Moderna has decided to NOT raise the price of their COVID vaccine after Bernie Sanders threatened to haul the CEO in for a Senate hearing. Then, Florida Republicans are still moving forward with their attempts to re-write defamation laws in the state, but their favorite conservative media outlets are telling them that this will kill […]
Children across the country are being subjected to bullying at school, and many have decided that harming themselves is their only option because the schools are doing nothing to stop the bullying. Plus, American politicians want you to think that the threat of China spying on you through TikTok is a serious danger, but at […]
The Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) says it is “deeply concerned” at reports that Western Australian police are demanding the ABC hand over footage about climate protesters filmed as part of a Four Corners investigation.
“As researchers and teachers of journalism, we uphold the ethical obligation of journalists to honour any assurances given to protect sources,” said JERAA president Associate Professor Alexandra Wake in a statement.
“This obligation is imperative in supporting the Western democratic tradition of journalism and to investigative journalism in particular.”
“I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life.” Video: ABC Four Corners
WA police are reported to have demanded footage via “Order to Produce” provisions of the WA Criminal Investigations Act. The law compels organisations to comply.
One of JERAA’s core aims was to promote freedom of expression and communication, said the statement.
“The association is concerned that the WA police action represents a direct threat to media freedom and the practice of ethical investigative journalism,” Dr Wake said.
“We join the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) in urging the ABC to stand firm and not hand over footage which could potentially undermine assurances by the Four Corners team to their sources.”
The union for Australian journalists said it was alarmed at the reports that WA police were demanding the ABC hand over footage featuring climate activists filmed as part of the television investigation before it had even aired.
“Escalation” reported by Hagar Cohen goes to air tonight, Monday, 9 October 2023, at 8.30pm AEST on ABC TV and ABC iview.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is letting the whole country know how thin his skin is by pushing to change defamation laws to make it easier to sue journalists who report on his administration. Then, new legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would put an end to the concept of “Corporate Personhood.” […]
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has hailed the news that Narges Mohammadi — an Iranian journalist RSF has been defending for years — has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran,” her courage and determination.
Persecuted by the Iranian authorities since the late 1990s for her work, and imprisoned again since November 2021, she must be freed at once, RSF declared in a statement.
“Speak to save Iran” is the title of one of the letters published by Mohammadi from Evin prison, near Tehran, where she has been serving a sentence of 10 years and 9 months in prison since 16 November 2021.
She has also been sentenced to hundreds of lashes. The maker of a documentary entitled White Torture and the author of a book of the same name, Mohammadi has never stopped denouncing the sexual violence inflicted on women prisoners in Iran.
It is this fight against the oppression of women that the Nobel Committee has just saluted by awarding the Peace Prize to this 51-year-old journalist and human rights activist, the former vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, the Iranian human rights organisation that was created by Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was herself awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
It is because of this fight that Mohammadi has been hounded by the Iranian authorities, who continue to persecute her in prison.
She has been denied visits and telephone calls since 12 April 2022, cutting her off from the world.
White Torture: The infamy of solitary confinement in Iran with Narges Mohammadi.
New charges
At the same time, the authorities in Evin prison have brought new charges to keep her in detention.
On August 4, her jail term was increased by a year after the publication of another of her letters about violence against fellow women detainees.
Mohammadi was awarded the RSF Prize for Courage on 12 December 2023. At the award ceremony in Paris, her two children, whom she has not seen for eight years, read one of the letters she wrote to them from prison.
“In this country, amid all the suffering, all the fears and all the hopes, and when, after years of imprisonment, I am behind bars again and I can no longer even hear the voices of my children, it is with a heart full of passion, hope and vitality, full of confidence in the achievement of freedom and justice in my country that I will spend time in prison,” she wrote.
She ended the letter with a call to keep alive “the hope of victory”.
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:
“It is with immense emotion that I learn that the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to the journalist and human rights defender Narges Mohammadi.
At Reporters Without Borders (RSF), we have been fighting for her for years, alongside her husband and her two children, and with Shirin Ebadi. The Nobel Peace Prize will obviously be decisive in obtaining her release.”
On June 7, RSF referred the unacceptable conditions in which Mohammadi is being detained to all of the relevant UN human rights bodies.
During an oral update to the UN Human Rights Council on July 5, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed concern over the “continued detention of human rights defenders and lawyers defending the protesters, and at least 17 journalists”.
It is thanks to Mohammadi’s journalistic courage that the world knows what is happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prisons, where 20 journalists are currently detained.
When Sahiba Sayramoghli, a Uyghur living in Turkey, learned that her younger brother had been arrested in July in the far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang on his way to a friend’s wedding, she took to social media for help.
Sayramoghli, 30, who learned about his arrest from her parents in Bortala, in Xinjiang, wanted to know why police had detained him along with three friends at a checkpoint and his status.
But this posed a major danger, however, in that she was putting Quddusjan Abduweli, her 23-year-old detained brother, as well as other relatives who lived in Xinjiang at risk for retribution by Chinese authorities by making his arrest public.
Nevertheless, Sayramoghli posted a message on Twitter in late August about her brother’s detention.
When Radio Free Asia saw the post and contacted her, she said her family was facing pressure from the Chinese government, with police threatening not to disclose information about Abduweli.
But after agreeing to a second interview with Radio Free Asia, Sayramoghli said her brother was detained without legal justification and had been transferred to Qumul Prison, though his relatives had no news of him since then.
RFA called all police stations in Qumul, or Hami in Chinese, to try to find out more information about Abduweli, but no one answered.
‘Well-behaved, cautious young man’
Abduweli graduated from Qaramay Technical University with a degree in petrochemistry in June. During his fourth year at the university, he went to Qumul for mandatory training, working diligently at a transportation company for about six months, Sayramaogli said.
Sayramoghli says she wants to know the reason for her brother’s detention and why he has not yet been released and the real reason for his detention.
“I have complete faith that my brother is incapable of any wrongdoing,” she said. “He’s a well-behaved, cautious young man who chooses his words carefully.”
Sayramoghli said she was always protective of Abduweli, shielding him from parental scoldings whenever he returned home late from playing soccer, didn’t finish his homework or struggled with exams. He was always well-regarded by his teachers in school, she said.
Abduweli had informed his sister that he would attend a friend’s wedding ceremony in Ghulja, known as Yining in Chinese, on July 10. When she called him two days later, he was on his way to the event and said he would return home the same day.
But police arrested him and three others at a checkpoint, though the reason remains unknown.
Three days later, Qumul police transferred Abduweli to Qumul District Prison. His family knows nothing about his current whereabouts or his condition, Sayramoghli said.
“My parents waited for his return until midnight, but he never came back or answered their calls,” she told RFA.
When they contacted the parents of his detained friends, they were informed that two had been released, but that authorities kept Abduweli and a friend named Intizar in custody. After three days, police transferred Abduwweli to Qumul for further investigation.
‘No choice but to post’
Sayramoghli said her parents had at first not been truthful with her, saying her brother had gone to the mountains for some business, and asked her not to post anything about him on social media. When she told them he was not responding to her messages, they claimed his phone was broken.
Sayramoghli contacted the Chinese Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, gave them Abduweli’s name and national ID card number, and asked that they find out what had happened to him. She was told to wait about a month.
With no more information coming from the Chinese Embassy, she called again, and was told: “‘Not giving you an answer is already an answer.’”
After that, “I had no choice but to start posting on Twitter,” she said.
But once she did, police visited the home of her husband’s family in Bortala and threatened to arrest Sayramoghli’s father.
“I was on the phone with my dad while this was happening,” she told RFA. “They pressured me, insisting that I should stop posting on social media. If I didn’t comply, they threatened to arrest my parents and cut off communication from WeChat.”
One of her husband’s friends who works at a security bureau contacted them even though he previously ignored their three attempts to speak with him.
“He spoke to us in a threatening manner and told me to delete my posts,” Sayramoghli said. “He claimed that it wouldn’t be good for our parents if I didn’t comply. He also promised to provide news about my brother if I deleted the posts and assured me he would assist me to the best of his abilities.”
Her parents then said they had found out that Abduweli’s case involves 50-60 people, and the investigation is ongoing. Authorities “made it clear that they wouldn’t provide any information until the case was resolved, and they advised us to be prepared for potentially bad news,” Sayramoghli said
She called on the Chinese government to immediately release her brother.
“Even if it costs me my life, I will not waver in my belief in his innocence,” she said. “I will not abandon him in those dark cells, and for as long as I am alive, I will continue to speak out until my brother is reunited with us.”
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Nuriman Abdureshid for RFA Uyghur.
New Caledonia’s daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes is back six months after it closed — but with a big difference. It is online only and free, almost.
The return of the news outlet which had been an institution for half a century is welcomed in many quarters, but some local mayors would have liked to also see the news print version which traditionally carried special local community liftouts.
In March, the then owners, the Melchior Group, publishers of a chain of giveaway titles, announced the closure of the publication just months after halting the daily newspaper edition.
This left the French overseas territory of New Caledonia (population 275,000) without a daily newspaper.
Readers were shocked when the website of the LNC also shut down abruptly on March 10 citing economics and the covid pandemic.
The Melchior Group owned printing presses, Les Editions du Caillou publishing house and the radio station NRJ-Nouvelle-Calédonie.
Reports surfaced in September that there were efforts to revive LNR as a digital-only publication with the need for a daily news source strengthened with New Caledonia on the threshold of major political changes with the Noumea Accord era drawing to a close and growing polarisation between anti- and pro-independence advocates.
According to the state-owned public broadcaster Nouvelle Calédonie 1 Première TV, the new chief editor Nicolas Lebreton — who had been part of the previous LNC team — pledged: “We will give Caledonians quality and free information.”
In an Inside Report article in May headlined “Death of a newspaper”, Nic Maclellan wrote: “It [LNC] made little pretence of impartiality during the armed conflict that divided New Caledonia in the mid-1980s, denigrating indigenous Kanak and editorialising in favour of the anti-independence party, Rally for New Caledonia in the Republic.”
For many vegan entrepreneurs, ABC’s hit reality show, Shark Tank, has become more than just a source of entertainment—it’s a significant source of revenue. Thanks to vegan-friendly “sharks” such as billionaire investor Mark Cuban, the deals made on this show have been pivotal to these plant-based endeavors. Even those who walked away from a deal have benefited from the show’s exposure, such as that of vegan fried chicken sensation Atlas Monroe and cookie dough queen Sabeena Ladha of Deux. Based on a significant amount of binge-watching and interviews with these vegan companies, plus Cuban himself, here are the 16 best vegan Shark Tank deals of all time (in no particular order).
In today’s economy, you need to spend money to make money. There’s equipment to purchase, packaging and ingredients to buy, marketing dollars to consider, food safety and certifications to obtain, and so much more that requires funding. Even the smallest step into the business world—such as a single stall at a local farmers’ market—costs a few hundred dollars.
This financial hurdle is why many brands look to investors. Starting a business is a lot to shoulder financially, and some startup costs are impossible to front using personal credit cards, life savings, or generous friends and family.
ABC
Some vegan brands look to crowdsourcing campaigns like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or Start Engine; others cold-email vegan venture capital firms like Stray Dog Capital or Blue Horizon; and others pour over pitch decks for individual investors.
An appearance on Shark Tank is a truly unique opportunity to secure not only a valuable investment, but a key marketing opportunity unparalleled by other forms of fundraising.
Vegan deals on ‘Shark Tank’
Here are 16 vegan brands that pitched the Sharks.
ABC
1Meat The Mushroom
Last month, Meat The Mushroom—a vegan company best known for its mushroom-based bacon—secured a $150,000 investment from not one, but two Sharks. Founders and married couple Marvin Montague Jr. and Aleah Rae agreed to give investors Kevin O’Leary and Lori Greiner 33.3-percent equity in exchange for $150,000. The Sharks were initially hesitant about Meat The Mushroom’s future and the couple’s initial equity offer, but the company’s mushroom bacon, made with just five recognizable ingredients, ultimately won over the Sharks.
Rebel Cheese
2 Rebel Cheese
This cult-favorite Austin cheese shop made its Shark Tank debut in December 2023. Owners and married couple Kirsten Maitland and Fred Zwar wowed the judges with samples of their artisan vegan cheeses and swiftly won over Cuban, the show’s resident vegetarian with a reputation of investing in vegan companies. Cuban jumped at the opportunity to invest in Rebel Cheese, but fellow Shark Greiner wasn’t going to be left behind.
A recent investor in charcuterie board company Boarderie, Greiner noted that the company doesn’t currently offer vegan cheeses. She jumped on Cuban’s offer of $750,000 in exchange for 10 percent of the company, offering the entrepreneurs the mentorship of two Sharks. While hesitant to give up anything higher than 7.5 percent equity, Maitland and Zwar ultimately accepted Cuban and Greiner’s offer. The couple specified they were looking for someone to help with distribution and marketing, plus a potential spokesperson, to which Cuban jokingly replied, “I’ll go to a grocery store in Austin and hand out samples.”
G. Nibarger
3 Mrs. Goldfarb’s Unreal Deli
The tired adage may have some truth to it—the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, particularly if that man has an affinity for corned beef. Founder Jenny Goldfarb set out to veganize the classic New York-style deli meats she grew up with, and the result was good enough to secure a deal with a Shark. In 2019, Cuban offered $250,000 for 20 percent equity. Business soared until the pandemic hit, as at the time, Unreal corned beef was only available through delis. Cuban stepped in and suggested a pivot. By switching from wholesale to retail and developing a new vegan turkey product, the business survived and is now going strong. Customers can now find the original corned beef along with turkey and steak slices in retailers and some food service operations.
Goldfarb explained, “I chose to pursue funding via Shark Tank because one Shark dollar is worth five regular dollars. Between the vast media exposure, having a Shark as a partner, and getting this gift that keeps on giving with re-runs, update segments, and the lifetime pass I’ll get to carry, the equity I gave away is tiny in comparison.”
Nutr
4Nutr
Entrepreneurs and husband-and-wife team Alicia Long and Dane Turk appeared on the hit television show with their plant-based milk maker Nutr. They stood before the Sharks hoping to secure a $500,000 investment in exchange for 5-percent equity. While guest shark Daniel Lubetzky was impressed by Nutr’s ability to easily create creamy, plant-based milks, he, along with the rest of the sharks, let Long and Turk walk away without a deal. Cuban noted his prior investment in Numilk, a direct competitor to Nutr, as his reason for not investing. Today, Nutr is focusing its efforts on upping its social media presence and has introduced bundled products to increase affordability and accessibility for its customer base.
Project Pollo
5Project Pollo
Lucas Bradbury of Texan-born vegan chicken chain Project Pollo appeared on the season finale of Shark Tank in May 2022. The ambitious founder received an email from Cuban himself suggesting he appear on the show. Bradbury prepared the pitch for months, but his swiftly growing plant-based chicken empire caused concern for the Sharks, citing that kind of growth was “like a cyclone.” Bradbury wasn’t ready to put on the breaks, even to catch a Shark. He sought investments elsewhere, and in 2023, Project Pollo was acquired by a national franchise group. Speaking with My San Antonio, Bradbury described the acquisition as “bittersweet” and noted that Project Pollo would undergo a brand transition.
@girleatsnyc/Instagram
6 Umaro Foods
This Berkeley, CA-based food tech startup decided to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in the industry: perfecting vegan bacon. The brand appeared on Shark Tank in April 2022 and secured a whopping $1 million from Mark Cuban, luring the Shark in with its seaweed-based, super crispy plant-based bacon.
Since the show aired, Umaro has secured dozens of food service accounts across multiple states and key cities including San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, and Denver. Diners are enjoying Umaro bacon in exciting new applications that extend far beyond a side with their pancakes such as vegan bacon-egg-and-cheese and truly satisfying bacon bits on fully loaded salads.
Deux
7Deux
Deux makes cookie dough you can eat by the spoonful—and not get reprimanded for consuming raw batter. Not only are the flavors vegan, but they’re also “enhanced” with functional ingredients such as essential vitamins and minerals, pea protein, maca, and ashwagandha. The dough can be enjoyed straight from the container or baked into cookies, if you have the patience. Or, you can aim for the middle ground like us and microwave a generous scoop of Deux in a mug for a warm, gooey, cookie dough treat. While flavors like Salted Peanut Butter Cup, Brownie Batter, and Birthday Cake seem impossible to pass up, the Sharks ultimately did not bite, and founder Sabeena Ladha walked away without a deal.
That’s not stopping her, though. Deux continues to crank out new products well after the Shark Tank episode aired in 2021. “We saw really great sales and awareness after airing, but it was really our social marketing after the fact that put it over the top. After Shark Tank, we created viral TikToks and Instagrams about the episode and were able to not only tell our story more deeply, but broaden our reach and audience,” Ladha told VegNews.
Chef J. Jackson
8 Everything Legendary
We’ve all heard of Beyond and Impossible burgers, but Everything Legendary convinced the Sharks that there is still space in the plant-based beef market for fresh new products. Everything Legendary perfected a patty “made in a kitchen, not a lab” that’s infused with non-dairy cheese. While originally striving to compete in the frozen food sector, Cuban suggested a cloud kitchen model. In lieu of selling straight to consumers, the company would teach chefs how to create its product and sell through a delivery service. The team settled with Cuban and accepted $300,000 for 22 percent equity. Eighteen months after appearing on the show, the brand has expanded into retailers including Sprouts and Target.
Co-founder Duane Myko told VegNews, “We chose Shark Tank for funding, because Shark Tank is every entrepreneur’s dream. I was a business major at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD, and Shark Tank is something that we talked about all the time. There are very few places where you can pitch your idea in a room full of billionaires. Making the deal is a dream come true.”
A vegan milk machine was the beneficiary of Cuban’s largest vegan investment at the time. In an episode that aired in March 2021, the vegetarian investor agreed on a $2 million deal with Numilk founders Ari Tolwin and Joe Savino with a projected 10 percent of the company. The product has evolved from its original inception as a ready-made-milk kiosk in grocery stores to a smaller countertop professional unit made for coffee shops. The Shark Tank funds enabled the duo to launch production of its latest concept—a more compact, sleeker countertop machine meant for home use that can produce fresh plant milks, lattes, protein drinks, and more.
Pan’s Mushroom Jerky
10Pan’s Mushroom Jerky
If omnivores can make jerky out of whatever animal they care to slaughter, vegans can certainly make jerky out of plants. This mushroom rendition sparked a feeding frenzy among the Sharks, and founder Michael Pan received multiple offers. After considering a dual venture with Greiner and Blake Mycoskie, he decided to team up with Cuban who agreed to a smaller equity share. Pan walked away with $300,000 for 18 percent of the company. Since the show aired, Pan’s can be found in retailers nationwide including Kroger, Fresh Thyme, Whole Foods, and Foxtrot market.
The Mad Optimist
11The Mad Optimist
Vegan and cruelty-free body care isn’t always cheap, but the founders behind this compassionate body brand believe that finances shouldn’t deter anyone from making conscious purchases. The Mad Optimist’s line of sustainable body care products is priced on a sliding scale. While this scared most of the Sharks, Cuban was intrigued. The team settled for a $60,000 investment with 20 percent equity and an agreement that all sales made from their episode would go to charity.
Wanna Date
12 Wanna Date?
It’s not a nut butter and not a jam—this sweet spread is in a silky smooth category all on its own. The thick, date-based spread was brought to the Sharks by young entrepreneur Melissa Bartow. Cuban melted for this healthy treat and offered $100,000 for 33 percent equity. Today, the range of products have expanded to include addictively good and surprisingly good-for-you Date Dough—date-based vegan cookie dough. It’s not meant to be baked (although you can). Because we all know cookie dough is the best part of baking.
Snacklins
13Snacklins
Pork rinds, anyone? Don’t worry, they’re vegan, and they’re unbelievably healthy for something akin to a pork rind (only 90 calories per bag). Cuban was sold. When asked about his vegan investment streak, he told VegNews, “I like to invest in products that are healthy and that I would eat, because I love how they taste. I’m a vegetarian and all these products fit that description. Healthy and really, really tasty!” Founder Sam Kobolsy received $250,000 in exchange for five percent equity and five percent advisory shares.
@BulldogStuf/Instagram
14 Wild Earth
Shark Tank’s vegan investments aren’t limited to human goods—vegan dogs benefit as well. Ryan Bethencourt, Wild Earth’s founder, stood up for our four-legged friends when he appeared on Shark Tank in 2019. Cuban came in, once again, with a generous offer. Bethencourt secured $550,000 for 10 percent of the company. Since the episode aired, Wild Earth has expanded its line of vegan dog products to include supplements for joint, digestion, and skin health.
MUSH
15 Mush
This plant-based company makes overnight oats even easier. No prep required, just peel back the film and dig in. Prior to their appearance on Shark Tank, co-founders Ashley Thompson and Kat Thomas were working the farmers’ market circuit. After sealing a deal with Mark Cuban for $300,000 with 10 percent equity and an unlimited line of credit, Mush has expanded into over 3,500 locations nationwide—including Whole Foods.
Thompson told VegNews, “Shark Tank set us on an incredible trajectory, and we wouldn’t trade the journey for anything. The show and Cuban certainly helped us get to where we are today! We are so grateful for the experience.”
Cinnaholic
16 Cinnaholic
Who wouldn’t throw money at a vegan bakery dedicated to massive, fresh-baked cinnamon rolls? Cinnaholic essentially combines Cinnabon with Coldstone—not only do you get a giant, gooey cinnamon roll, you’re encouraged to top it with over a dozen goodies. Cookie dough, peanut butter, fresh strawberries, crumbled brownies … you get the idea. Shark Robert Herjavec bought in at $200,000 for 40 percent of the company. That’s a pretty sweet deal. Today, the franchise boasts just nearly 100 locations across the US and Canada.
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
Riga, October 5, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the disappearance of Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchina and called on Russian authorities and anyone with information about her to disclose her location immediately.
“We are deeply worried by the disappearance of Viktoria Roshchina, who has been missing for over two months after planning to go on a reporting trip in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “CPJ stands in solidarity with other organizations calling on Russian authorities and anyone with information on her whereabouts to come forward at once. Journalists must be able to freely report on the invasion without retaliation.”
Roshchina, who planned to travel to the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine via Russia to report on the situation there, left Ukraine for Poland on July 25 and was expected to reach the occupied territories three days later.
She has been missing since August 3, and her current location is unknown, according to a statement by global non-profit organization International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) and Sevgil Musaieva, the chief editor of Ukrainska Pravda, an independent Ukrainian news website that Roshchina works with.
On August 3, Roshchina told her sister that she made it through days of border checks but did not share her location, Musaieva told CPJ, adding that Ukraine’s SBU security service has since told Roshchina’s family that Russian forces captured her.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t know where she went, how she crossed the border with Russia, or where she last got in touch,” Musaieva said. “If we had known at least something, it would have greatly simplified this search.”
Roshchina’s family reported her missing to the Ukrainian authorities on August 12 and filed an official missing case on September 21. CPJ’s emails to the SBU and the Russian Ministry of Defense received no response.
Musaieva told CPJ that Roshchina was not on editorial assignment for Ukrainska Pravda, “but she asked what topics we could theoretically be interested in.” Roshchina is a freelance reporter who has been covering the war in Ukraine for several Ukrainian media outlets, including Ukrainska Pravda, regional news website Novosti Donbassa, and privately owned news website Censor.net.
In March 2022, Roshchina was detained by Russian forces for 10 days while reporting in southeastern Ukraine. That same month, Russian forces in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporozhye region fired on her vehicle.
Russian forces have detained multiple Ukrainian journalists since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The whereabouts of former journalist Iryna Levchenko, missing since early May 2023, and of journalist Dmytro Khilyuk, detained in early March 2022, are still unknown.
Pacific Media Network (PMN) has continued its transition into the “Moanaverse” with a new digital home for its news and media
PMN said in a statement it was pleased to reveal its new website that “ensures the future of Pacific storytelling, radio and news media continues to connect with its growing online audience”.
Pacific communities were at the heart of the new website www.pmn.co.nz, said CEO Don Mann.
“PMN’s new digital platform is all about serving the Pacific community. The stories we share deserve an online space that upholds the mana and respect of Pacific people,” he said.
“We have an obligation to provide a digital home that best serves the interests of the Pacific community.”
The redesigned site makes it easier to discover its brands — Niu FM, 531pi, PMN News — and its 10 language programmes all in one place.
Included in the refresh was a branding approach that seeks to connect and be relevant with an increasingly digitally savvy Pacific youth audience.
The project was completed within a year and was led by web agency Daylight Group, the team behind award winning site The Spinoff.
“We liken our online space to a digital version of a kupega or upega: a net that seeks to contain Pacific knowledge that sustains us and to share this koloa across the Moanaverse,” Mann said.
The main colour tapa black is an intentional neutral backdrop that “holds the vibrancy of our islands”.
The site is said by PMN to be mobile-friendly, optimising the display for any screen size so content can be accessed “on the go”.
Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission NACC ignores huge Australian War Crimes & Carbon Debt
I have made 5 huge successive Submissions to the newly formed Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). However my 2 most serious Submissions – on horrendous Australian war crimes (Submission #2: 6 million Afghan avoidable deaths from deprivation under Australian and US Alliance occupation in gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) and on horrendous, planet-threatening Carbon Debt (Submission #3: an enormous $5 trillion fraud perpetrated on Australian children, grandchildren and future generations) – were rejected by the NACC on the basis that the NACC had “not been able to identify a clear allegation of corrupt conduct as defined by the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act (2022). As a result, the Commission is unable to take any further action in this matter”. My 5 Submissions are summarized below with the rejected Submissions asterisked.
(1). “Submission To National Anti-Corruption Commission: Australian Labor Government’s Lying For Apartheid Israel”. On a bipartisan Coalition Opposition and Labor Government basis, Zionist-subverted and US-beholden Australia is second only to the US as a fervent a supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of the evil crime of Apartheid that is condemned by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Departure from fervent support for the Zionist-subverted US and for Apartheid Israel means potential political oblivion for Coalition and Labor MPs noting that Australian Federal MPs receive huge remuneration. MPs and governments should not lie and benefit from lying (fraud and corruption) and should not lie in the interest of inimical foreign governments (treason). Apartheid Israel and its Zionist agents have damaged Australians, Australian institutions and Australia in numerous serious ways. However the Australian Labor Government lies for Apartheid Israel in 15 matters.
*(2). “Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission Over Huge But Ignored Australian War Crimes”. Variously as UK or US lackeys Australians have invaded about 85 countries with 30 of these invasions being genocidal. In the last 80 years (i.e. within living memory) Australia has violated all circa 80 Indo-Pacific countries variously through occupation and invasion (most countries), complicity in US regime-changing coups (8 countries), and through disproportionate climate criminality (impacting all countries). The Brereton Report found that 39 Afghans had allegedly been unlawfully killed by Australian soldiers. However successive Australian Governments and their public servants have grossly violated Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention by criminally rejecting their unequivocal demand for Occupier provision to the Conquered Afghan Subjects of life-sustaining food and medical services “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Now 6,000,000 (Afghans passively murdered over 20 years by the US Alliance including Australia) / 39 (Afghans allegedly unlawfully killed by Australian soldiers) = 154,000 i.e. the passive mass murder of 6,000,000 Afghans (mostly women and children) by Australian and US Alliance politicians is 154,000 times worse than the alleged unlawful killing of 39 Afghans by Australian soldiers. Of course all war crimes should be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators tried and punished, but in my opinion no Australian soldier should be tried for any of these 39 alleged unlawful killings of Afghans before the politicians complicit in the 154,000 times greater war crime (the passive mass murder of 6,000,000 Afghans) are exposed and tried. The same argument applies to horrendous avoidable deaths from deprivation in the Australia-complicit WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indian avoidable deaths, 1942-1945) and Iraqi Holocaust (3 million avoidable deaths, 1990-2011).
*(3). “Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission: Corporations & Governments Ignore Huge Carbon Debt”. Australia is among world-leading climate criminal countries in 16 areas. Corporations, governments and Mainstream media conspire to fraudulently and corruptly ignore Australia’s huge and inescapable Carbon Debt that totals (in USD) about $5 trillion, is increasing at up to about $0.7 trillion each year, and at $69,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians. The Carbon Debt of the World is $250 trillion and increasing at $13 trillion each year. This is appalling intergenerational injustice because this ever-increasing and inescapable Carbon Debt will have to be paid by our children, grandchildren and future generations. The damage-related Carbon Price is about $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent but the global applied average is merely $2 per tonne CO2-equivalent. A general principle of national law and the Natural Law is that people are recompensed in full for damage done to them by others but this is rejected in relation to deadly Carbon Pollution by a greedy, fraudulent, corrupt, and traitorous Australian Mainstream (except notably for the science-informed and humane Australian Greens). Carbon Pollution from carbon fuel burning kills about 7 million people each year but the previous Coalition Government’s response to the IMF demand to adopt a modest $75 per tonne CO2-equivalent Carbon Price to save 4 million lives by 2030 was a simple “No”. The present climate criminal Labor Government ignores Australia’s huge exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and supports over 100 new coal and gas extraction projects. Australia has 0.33% of the world’s population but its annual Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is 5.4% of the World’s total annual GHG pollution. In the absence of requisite action (atmospheric pollution by GHGs is increasing at record high rates) the direst expert prediction is that 10 billion people will die this century in a worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable population in 2100 of only 1 billion people.
(4). “Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission: Huge & Fraudulent University Fees Exposed”. Education is a basic human right and all education should be free for all. However the commodification and corporatizing of higher education has meant that free university education presently only obtains in about 25 countries. Australian universities charge impoverished local and overseas students hugely excessive tuition fees whereas Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) can deliver top quality, reading-based courses and accrediting examinations essentially for free. All societies and nations need to have a large complement of expert scholars and scientists for a variety of economic, health, national security and national prestige reasons – however why should impoverished, circa 20 year old undergraduate students have to pay for this? Tertiary education provision in Australia can be vastly cheaper off-campus than on-campus. Thus off-campus university education can be essentially cost-free by simply involving students reading prescribed texts and addressing other teaching materials, with qualifications established by expert accrediting examinations. This indeed was the de facto off-campus scheme during the Covid-19 Pandemic except that huge full fees were dishonestly applied to local and overseas students. The student debt from fees presently totals A$74 billion, a massive fraud perpetrated on Australian students, and indeed one of the biggest frauds in Australian history.
(5). Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission, NACC: Mainstream Media Lying”. Australian Mainstream media (MSM), including the publicly-funded ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), and the dominant US Murdoch empire media have an appalling and ongoing record of lying by omission and lying by commission. Lying by omission is far, far worse than repugnant lying by commission because the latter at least permits public refutation and public debate (subject, of course, to the will of MSM gate-keepers). Democracy ideally requires an informed electorate but driven by ever-increasing wealth inequity Western democracies (including Australia) have become kleptocracies, plutocracies, Murdochracies. lobbyocracies, corporatocracies and dollarocracies in which Big Money corruptly purchases public perception of reality, votes, more political power and hence more private profit. Although individual journalists can have certain opinions and biases, lying by omission and lying by commission by media is fraud and corruption when perpetrated for personal gain, and treason when perpetrated in the interests of inimical foreign governments such as those of Apartheid Israel and pro-Apartheid America. Experience of Australian MSM mendacity over many decades instructs that the serious examples of fraud, corruption and treason in my 5 Submissions will be resolutely ignored by cowardly and mendacious Australian MSM presstitutes. Australia can be saved from fraudulent MSM in part by (a) publicly exposing and listing all MSM falsehoods on the Web, and (b) banning foreign MSM ownership.
A new OCCRP investigation reveals details of how Chinese-born fraudsters Cary Yan and Gina Zhou paid more than US$1 million to UN diplomats to gain access to its headquarters in New York, before embarking on a controversial plan to set up an autonomous zone near an important US military facility in the Pacific Ocean.
For years, Hilda Heine’s remote archipelago nation of just 40,000 people was best known to the world for Cold War nuclear testing that left scores of its islands poisoned.
Sitting in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, the country was a strategic but forgotten US ally.
But the arrival of a couple of mysterious strangers threatened to change all that. With buckets of cash at their disposal, the Chinese pair, Cary Yan and Gina Zhou, had grand plans that could have thrust the Marshall Islands into the growing rivalry between China and the West, and perhaps fracture the country itself.
Public controversy
First proposed in 2017, while Heine was still president, Yan and Zhou’s idea raised public controversy.
With backing from foreign investors, the couple planned to rehabilitate one irradiated atoll, Rongelap, and turn it into a futuristic “digital special administrative region.”
The Marshall Islands Journal’s front page on 9 September 2022 reporting Cary Yan and Gina Zhou being extradited from Thailand to the US to face bribery and related criminal charges in New York. Image: MIJ screenshot/APR
The new city of artificial islands would include an aviation logistics center, wellness resorts, a gaming and entertainment zone, and foreign embassies.
Thanks in part to the liberal payment of bribes, Yan and Zhou had managed to gain the support of some of the Marshall Islands’ most powerful politicians. They then lobbied for a draft bill that would have given the proposed zone, known as the Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR), its own separate courts and immigration laws.
Heine was opposed. The whole thing reeked of a Chinese effort to gain influence over the strategically located Marshall Islands, she told OCCRP.
A map of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Image: Credit: Edin Pasovic/James O’Brien/OCCRP
The plan was unconstitutional and would have created a virtually “independent country” within the Marshall Islands’ borders, she said.
The new Chinese investor-backed zone would also have occupied a geographically sensitive spot just 200 km of open water away from Kwajalein Atoll, where the US Army runs facilities that test intercontinental ballistic missiles and track foreign rocket launches.
Became a target
But when President Heine argued against the draft law, she became a target herself. In November 2018, pro-RASAR politicians backed by Yan and Zhou pushed a no-confidence motion to remove her from power.
She survived by one vote.
Even then, the president said she had no idea who this influential duo really were. Although they seemed to be Chinese, they carried Marshall Islands passports, which gave them visa free access to the United States. Nobody seemed to know how they had obtained them.
World Organisation of Governance and Competitiveness representatives Gina Zhou (left) and Cary Yan (center) at a restaurant in New York. Image: OCCRP
“We looked and looked and we couldn’t find when and how they got [the passports],” Heine said. “We didn’t know what their connections were or if they had any connections with the Chinese government.
“But of course we were suspicious.”
The plan came to an abrupt end in November 2020, when Yan and Zhou were arrested in Thailand on a US warrant. After being extradited to face trial in New York, they pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to bribe Marshallese officials.
Both were sentenced earlier this year. Zhou was deported to the Marshall Islands shortly after her sentencing, while Yan is due for release this November.
But although the federal case led to a brief burst of media attention, it left key questions unanswered.
Who really were Yan and Zhou? Who helped them in their audacious scheme? Were they simply crooks? Or were they also working to advance the interests of the Chinese government?
OCCRP spent nearly a year trying to find answers, conducting interviews around the world and poring through thousands of pages of documents.
What reporters uncovered was a story more bizarre — and with far broader implications — than first expected.
Aubrey Belford, Kevin G. Hall and Martin Youngare investigative writers for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Republished with permission.
After the South Korean prime minister visited China last month, a claim circulated in Korean-language posts that Chinese media outlets “did not cover the prime minister’s visit at all” in protest against Seoul’s recent efforts to strengthen ties with the United States and Japan.
But the claim is false. Keyword searches found Han Duck-soo’s visit was widely covered by Chinese media, including the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency. His meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping also garnered significant media attention in China.
The claim was shared here on Facebook in a group with more than 70,000 members who mostly maintain anti-U.S, pro-China view.
“South Korean media outlets have been heavily promoting the S Korean PM’s visit to China as if it’s a big deal. But there is zero coverage by the Chinese media. Nothing. If S Korea wants a proper summit with China, Yoon [referring to the South Korean President] must apologize to China first for upsetting it [with latest moves to cement ties with the U.S. and Japan],” reads the post.
It was shared by a user who claims to be a head of South Korea-based NGO “Green Transport Policy Institute.” Further searches found the user has often spread Chia-related misinformation online.
Similar claims have been shared in other Korean-language Facebook posts that claimed both Xinhua News Agency and People’s Daily did not cover South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo’s visit to China.
Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, taken on Sept. 27, 2023
The claim began to circulate after Han arrived in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou on Sept. 23 to attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the sporting event.
During his two-day visit, Han attended a luncheon hosted by Xi for the leaders of countries competing in the Asian Games and held talks with Xi ahead of the opening ceremony later in that day.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Xi, who has not visited South Korea since 2014, told Han that he will seriously consider visiting South Korea as part of efforts to support peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.
Han was the first high-level South Korean official to meet with Xi since President Yoon Suk Yeol met with him on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in Nov. 2022.
But the claim is false.
Keyword searches of Han’s Chinese name in simplified Chinese, used in mainland China, show Chinese media outlets have been heavily covering Han’s visit to China and his meeting with Xi as seen on CCTV, China News Agency, Xinhua, etc.
Screenshots of reports from People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency, captured on Sept. 27, 2023
Yoon, a conservative, has endeavored to align Seoul’s foreign policy with that of the United States in order to counter global challenges such as North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Yoon has prioritized strengthening its military and economic cooperation with Washington and Tokyo to this end.
South Koreans are largely divided on Yoon’s policy, with conservatives applauding the approach because they believe it could effectively promote North Korea’s denuclearization. Liberals, including the main opposition Democratic Party, contend that such an approach exacerbates tensions on the Korean Peninsula, citing the possibility of jeopardizing relations with China.
Han’s visit to China has become a source of disinformation among pro-China online users who support the DP. In addition to the false claim that Chinese media outlets ignored Han, users claimed that Xi was intentionally rude to Han to “teach him a lesson” and that Chinese authorities “mistreated” South Korean delegates in a protest against Yoon.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
Director Latifah Anum Siregar of the Democracy Alliance for Papua (ALDP) has emphasised the importance of raising awareness about human rights violations in Papua during a discussion at the launch of five Jubi Documentary films.
The event took place at the St. Nicholaus Ambassador of Peace Study House in Jayapura City last Wednesday.
Jubi Documentary released five new films about Papua at the end of last month — When the Microphone Turns On; Pepera 1969: Democratic Integration?; Black Pearl of the Field General; My Name is Pengungsi; and Voices from the Grime Valley.
They were launched in three cities at once in Jayapura, Yogyakarta, and Jakarta.
Siregar said these documentaries were not meant for mere entertainment but should serve as a platform for everyone, especially young students, to speak out against human rights violations in Papua.
Former football giant Persipura captain Fernando Fairyo, who was also present at the launch event, said how emotionally impactful the documentary Black Pearl of the Field General was for him.
He shed tears while watching the film, which highlighted the history of Persipura’s journey and invoked mixed emotions of joy and sadness.
Creative funding search
Fairyo said there was a need for Persipura to focus on strengthening the team, and he urged creative management to find funds beyond sponsorship from PT Freeport Indonesia and Bank Papua.
The five documentaries were produced over two years by Jubi Documentary, a branch of Jubi media based in Jayapura City. These films share a common theme of humanity and the repercussions of human rights violations in Papua.
Watchdoc, an audio-visual production house founded by Andhy Panca Kurniawan and Dandhy Dwi Laksono in 2009, supervised the production of the films.
Watchdoc is renowned for its social justice-themed documentaries and received the 2021 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the “Emergent Leadership” category.
Voices from the Grime Valley, directed by Angela Flassy, explores the social consequences of forest clearing for oil palm plantations in Keerom Regency and Jayapura Regency, both located in Papua Province.
Black Pearl of the Field General, directed by Maurids Yansip, narrates the story of the Persipura football team as a symbol of pride and identity for Papuans, its achievements, and its current struggle to regain a spot in League 1.
The launch event included discussions with the filmmakers and experts, providing a platform for in-depth exploration of the documentary topics.
Kia ora koutou. Ko Ngāpuhi tōku iwi. Ko Ngāti Manu toku hapu. Ko Karetu tōku marae. Ko Myles Thomas toku ingoa.
I grew up with David Beatson, on the telly. Back in the 1970s, he read the late news which I watched in bed with my parents. Later, David and I worked together to save TVNZ 7 and also regional TV stations.
The Better Public Media (BPM) trust honours David each year with our memorial address, because his fight for non-commercial TV was an honourable one. He wasn’t doing it for himself.
He wasn’t doing it so he could get a job or because it would benefit him. He fought for public media because he knew it was good for Aotearoa NZ.
Like us at Better Public Media, he recognised the benefits to our country from locally produced public media.
David knew, from a long career in media, including as editor of The Listener and as Jim Bolger’s press secretary, that NZ’s media plays an important role in our nation’s culture, social cohesion, and democracy.
NZ culture is very important. NZ culture is so unique and special, yet it has always been at risk of being swamped by content from overseas. The US especially with its crackpot conspiracies, extreme racial tensions, and extreme tensions about everything to be honest.
Local content the antidote
Local content is the antidote to this. It reflects us, it portrays us, it defines New Zealand, and whether we like it or not, it defines us. But it’s important to remember that what we see reflected back to us comes through a filter.
This speech is coming to you through a filter, called Myles Thomas.
Better Public Media trustee Myles Thomas speaking beside the panel moderator and BPM chair Dr Peter Thompson (seated from left); Jenny Marcroft, NZ First candidate for Kaipara ki Mahurangi; Ricardo Menéndez March, Green Party candidate for Mt Albert; and Willie Jackson, Labour Party list candidate and Minister for Broadcasting and Media. Image: David Robie/APR
Commercial news reflects our world through a filter of sensation and danger to hold our attention. That makes NZ seem more shallow, greedy, fearful and dangerous.
The social media filter makes the world seem more angry, reactive and complaining.
RNZ’s filter is, I don’t know, thoughtful, a bit smug, middle class.
The New Zealand Herald filter makes us think every dairy is being ram-raided every night.
And The Spinoff filter suggests NZ is hip, urban and mildly infatuated with Winston Peters.
These cultural reflections are very important actually because they influence us, how we see NZ and its people.
It is not a commodity
That makes content, cultural content, special. It is not a commodity. It’s not milk powder.
We don’t drink milk and think about flooding in Queenstown, drinking milk doesn’t make us laugh about the Koiwoi accent, we don’t drink milk and identify with a young family living in poverty.
Local content is rich and powerful, and important to our society.
When the government supports the local media production industry it is actually supporting the audiences and our culture. Whether it is Te Mangai Paho, or NZ On Air or the NZ Film Commission, and the screen production rebate, these organisations fund New Zealand’s identity and culture, and success.
Don’t ask Treasury how to fund culture. Accountants don’t understand it, they can’t count it and put it in a spreadsheet, like they can milk solids. Of course they’ll say such subsidies or rebates distort the “market”, that’s the whole point. The market doesn’t work for culture.
Moreover, public funding of films and other content fosters a more stable long-term industry, rather than trashy short-termism that is completely vulnerable to outside pressures, like the US writer’s strike.
We have a celebrated content production industry. Our films, video, audio, games etc. More local content brings stability to this industry, which by the way also brings money into the country and fosters tourism.
BPM trust chair Dr Peter Thompson, senior lecturer in media studies at Victoria University, welcomes the panel and audience for the 2023 media policy debate at Grey Lynn Library Hall in Auckland last night. Image: Del Abcede/Asia Pacific Report
We cannot use quota
New Zealand needs more local content.
And what’s more, it needs to be accessible to audiences, on the platforms that they use.
But in NZ we do have one problem. Unlike Australia, we can’t use a quota because our GATT agreement does not include a carve out for local music or media quotas.
In the 1990s when GATT was being negotiated, the Aussies added an exception to their GATT agreement allowing a quota for Aussie cultural content. So they can require radio stations to play a certain amount of local music. Now they’re able to introduce a Netflix quota for up to 20 percent of all revenue generated in Aussie.
We can’t do that. Why? Because back in the 1990s the Bolger government and MFAT decided against putting the same exception into NZ’s GATT agreement.
But there is another way of doing it, if we take a lead from Denmark and many European states. Which I’ll get to in a minute.
The second important benefit of locally produced public media is social cohesion, how society works, the peace and harmony and respect that we show each other in public, depends heavily on the “public sphere”, of which, media is a big part.
Power of media to polarise
Extensive research in Europe and North America shows the power of media to polarise society, which can lead to misunderstanding, mistrust and hatred.
But media can also strengthen social cohesion, particularly for minority communities, and that same research showed that public media, otherwise known as public service media, is widely regarded to be an important contributor to tolerance in society, promoting social cohesion and integrating all communities and generations.
The third benefit is democracy. Very topical at the moment. I’ve already touched on how newsmedia affect our culture. More directly, our newsmedia influences the public dialogue over issues of the day.
It defines that dialogue. It is that dialogue.
So if our newsmedia is shallow and vacuous ignoring policies and focussing on the polls and the horse-race, then politicians who want to be elected, tailor their messages accordingly.
There’s plenty of examples of this such as National’s bootcamp policy, or Labour’s removing GST on food. As policies, neither is effective. But in the simplified 30 seconds of commercial news and headlines, these policies resonate.
Is that a good thing, that policies that are known to fail are nonetheless followed because our newsmedia cater to our base instincts and short attention spans?
Disaster for democracy
In my view, commercial media is actually disaster for democracy. All over the world.
But of course, we can’t control commercial media. No-one’s suggesting that.
The only rational reaction is to provide stronger locally produced public media.
And unfortunately, NZ lacks public media.
Obviously Australia, the UK, Canada have more public media than us, they have more people, they can afford it. But what about countries our size, Ireland? Smaller population, much more public media.
Denmark, Norway, Finland, all with roughly 5 million people, and all have significantly better public media than us. Even after the recent increases from Willie Jackson, NZ still spends just $44 per person on public media. $44 each year.
When we had a licence fee it was $110. Jim Bolger’s government got rid of that and replaced it with funding from general taxation — which means every year the Minister of Finance, working closely with Treasury, decides how much to spend on public media for that year.
This is what I call the curse of annual funding, because it makes funding public media a very political decision.
National, let us be honest, the National Party hates public media, maybe because they get nicer treatment on commercial news. We see this around the world — the Daily Mail, Sky News Australia, Newstalk ZB . . . most commercial media quite openly favours the right.
Systemic bias
This is a systemic bias. Because right-wing newsmedia gets more clicks.
Right-wing politicians are quite happy about that. Why fund public to get in the way? Even if it it benefits our culture, social cohesion, and democracy.
New Zealand is the same, the last National government froze RNZ funding for nine years.
National Party spokesperson on broadcasting Melissa Lee fought against the ANZPM merger, and now she’s fighting the News Bargaining Bill. As minister she could cut RNZ and NZ On Air’s budget.
But it wouldn’t just be cost-cutting. It would actually be political interference in our newsmedia, an attempt to skew the national conversation in favour of the National Party, by favouring commercial media.
So Aotearoa NZ needs two things. More money to be spent on public media, and less control by the politicians. Sustainable funding basically.
The best way to achieve it is a media levy.
Highly targeted tax
For those who don’t know, a levy is a tax that is highly targeted, and we have a lot of them, like the Telecommunications Development Levy (or TDL) which currently gathers $10 million a year from internet service providers like Spark and 2 Degrees to pay for rural broadband.
We’re all paying for better internet for farmers basically. When first introduced by the previous National government it collected $50 million but it’s dropped down a bit lately.
This is one of many levies that we live with and barely notice. Like the levy we pay on our insurance to cover the Earthquake Commission and the Fire and Emergency Levy. There are maritime levies, energy levies to fund EECA and Waka Kotahi, levies on building consents for MBIE, a levy on advertising pays for the ASA, the BSA is funded by a levy.
Lots of levies and they’re very effective.
So who could the media levy, levy?
ISPs like the TDL? Sure, raise the TDL back up to $50 million or perhaps higher, and it only adds a dollar onto everyone’s internet bill. There’s $50 million.
But the real target should be Big Tech, social media and large streaming services. I’m talking about Facebook, Google, Netflix, YouTube and so on. These are the companies that have really profited from the advent of online media, and at the expense of locally produced public media.
Funding content creation
We need a way to get these companies to make, or at least fund, content creation here in Aotearoa. Denmark recently proposed a solution to this problem with an innovative levy of 2 percent on the revenue of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney.
But that 2 percent rises to 5 percent if the streaming company doesn’t spend at least 5 percent of their revenue on making local Danish content. Denmark joins many other European countries already doing this — Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and even Romania are all about to levy the streamers to fund local production.
Australia is planning to do so as well.
But that’s just online streaming companies. There’s also social media and search engines which contribute nothing and take almost all the commercial revenue. The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill will address that to a degree but it’s not open and we won’t know if the amounts are fair.
Another problem is that it’s only for news publishers — not drama or comedy producers, not on-demand video, not documentary makers or podcasters. Social media and search engines frequently feature and put advertising around these forms of content, and hoover up the digital advertising that would otherwise help fund them, so they should also contribute to them.
A Media Levy can best be seen as a levy on those companies that benefit from media on the internet, but don’t contribute to the public benefits of media — culture, social cohesion and democracy. And that’s why the Media Levy can include internet service providers, and large companies that sell digital advertising and subscriptions.
Note, this would target large companies over a certain size and revenue, and exclude smaller platforms, like most levies do.
Separate from annual budget
The huge benefit of a levy is that it is separate from the annual budget, so it’s fiscally neutral, and politicians can’t get their mits on it. It removes the curse of annual funding.
It creates a funding stream derived from the actual commercial media activities which produce the distribution gaps in the first place, for which public media compensates. That’s why the proceeds would go to the non-commercial platform and the funding agencies — Te Mangai Paho, NZ On Air and the Film Commission.
One final point. This wouldn’t conflict with the new Digital Services Tax proposed by the government because that’s a replacement for Income Tax. A Media Levy, like all levies, sits over and above income tax.
So there we go. I’ve mentioned Jim Bolger three times! I’ve also outlined some quite straight-forward methods to fund public media sustainably, and to fund a significant increase in local content production, video, film, audio and journalism.
None of it needs to be within the grasp of Melissa Lee or Willie Jackson, or David Seymour.
All of it can be used to create local content that improves democracy, social cohesion and Kiwi culture.
Myles Thomas is a trustee of the Better Public Media Trust (BPM). He is a former television producer and director who in 2012 established the Save TVNZ 7 campaign. Thomas is now studying law. This commentary was this year’s David Beatson Memorial Address at a public meeting in Grey Lynn last night on broadcast policy for the NZ election 2023.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
The President of Brazil was at the United Nations last week to tell world leaders to let Julian Assange go free, arguing that it is essential to freedom of the press around the globe. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: The […]
I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a colour photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable.
What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Bennington College Address (1970)
Something compelling and sad about that life. Kurt. Born and raised in Indianapolis, (1922-2007). Iconic. More than Slaughterhouse Five.
I remember the reading, at UT-El Paso, my first year in the English graduate program — why that, and I was working for newspapers, had a language gig, one-on-one, in Juarez with a Mexican engineer working for Packard Electric. I was deep into writing stories and a novel. Lots of cross border ruckus stuff. Drugs and some other cross-the-tortilla-curtain smuggling. That was October 19, 1983. Two feet from fame.
It may have just been a coincidence it was a Homecoming event, but he was there, speaking to graduate students in a classroom. Then after the reading, a party. The obligatory after-reading-party.
Wine, whisky, tequila. Kurt was looking for Pall Malls, and I had two packs ready — cheap cigs from Juarez. I brought a bottle of mescal, with the worm, and we talked — me, Vonnegut and two other folk. But he and I talked face to face. I had no fear, no compunction to put anyone on pedestals, and we talked about Dresden and some of my life.
I grabbed Dixie cups, threw some lime wedges into each one and poured me, Kurt and the two other people shots of the agave drink.
These guys and gals are many times inquisitive about the people who parachute into their lives — young people, like myself. Twenty-six and with a donkey cart full of stories already. I had family who survived that bombing in Dresden — in fact, my Canadian mom, divorced from my German father, had the sugar, salt, flour and grease ceramic flower containers that were buried for safekeeping in Dresden. They survived that bombing.
Vonnegut never survived that role he played as a captured US soldier picking up the carcasses of the dead in Dresden. He was deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was imprisoned in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse, schlachthof fünf (5). He survived the allied bombing.
We’re talking several days of heavy bombers from US Air Force and RAF, up to 1,350 aircraft in total, with their payloads ready for factory, neighborhood, family and town — 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices. Like all UK-American bombing, a firestorm ensued, which destroyed more than 1,600 acres of the city and more than 25,000 were killed with so many more wounded, and yet more psychologically scarred.
Kurt was one of those who never recovered. His book, Slaughterhouse Five, took years to write, coming out in 1969. It is an anti-war book. I saw him again 20 years later, in Spokane, at a reading and then, the proverbial party afterwards. Pall Malls he still chain smoked. This crowd was a bigger crowd, and I remember having that chance to go over to him and rejiggering his memory. The party in one of the faculty’s houses in New Mexico. Two horses and the fields of giant green chilies growing. And the bottle of worm-blessed mezcal.
I know this seems narcissistic, but the guy remembered me, recalled that night, and the drinking of the agave fermented elixir. He asked about that mezcal again. I repeated that I had just come back from Mexico a few years earlier, and spent time in Oaxaca where there are thousands of acres of agave plants (200 varieties) grown for tequila and mezcal. I told him about how the curanderos and even the narcotraficantes use the liquor in their ceremonies and baptismals, as in vetting their sicarios in the drug runners mafia. Hired killers.
Some of what we talked about went back to El Paso, and then he kept asking me about my life in Mexico, and the booze. He wondered why this time I hadn’t brought a bottle of the mezcal with the gusano (worm) sunk at the bottom. I told him that tequilas were becoming trendy and boutique brewed. I said that mezcal was becoming popular too, thanks to the marketing of it in Mexico on the international stage.
He told me he recalled being really inebriated, and that he had some crazy dreams. “No hangover in the morning. I so wanted to call you to let you know you were right. The dreams and the lack of headache.” He laughed hard, smoke pouring out of his mouth around bedraggled teeth.
His memory was jarred, and he laughed at something he remembered out there in El Paso. He liked the wild west aspect of the town, and the good Mexican food, and he liked the mix of people. Almost all the students who listened to him were of Mexican descent. The department — English Department — wasn’t 87 percent Latino (like the town), but we did have a few in our ranks. The school itself drew people from around Mexico, Latin America and Africa. Engineering. Nursing. Mining. Not many documented or undocumented immigrants were rooting for their children to go get a useless degree in English literature or creative writing. For the most part. In Spokane he was railing against Bush and Cheney. The neocons. He was only a few years from his untimely death.
He and I talked intensely (as intensely as Kurt could be because he always had that raspy laugh, like a two-stroke lawnmower engine choking down, barely hanging onto a spark). He laughed a lot. But when it came to Bush and war, he was serious. He talked a lot about Bush. He asked about El Paso. He asked about my own threadbare travels and even more threadbare writing (paid publishing) career (sic).
I told him the Mexican saying — “Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien, también; y si no hay remedio litro y medio” — For all bad, mezcal, and for all good, as well; and if there is no remedy, liter and a half.
He asked how the hell I got from Mexico and El Paso to Spokane, to Gonzaga. I tried to squeeze in as much as I could before our talk was overcome by hangers on, the groupies. I told him that even now, after 20 years, I was still teaching as an adjunct, and that I was still organizing part-timers in a union. I also told him I was fiddling around another degree, a masters in urban and regional planning. He knew who Jane Jacobs was. The two of them lived in New York, and Kurt was also a fan of her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. He too was against the Robert Moses’ project to kill the Village, with the Lower Manhattan Expressway.
This all is percolating inside after watching the Weide documentary, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time. The life of this man, and the life of his family, is laid out, but Robert Weide had an unusual relationship with Vonnegut — more than two decades of friendship. Lots of letters back and forth. The project about this man’s life. Weide was a fan of Vonnegut in high school. He became a filmmaker, and he wanted to capture Kurt’s life in film. This too took Weide a lifetime to produce. It’s a compelling piece, one that is about Kurt, about his failings and his features, about what his kids have to say about Kurt the dad. The ups and downs and ups and downs of his literary life. He was obsessed, and he was almost always a writer.
In so many ways, the movie is about a man out of his own time. He was too old for the Love and Peace Generation, but they adopted him with his iconic books held deep in their souls. Many Vonnegut fans were fans, having never really read his work. I’ve read six of his books, not all of the ones he wrote. I was happy about his books, but I wasn’t obsessed.
Watching this flick, I have a deeper regard for the man, for the country he believed in (one I never believed in) and his world which was big and large on one level, but in many ways, very finite and small. He was a New York and East Coast guy, and he was an icon, a guy who actors and painters and celebrities went to. In his presence, he was a simple guy. I never thought of him as literary. I have been in the company of many literary folk, poets, novelists, journalists.
This is why I adore the time I had with Kurt — limited, two feet from his fame, and now part of the fabric of my own tattered quilt. My life. Failures, mostly, in the literary sense. And this is still stuck in my craw, but I am more resigned with that fact. Timing, disposition, vision, limitations, focus, and a dream. His background is so different from my own. His parts to his whole so different than mine. I’d say nothing we have in common. Nothing, really, but writing, or the knowledge that that is a private and profound thing — to write, to make up and to be a journalist too.
In the documentary, there is a real loneliness that reverberates in this guy’s life. Watch it if you can. About a time long gone. In the context of now, too, with Nazi’s in Ukraine, with the American ghostlands, all the same actors he railed against with the Bush Family and the wars. But, a man like Vonnegut, while immense on many levels, still believed in a lot of goodness in people. Even those in politics. He held a belief that someone was good, something was good about Clinton, and this was before Obama. I can only guess what he would have thought about that charlatan, that war criminal.
They all are. And, now, seeing the propaganda machines in the USA, around the Western world, in the UK and EU, and down under, in Australia, it must be said that the same criminals who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they are the same ones fomenting war and hatred with the psychological operations. With the corporate-legacy-mainstream-commercial media part and parcel of their slick Goebbels-Edward Bernays lying game.
Amazing to see the script flipped, and the USA supporting Nazis, and the complete revamping and rewriting of history. Putin as Hitler: What a fucking sad time making that comparison. Sick, Russia lost 27 million defeating the Germans. Putin remembers, and he never knew one brother who died in World War Two. Relatives killed and wounded. What a creepy country, USA, and it is also my mother’s birthplace, Canada, that is creepy. My grandparents from UK, Scotland, that part of the world = creepy. And, well, those Germans, what are those countrymen saying about Putin? Hitler and Putin? It makes no sense. My family was forced onto the Russian front as German conscripts. My grandfather was a pilot in World War I.
Slaughterhouse Five, and the Nazis, and the Allies. One in the same.
Imagine the time I could have spent with Kurt if I had had the chance to pull him aside, take him to Chihuahua, spend a week with him in Mexico. Imagine the education I would have gotten, and the one Vonnegut would have gotten.
Sometimes that slipstream comes from a place of mythology, a dream, some biscuit of exceptionalism. All the soured lies of history. But Vonnegut knew that. He wrote about that. Kids in high school were assigned those books.Breakfast of Champions. Cat’s Cradle. Mother Night.
Each of his poems puts a chink in the armor of the war makers. Robert Bly’s Friday night appearance at SFCC will be part touchstone for peace and part riling-up of the audience to bear witness and take action.
Bly, a preeminent American poet whose 80-year-old voice and intellect have helped to sculpt an important vision of literary art and cultural reclamation, will speak as part of Spokane Falls Community College’s “Lit Live!”
While Bly is a sought-after voice of reason and lyrical charm, his poetic pulse has been stimulated by a life alone, working far from the rarified atmosphere of college or university settings. His roots are in Mansfield, Minn., and in the furrows of hard-working immigrants where his reverence for land and people germinated.
Translator of such great poets as South America’s Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo and Antonio Machado, India’s Ghalib, Spain’s Lorca and Jim & eacute;nez, and Norway’s Rolf Jacobsen and Olav H. Hauge, Bly’s output of articles, essays and criticism is matched by his more than 40 books of poetry.
Enwrapped in solitude, Bly spins ruminations shaped by other cultures, other poets — as in “Meeting the Man Who Warns Me”:
I dream that I cannot see half of my life. “I look back, it is like the blind spot in a car./ So much just beyond the reach of our eyes, what tramples the grasses while the horses are asleep, the hoof marks all around the cave mouth…/ what slips in under the door at night, and lies exhausted on the floor in the morning.
Also slated for the Music Auditorium stage on Friday night are four male drummers, pounding animal skins as a tribute to “the wild man” in Bly’s Iron John. His 1991 book examines the dichotomy between Savage Man, who is both wounded and inflicts wounds on earth and humankind, and Wild Man, the shaman-healer, Zen priest or woodsman. In Iron John, we have a book about men and the lost energy of visions, fairy tales and the male drumbeat of power and depth. It’s a book of healing and reaffirmation of soul.
Bly also helped redirect the creative surge of Modernism’s influence on poetry by unraveling his words and lines into what Victoria Frenkel Harris has called “incorporative consciousness.” Bly believes that the poet or creative thinker must go “much deeper than the ego … at the same time [becoming] aware of many other beings.” In a sense, he believes that “leaping out” of the intellectual world and into what we intuitively hold as our own realities best explores the paradoxes of two worlds: the world of our psychic pain, and the world in which we must adjust to observing the rules.
Bly came to prominence during the Vietnam War era — a time that tore at the psychic integration of American culture. He recalls how controversial his work was then: “Most of the English teachers in the universities hated our doing ‘political poems,’ as they were called. That still happens,” he recently said about those heady days of the ’60s. “When I’m at a reception at a university these days, an English professor may come up to me and ask: ‘How do you feel now about those poems you wrote during the war?’ They want me to disown the poems. I say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t write more of them.’”
Bly, along with David Ray, created the group American Writers Against the Vietnam War. The first important protest volume was A Poetry Reading Against the Vietnam War (1966), edited by Bly and Ray.
In one of his poetry collections, The Light Around the Body, Bly cast a beacon of hazy light upon the symbiotic relationship of poverty and racism and the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
But now, in 2006, with the stink of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah still enveloping Mr. Bush’s war, Bly speaks with singular impetus in his recent work, The Insanity of Empire: A Book of Poems Against the Iraq War. “The invasion of Iraq is the biggest mistake any American administration has ever made,” he says. “The most dangerous and greatest confrontation is between twentieth-century capitalist fundamentalism and eleventh-century Muslim fundamentalism,” he writes.
For aficionados of the poetic form, The Insanity of Empire embodies both Bly’s disdain for immoral governments and Bly as an the artful practitioner of the ghazal, an Arab poetic form:
I don’t want to frighten you, but not a stitch can be taken/ On your quilt unless you study. The geese will tell you/ A lot of crying goes on before the dawn comes.
SFCC’s literary publication, Wire Harp, and the endowment for Lit Live! will not be the only beneficiaries of Bly’s incantations on Friday night (50 percent of the gate goes to the endowment). Conscious Living — a local business that creates events including the annual Celebrating Body, Mind and Spirit Expo and A Psychic Affair — is partnering with SFCC.
As a reminder of Bly’s continuing relevance, consider that he’s an anti-war activist of long standing. In the Dec. 9, 2002 issue of The Nation, Bly was one of the first to beat the earth drum against the impending war, in his poem, “Call and Answer”:
Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days/ And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed & r & The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting?/ I say to myself: “Go on, cry. What’s the sense/ Of being an adult and having no voice? Cry out! See who will answer!”
Green Party co-leader James Shaw has compared the language of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters to former US president Donald Trump, saying it may be emboldening violence against candidates in Aotearoa NZ’s election campaign.
Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, whose home was ram raided and invaded, put the blame on what she called race-baiting from right-wing parties.
Peters told Newshub Nation that notion was wrong, and accused Te Pāti Māori of being a racist party.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters . . . believes candidates faced worse times during the Rogernomics privatisation period of the 1980s. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
But Shaw — who himself was assaulted in 2019 — suggested Peters could be empowering and emboldening extremists.
“It makes me really angry. Because political leaders, through the things we say create an air of permissiveness for that kind of extreme language and now physical violence to take place and it’s not too dissimilar to what we saw in the United States under Donald Trump,” he said.
“Half of the argument about Trump was whether he personally intervened to make those things happen and at one level it doesn’t matter, he created an atmosphere where these extremists felt empowered and emboldened to kind of enact their kind of crazy, racist, misogynist fantasies.
Lead to physical violence
“And that did lead to physical violence there and it’s leading to physical violence here too.”
However, Shaw told RNZ he was not surprised given the “misogynist and racist rhetoric”, which he said had been at least in part been given permission by political parties in this election campaign.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer . . . calling out “misogynist and racist rhetoric” in the election campaign. Image: RNZ News/Cole Eastham-Farrelly/Samuel Rillstone
“[It] has created a situation where that kind of online hate and violent language is only one or two steps from actual acts of physical violence and now you’re starting to see those manifest. It is really worrying.
“I think all of us have a responsibility to try and create an atmosphere for democracy to take place, which is respectful, where people can have different opinions and for that to be okay.
“And I think that at the moment we’re seeing a rise in this kind of culture or language which is imported from overseas, that is not just unhelpful but downright dangerous.”
Te Pāti Māori said the break-in at Maipi-Clarke’s house was yet another example of political extremism in New Zealand.
Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said some right-wing politicians were emboldening racist behaviour and needed to take responsibility.
‘Harmful inciting’
“We have seen a harmful inciting, a very harmful emboldening of extremism, this is an example of that.
“We’ve had it with our billboards – they’ve been so destroyed that we haven’t been able to afford to replace a lot of them now. It’s just been disgusting, the extent of racism.”
This year’s election had brought some of the worst abuse Te Pāti Māori had ever experienced, she said.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters claimed of Maipi-Clarke’s incident that “it couldn’t have been a home invasion” and he would answer more questions about the case when he knew all the facts.
“As for the first one [alleged assault on Labour’s Angela Roberts], violence of that sort is just not acceptable, full stop.”
He believed the time for candidates was worse was during the Rogernomics period of the 1980s.
“With respect, I can recall during the period of Rogernomics, there was a full scale fight going on inside the Labour Party convention.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins in Mount Eden today . . . assaulting candidates or threatening their safety “shows total contempt for the very principle of democracy”. Image: RNZ/Giles Dexter
Minorities persecuted
Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins — who has vowed to call out racism — said a number of parties were deliberately trying to persecute minorities and it was reprehensible.
Assaulting candidates or threatening their safety “shows total contempt for the very principle of democracy”, he said.
He had made it clear to all Labour’s candidates that if they thought their physical safety might be at risk, they should not do that activity, Hipkins said.
“I think there has been more racism and misogyny in this election than we’ve seen in previous elections.”
Hipkins said he had respect for women and Māori who put themselves forward in elected office, but they should never have to put up with the level of abuse that they have had to in this campaign.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon told reporters his party had referred several incidents to the police too.
Luxon said he condemned threats and violence on political candidates, or their family and property, as well as all forms of racism.
Number of serious incidents
“It’s entirely wrong. We’ve had a number of serious incidents that we’ve referred to the police as well, over the course of this campaign.
“I think it’s important for all New Zealanders to understand that politicians are putting themselves forward, you may disagree with their politics, you may disagree with their policies, but we can disagree without being disagreeable in this country.”
He would not detail the complaints his party had made to police.
He said political leaders had a responsibility not to fearmonger during the campaign.
“Running fearmongering campaigns and negative campaigns just amps it up, and I think actually what we need to do is actually everyone needs to respect each other. We have differences of opinion about how to take the country forward, we are unique in New Zealand in that we can maintain our political civility, we don’t need to go down the pathway we’ve seen in other countries.
“It’s just about leadership, right, it’s about a leader modelling out the behaviour and treating people that they expect to treated.”
Asked if National had a hand in being responsible for fearmongering, he said it did not, and their campaign was positive and focused on what mattered most to New Zealanders.
Worry over online abuse
Shaw was worried for his candidates, having seen the online abuse they were subjected to.
“It’s vile, it is really extreme and it is stronger now than it has been in previous election campaigns and like I said I don’t think it takes much for a particularly unhinged individual from whacking their keyboard to whacking a person.”
But it was worse for female candidates and Māori, he said.
“Not just a little bit, not just an increment, but orders in magnitude, from what I’ve seen my colleagues be exposed to. It is just unhinged.”
There has been increased police participation in this campaign, Shaw said.
“Parliamentary security have got new protocols that we are observing. We have changed, for example, the way we campaign, the way we do public meetings, or when we’re out and about, we’re observing new security protocols that we haven’t had in previous years.”
Hipkins said where there might be additional risk, they have worked with Parliamentary Service on a cross-party basis to ensure there was additional support available for some MPs.
All parties have an interest in ensuring the election campaign was conducted safely, he said.
What has happened? This week, Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke’s home was ram raided and invaded, with a threatening note left.
Police said they were investigating the burglary of a Huntly home, which was reported to them on Monday.
Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke . . . her home was ram raided and invaded and she blames what she called race-baiting from right-wing parties. Image: 1News screenshot/APR
Te Pāti Māori issued a statement saying it was the third incident to take place at Maipi-Clarke’s home this week.
Also this week, Labour candidate for Taranaki-King Country Angela Roberts said she had laid a complaint with the police about being assaulted at an election debate in Inglewood.
Hipkins said he had great respect for Roberts, and he told her she could take any time off if she needed to, but she has chosen not to.
“She’s an incredibly staunch and energetic campaigner and I know it knocked the wind out of her sails a little bit, but I know that she’s bouncing back.”
On Thursday, Labour candidate for Northland Willow-Jean Prime told reporters she has faced the “worst comments and vitriol” in the seven campaigns she has been through – two in local government and five in central government.
“I was being shouted down every time I went to answer a question by supporters of other candidates primarily, there were not many of the general public in there,” she said of a Taxpayers Union debate in Kerikeri.
“Whenever I said a te reo Māori word, like puku, for full tummies, lunches in schools, I was shouted at.
“When I said Aotearoa, the crowd responded ‘It’s New Zealand!’. When I said rangatahi, ‘stop speaking that lanugage!’ that is racism coming from the audience, that’s not disagreeing with the gains I’m explaining that we’ve made in government.”
She said she noticed that type of “dog-whistling” in other candidate debates, but not whilst out and about with the general public.
“What is really worrying is that they feel so emboldened to be able to come out and say this stuff publicly, they don’t care that other people that might be in the audience, that might be listening or the impact that has on us as candidates.”
The New Zealand general election is on October 14, but early voting begins on October 2.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
An award-winning website with an archive of thousands of Pacific news reports, videos, images and research abstracts regarded as a pioneering initiative for a university based media programme has “disappeared” from its cyberspace location.
The PMC Online website . . . disappeared. Image: Screenshot/PMW
Pacific Media Centre Online, founded in 2007, was the website of the research and publication centre established at Auckland University of Technology as a component of the Creative Industries Research Institute.
It was a platform for student journalists and independent media contributors from other media schools and institutions across the Oceania region such as the University of the South Pacific as well as at AUT.
One of it PMC Online’s components, Pacific Media Watch, was awarded the faculty “Critic and Conscience of Society” award in 2014 and contributing student journalists won 11 prizes in the annual Ossie journalism awards of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA).
The new default page for http://pmc.aut.ac.nz Image: Screenshot PMW
When the PMC effectively closed in early 2021, the website continued as an archive at AUT for more than two and a half years under the URL pmc.aut.ac.nz — a total life of 16 years plus.
However, suddenly the website vanished earlier this month with pmc.aut.ac.nz defaulting to the university’s Journalism Department with no explanation from campus authorities.
Founding director of the Pacific Media Centre and retired professor of Pacific journalism Dr David Robie called it a disappointing reflection on the decline of independent journalism and lack of respect for history at media schools, saying: “Yet another example of cancel culture.”
Jemima Garrett, co-convenor of the Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative (AAPMI), described it as an “appalling waste and disrespectful”.
The Google directory for the Pacific Media Centre – all files have now disappeared. Image: Screenshot/PMW
Investigative journalist and Gold Walkley winner Peter Cronau, who is co-publisher of Declassified Australia, wrote: “That’s disgraceful censorship of Pacific stories — disturbing it’s been done by AUT, who should be devoted to openness and free speech. What avenues exist for appeal?”
Another investigative journalist and former journalism professor Wendy Bacon said: “This is very bad and very glad that you archived all this valuable work. Unfortunately the same thing happened to an enormous amount of valuable files of Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS [University of Technology Sydney].”
The Pacific affairs adviser of the Pacific Islands Forum, Lisa Leilani Williams-Lahari, said: “Sad!”
Pacific Media Centre student contributors filed more than 50 reports for the Australian journalism school collaborative platform The Junction and they can be read here.
On September 24, the Jerusalem Postpublished an article titled, “Israel is not an apartheid state, former South African defense minister says.” The article notes that the former African National Congress (ANC) minister in question, Mosiuoa Lekota, served time in prison with Nelson Mandela during South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. He went on to serve in the government of then-South African President and ANC leader Thabo Mbeki between 1999 and 2008, though he subsequently left the ANC to form a new party called Congress of the People. Lekota appears to be something of an obscure has-been in South African politics, with his party winning just 0.27% of the vote in the country’s 2019 elections. He is no longer even a member of the National Assembly and currently holds no elected position at any level of government.
The article has been doing the rounds on Twitter/X, predictably being seized on with glee by Israel’s defenders both at home and abroad. The Jerusalem Post’s own editor tweeted that Lekota’s comments have supposedly “refuted one of the most pernicious lies about Israel.” The editor of the UK’s Jewish Chronicle, Jake Wallis Simons, meanwhile, tweeted out the article with the hashtag #Israelophobia. Other social media users who have been gloating about it include the founder of an organization calling itself “Jews & Allies.”
It appears that this is not the first time that Lekota has been wheeled out to “refute” Israel’s status as an apartheid state. A July 2021 blog post at the New Jersey-based Jewish Standard quotes him as stating: “I tried to find a comparison between how we lived under the apartheid regime and the situation in Israel and I could not find one.” This was subsequently repeated in tweets posted by an organization calling itself “Stand With Us” and its director Michael Dickson, who claims to be among the “Top 15 Most Influential Jews on Twitter.”
Lekota made his more recent remarks during an interview with the South African Friends of Israel earlier this month. (One can only imagine what kind of sycophantic treatment he receives given his prima facie propaganda utility. South African friends of Israel appears to be a subgroup within the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF). The “national chairperson” of both groups is one Rowan Polovin, who incidentally has himself written for the Jerusalem Post. The SAZF lists amongst its “affiliate organisations” the Jewish National Fund, which owns over 10% of Israel’s public land.)
The Jerusalem Post reports that Lekota stated:
I was in Israel, my brother …
In Israel, you won’t find the same divisions between Jews and non-Jews that we used to witness during apartheid. There are no segregated buses for different ethnic groups, like Jews and Arabs.” …
In Israel, everyone boards the same bus, travels wherever they need to, and disembarks as they wish. There is no apartheid in Israel, not even within their schools.
First of all, Lekota doesn’t even have all of his facts straight. Because that last sentence is completely false; the truth is that the Israeli school system is almost completely segregated. This has been reported as fact by mainstream publications such as Haaretz and Foreign Policy magazine. And as Human Rights Watch has pointed out: “Discrimination against Palestinian Arab children colors every aspect of the two systems.” But this aside, the key to understanding why Lekota is seemingly so confused about this subject lies in the words I have italicized: “in Israel.” Condemnations of Israel’s practice of ethnic apartheid do not generally refer to Israel proper — that is, Israel within its pre-June 1967 borders.
To be clear, Palestinian citizens of Israel who live in Israel proper (sometimes referred to as “Arab Israelis”) are not treated as equally as Jewish Israelis and largely live as a persecuted and marginalized minority. According to a 2010 report by PeaceWorks authored by University of Haifa Professor of Sociology Sammy Smooha:
Arabs in Israel are most distinguished… in being an enemy-affiliated minority. In the eyes of the Jewish majority and the Jewish state, they are potentially hostile because they are part of the Arab world and the Palestinian people who remain inimical to Israel. … The state places Arabs under a machinery of control to better deter, discover, and punish acts of subversion and disloyalty.
So, even within Israel proper, there are certainly some parallels with South Africa’s experience of apartheid.
But those condemning Israeli apartheid are usually referring to the occupied territory of the West Bank, which lies outside Israel proper’s pre-June 1967 borders. And in the West Bank, ethnic apartheid is not just evident, but characterizes pretty much the entire way of life for the two ethnic groups that live there.
Those two ethnic groups are Palestinians and Israeli settlers. In spite of being the larger of the two with several million inhabitants, Palestinians are denied even the most basic of civil and political rights. They have no right to vote in any of Israel’s political institutions even though the land is ruled by Israel. The Israeli settlers, on the other hand, who are the smaller of the two ethnic groups with several hundred thousands of inhabitants, are afforded the full rights of citizenship of any Jewish Israeli in Israel proper. This is in spite of the fact that they are not even supposed to be there in the first place. Because the government-sponsored settlements they live in have been built for decades in flagrant violation of international law and in the face of widespread condemnation from the international community, including even sometimes from staunch allies like the United States.
While the Israeli settlers enjoy preferential treatment from Israeli security forces, the latter brutalize Palestinians on a daily basis. The occupying Israeli military and police frequently engage in arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, torture, and even extrajudicial killings of (often unarmed) Palestinians (including children as young as two-years-old). The Israeli state has also been found responsible for forced displacement, land expropriation and restriction of movement. And all of this happens in an atmosphere of near-total impunity.
As if all of this weren’t bad enough, Palestinians in the West Bank now also increasingly face violence from some of the Israeli settlers themselves. A December 2022 press release from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated: “Armed and masked Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinians in their homes, attacking children on their way to school, destroying property and burning olive groves, and terrorising entire communities with complete impunity.”
Furthermore, exactly the kind of ethnic segregation that Lekota claims doesn’t exist in Israel proper most certainly does exist in the West Bank, and in some cases has done so for a long time. He mentions segregated buses, for instance. Yet in March 2013 (that is, over a decade ago) NBC published an article titled: “‘A Palestinian Rosa Parks is needed’: Israel’s segregated buses spark outrage.” An even more egregious picture plays out with respect to roads. Specifically, some roads have been built for use exclusively by the Israeli settler population. In addition to segregated infrastructure, another central aspect of apartheid in South Africa — that of land — is very much in play in the West Bank as well. In June 2023, Haaretz published an article titled: “Half of West Bank Land Seized by Israel Exclusively for Settler Use, Report Says.”
In short, many facets of life in the West Bank are clearly analogous to the apartheid policies enacted by the South African National Party governments of the 20th Century. And this view is increasingly becoming an uncontroversial statement of fact repeated even in mainstream corporate-owned media including the Washington Post and MSNBC. Israel’s apartheid policies in the occupied West Bank have also been condemned by figures such as the Canadian legal scholar Michael Lynk, who served as the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories between 2016 and 2022, and former US president Jimmy Carter, whose 2007 book on the subject is titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Mainstream human rights organizations — in spite of often playing down Israel’s crimes and taking brazenly pro-Western stances on other issues — have also described Israel’s behavior in the West Bank as apartheid. This includes Human Rights Watch — whose board of directors contains former State Department personnel — and Amnesty International — which has been condemned by human rights lawyer Francis Boyle for its pro-Israel bias. Even Israel’s own major human rights organization, B’Tselem, described the country as engaging in apartheid in early 2021.
As if this weren’t enough proof, even figures from Israel’s own political, intelligence, military and academic elite have done so as well. Former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair in February 2022 described Israel as an “apartheid regime.” Earlier this month, Tamir Pardo, who served as the head of the Mossad between 2011 and 2016, said: “There is an apartheid state here.” In August of this year, Amiram Levin, who served as head of the Israeli army’s northern front described the situation in the West Bank as “absolute apartheid.” In March of this year the Israeli Law Professors’ Forum for Democracy, made up of 120 of Israel’s leading legal scholars, issued a statement saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent policy changes “validate the claim that Israel practices apartheid.”
If even figures like this consider Israel to be practicing apartheid, then you can be sure that the claim is about as uncontroversial in political discourse as the Copernican system is in modern astronomy. The fact that the Jerusalem Post has to stoop to enlisting some buffoonish, washed-up ANC apparatchik to utter such obviously misleading and, at times, provably false propaganda shows just how desperate it has become in its pathetic, flailing effort to deny what is becoming obvious even to many of Israel’s own elites.
America’s Lawyer E69: Democratic Senator Bob Menendez has been indicted in one of the most serious cases of political corruption that we’ve seen in modern times – and he’s refusing to resign in spite of the evidence against him. Saudi Arabia has sent a teenager to jail for the next two decades for the crime […]
Barely a day passes without a story in the British or Australian media that ramps up fear about the rulers in Beijing, reports the investigative website Declassified Australia.
According to an analysis by co-editors Antony Loewenstein and Peter Cronau, the Australian and British media are ramping up public fear, aiding a major military build-up — and perhaps conflict — by the United States and its allies.
The article is a warning to New Zealand and Pacific media too.
Citing a recent article in the Telegraph newspaper in Britain headlined, “A war-winning missile will knock China out of Taiwan – fast”, says the introduction.
“Written by David Axe, who contributes regularly to the outlet, he detailed a war game last year that was organised by the US think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“It examined a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and concluded that the US Navy would be nearly entirely obliterated. However, Axe wrote, the US Air Force ‘could almost single-handedly destroy the Chinese invasion force’.
“‘How? With the use of a Lockheed Martin-made Joint Air-to-Surface Strike Missile (JASSM).
“‘It’s a stealthy and highly accurate cruise missile that can range hundreds of miles from its launching warplane,’ Axe explained.
“‘There are long-range versions of the JASSM and a specialised anti-ship version, too — and the USAF [US Air Force] and its sister services are buying thousands of the missiles for billions of dollars.’
“Missing from this analysis was the fact that Lockheed Martin is a major sponsor of the CSIS. The editors of The Telegraph either didn’t know or care about this crucial detail.
“One week after this story, Axe wrote another one for the paper, titled, ‘The US Navy should build a robot armada to fight the battle of Taiwan.’
“‘The US Navy is shrinking,’ the story begins. ‘The Chinese navy is growing. The implications, for a free and prosperous Pacific region, are enormous.’”
Branding the situation as “propaganda by think tank”, the authors argue that some sections of the news media are framing a massive military build-up by the US and its allies as necessary in the face of Chinese aggression.
“These repetitive media reports condition the public and so allow, or force, the political class to up the ante on China,” Loewenstein and Cronau write.
In a timely celebration of the Mooncake Festival, vegan food justice organization Food Empowerment Project (FEP) has launched a website dedicated to vegan Chinese food. The website, VeganChineseFood.com, highlights Chinese cuisine that is devoid of animal ingredients while promoting the possibility of enjoying vegan dishes without compromising cultural heritage.
Inspired by FEP’s board member, Jessian Choy, Vegan Chinese Food is more than just a collection of recipes. It’s a platform designed to emphasize the power of our food choices and educate visitors about the historical and cultural aspects of veganism within Chinese communities.
Choy, an instrumental figure in this initiative, expressed her personal connection to the project. “Creating these recipes reunited me with family and traditions I felt disconnected from,” Choy said in a statement.
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“It also meant a lot to me to share vegan recipes that match FEP’s mission to create a more compassionate society for animals and show others that they can still eat delicious vegan food without compromising their culture,” Choy adds.
Vegan Chinese recipes
VeganChineseFood.com boasts an array of more than a dozen vegan Chinese food recipes, encompassing a variety of dishes including entrées, soups, and desserts. From red yeast rice to rose-infused mooncakes, mugwort sticky rice, fermented black beans, mapo tofu, and potstickers, there’s something to tantalize every palate.
The site is designed to be a user-friendly resource for vegans, the vegan-curious, and the wider Chinese community. It aims to preserve traditional cultural dishes while eliminating animal ingredients, ensuring that everyone can savor their favorite flavors without contributing to animal suffering or exploitation.
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“Choy showed that even some very unique recipes in traditional Chinese medicine can be veganized,” Alejandra Tolley, FEP Communications Specialist, tells VegNews on behalf of the FEP team.
The VeganChineseFood.com website offers recipes in both English and simplified Chinese. FEP’s other recipe websites, including VeganMexicanFood.com, VeganFilipinoFood.com, and VeganLaoFood.com, continue to promote the organization’s mission of fostering compassionate eating choices.
“We believe it’s important to show ‘meat’-free food in any culture,” Tolley says. “It’s crucial for everyone to look at ‘meat’ alternatives because it’s important for the sake of the animals and a sustainable solution to the current climate crisis.”
China’s vegan food history
The website does not merely offer recipes but also delves into the historical context of veganism in Chinese culture.
Visitors can explore how Western imperialism played a role in introducing animal products to China during the mid-19th century, significantly altering dietary practices. Cow’s milk, for example, was first imported into China by Western merchants, ultimately influencing the nation’s dairy consumption patterns.
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Despite this shift, a significant portion of the Chinese population still struggles to digest non-human animal milk, a fact that underscores the notion of “lactose normalcy.”
“Colonization, or even the overbearing influence of the West, is often minimalized,” Tolley says. “It is imperative that those of us who have been impacted ensure that we push back on foods that are not good for us, the planet, or the animals.”
“Historically, milk was not part of our ancestors’ diet. Today, we see many BIPOC individuals whose bodies have difficulty breaking it down,” Tolley says. “Because of this, we consider this lactose normal, unlike lactose ‘intolerant,’ which implies something is wrong with us.”
Many Chinese cultures and groups have embraced a compassionate approach to food by abstaining from animal products and byproducts, the Vegan Chinese Food website notes. These groups include practitioners of Shaolin kung fu, most Mahayana Buddhists, and communities of Chinese women living in vegan houses for centuries to escape patriarchal and classist societies.
This practice reflects a deep-rooted respect for animals and aligns with the burgeoning trend of veganism in modern China.
The work of FEP
Veganism, as promoted by FEP, extends beyond excluding animal-based ingredients and encompasses the ethical consideration of how our food choices affect farm workers. The organization is dedicated to raising awareness about the labor conditions of produce workers and actively working towards supporting their rights through corporate, legislative, and regulatory advocacy.
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FEP’s activism covers four areas: veganism for the animals, farm workers’ rights, fighting food apartheid, and encouraging people not to buy chocolate where child labor and slavery are the most prevalent.
“We see all forms of oppression as interconnected and strive to create a more sustainable and compassionate future,” Tolley says. “We want more people, especially those with privilege, to understand that they have an opportunity to make a difference each time they eat to take a stand against cruelty and for justice locally and globally.”
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
A Charles Sturt University journalism academic says the evolving communication course at his institution in Australia continues to feed the ranks of the irrepressible “Mitchell Mafia’”.
Cheetham said he was surprised to wake up and read a media report in late July suggesting journalism was not being taught separately at Charles Sturt University.
Quality journalism has never been more important, and Charles Sturt has an enviable reputation for producing some of the world’s best, most-renowned journalists.
“That day I spent six hours teaching news and media, also known as ‘journalism’,” he said.
“Actually, on that Tuesday we had ABC veteran Trevor Watson visit us on campus to give a guest talk on journalism, specifically news writing, which was also streamed to online students.
“Before that talk, I spent two hours with a class analysing media coverage of The Voice to Parliament Referendum campaigns. After Trevor’s talk, I held a news writing tutorial doing practice exercises on the hard news style of reporting.”
‘Pretty journalistic day’
He said it was a “pretty journalistic” day.
“We’re still teaching journalism, with practical opportunities to work in newsrooms, such as National Radio News,” he said.
Cheetham emphasised that quality journalism had never been more important, and Charles Sturt had an enviable reputation for producing some of the world’s best, most-renowned journalists.
As the original ABC article noted, over the past five decades, the university has nurtured some of the nation’s most high-profile communicators, including Andrew Denton, Melissa Doyle, Samantha Armytage, Hamish Macdonald, Chris Bath, and current ABC News Europe correspondent Nick Dole.
“Charles Sturt University will continue to educate and train journalists for the evolving media landscape,” Cheetham said.
“At the University campus in Bathurst we continue to have cutting-edge facilities, such as a TV studio, a community broadcasting radio station, and editing suites, for our students to gain skills and insights into working in their chosen fields.
“We’re also investing substantial funds in the communications hub that will provide new facilities for our future students.”
For example, graduates from 2021 include 7News (Central West) journalist Reuben Spargo who won the 2021 JERAA Ossie Award for ‘national student journalist of the year’.
“Charles Sturt threw practical skills at me and helped grow my confidence as a communicator,” Spargo said.
“The connections I made and the experiences I shared allowed me to hit the ground running within the industry.”
Keeping pace
Cheetham said to keep pace with the ever-changing media industry and digital advancements, Charles Sturt had launched a new communication course with its first intake last year, 2022.
“The new Bachelor of Communication offers specialisations in strategic communication, news and media — journalism, which I teach — and design and content creation,” he said.
“Teaching the critical role of journalism is still very much a priority at Charles Sturt. The changes represent a transition from one version of the journalism degree, which we have offered for more than 50 years, into a new degree program.
“The philosophy behind the new course remains the same — we’re aiming to produce people who are good storytellers.” Image: CSU
“The philosophy behind the new course remains the same — we’re aiming to produce people who are good storytellers. We have retained a lot of the strongest elements of the old course bringing them into the new course.”
Having industry and alumni co-design the course with academic staff offers students a unique combination of academic, discipline-specific specialisations with a sound understanding of the industry through the networking and industry connections embedded within the course.
The format of the new degree combines first-hand industry knowledge and advice, and to have industry professionals sharing knowledge, expertise and daily experiences will be a real game changer for the students.
Politicians love to tell us that they are trying to “protect our children,” and many will make that theme the central focus of their campaigns. But a new report shows that children in the United States are NOT being protected at all from things like child marriage and grueling agricultural work with little oversight. Mike Papantonio & Farron […]
Australia’s support for the Solomon Islands media sector is long-standing and is now providing support for the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) to get ready for the 2023 Pacific Games in November.
ABC International Development (ABCID) has delivered more training to the SIBC earlier this month which focused on the use of mobile journalism (MoJo) kits.
More than half of the SIBC staff received training from Dave McMeekin, a leading content quality advisor from ABC News in Adelaide, on September 12-16.
The ABC recently distributed MoJo kits to all its locations in Australia so the SIBC staff are now using the best equipment available as preferred by journalists in Australia.
MoJo kits consist of an android phone, microphone, tripod, and other components that allow a single person to capture high-quality audio and video.
The content can be recorded on the phone for later use or sent back to a studio for immediate broadcast.
These kits are designed to be portable and operated by one person.
Setting up, maintenance
During the training sessions, conducted in small groups of four or five SIBC staff members, the focus was on setting up and maintaining the MoJo kits.
In addition, the training included techniques for visual storytelling, which makes it easier to capture short stories in the field.
Practical exercises were carried out on the streets of Honiara, including in the Central Market and the Art Gallery.
Last Saturday, SIBC journalists used the MoJo kits to report on the Solomon Airlines Peace Marathon — putting into practice the training and equipment they will use during the Pacific Games.
As part of the Australian project, managed by ABCID, SIBC will receive two MoJo kits.
SIBC also plans to purchase two additional kits, with one of them being stationed in Gizo.
These four kits will be used by SIBC reporters to file stories leading up to and during the Pacific Games.
The Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands runs from November 19 until December 2.
Republished with permission from SBM Online.
Trainer Dave McMeekin . . . . briefing a group of SIBC journalists during the MoJo training in Honiara earlier this month. Image: SBM Online
The rise in social media platforms uploading naked pictures of women and girls has come to the attention of the Censorship Board in Papua New Guinea with Chief Censor Jim Abani warning about the dangers.
In what many have termed as cyber bullying, a picture of women or girls uploaded on social media is then downloaded by other people who use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in creating new content like images and videos of the women or girls involved in sexual activities, including being naked and also involved in pornography.
Chief Censor Abani said his office had received many complaints regarding GAI in creating new content like images and videos of recent reported cases, including uploading of nude images of females on social media.
He said it was disrespectful and a “disgrace to our mothers and sisters”.
More than 20 girls in Spain reported receiving AI-generated naked images of themselves in a controversy that has been widely reported globally.
When they returned to school after the summer holidays, more than 20 girls from Almendralejo, a town in southern Spain, received naked photos of themselves on their mobile phones.
Chief Censor Abani said the increase of using new and advanced technology features was alarming for a young and developing country such as PNG.
“We are talking about embracing communication and connective and empowering economy but also the high risks and dangers of wellbeing is my concern, Chief Censor Abani said.
“I call on those sick minded or evil minded people to stop and do something useful and contribute meaningful to nation building.
New Facebook trend
“This is a new trend with Facebook users in the country on social media platforms increasing with unimaginable ways of discriminating and harassment using fake names to post images — particularly of young females — that are not suitable for public consumption or viewing,” he said.
He said he was calling on all relevant agencies to come together, including the Censorship Office, to start implementing some policies and regulations to address these
issues.
Chief Censor Abani said people were unaware of dangers — “particularly our female users of social media platforms”.
These acts were without the individuals’ consent and knowledge using Generative AI applications.
“Technology is good but we must use wisely and being responsible in using such information that is provided,” he said.
He said the Censorship Office would work closely with Department ICT, DATACO and NICTA, police cybercrime unit to use the Cybercrime Code Act to punish perpetrators while waiting for the Censorship Act to finalise a review and amendments.
Marjorie Finkeois a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
A recent investigation by The Fiji Times has found that former attorney-general and FijiFirst party (FF) general-secretary Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum did not declare the value of shares he owns in two companies, as per the asset declarations filed with the Fijian Elections Office since 2017.
Section 24 of the Political Parties (Regulation, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act requires political party officials to disclose to the Registrar of Political Parties their “total assets”, together with the total assets of their spouses and dependent children.
Between 2016 and 2022, Sayed-Khaiyum’s asset declarations stated he and his wife Ela were shareholders in two companies, Midlife Investments Pte Ltd and Abide Pte Ltd.
In his declarations for the years 2016 through to 2022, Sayed-Khaiyum declared monetary values for his home in Vunakece Rd, Suva, his bank accounts and a motor vehicle.
He also declared that he and his wife held shares in the two companies.
However, for the shares listed, the column “value declared” was left blank in each of the declarations.
Sayed-Khaiyum has not responded to questions emailed to him by The Fiji Times.
Meri Radinibaraviis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
One particularly bad habit the news is afflicted by is a tendency to fall into discussions about itself. Its members, some of them at least, used to call it the “Fourth Estate,” an unelected chamber of scribblers supposedly meant to keep an eye on the other three, yet finding itself at times distracted, gossip-driven, and rumour filled by its own exploits.
The greatest distraction that weathered province falls is coverage of its own moguls and pop-representatives. When it came to covering, for instance, the wiles and frauds of Robert Maxwell, little could be trusted about the brow-beating bruiser’s exploits. You certainly could not trust what the likes of his own Mirror Group Newspapers or the New York Daily News, printed about his affairs. Editors and journalists were terrified; his inner circle, subservient. When a colossal £460 million gap was unearthed in the pension funds of his empire, feigned surprise was registered.
On September 21, a press release from News Corp announced that Rupert Murdoch was “stepping down as chairman of each board effective as of the upcoming Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of each company [Fox Corporation and News Corporation] in mid-November.” But stepping down in the post-modernist slushy argot of Fox Corp and News Corp never means retirement in any conventional sense. One continues to read, for instance, that Murdoch “will be appointed Chairman Emeritus of each company.”
This announcement should have simply caused a wave of sniggering and guffawing. The most savage and imperialist press mogul of them all had always insisted that he would not release the reins of power, stating in 1998, at the age of 67, that he was “enjoying” being in charge, admitting it was “a selfish choice. To walk away and retire, it’s a pretty dismal prospect – I don’t want to do that.” Were he to do so, he would “die pretty quickly.” One of his sons, Lachlan, seemingly the perennial successor in waiting, had to concede in 2015 that his father was “never retiring”.
One of the reasons Murdoch has cited for refusing to step down has been those heel nipping, unprepared progeny of his. “I don’t think my children are ready yet. They may not agree with that, but I’m certainly planning [to] wait several more years.” That was 1998. But in 2023, now aged 92 years, he has reached a point where he would not so much step down as shuffle slightly to the side. This left Lachlan holding the chairmanship of both Fox Corp and News Corp.
Media outlets dutifully covered the announcement. Politicians were careful, respectful, even servile. Australia’s Labor government seemed terrified to say anything contrarian about the man’s horrific, degrading legacy. “Whether he’s chairman or not, it appears he will play a very big role at Fox and at News,” education minister Jason Clare observed on Channel Seven’s Sunrise. Treasurer Jim Chalmers told ABC’s News Breakfast that Murdoch had “been an incredibly influential figure on the global media landscape”.
Murdoch’s open letter to employees was defiant and characteristically arrogant. “Our companies are in robust health, as am I,” went the sinister note. “Our opportunities far exceed our commercial challenges. We have every reason to be optimistic about the coming years – I certainly am, and plan to be here to participate in them.” Threateningly, he promised that an entire professional life dedicated to an engagement with “daily news and ideas” would “not change.” Editors and hacks, remain on your guard.
The letter does not deviate from a formula Murdoch embraced from the moment he became a newspaper proprietor in 1952. This did not involve news as accuracy so much as news for purpose, one armed for the fight. “My father firmly believed in freedom, and Lachlan is absolutely committed to the cause.” As he so often does, Murdoch tries the populist tone for size, attacking the grey suits, the “[s]elf-serving bureaucracies” that seek “to silence those who would question their provenance and purpose.” He persists in having a fanciful idea of elites who continue showing “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.” He follows with the predictable observation that, “Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth.”
Murdoch is right about the establishment collusion but ignores his own role in the venture. He was the man who, after all, entered the sacred temple and acquired such establishment relics as the The Times of London and the Wall Street Journal, showing that establishments are not always monoliths. At times, they can even be protean, shifting and vulnerable.
The era of Donald Trump and his presidency signalled the arrival of Fox as its own establishment and king maker, the hailer and railing force against the pointy heads, the experts, the technocrats. Foetid swamps were drained of establishment types, only to be replaced by Trumpist types.
In doing so, Murdoch’s corporate attack dogs engendered what former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull disparaged as an “anger-tainment ecosystem”. Turnbull has every reason to be bitter; his political career was scalped largely because of the urgings of the News Corp hounds. (His own Liberal Party cheerfully took heed and did the deed.) Looking to the United States, Turnbull also saw the Fox ecosystem and its devastating effects: the enragement and division of the citizenry, while “knowingly” sowing lies “most consequentially the one … where Donald Trump claimed to have won the 2020 election.” This, as Turnbull should know, is only part of the story.
There will, or at least should be, a good number wishing for the implosion of this insidious empire. Under Lachlan and Rupert’s oppressively cast shadow, everything will be done to prevent that from happening. But the imperium’s burgeoning legal liabilities may tickle interest in a sale, though this remains a hypothetical musing by Fox watchers. The $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, reached after Fox’s false claims of fraud perpetrated during the 2020 presidential election, has emboldened a number of lawsuits, including another worth $2.7 billion by Smartmatic Corp.
Whatever the changes, A.J. Bauer is surely right in quashing any assumptions that Fox News “would suddenly become a bastion of journalistic integrity”. The rot, its dank and enervating properties, has well and truly set in, blighting journalism in toto and subordinating political classes too afraid to admit otherwise.
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