumbling of Oceania, reminiscent of its past colonisation by various European powers, is now occurring. However, this time it is being orchestrated by foreign entities appointing their own influential local pawns.
With these local pawns in place, foreign monarchs, nobility, warlords, and miscreants are advancing to reshape the region’s fate.
The rejection by the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to acknowledge the representation of West Papua by the United Liberation for West Papua (ULMWP) as a full member of the regional body in August 2023 highlights the diminishing influence of MSG leaders in decision-making processes concerning issues that are deemed crucial by the Papuan community as part of the “Melanesian family affairs”.
Suspicion over ‘external forces’
This raises suspicion of external forces at play within the Melanesian nations, manipulating their destinies. The question arises, who is orchestrating the fate of the Melanesian nations?
Is it Jakarta, Beijing, Washington, or Canberra?
In a world characterised by instability, safety and security emerges as a crucial prerequisite for fostering a peaceful coexistence, nurturing friendships, and enabling development.
The critical question at hand pertains to the nature of the threats that warrant such protective measures, the identities of both the endangered and the aggressors, and the underlying rationale and mechanisms involved. Whose safety hangs in the balance in this discourse?
And between whom does the spectre of threat loom?
If you are a realist in a world of policymaking, it is perhaps wise not to antagonise the big guy with the big weapon in the room. The Minister of Papua New Guinea may be attempting to underscore the importance of Indonesia in the Pacific region, as indicated by his statements.
If you are West Papuan, it makes little difference whether one leans towards realism or idealism. What truly matters is the survival of West Papuans, in the midst of the significant settler colonial presence of Asian Indonesians in their ancestral homeland.
West Papuan refugee camp
Two years ago, PNG’s minister stated the profound existential sentiments experienced by the West Papuans in 2022 while visiting a West Papuan refugee community in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
During the visit, the minister addressed the West Papuan refugees with the following words:
“The line on the map in middle of the island (New Guinea) is the product of colonial impact. These West Papuans are part of our family, part of our members and part of Papua New Guinea. They are not strangers.
“We are separated only by imaginary lines, which is why I am here. I did not come here to fight, to yell, to scream, to dictate, but to reach a common understanding — to respect the law of Papua New Guinea and the sovereignty of Indonesia.”
These types of ambiguous and opaque messages and rhetoric not only instil fake hope among the West Papuans, but also produce despair among displaced Papuans on their own soil.
The seemingly paradoxical language coupled with the significant recent security agreement with the entity — Indonesia — that has been oppressing the West Papuans under the pretext of sovereignty, signifies one ominous prospect:
Is PNG endorsing a “death decree” for the Indonesian security apparatus to hunt Papuans along the border and mountainous region of West Papua and Papua New Guinea?
Security for West Papua Currently, the situation in West Papua is deteriorating steadily. Thousands of Indonesian military personnel have been deployed to various regions in West Papua, especially in the areas afflicted by conflict, such as Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Star Mountain, and along the border separating Papua New Guinea from West Papua.
On the 27 February 2024, Indonesian military personnel captured two teenage students and fatally shot a Papuan civilian in the Yahukimo district. They alleged that the deceased individual was affiliated with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNB), although this assertion has yet to be verified by the TPNPB.
Such incidents are tragically a common occurrence throughout West Papua, as the Indonesian military continue to target and wrongfully accuse innocent West Papuans in conflict-ridden regions of being associated with the TPNPB.
Two West Papuan students who were arrested on the banks of Braza River in Yahukimo . . . under the watch of two Indonesian military with heavy SS2 guns standing behind them. Image: Kompas.com
These deplorable acts transpired just prior to the ratification of a border operation agreement between the governments of the Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
As the security agreement was being finalised, the Indonesian government announced a new military campaign in the highlands of West Papua. This operation, is named as “Habema” — meaning “must succeed to the maximum” — and was initiated in Jakarta on the 29 February 2024.
Agus Subiyanto, the Indonesian military command and police command stated during the announcement:
“My approach for Papua involves smart power, a blend of soft power, hard power, and military diplomacy. Establishing the Habema operational command is a key step in ensuring maximum success.”
Indonesian military commander General Agus Subiyanto (left) with National Police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo (centre) and Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto while checking defence equipment at the TNI headquarters in Jakarta last Wednesday. Prabowo (right) is expected to become President after his decisive victory in the elections last week. Image: Antara News.
The looming military operation in West Papua and its border regions, employing advanced smart weapon technology poised a profound danger for Papuans.
A looming humanitarian crisis in West Papua, PNG, broader Melanesia and the Pacific region is inevitable, as unmanned aerial drones discern targets indiscriminately, wreak havoc in homes, and villages of the Papuan communities.
The Indonesian security forces have increasingly employed such sophisticated technology in conflict zones since 2019, including regions like Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Pegunungan Bintang, and other volatile regions in West Papua.
Consequently, villages have been razed to the ground, compelling inhabitants to flee to the jungle in search of sanctuary — an exodus that continues unabated as they remain displaced from their homes indefinitely.
On 5 April 2018, the Indonesian government announced a military operation known as Damai Cartenz, which remains active in conflict-ridden regions, such as Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga, and Intan Jaya.
The Habema security initiative will further threaten Papuans residing in the conflict zones, particularly in the vicinity of the border shared by Papua New Guinea and West Papua.
There are already hundreds of people from the Star Mountains who have fled across to Tumolbil, in the Yapsie sub-district of the PNG province of West Sepik, situated on the border. They fled to PNG because of Indonesia’s military operation (RNZ 2021).
According to RNZ News, individuals fleeing military actions conducted by the Indonesian government, including helicopter raids that caused significant harm to approximately 14 villages, have left behind foot tracks.
The speaker explained that Papua New Guineans occasionally cross over to the Indonesian side, typically seeking improved access to basic services.
The PNG government has been placing refugees from West Papua in border camps, the biggest one being at East Awin in the Western Province for many decades, with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
How should PNG, UN respond? The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, article 36, states that “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation with their own members as well as other peoples across borders”.
Over the past six years, regional and international organisations, such as the Melanesian Spearheads groups (MSG), Pacific islands Forum (PIF), Africa, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP), the UN’s human rights commissioner as well as dozens of countries and individual parliaments, lawyers, academics, and politicians have been asking the Indonesian government to allow the UN’s human rights commissioner to visit West Papua.
However, to date, no response has been received from the Indonesian government.
What does this security deal mean for West Papuans? This is not just a simple security arrangement between Jakarta and Port Moresby to address border conflicts, but rather an issue of utmost importance for the people of Papua.
It concerns the sovereignty of a nation — West Papua — that has been unjustly seized by Indonesia, while the international community watched in silence, witnessing the unfurling and unparalleled destruction of human lives and the ecological system.
There is one noble thing the foreign minister of PNG and his government can do: ask why Jakarta is not responding to the request for a UN visit made by the international community, rather than endorsing an ‘illegal security pact’ with the illegal Indonesia colonial occupier over his supposed “family members separated only by imaginary lines”.
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands that share a border with the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He graduated last year with a Master of Arts in International Relations from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.
A Papua New Guinea MP who is being touted by the opposition as the next prime minister of the country says “my life is under threat”.
East Sepik governor Allan Bird said that since his nomination, he had been advised of this by a deputy police commissioner, who said they were monitoring the situation.
“All the apparatus of state have been put on full alert to hunt down the most dangerous criminal in PNG: his name is Allan Bird,” he wrote on Facebook.
“This is not the country I was born into, this is not the country the founding fathers envisioned.”
He said “reliable sources” had told him various state institutions had been instructed to try and find anything illegal on him, and charge and arrest him.
Last week, Bird told RNZ Pacific the country needed to decentralise power to deal with its challenges.
He said PNG had “very serious challenges”.
“Anyone who fixes these problems will be hated just like Sir Mekere [Morauta] did 25 years ago. Doing what needs to be done is not pretty, but it has to be done. Someone has to be willing to do the hard things.
“Many countries have problems, but not many countries have all those challenges all at the same time. PNG does so right now.
“If the problems aren’t fixed quickly then they will continue to get worse. Most of our people experience these problems every day now. It’s a struggle for survival.”
Part of Governor Bird’s FB posting about threats to his life on 9 March 2024. Image: Screenshot APR
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Television New Zealand’s proposals to balance its worsening books by killing news and current affairs programmes mean New Zealanders could end up with almost no national current affairs on TV within weeks.
It is a response to digital era changes in technology, viewing and advertising — but also the consequence of political choices.
“I can see that I’ve chosen a good night to come on,” TVNZ presenter Jack Tame said mournfully on his stint as a Newstalk ZB panelist last Wednesday.
The news that TVNZ news staff had been told to “watch their inboxes” the next morning had just broken.
It was less than a week since Newshub’s owners had announced a plan to close it completely in mid-year and TVNZ had reported bad financial figures for the last half of 2023.
The following day — last Thursday — TVNZ’s Midday News told viewers 9 percent of TVNZ staff — 68 people in total — would go in a plan to balance the books.
“The broadcaster has told staff that its headcount is high and so are costs,” said reporter Kim Baker-Wilson starkly on TVNZ’s Midday.
On chopping block
Twenty-four hours later, it was one of the shows on the chopping block — along with late news show Tonight and TVNZ’s flagship weekly current affairs show Sunday.
“As the last of its kind — is that what we want in our media landscape . . . to have no in-depth current affairs show?” said Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo (also the host of the weekend show Marae).
Consumers investigator Fair Go — with a 47-year track record as one of TVNZ’s most popular local shows — will also be gone by the end of May under this plan.
People at TVNZ’s building in central Auckland. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
If Newshub vanishes from rival channel Three by mid year, there will be just one national daily TV news bulletin left — TVNZ’s 1News — and no long form current affairs at all, except TVNZ’s Q+A and others funded from the public purse by NZ on Air and Te Mangai Paho.
Tellingly, weekday TVNZ shows which will carry on — Breakfast and Seven Sharp — are ones which generate income from “partner content” deals and “integrated advertising” — effectively paid-for slots within the programmes.
TVNZ had made it known cuts were coming months ago because costs were outstripping fast-falling revenue as advertisers tightened their belts or spent elsewhere.
TVNZ executives had also made it clear that reinforcing TVNZ’s digital-first strategy would be a key goal as well as just cutting costs.
Other notable cut
So the other notable service to be cut was a surprise — the youth-focused digital-native outlet Re: News.
After its launch in 2017, its young staff revived a mothballed studio and gained a reputation for hard work — and then for the quality of its work.
It won national journalism awards in the past two years and reached younger people who rarely if ever turn on a television set.
Reportedly, the staff of Re: News staff is to be halved and lose some of its leaders.
The main media workers’ union E tū said it will fight to save jobs and extend the short consultation period.
Some staff made it plain that they weren’t giving up just yet either and would present counter-proposals to save shows and jobs.
In a statement, TVNZ said the proposals “in no way relate to the immense contribution of the teams that work on those shows and the significant journalistic value they’ve provided over the years”.
Money-spinners
But some were money-spinners too.
Fair Go and Sunday still pull in big six-figure live primetime TV audiences and more views now on TVNZ+. Its marketers frequently tell the advertisers that.
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell knows all about that. She was previously TVNZ’s commercial director.
So why kill off these programmes now?
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell . . . “I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows.” Image: TVNZ
Mediawatch’s requests to talk to O’Donnell and TVNZ’s executive editor of news Phil O’Sullivan were unsuccessful.
But O’Donnell did talk to Newstalk ZB on Friday night.
“I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows. And we need to find some ways to stop doing some things for us to reduce our costs,” O’Donnell told Newstalk ZB.
“TVNZ’s still investing over $40 million in news and current affairs — so we absolutely believe in the future of news and current affairs. But we have a situation right now that our operating model is more expensive than the revenue that we’re making. And we have to make some really tough, tough decisions,” she said.
“We’ll constantly be looking at things to keep the operating model in line with what our revenue is. Within the TVNZ Act it’s clear that we need to be a commercial broadcaster, We are a commercial business, so that’s the remit that we need to work on.
“Our competitors these days are not (Newstalk ZB) or Sky or Warner Brothers (Discovery) but Google and Meta. These are multi-trillion dollar organisations. Ninety cents of every dollar spent in digital news advertising is going offshore. That’s 10 cents left for the likes of NZME, TVNZ, Stuff and any of the other local broadcasters.”
Jack Tame also pointed the finger at the titans of tech on his Newstalk ZB Saturday show.
Force of digital giants ‘irrepressible’ “Ultimately the force of those digital giants is irrepressible. Trying to save free-to-air commercial TV, with quality news, current affairs and local programming in a country with five million people . . . is like trying to bail out the Titanic with an empty ice cream container. I’m not aware of any comparable broadcast markets where they’ve managed to pull it off,” he told listeners.
But few countries have a state-owned yet fully-commercial broadcaster trying to do news on TV and online, disconnected from publicly-funded ones also doing news on TV and radio and online.
That makes TVNZ a state-owned broadcaster that serves advertisers as much as New Zealanders.
But if things had panned out differently a year ago, that wouldn’t be the case now either.
What if the public media merger had gone ahead? A new not-for-profit public media entity incorporating RNZ and TVNZ — Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) — was supposed to start one year ago this week.
It would have been the biggest media reform since the early 1990s.
The previous government was prepared to spend more than $400 million over four years to get it going.
Almost $20 million was spent on a programme called Strong Public Media, put in place because New Zealand’s media sector was weak.
“Ailing” was the word that the business case used, noting “increased competition from overseas players slashed the share of revenue from advertising.”
But the Labour government killed the plan before the last election, citing the cost of living crisis.
The new entity would still have needed TVNZ’s commercial revenue, but if it had gone ahead, would that mean TVNZ wouldn’t now be sacrificing news shows and journalists?
Tracey Martin who had been named as chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running . . . “Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer.” Image: RNZ/Nate McKinnon
“Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer. Something radical had to change,” Tracey Martin — the chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running — told Mediawatch.
“I don’t have any problem believing that (TVNZ) would have had to change what they were delivering. But would it have been cuts to news and current affairs that we would have been seeing? There would have been other decisions made because commerciality . . . was not the major driver (of ANZPM),” Martin said.
“That was where we started from. If Armageddon happens — and all other New Zealand media can no longer exist — you have to be there as the Fourth Estate — to make sure that New Zealanders have a place to go to for truth and trust.”
What were the assumptions about the advertising revenue TVNZ would have been able to pull in?
“[TVNZ] was telling us that it wouldn’t be as bad as we believed it would be. TVNZ modeling was not as dramatic as our modeling. We were happy to accept that [because] our modeling gave us a particular window by which to change the ecosystem in which New Zealand media could survive to try and stabilise,” Martin told Mediawatch.
The business case document tracked TVNZ revenue and expenses from 2012 until 2020 — the start of the planning process for the new entity.
By 2020, a sharp rise in costs already exceeded revenue which was above $300 million.
And as we now know, TVNZ revenue has fallen further and more quickly since then.
“We were predicting linear TV revenue was going to continue to drop substantially and relatively quickly — and they were not going to be able to switch their advertising revenue at the same capacity to digital,” Martin said.
“They had more confidence than we did,” she said.
The ANZPM legislation estimated it as a $400 million a year operation, with roughly half the funding from public sources and half from commercial revenue.
TVNZ’s submission said that was “unambitious”.
Then TVNZ CEO Simon Power addressing Parliament’s EDSI committee last year on the ANZPM legislation. Image: Screenshot/EDSI Committee Facebook
“If the commercial arm of the new entity can aid in gaining more revenue to reinvest into local content and to reinvest into public media outcomes, all the better,” the chief executive at the time Simon Power told Mediawatch in 2023.
“It was a very rosy picture they painted. They had a mandate to be a commercial business that had to give confidence to the advertisers and the rest of New Zealand but they were very confident two years ago that this wouldn’t happen,” she said.
In opposition, National Party leader Christopher Luxon described the merger as “ideological and insane” and “a solution looking for a problem”.
Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee . . . Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
But if that was based on TVNZ’s bullish assessments of its own revenue-raising capacity — or a disregard of a probable downturn ahead, was that a big mistake?
“I won’t comment for today’s government, but statements being made in the last couple of days about people getting their news from somewhere else; truth and trust has dropped off; linear has got to be transferred into the digital environment . . . none of those things are new comments,” Martin told Mediawatch.
“They’re all in the documentation that we placed into the public domain — and I asked the special permission, as the chair of the ANZPM group, to brief spokespersons for broadcasting of the Greens, Act and National to try and make sure that everybody has as much and as much information as we could give them,” she said.
Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee said this week she was working on proposals to help the media to take to cabinet.
“I don’t give advice to the minister, but I would advise officials to go back and pull out the business case and paperwork for ANZPM — and to look at the submissions and the number of people who supported the concept, but had concerns about particular areas,” Tracey Martin told Mediawatch.
“Don’t let perfection get in the way of action.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
On February 13, officers from Malawi’s Digital Forensics and Cybercrime Investigations department seized cell phones and laptops from 14 Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) journalists, according to newsreports, the Malawi chapter of regional press freedom group Media Institute of Southern Africa, South Africa-based rights group Campaign for Free Expression, and four of the affected journalists, who spoke to CPJ.The police officers seized cell phones from each of the 14 journalists and laptops from five of this group.
The seizures took place largely at MBC offices in Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu following a complaint by MBC’s management about the creation of a “fake” Facebook page bearing the corporation’s name and logo, which the outlet had not approved, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the journalists, and police search warrants reviewed by CPJ. The complaint accused the 14 journalists of “spamming,” which carries a maximum penalty of two million Malawian kwacha (about US$1,190) and imprisonment for five years under section 91 of Malawi’s Electronic Transactions and Cybersecurity Act.
As of March 8, police returned three laptops and nine phones to the journalists, according to a journalist who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. The journalist, whose phone has been returned, is concerned that the device has been compromised while in police custody and will no longer use it.
Another journalist, who also spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said some MBC colleagues received email notifications about attempts to log into their Instagram and X accounts while their devices were in police custody.
Malawi police spokesperson Peter Kalaya told CPJ in a late February 2024 phone interview that the police investigation was being conducted in response to a legitimate complaint, and police had obtained a warrant before seizing and searching the devices.
“The investigation is not targeting journalists, it is targeting people who we suspect to be responsible” for the Facebook page, Kalaya said, but he declined to explain how the police had determined which individuals were suspects.
“We have a forensics laboratory and sometimes we use other institutions’ forensic laboratories,” Kalaya told CPJ, but declined to give specifics about the technologies used to search the journalists’ devices. “Our search in the gadgets is going to be restricted to those apps that we believe or that we suspect were used in the commission of the crime,” Kalaya told CPJ, adding that the journalists whose devices had been seized should trust the professionalism of the investigating officers. “Why should a police officer go to contacts, to [the] photo gallery when what he is looking for is not there, or if he does not suspect it will be there?” he said.
In January 2024, the local Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ-Malawi) reported that Malawian authorities had obtained the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), a powerful technology designed to access and extract information from electronic devices and sold by the Israel-based company Cellebrite. The Malawi police sought to further expand its investigative capacity with similar tools, according to the report. In response to CPJ’s questions about which tools, including those sold by Cellebrite, police used to search the devices of MBC journalists, Kalaya declined to give specifics.
MBC director general George Kasakula declined to comment until the police investigation into the alleged spamming concludes at an unknown date.
On February 15, five police officers looking for Greyson Chapita, MBC’s suspended controller of news and programs, arrived at his daughter’s home. The officers told family members there to call Chapita and tell him that his daughter was sick to lure him there, the journalist told CPJ, adding that his family obliged, and he arrived shortly after. Once Chapita arrived, police officers told him that he was a suspect in a murder and requested to search his phone and laptop, but he initially refused.
Chapita told the officers that he would not comply until he verified that they were police officers, and he went with them to the local police station to confirm their identities. Once confirmed by a senior officer, Chapita returned with them to his home, where the officers showed him the same warrant citing MBC management’s complaint, and he opened his laptop and entered his password, he told CPJ. The officers then looked through his Facebook account for 30 minutes without further explanation as Chapita watched.
“[T]hey checked my Facebook account and took screenshots. They made me sign a document showing that they searched my laptop and did not find anything, so they didn’t take it. They couldn’t see my phone because it is not a smartphone,” the journalist added.
When asked about the police officers’ tactics used to summon Chapita and search his computer, Kalaya told CPJ that he could not comment on the specifics of the incident, but he said the journalist could file a complaint.
“What I can assure you is that our investigators are very professional and whatever they are doing is very professional,” Kalaya said.
The long-awaited Dune: Part Two was released earlier this month. The much-talked-about film—which generated more than $180 million in its first weekend—has captivated movie theater-goers all over the world, with reviewers calling the epic sci-fi sequel “immense,” “awe-inspiring,” and “absolutely gorgeous.”
The films are based on the books of the same name by Frank Herbert, and imagine a universe where different planets are struggling for power over a desert planet called Arrakis, its people (the Fremen), and its abundant supply of the profitable psychedelic drug Melange (often referred to as “spice”). As you might expect, the desire for wealth and control ultimately leads to war—and this is what we see unfold in Part Two.
If you’re yet to witness the cinematic spectacle that is the sequel and you’re planning a pre-viewing feast in honor of the occasion, we’ve listed a few different dishes you might want to serve to your fellow Dune fans below. They’re also great choices if you’ve already seen it, but just want to immerse yourself back in the fantasy world. Or maybe you’re just a fan of the movie’s star-studded cast, which includes Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet, and Florence Pugh, and are interested in their favorite foods (spoiler: one of them is grilled cheese).
Or maybe, you’re just hungry. Regardless of your feelings, we’re confident you’re going to love the selection we’ve gathered. And everything is vegan, of course.
8 dishes perfect for your Dune: Part Two celebration feast
1 ‘Spice’ Cinnamon Sugar Churros
Melange is the reason for all of the events we see in the Dune novels and books, so, of course, we had to start this list with something spice-inspired. In the story, Lady Jessica (the mother of Chalamet’s central character, Paul, who is played by Rebecca Ferguson), reveals that her first try of the drug “tasted like cinnamon,” hence why we’ve picked these delicious vegan cinnamon sugar churros. They’re deliciously crispy, golden, sugar-dusted, and best served with rich chocolate sauce. Get the recipe
Plant Based Folk
2 Middle Eastern Maqluba
Much of Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two were filmed in Jordan’s Wadi Rum, an area of protected desert wilderness (now likely to become a popular tourist destination). So, in honor of the country that gave us real-life Arrakis, we felt it was only right to include one of its most-loved dishes, maqluba, on this list. The Middle Eastern dish, which is also eaten across Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq, consists of vegetables and rice that are layered in a pot before being flipped over before serving. Find out more about its origins and how to make it below. Learn more
Gina Fontana
3 Zendaya’s favorite grilled cheese
Zendaya, who plays Fremen warrior Chani, is a big fan of In-N-Out, according to a recent interview with Elle. But as a vegetarian, she’s not after the burgers. “I always go get my grilled cheese,” she said. “I know people are like, ‘Wait, aren’t you a vegetarian?’ Grilled cheese. They’re bomb.” Unfortunately, the popular fast-food chain doesn’t offer a vegan version of the actress’ favorite, but you can make your own vegan grilled cheese with our recipe below (and with pumpkin, pear, and candied pecans, we think it’s even better than the In-N-Out version, sorry, Zendaya). Get the recipe
Ooh La La It’s Vegan
4 Water of Life Kamikaze shots
In Dune, Water of Life is not to be messed with. This blue liquid is a concentrated form of spice and can be poisonous if used in the wrong way (to find out more, you’ll have to watch the movies or read the books!). This fun, vibrant, tangy blue shot from Ohh La La It’s Vegan would make the perfect Water of Life shot for any Dune-inspired party. It isn’t poisonous, but it is alcoholic, so enjoy it in moderation. Get the recipe
Canva
5 Vegan bagels in honor of Timothée Chalamet
We don’t know much about Chalamet’s diet, but we do know that like any true New Yorker, he loves bagels. In 2018, he told Frank Ocean in an interview for V Magazine that he always heads to Tompkins Square Bagels in the city for the “best bagels.” If that’s a little far for you to go to stock up, you can find more of our favorite brands below. Eat one for you and then another one for Chalamet, go on, you deserve it. Learn more
Sarah Bond
6 Desert Dulce Date Leche Popsicles
Keeping cool is essential in the desert, and while Herbert’s version of Arrakis might not be stocked up on popsicles, that doesn’t mean your Dune party can’t imagine that it is. These delicious leche popsicles are also made with dates, a favorite food in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where much of Dune was also filmed. Get the recipe
Lowly Food
7 Florence Pugh’s proper full English breakfast
Pugh makes her Dune debut as Princess Irulan in the second movie in the series. Celebrate her role in the franchise by munching down on one of the British actress’ favorite meals: a full English breakfast. In a recent video for Vanity Fair, she told her fellow castmates that her go-to hungover breakfast consists of “sourdough, beans, bacon, fried egg, a little bit of spicy thing on the side. Some tomatoes, sausages, English sausages, ketchup, HP sauce, runny yolk.” Pugh’s version, of course, isn’t vegan, but it’s easy to make a delicious plant-based English breakfast, as this recipe from Lowly Food demonstrates. Get the recipe
Marie Laforêt
8 House Atreides x Fremen fusion: Cinnamon Rice Pudding
Paul and Lady Jessica both belong to House Atreides, the ruling house that moved from the planet of Caladan to Arrakis to take over Spice production. For that reason, we think a fusion of their cuisine with the Fremen’s would look something like this cinnamon rice pudding. The cinnamon is, of course, the Spice, but the rice part is also important—on Caladan, House Atreides cultivated a type of grain called Pungi rice. Get the recipe
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
Both corporate media and social media companies are hoping for big pay days during this year’s campaign cycle, and they’ve spent millions lobbying Washington lawmakers to make it easier to hide where the money is coming from. Mike Papantonio is joined by Independent newspaper publisher Rick Outzen to discuss. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription […]
Berlin, March 8, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists and more than 100 journalists and media leaders sent an open letter to senior British police officers and lawmakers on Friday, International Women’s Day, calling on them to break the cycle of online violence and abuse against women working in journalism, which risks sidelining them from the profession, and to secure a safer future for women in the media.
In the letter, the signatories made four recommendations to the police:
to improve the recording of crimes against journalists
to provide national-level guidance for police on online violence against journalists and training on the gendered nature of online violence
Television New Zealand is proposing to axe its long-running and award-winning current affairs programme Sunday, hosted by veteran broadcaster Miriama Kamo.
TVNZ said a proposal had been presented to Sunday staff which could result in cancellation of the programme.
The show was named Best Current Affairs Programme at the Voyager Media Awards and the New Zealand Television Awards last year.
It first aired in 2002 and has run for more than two decades, showcasing a mix of New Zealand stories and reports from overseas.
One award-winning investigation looked into the 2008 Chinese poisoned milk scandal, and how patients were treated at Porirua Hospital.
Veteran journalists like John Hudson, Janet McIntyre and Ian Sinclair have contributed to the show.
News bulletins may be canned
RNZ understands the 1News Midday and Tonight bulletins may also be canned, and consumer affairs programme Fair Go could to be cut too.
Its understood four out of 10 roles at youth platform Re: News are set to go — head of Re: News, head of content, production manager, and a journalist.
TVNZ’s Sunday show . . . named Best Current Affairs Programme at the Voyager Media Awards and the New Zealand Television Awards last year. Image: TVNZ screenshot APR
Its understood four out of 10 roles at youth platform Re: News are set to go — head of Re: News, head of content, production manager, and a journalist.
The remaining five staff will have a change in reporting line, reporting to TVNZ digital news and content general manager Veronica Schmidt.
RNZ has been told there will be a shift away from social media in a bid to drive more traffic to the Re: News website. Its documentary series funded by NZ On Air is also set to be canned.
The digital media platform was launched in 2017 as a current affairs platform aimed at audiences under-served by mainstream news.
It produces documentary videos, articles and podcasts particularly relevant to youth, Māori, Pasifika, rainbow communities, and migrant and regional audiences.
The platform won four awards at last year’s Voyager Media Awards, including best news, current affairs or specialist publication; video journalist of the year; best video documentary series; and best original podcast — seasonal/serial.
On average, Re: News receives more than a million video views each month.
Difficult choices
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell said in a statement that difficult choices had to be made to ensure the broadcaster remained sustainable.
A hui for all news and current affairs staff is due to be held at 1pm, following the individual programme meetings.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, speaking at a press conference in Whangārei, said he was concerned about reports of job cuts and that it was a “pretty tough time if you’re a TVNZ employee”.
Luxon said consumers are consuming news in different ways and advertising and revenue models are changing.
He said it was a pretty tough time for people working in the media but he had travelled the country and many other sectors were doing it tough.
Media companies needed to evolve and innovate in order to adapt, he said.
Fair Go Fair Go is one of New Zealand’s longest running and most popular television series.
The consumer affairs show, which investigates complaints from viewers, first aired in April 1977 and is just shy of its 47th birthday.
During a 2021 interview with RNZ’s Afternoons programme, original host and creator Brian Edwards said he was inspired by a BBC programme called That’s Life.
“One particular segment was on consumers and I think that was the germ of the idea, that we could do a programme in New Zealand where we could look at protecting people right there in their normal daily lives from rip offs and scams by various people and it it just soared from the beginning. I mean, it was tremendous,” Edwards said.
“I suppose my main function was to grill the villains, and because I’m a really quite unpleasant person, this fit in my my personality very well.”
Well-known presenter Kevin Milne hosted the show for almost three decades, from 1983 to 2010.
“It was beautifully set up, really, and it didn’t require any change as much and still hasn’t, you know, 44 years later,” he told Afternoons during the same interview.
‘Good deal of cynicism’
“I remember that there was a good deal of cynicism in the early days from the newsroom journalists who thought that because there was an element of entertainment on the show that you couldn’t call it real journalism, which was nonsense because it ended up leading the way in terms of investigative journalism.”
The show broke new ground, Milne said.
“It’s hard to believe now that back then, at the time when Brian set up those programmes, most broadcasters never named names. I can remember now hearing news stories which could say a well-known department store in Lambton Quay appeared in court this morning. No mention [of name], and when Fair Go started up, it was decided it would name names.”
Edwards said that was an “absolutely critical” aspect of the show.
“The thing would have been pointless I think, if you couldn’t name names. The thing was to expose the wrong doers if you like . . . what was the point in in doing that if you couldn’t name names?
“And I think we probably, together, our team, won some battles there and being able to do that. It took a while and I think there was a degree of nervousness by the broadcaster and eventually it turned out all right.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
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.
