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Category: Media

  • ‘Stop killing journalists’ in Gaza plea by media alliance advocates

    Pacific Media Watch

    Union members of Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) have made a video honouring the 242 Palestinian journalists and media workers killed by the Israeli military since October 2023 — many of them targeted.

    The death toll has been reported by the Gaza Media Office since the latest killing of six media workers last Sunday, four of them from the Qatar-based global television channel Al Jazeera.

    This figure is higher than the 180 deaths recorded by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and other media freedom agencies.

    “While international media remains locked out of Gaza, Palestinian journalists work under fire, starvation and sickness to report the reality on the ground,” says the MEAA.

    “Targeting journalists is a war crime.

    “As colleagues, we remember them.”

    In this video, MEAA members say the names of many Gazan journalists who have been killed by the Israeli military.

    • Music in the MEAA “Stop Killing Journalists” video is composed by Connor D’Netto and performed by Jayson Gillham. The video is edited by Jack Fisher and (A)manda Parkinson for MEAA and was released on YouTube yesterday.


    Stop Killing Journalists              Video: MEAA


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The West is in panic as Israel’s plan for ‘full control’ of Gaza heralds a new Nakba

    Netanyahu’s mass ethnic cleansing strategy pulls the rug out from under the West’s cherished pretext for supporting Israeli criminality: the fabled two-state solution.

    ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

    If you thought Western capitals were finally losing patience with Israel’s engineering of a famine in Gaza nearly two years into the genocide, you may be disappointed.

    As ever, events have moved on — even if the extreme hunger and malnourishment of the two million people of Gaza have not abated.

    Western leaders are now expressing “outrage”, as the media call it, at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to “take full control” of Gaza and “occupy” it.

    At some point in the future, Israel is apparently ready to hand the enclave over to outside forces unconnected to the Palestinian people.

    The Israeli cabinet agreed last Friday on the first step: a takeover of Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are huddled in the ruins, being starved to death. The city will be encircled, systematically depopulated and destroyed, with survivors presumably herded southwards to a “humanitarian city” — Israel’s new term for a concentration camp — where they will be penned up, awaiting death or expulsion.

    At the weekend, foreign ministers from the UK, Germany, Italy, Australia and other Western nations issued a joint statement decrying the move, warning it would “aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians”.

    Germany, Israel’s most fervent backer in Europe and its second-biggest arms supplier, is apparently so dismayed that it has vowed to “suspend” — that is, delay — weapons shipments that have helped Israel to murder and maim hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the past 22 months.

    Netanyahu is not likely to be too perturbed. Doubtless, Washington will step in and pick up any slack for its main client state in the oil-rich Middle East.

    Meanwhile, Netanyahu has once again shifted the West’s all-too-belated focus on the indisputable proof of Israel’s ongoing genocidal actions — evidenced by Gaza’s skeletal children — to an entirely different story.

    Now, the front pages are all about the Israeli prime minister’s strategy in launching another “ground operation”, how much pushback he is getting from his military commanders, what the implications will be for the Israelis still held captive in the enclave, whether the Israeli army is now overstretched, and whether Hamas can ever be “defeated” and the enclave “demilitarised”.

    We are returning once again to logistical analyses of the genocide — analyses whose premises ignore the genocide itself. Might that not be integral to Netanyahu’s strategy?

    Life and death
    It ought to be shocking that Germany has been provoked into stopping its arming of Israel — assuming it follows through — not because of months of images of Gaza’s skin-and-bones children that echo those from Auschwitz, but only because Israel has declared that it wants to “take control” of Gaza.

    It should be noted, of course, that Israel never stopped controlling Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories — in contravention of the fundamentals of international law, as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled last year. Israel has had absolute control over the lives and deaths of Gaza’s people every day — bar one — since its occupation of the tiny coastal enclave many decades ago.

    On 7 October 2023, thousands of Palestinian fighters briefly broke out of the besieged prison camp they and their families had endured after Israel momentarily dropped its guard.

    Gaza has long been a prison that the Israeli military illegally controlled by land, sea and air, determining who could enter and leave. It kept Gaza’s economy throttled, and put the enclave’s population “on a diet” that saw rocketing malnourishment among its children long before the current starvation campaign.

    Trapped behind a highly militarised fence since the early 1990s, unable to access their own coastal waters, and with Israeli drones constantly surveilling them and raining down death from the air, the people of Gaza viewed it more as a modernised concentration camp.

    But Germany and the rest of the West were fine supporting all that. They have continued selling Israel arms, providing it with special trading status, and offering diplomatic cover.

    Only as Israel carries through to a logical conclusion its settler-colonial agenda of replacing the native Palestinian people with Jews, is it apparently time for the West to vent its rhetorical “outrage”.

    Two-state trickery
    Why the pushback now? In part, it is because Netanyahu is pulling the rug out from under their cherished, decades-long pretext for supporting Israel’s ever-greater criminality: the fabled two-state solution.

    Israel conspired in that trickery with the signing of the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s.

    The goal was never the realisation of a two-state solution. Rather, Oslo created a “diplomatic horizon” for “final status issues” — which, like the physical horizon, always remained equally distant, however much ostensible movement there was on the ground.

    Lisa Nandy, Britain’s Culture Secretary, peddled precisely this same deceit last week as she extolled the virtues of the two-state solution. She told Sky News: “Our message to the Palestinian people is very, very clear: There is hope on the horizon.”

    Every Palestinian understood her real message, which could be paraphrased as: “We’ve lied to you about a Palestinian state for decades, and we’ve allowed a genocide to unfold before the world’s eyes for the past two years. But hey, trust us this time. We’re on your side.”

    In truth, the promise of Palestinian statehood was always treated by the West as little more than a threat — and one directed at Palestinian leaders. Palestinian officials must be more obedient, quieter. They had to first prove their willingness to police Israel’s occupation on Israel’s behalf by repressing their own people.

    Hamas, of course, failed that test in Gaza. But Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the occupied West Bank, bent over backwards to reassure his examiners, casting as “sacred” his lightly armed security forces’ so-called “cooperation” with Israel. In reality, they are there to do its dirty work.

    Nonetheless, despite the PA’s endless good behaviour, Israel has continued to expel ordinary Palestinians from their land, then steal that land — which was supposed to form the basis of a Palestinian state — and hand it over to extremist Jewish settlers backed by the Israeli army.

    Former US President Barack Obama briefly and feebly tried to halt what the West misleadingly calls Jewish “settlement expansion” — in reality, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians — but rolled over at the first sign of intransigence from Netanyahu.

    Israel has stepped up the process of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank even more aggressively over the past two years, while global attention has been on Gaza — with the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz warning this week that settlers have been given “free rein”.

    A small window into the impunity granted to settlers as they wage their campaign of violence to depopulate Palestinian communities was highlighted at the weekend, when B’Tselem released footage of a Palestinian activist, Awdah Hathaleen, inadvertently filming his own killing.

    Extremist settler Yinon Levi was released on grounds of self-defence, even though the video shows him singling out Hathaleen from afar, taking aim and shooting.

    Alibi gone
    It is noticeable that, having stopped making reference to Palestinian statehood for many years, Western leaders have revived their interest only now — as Israel is making a two-state solution unrealisable.

    That was graphically illustrated by footage broadcast this month by ITV. Shot from an aid plane, it showed the wholesale destruction of Gaza — its homes, schools, hospitals, universities, bakeries, shops, mosques and churches gone.


    Apocalyptic scenes in Gaza               Video: ITV News

    Gaza is in ruins. Its reconstruction will take decades. Occupied East Jerusalem and its holy sites were long ago seized and Judaised by Israel, with Western assent.

    Suddenly, Western capitals are noticing that the last remnants of the proposed Palestinian state are about to be swallowed whole by Israel, too. Germany recently warned Israel that it must not take “any further steps toward annexing the West Bank”.

    US President Donald Trump is on his own path. But this is the moment when other major Western powers — led by France, Britain and Canada — have started threatening to recognise a Palestinian state, even as the possibility of such a state has been obliterated by Israel.

    Australia announced it would join them this week after its foreign minister, a few days earlier, said the quiet part out loud, warning: “There is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise if the international community don’t move to create that pathway to a two-state solution.”

    That is something they dare not countenance, because with it goes their alibi for supporting all these years the apartheid state of Israel, now deep into the final stages of a genocide in Gaza.

    That was why British Prime Minister Keir Starmer desperately switched tack recently. Instead of dangling recognition of Palestinian statehood as a carrot encouraging Palestinians to be more obedient — British policy for decades — he wielded it as a threat, and a largely hollow one, against Israel.

    He would recognise a Palestinian state if Israel refused to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza and proceeded with the West Bank’s annexation. In other words, Starmer backed recognising a state of Palestine – after Israel has gone ahead with its complete erasure.

    Extracting concessions
    Still, France and Britain’s recognition threat is not simply too late. It serves two other purposes.

    Firstly, it provides a new alibi for inaction. There are plenty of far more effective ways for the West to halt Israel’s genocide. Western capitals could embargo arms sales, stop intelligence sharing, impose economic sanctions, sever ties with Israeli institutions, expel Israeli ambassadors, and downgrade diplomatic relations. They are choosing to do none of those things.

    And secondly, recognition is designed to extract from the Palestinians “concessions” that will make them even more vulnerable to Israeli violence.

    According to France’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot: “Recognising a State of Palestine today means standing with the Palestinians who have chosen non-violence, who have renounced terrorism, and are prepared to recognise Israel.”

    In other words, in the West’s view, the “good Palestinians” are those who recognise and lay down before the state committing genocide against them.

    Western leaders have long envisioned a Palestinian state only on condition that it is demilitarised. Recognition this time is premised on Hamas agreeing to disarm and its departure from Gaza, leaving Abbas to take on the enclave and presumably continue the “sacred” mission of “cooperating” with a genocidal Israeli army.

    As part of the price for recognition, all 22 members of the Arab League publicly condemned Hamas and demanded its removal from Gaza.

    Boot on Gaza’s neck
    How does all of this fit with Netanyahu’s “ground offensive”? Israel isn’t “taking over” Gaza, as he claims. Its boot has been on the enclave’s neck for decades.

    While Western capitals contemplate a two-state solution, Israel is preparing a final mass ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza.

    Starmer’s government, for one, knew this was coming. Flight data shows that the UK has been constantly operating surveillance missions over Gaza on Israel’s behalf from the Royal Air Force base Akrotiri on Cyprus. Downing Street has been following the enclave’s erasure step by step.

    Netanyahu’s plan is to encircle, besiege and bomb the last remaining populated areas in northern and central Gaza, and drive Palestinians towards a giant holding pen — misnamed a “humanitarian city” — alongside the enclave’s short border with Egypt. Israel will then probably employ the same contractors it has been using elsewhere in Gaza to go street to street to bulldoze or blow up any surviving buildings.

    The next stage, given the trajectory of the last two years, is not difficult to predict. Locked up in their dystopian “humanitarian city”, the people of Gaza will continue to be starved and bombed whenever Israel claims it has identified a Hamas fighter in their midst, until Egypt or other Arab states can be persuaded to take them in, as a further “humanitarian” gesture.

    Then, the only matter to be settled will be what happens to the real estate: build some version of Trump’s gleaming “Riviera” scheme, or construct another tawdry patchwork of Jewish settlements of the kind envisioned by Netanyahu’s openly fascist allies, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

    There is a well-established template to be drawn on, one that was used in 1948 during Israel’s violent creation. Palestinians were driven from their cities and villages, in what was then called Palestine, across the borders into neighbouring states. The new state of Israel, backed by Western powers, then set about methodically destroying every home in those hundreds of villages.

    Over subsequent years, they were landscaped either with forests or exclusive Jewish communities, often engaged in farming, to make Palestinian return impossible and stifle any memory of Israel’s crimes. Generations of Western politicians, intellectuals and cultural figures have celebrated all of this.

    Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Austrian President Heinz Fischer are among those who went to Israel in their youth to work on these farming communities. Most came back as emissaries for a Jewish state built on the ruins of a Palestinian homeland.

    An emptied Gaza can be similarly re-landscaped. But it is much harder to imagine that this time the world will forget or forgive the crimes committed by Israel — or those who enabled them.

    Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. This article was first published Middle East Eye and republished from the author’s blog with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Take Back Alaska’: How Pro-Kremlin Media See The Trump-Putin Summit


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘If I die, I die steadfast … I bear witness … for the path of freedom for my people’ – Anas’ last testament

    Anas al-Sharif, killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, last Sunday has triggered protests around the world, including journalists in Israel. He left behind a powerful farewell message — his final testament to his people, his family, and the world.

    Palestine Chronicle staff

    Palestinian journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqea were killed last Sunday in an Israeli bombardment that struck a journalists’ tent near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital.

    Cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal also died in the attack, which was carried out by an Israeli drone. The Israeli army admitted targeting al-Sharif shortly after the strike.

    Al-Sharif, 28, from Jabaliya refugee camp, was an award-winning journalist who became a leading global voice from Gaza during the war. He inspired thousands.

    Protest and vigils have been held around the world from South Africa’s Cape Town to Manila in the Philippines and London in the UK to honour al-Sharif and his colleagues in condemnation of this targeted murder.

    Less than two weeks ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists had warned that his life was in “acute” danger due to repeated threats from an Israeli military spokesperson.

    Before his death, al-Sharif prepared a farewell message to be shared if he was killed. His family and colleagues posted it to his social media accounts after the news of his death.

    Below is the full English translation of that message.

    Anas al-Sharif’s final message
    “This is my will and my final message.

    “If my words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.

    “First, peace be upon you and God’s mercy and blessings.

    “God knows I gave all I had — strength and effort — to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys of Jabaliya refugee camp. My hope was to live long enough to return with my family and loved ones to our original town, Asqalan (al-Majdal), now under occupation.

    “But God’s will came first, and His decree is final.

    “I have lived pain in all its details and tasted loss many times. Yet I never stopped telling the truth as it is, without falsification or distortion — so that God may bear witness over those who stayed silent, accepted our killing, and did nothing to stop the massacre our people have endured for more than a year and a half.

    “I entrust you with Palestine — the jewel of the Muslim crown and the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people and children, whose pure bodies have been crushed under Israeli bombs and missiles.


    Australian journalists protest over the killings.      Video: MEAA

    “Do not let chains silence you or borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.

    “I entrust you with my family: my beloved daughter Sham; my dear son Salah; my mother, whose prayers were my fortress; and my steadfast wife Bayan (Umm Salah), who carried the responsibility in my absence with strength and faith. Stand by them after God.

    “If I die, I die steadfast in my principles. I bear witness that I am content with God’s decree, certain of our meeting, and convinced that what is with God is better and everlasting.

    “O God, accept me among the martyrs, forgive me my sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people. Forgive me if I fell short, and pray for me with mercy, for I have kept my pledge and never changed.

    “Do not forget Gaza… and do not forget me in your prayers.”

    Anas Jamal al-Sharif

    April 6, 2025

    Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif with his daughter Sham and his son Salah
    Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif with his daughter Sham and his son Salah. Image: via social media

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • As a Journalist, I’m Ashamed to See Western Media Failing Gaza Reporters

    On November 9, 2023, just over one month into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a group of U.S.-based journalists published an open letter. “We stand with our colleagues in Gaza and herald their brave efforts at reporting in the midst of carnage and destruction,” the letter’s authors wrote. “We also hold Western newsrooms accountable for dehumanizing rhetoric that has served to justify ethnic cleansing…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • How the Taliban’s propaganda empire consumed Afghan media

    New York, 13 August 13, 2025—In four years, the Taliban have annihilated Afghanistan’s independent media sector and supplanted it with their own propaganda empire and sophisticated digital bots that flood social media with pro-Taliban content.

    CPJ interviewed 10 Afghan journalists, inside and outside the country, who said that  independent media, which used to reach millions of people, have largely been banned, suspended, or shuttered while key outlets have been taken over by the Taliban. None would publish their names, citing fear of reprisals.

    The Taliban now run about 15 major television and radio stations, newspapers, and digital platforms, including on YouTube, X, and Telegram — tightly aligned with their radical Islamist ideology.

    “The ruling authority enforces a monolithic media policy, rejecting any news, narrative, or voice that deviates from what they deem the truth. Even personal opinions expressed on platforms like Facebook are treated as propaganda and punished accordingly,” Ahmad Quraishi, director of the exiled Afghanistan Journalists Center, told CPJ.

    Exiled journalists offer one of the last remaining sources of independent information broadcast into Afghanistan. But even they face safety concerns and hardships, as well as job losses and potential forced return due to the U.S. funding cuts to the Congress-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) outlets.

    Turning fearful journalists into spies

    In September 2020, a year before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, a radio presenter reads the news during a broadcast at the Merman radio station in Kandahar.
    In September 2020, a year before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, a radio presenter reads the news during a broadcast at the Merman radio station in Kandahar. Women journalists have been largely sidelined by the Taliban. (Photo: AFP/ Wakil Kohsar)

    As Afghanistan marks the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s August 15, 2021, takeover, most journalists who spoke with CPJ said they were fearful, and either jobless or heavily censored. Several described the relentless surveillance, control, and intimidation as living under a “media police state.”

    “Taliban intelligence agents have launched a policing system where every journalist is expected to spy on others,” a media executive who led a TV station in eastern Afghanistan told CPJ.

    “They demand complete personal information on all staff: names, fathers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, WhatsApp numbers … We must report everything.”

    Intelligence agents monitor and detain reporters over their social media content, while the morality police arrest those who violate their stringent interpretation of Sharia law, which includes a ban on music, soap operas, and programs co-hosted by male and female presenters.

    Two media owners from northern and eastern Afghanistan told CPJ that they had been subjected to invasive revenue audits and administrative delays because they were perceived as insufficiently compliant.

    “Taliban agents reach out to journalists privately, pressuring them to spy on their colleagues or push specific narratives,” one of the owners said. “If someone refuses, they call the media manager and demand the journalist be fired. We comply, or we face licensing issues from the Ministry of Information and Culture or financial penalties from the Ministry of Finance.”

    In May, a spokesperson for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said it had held over 1,000 meetings with the media over the last year to “coordinate in promoting Islamic Sharia values” — a term understood locally to mean morality police enforcement meetings.

    Two female journalists from western Afghanistan said they were each summoned over 10 times in the past two years.

     “Once they interrogated me for three hours in the office of the Directorate of Virtue and Vice, asking why I worked instead of staying home,” one woman told CPJ, referring to the ministry’s provincial office.

    “They said that if I were found working with exiled media, it would be wajib al-qatl [permissible to kill me]. One official said, ‘We forgive you this time, you thank God for this. But under Sharia, we could bring any calamity upon you.’ Another time, they said they could detain me for a week just to extract a confession, and no one would even know.”

    Inside the Taliban’s media empire

    The Taliban flag flutters over a provincial branch building of National Radio Television of Takhar (RTA) in Taloqan, in northeastern Takhar province in 2024. (Photo: AFP)

    Three active, independent Kabul-based journalists explained the Taliban’s new media landscape to CPJ:

    With over 500 staff nationwide and a budget of about 600 million Afghanis (US$8.8 million), RTA reports often promote Taliban achievements, such as supporting refugees and diplomacy.

    • Bakhtar News Agency, founded in 1939, employs around 60 staff in Kabul and four reporters in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Run by the information ministry, it is the Taliban’s official news source and publishes in eight languages, including Mandarin and Turkish.
    • The information ministry also runs several daily newspapers, including Dari-language Anis, Pashto-language Hewad, and English-language The Kabul Times in print and online. These newspapers were founded several decades ago.

    The three journalists said security agencies operate three radio stations:

    Reporting focuses on regional rivalries and Taliban military successes, particularly against the Afghan-based Islamic State-Khorasan, which continues to kill civilians and Taliban leaders.

    Hurriyat Radio was launched in 2022 by the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) — the Taliban’s notorious intelligence agency behind a series of media crackdowns — and is managed by the agency’s directorate of media and publications.

    • Radio Omid, started in 2023 by the defense ministry, employs 45 staff in Kabul and provincial reporters, and reports on the ministry’s achievements. The radio station is managed by the office of spokesperson of the defense ministry.
    • Radio Police, relaunched in 2021 by the interior ministry, broadcasts news about police activities across key provinces like Kabul and southern Kandahar.

    The Taliban has four news sites, at least three of which are run by the intelligence agency:

    It is funded and operated by the GDI’s directorate of media and publications and its senior managers are linked to the interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani.

    • YouTube-based Maihan discredits the Taliban’s opponents, with 12 staff, led by Jawad Sargar, former deputy director of the GDI’s directorate of media and publication.

    When contacted via messaging app, Sargar asked CPJ to stop contacting him, adding, “These matters are not related to you.”

    • The multi-lingual Alemarah news site, active before 2021, is the Taliban’s official outlet, run by Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid.

    Disinformation campaign

    Intelligence officials have four offices from which they direct disinformation campaigns. Dozens of creators are paid 6,000 to 10,000 Afghanis (US$88 to 146) a month to run fake social media accounts that troll critics, smear activists, and simulate grassroots support, two Afghan journalists told CPJ.

    The project is led by senior GDI figures like deputy director of media and publication, Jabir Nomani, former GDI spokespeople Jawad Amin and Sargar – who runs Maihan – and Kabul-based political analyst Fazlur Rahman Orya, the journalists said.

    Orya, who is also director of the Sahar Discourse Center, which advises the Taliban on policy, denied that he was involved in disinformation, telling CPJ via messaging app, “You make a big mistake about me.”

    Nomani did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment via messaging app.

    Qais Alamdar, exiled founder of the open source investigative platform IntelFocus, has documented the activities of these bots, which often post near-identical tweets within minutes of each other to bolster the government’s legitimacy or prevent internet users finding other news, such as an attack on the Taliban.

    “Only someone with consistent access to electricity, internet, and time could maintain that kind of operation in Afghanistan,” he told CPJ.

    Traffic accidents are only news allowed

    A destroyed bus is lifted after it plunged off a road north of Kabul in 2010.
    A destroyed bus is lifted after it plunged off a road north of Kabul in 2010. (Photo: Reuters/stringer)

    As a result of these repressive measures, many media outlets have shut down or have been banned entirely.

    In the northeastern Panjshir Valley, once the heart of resistance to the Taliban, no media outlets remain active, Ahmad Hanayesh, who used to own two radio stations in the province, told CPJ from exile.

    Four journalists from Herat, Nangarhar, Faryab, and Bamiyan told CPJ that aside from education and health stories, the only serious news they were permitted to cover was traffic accidents. Even crime reporting was banned.

    GDI’s media and publications director Khalil Hamraz and Taliban spokesperson Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment via messaging app.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Waliullah Rahmani.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Photos: A look back at jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai

    The founder of Hong Kong’s now shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, Lai, 77, who is also a British citizen, has been in jail since December 2020.

    Lai is currently standing trial for “collusion with foreign forces” under Hong Kong’s National Security Law.

    Jimmy Lai’s son Sebastien has warned that “time is running out” for his father’s health, and called on Britain and the United States to push for his release.

    Human rights groups say Lai’s trial is a “sham” and part of a broad crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.

    The hearings are scheduled to last eight days.

    Jimmy Lai walks through the Stanley prison in Hong Kong, on July 28, 2023.
    Jimmy Lai walks through the Stanley prison in Hong Kong, on July 28, 2023.
    (Louise Delmotte/AP)
    Jimmy Lai, owner of the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, poses next to dry runs of a soon to be launched Taiwanese newspaper taped to his office wall, April 7, 2003, in Taipei.
    Jimmy Lai, owner of the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, poses next to dry runs of a soon to be launched Taiwanese newspaper taped to his office wall, April 7, 2003, in Taipei.
    (Jerome Favre/AP)
    This photo taken on Feb. 7, 2011, shows Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai outside his company's headquarters in Hong Kong.
    This photo taken on Feb. 7, 2011, shows Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai outside his company’s headquarters in Hong Kong.
    (Mike Clarke/AFP)
    Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, attends a pro-democracy protesters march in Admiralty on Aug. 31, 2019 in Hong Kong.
    Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, attends a pro-democracy protesters march in Admiralty on Aug. 31, 2019 in Hong Kong.
    (Billy H.C. Kwok/Getty Images)
    Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai poses during an interview at the Next Digital offices in Hong Kong, June 16, 2020.
    Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai poses during an interview at the Next Digital offices in Hong Kong, June 16, 2020.
    (Anthony Wallace/AFP)
    Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai and a copy of Apple Daily's July 1, 2020, edition during an interview in Hong Kong, July 1, 2020.
    Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai and a copy of Apple Daily’s July 1, 2020, edition during an interview in Hong Kong, July 1, 2020.
    (Vincent Yu/AP)
    Hong Kong police officers block the entrance to Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    Hong Kong police officers block the entrance to Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    (Apple Daily via Getty Images)
    Hong Kong police officers search the office of Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    Hong Kong police officers search the office of Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    (Apple Daily via Getty Images)
    Hong Kong police officers search the office of Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    Hong Kong police officers search the office of Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    (Apple Daily via Getty Images)
    Jimmy Lai is escorted by Hong Kong police officers as they search the office of Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    Jimmy Lai is escorted by Hong Kong police officers as they search the office of Apple Daily newspaper on Aug. 10, 2020.
    (Apple Daily via Getty Images)
    Hong Kong media tycoon and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai is escorted by the police for evidence collection on Aug. 11, 2020 in Hong Kong.
    Hong Kong media tycoon and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai is escorted by the police for evidence collection on Aug. 11, 2020 in Hong Kong.
    (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
    Copies of the Apple Daily newspaper, with front pages featuring Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, are displayed for sale at a newsstand in Hong Kong, Aug. 11, 2020.
    Copies of the Apple Daily newspaper, with front pages featuring Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, are displayed for sale at a newsstand in Hong Kong, Aug. 11, 2020.
    (Kin Cheung/AP)
    Jimmy Lai, center, who founded the Apple Daily tabloid, is escorted by Correctional Services officers to get on a prison van before appearing in a court, in Hong Kong on Dec. 12, 2020.
    Jimmy Lai, center, who founded the Apple Daily tabloid, is escorted by Correctional Services officers to get on a prison van before appearing in a court, in Hong Kong on Dec. 12, 2020.
    (Kin Cheung/AP)
    Copies of the last issue of Apple Daily arrive at a newspaper booth in Hong Kong on June 24, 2021.
    Copies of the last issue of Apple Daily arrive at a newspaper booth in Hong Kong on June 24, 2021.
    (Vincent Yu/AP)
    In this image provided by The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, an artist projection by Robin Bell protests China's crackdown on dissidents ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in Washington, Jan. 31, 2022.
    In this image provided by The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, an artist projection by Robin Bell protests China’s crackdown on dissidents ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in Washington, Jan. 31, 2022.
    (Andre Chung/Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong via AP)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel has ‘deliberate strategy’ of killing Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif, warns UN expert

    Democracy Now!


    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

    Global condemnation is mounting over Israel’s assassination of one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza, the Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with four of his colleagues at the network and another freelance journalist.

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling for an independent investigation after the five Al Jazeera journalists were killed in a targeted Israeli strike outside Al-Shifa Hospital in a tent clearly marked in Gaza City. European Union officials and international press freedom groups have also denounced the assassinations.

    The sixth journalist, freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khalidi, was also killed in the same strike. Minutes before the strike, al-Sharif posted to X, “If this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.”

    On Monday, crowds of mourners gathered for a funeral procession for al-Sharif and his colleagues, marching from Al-Shifa to Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in central Gaza, carrying the journalists’ bodies wrapped in white sheets.

    A dark blue flak press jacket and a Palestinian flag were placed on al-Sharif’s remains. People embraced as they decried Israel’s relentless targeting of journalists in Gaza.

    Meanwhile, at rallies and vigils worldwide, people are demanding accountability for the attack on journalists, including in Tunisia, Belfast, Dublin, Berlin, London, Oslo, Stockholm and Washington, DC.

    For more, we go to Geneva, Switzerland, where we’re joined by Irene Khan, UN special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression. She served as secretary-general of Amnesty International from 2001 to 2009.

    Irene Khan, welcome back to Democracy Now! In late July, you publicly denounced Israel’s threats against Anas al-Sharif. Can you talk about what you understood at that time, and then this young 28-year-old reporter’s response to your press statement?

    IRENE KHAN: Yes, well, Anas actually contacted me, and Al Jazeera contacted me to tell me of this impending threat on his head. They had seen it before. He’s not the first one, as you know.

    There are some — anything between 26 to 30 journalists — who have been targeted in this campaign of assassination. And Anas wanted me to go public, he wanted others to go public, to stop what Israel was doing.

    But at the same time, he thanked me for my support, and then he said nothing would stop him from speaking the truth. And in a way, he signed his own death warrant by that, because, as you know, he and the others, Al Jazeera’s entire team in northern Gaza, were killed, murdered, just as Israel ramps up its military action on the city, Gaza City.

    So, there is a clear pattern here of killing journalists to clear the path, to silence voices, to stop the international, global opinion from being informed of the genocide in Gaza.


    Assassination: Israel’s killing of Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif   Video: Democracy Now!

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Irene Khan, the number of journalists — so, more than 200 have been killed in Gaza. That’s more than all the journalists killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War combined.

    Your sense of the Israeli impunity here in being able to basically kill the corps of journalists that are still able to report from Gaza?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, you also have to take into account that Israel has refused to give access to international media. So these are all local Gazan journalists who are putting their lives on the line to keep the world informed. Many of them — you named some 200 — many of them, of course, have been killed in the intensity of the battle. Many of them have been killed while asleep in their own apartments. But these cases, the cases of Anas now, and his colleagues, and a number of other cases of targeted killing, is really murder.

    It is not killing in the context of war. It is a deliberate strategy to stop independent voices reporting. So it’s as much a threat to independent journalism as it is to the journalists themselves, as well as a blatant attempt by the Israelis to stop the world witnessing what they are doing.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And these killings also came as the Israeli government announced they’re unleashing a new operation in the area of Gaza. Who will be left to document this operation now?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, absolutely. And that is why Anas got in touch with me, because he realised what was happening. You know, from his message on LinkedIn and from his message that he has sent to me and to others, it was very, very clear.

    He has been there on the ground since October 2023. He could see the pattern. He could see what was happening. He knew they were coming for him.

    And that is why it is incumbent on all of us now not to just condemn, but actually to act, before independent media is totally obliterated from Gaza.

    AMY GOODMAN: Irene Khan, I want to ask what you’re calling for, and the significance of Netanyahu holding this news conference on Sunday and saying — he has now said that the Israeli military can bring in journalists, but they’re most concerned about protecting their safety.

    A few hours later is when Israel assassinated these six journalists. Now, it is the first time, NPR reports, since October 2023 that Israel so quickly took responsibility for their assassination.

    You know, compare it to Shireen Abu Akleh, May 11, 2022, when Israel said it was not clear, and then, you know, so many studies were done, but it became very clear. Talk about what you are calling for at this point.

    IRENE KHAN: It’s not actually an admission of taking responsibility, because there is no accountability in it. It’s actually a brazen attempt to show the world that the Israeli army can work as it wishes, regardless of international humanitarian law that protects journalists as civilians.

    Now, what I’m calling for is, of course, independent investigation, truly independent investigation. But I’m also calling for protection of journalists on the ground and for access to international journalists.

    Israel always covers these assassinations and murders with allegations and smear campaigns — the journalists are simply agents of Hamas or members of Hamas — and that kind of gives Israel a veil of impunity.

    It’s important for international journalists to be on the ground so they can actually investigate and expose this false story and the string of assassinations that Israel is carrying out.

    And I think we need to remember the message that Israel’s action is sending to the rest of the world, because there are other spots, other conflict areas, where also others are learning that you need to be just brazen and go ahead and kill journalists, and you can get away with it.

    AMY GOODMAN: Irene Khan, we’re speaking to you in Geneva, Switzerland — Geneva, the Geneva Conventions. Can you talk about how the conventions specifically protect journalists?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, the convention gives journalists civilian status, which means that, like all other civilians, they should not be targeted during the war.

    The problem is the journalists are not just civilians. They are the kind of civilians that have to go to the frontline and not run away somewhere else. You know, they are not like women and children, who can move and seek shelter elsewhere.

    They have to be where the fighting is. And that exposes them. They are much more like humanitarian workers. And journalists need to be recognised as humanitarian workers. There needs to be — I believe there needs to be additional protection given to them, because it shows how vulnerable they are, on the one hand, to attacks, and, on the other hand, how important their work is to the rest of the world, to any peace process, to any attempt to have accountability and justice for the victims.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Last month, the union representing reporters at the French press agency AFP warned that the agency staff were in danger of starving to death, and they issued an open letter condemning what Israel was doing in terms of denying food, not just to the population in general, but also to journalists, as well.

    Your response?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, absolutely. These journalists are local journalists, as I said, so they have faced all the problems that the population is facing. They’ve had their own families killed. They have to hunt for food, even as they hunt for news.

    So, they have been put in a terrible situation. And that’s why Israel has to open the gates, not under military protection, but allow journalists independently to come and investigate. It has to stop the starvation, the blockade. It has to allow humanitarian assistance to come in. And it has to agree to a ceasefire and, of course, stop the genocide.

    AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with the words of Anas al-Sharif himself. Anticipating his own murder by Israeli forces, he wrote a preprepared message that was posted on his X account after his death. Al Jazeera read part of his message on air.

    AL JAZEERA REPORTER: “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice, I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification, so that God may bear witness against those who stayed silent and accepted our killing.”

    He ends, “Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.”

    AMY GOODMAN: The words of Anas al-Sharif, posted after he was killed by the Israeli military along with five other journalists. Five of them were with Al Jazeera.

    Irene Khan, I want to thank you so much for being with us, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, speaking to us from Geneva, Switzerland. To see our interview with the managing editor of Al Jazeera, go to democracynow.org.

    Democracy Now! is produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Nicole Salazar, Sara Nasser, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Safwat Nazzal. Our executive director is Julie Crosby.

    I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!

    The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israeli PM has ‘lost the plot’, says NZ’s Christopher Luxon

    By Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira, RNZ Māori news journalist in Parliament

    New Zealand’s Prime Minister says the war in Gaza is “utterly appalling” and Israeil Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost the plot”.

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s comments came on a tense day in Parliament today, where the Green Party’s co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was “named” for refusing to leave the House following a heated debate on the government’s plan to consider recognising Palestinian statehood.

    Speaking to media, Luxon said Netanyahu had “gone too far”.

    “I think he has lost the plot and I think that what we’re seeing overnight — the attack on Gaza City — is utterly, utterly unacceptable,” he said.

    Luxon said Israel had consistently ignored pleas from the international community for humanitarian aid to be delivered “unfettered” and the situation was driving more human catastrophe across Gaza.

    “We are a small country a long way away, with very limited trade with Israel. We have very little connection with the country, but we have stood up for values, and we keep articulating them very consistently, and what you have seen is Israel not listening to the global community at all,” Luxon said.

    “We have said a forcible displacement of people and an annexation of Gaza would be a breach of international law. We have called these things out consistently time and time again.

    “You’ve seen New Zealand join many of our friends and partners around the world to make these statements, and he’s just not listening,” the Prime Minister said.

    Considering statehood
    The government is considering whether it will join other countries like France, Canada and Australia in recognising Palestinian statehood at a UN Leader’s Meeting next month.

    Luxon said recent attacks could “extinguish a pathway” to a two-state solution.

    “I’m telling you what my personal view is, as a human being, looking at the situation, that’s how I feel about,” he said.

    Opposition Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has called the war an “unfolding genocide”, echoing the comments made by former prime minister Helen Clark, who visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Palestinian territory this week. as part of The Elders’ delegation.

    “She’s used the words ‘unfolding genocide’, and yes, I do agree with that. That’s a good description of the situation at the moment.”

    Hipkins said calling it an “unfolding genocide” meant that New Zealand was not “appointing ourselves judge and jury” because there was still a case to be heard before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

    “Recognising that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza is an important part of the world community standing up and saying, we’re not going to tolerate it.

    “We should recognise that there is now a growing acknowledgement around the world that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza, and I think we should call that for what it is, and the world community needs to react to that to prevent it from happening,” Hipkins said.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NGOs urge Nandy to halt sale of Telegraph over China links

    Letter from rights groups says RedBird Capital’s proposed takeover threatens media pluralism and transparency

    A group of nine human rights and freedom of expression organisations have called on the culture secretary to halt RedBird Capital’s proposed £500m takeover of the Telegraph and investigate the US private equity company’s ties to China.

    The international non-governmental organisations, which include Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders and Article 19, have written to Lisa Nandy arguing that RedBird Capital’s links with China “threaten media pluralism, transparency and information integrity in the UK”.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • MEAA condemns targeted attacks on Gaza journalists as a war crime

    Pacific Media Watch

    Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance has condemned the continued targeted killing of media workers in Gaza and the baseless smearing of working journalists as “terrorists”, following the deaths of five Al Jazeera staff over the weekend.

    Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and assistant Moamen Aliwa were killed on Sunday when Israel bombed a tent housing journalists in Gaza City, near Al-Shifa Hospital.

    Shockingly, the Israeli military confirmed the targeted killing on social media, with a post to X accompanied by a target emoji.

    The latest deaths come after Israel had conducted a long smear campaign of unsubstantiated allegations against Al Sharif and other journalists, labelling them “Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists”, which the International Federation of Journalists has condemned.

    As Al Jazeera has said, this was a “dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of journalists in the field”.

    “Tragically, these warnings have now come to fruition,” the MEAA said in a statement.

    “The targeting of journalists is a blatant attack on press freedom, and it is also a war crime.

    “It must stop.”

    Call for ‘unfettered coverage’
    MEAA also said the Israeli ban preventing the world’s media from accessing the region and providing unfettered coverage of the worsening humanitarian crisis must stop.

    The silencing of Palestinian journalists via a rising death toll that the Gaza Media Office puts at 242 must also stop, the union said.

    “In his final words, Al-Sharif said he never hesitated for a single day to convey the truth as it is — without distortion or falsification,” said MEAA

    “His reports brought to the world the reality of the horrors being inflicted by the Israeli government on the civilians in Gaza.

    “He asked the world to not forget Gaza and to not forget him.”

    MEAA said it stood up against attacks on press freedom around the world.

    • Pacific Media Watch says there has been no equivalent condemnation by New Zealand journalists, who have mostly remained silent during the 22 months of Israel’s war on Gaza.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RSF calls for emergency UN Security Council meeting after targeted Israeli strike kills six media professionals

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Israeli military’s “disgraceful tactic” to cover up war crimes in the wake of the killing of six journalists in Gaza on Sunday.

    It has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to stop the massacre of journalists, RSF said in a statement.

    The August 10 Israeli strike killed six media professionals in Gaza, five of whom currently work or formerly worked for the Qatari television network Al Jazeera and one freelance journalist.

    The strike, which has been claimed by the Israeli army, targeted Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, whom it accused, without providing solid evidence, of “terrorist affiliation”.

    RSF said the military had repeatedly used this tactic against journalists to cover up war crimes, while the army has already killed more than 200 media professionals.

    “RSF strongly condemns the killing of six media professionals by the Israeli army, once again carried out under the guise of terrorism charges against a journalist,” said RSF’s  director-general Thibaut Bruttin.

    “One of the most famous journalists in the Gaza Strip, Anas al-Sharif, was among those killed.

    “The Israeli army has killed more than 200 journalists since the start of the war. This massacre and Israel’s media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately.

    “The international community can no longer turn a blind eye and must react and put an end to this impunity.

    “RSF calls on the UN Security Council to meet urgently on the basis of Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in times of armed conflict in order to stop this carnage.”

    Targeted strike on tent
    The Israeli army killed Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif in a targeted strike on a tent housing a group of journalists near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

    The strike, claimed by Israeli authorities, also killed five other media professionals, including four working or having worked for Al Jazeera — correspondent Mohammed Qraiqea, video reporter Ibrahim al-Thaher, Mohamed Nofal, assistant cameraman and driver that day, and Moamen Aliwa, a freelance journalist who worked with Al Jazeera — as well as another freelance journalist, Mohammed al-Khaldi, creator of a YouTube news channel.

    The attack also wounded freelance reporters Mohammed Sobh, Mohammed Qita, and Ahmed al-Harazine.

    This attack, claimed by the Israeli army, replicates a tactic previously used against Al Jazeera journalists. On 31 July 2024, the Israeli army killed reporters Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi in a targeted strike, following a smear campaign against the former, who, like Anas al-Sharif, was accused of “terrorist affiliation”.

    Hamza al-Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya and Hossam Shabat, who also worked for the Qatari media outlet, are among the victims of this method denounced by RSF.

    As early as October 2024, RSF warned of an imminent attack on Anas al-Sharif following accusations by the Israeli army.

    The international community, led by the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, ignored these warnings.

    Under Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in armed conflict, the UN Security Council has a duty to convene urgently in response to this latest extrajudicial killing by the Israeli army.

    Since October 2023, RSF has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting investigations into what it describes as war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists in Gaza.

    The New Zealand-based Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A Quartet Of Nicaragua Critics Sings From Washington’s Songbook

    In recent weeks, a motley crew of writers has found common cause in attacking Nicaragua’s Sandinista government: Jaden Hong, a high-school student from Sammamish, Washington, who has never visited the country; Jared O. Bell, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer; Barb Arland-Fye, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa; and Gioconda Belli, a 76-year-old Nicaraguan novelist in self-exile. Writing in outlets ranging from The Teen Magazine to the New York Times, they have produced a string of biased, ill-informed pieces that repeat the same well-worn falsehoods about Nicaragua’s elected government.

    Their attacks on Nicaragua’s revolution reflect Washington’s talking points as it pursues its regime-change agenda.

    The post A Quartet Of Nicaragua Critics Sings From Washington’s Songbook appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook

    In recent weeks, a motley crew of writers has found common cause in attacking Nicaragua’s Sandinista government: Jaden Hong, a high-school student from Sammamish, Washington, who has never visited the country; Jared O. Bell, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer; Barb Arland-Fye, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa; and Gioconda Belli, a 76-year-old Nicaraguan novelist in self-exile. Writing in outlets ranging from The Teen Magazine to the New York Times, they have produced a string of biased, ill-informed pieces that repeat the same well-worn falsehoods about Nicaragua’s elected government.

    Their attacks on Nicaragua’s revolution reflect Washington’s talking points as it pursues its regime-change agenda. Jaden Hong tells “Gen Z” in The Teen Magazine that Nicaragua’s democracy is fading. Jared O. Bell, who lost his USAID job in Managua when Trump shuttered the agency, complains in Peace Voice about the country’s “stolen democracy.” Barb Arland-Fye, in The Catholic Messenger, writes glowingly about a key organizer of the violent coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018. Novelist Gioconda Belli is given a guest essay in the New York Times to lament her “country’s dictator.”

    Belli, born in Nicaragua but living abroad since the 1980s, has been a critic of the Sandinista government since it first regained power through the ballot box in 2007. Her status as a novelist ensures that the NYT, the Guardian, Spain’s El Pais and other mainstream outlets give her space to vent her anger against a revolution which she supported initially but has since labeled a “farse.”

    Many of Nicaragua’s liberal intellectuals opposed the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s, but their commitment faded as the initial glamour of the revolution turned into the hard work of tackling the needs of the country’s poor and working people. As ordinary Nicaraguans were given greater voice, and taxes were raised to pay for new schools and hospitals (60% of the country’s budget goes to social programs), they maligned people’s power as an emerging “dictatorship.”

    The list of privileged critics of the Sandinista government, whose status gives them access to the New York Times and other corporate outlets, include Belli and her brother Humberto, along with Sergio Ramirez (a “novelist betrayed by the revolution”), journalist Carlos Chamorro and many more. Some work directly for mainstream media, such as Wilfredo Miranda (El Pais) and Gabriela Selser (Reuters). Supposedly revolutionary in their youth, they are now part of Washington’s soft power apparatus and help feed its imperialist agenda.

    Of the lies in Belli’s recent NYT article, one stands out: that “peaceful protesters were shot” during the coup attempt against Nicaragua’s elected government in 2018. This falsehood is repeated in the other three articles. Bell says that “student-led protests… were met with brutal, deadly repression.” Hong says that “lethal force” led to “355 dead and hundreds injured.” For Arland-Fye, it was a “deadly crackdown.” That the protestors were far from “peaceful” is obvious from the fact that 22 police officers were killed and over 400 injured in attacks launched from the hundreds of roadblocks erected by the coup-mongers throughout the country.

    Arland-Fye’s sycophantic piece is about opposition figure Bishop Silvio José Báez Ortega. The cleric had called the coup roadblocks “a wonderful idea” and said he hoped to see President Daniel Ortega in front of a firing squad. The Iowa bishopric, for which Arland-Fye writes, has just awarded Baez a “peace prize.”

    The suggestion that Trump is following an Ortega “playbook” appears in two of the articles: it could hardly be more absurd. Unlike Ortega, Trump is not building public hospitals, he’s dismantling Medicare. Also unlike Ortega, he isn’t presiding over a country which is championing the shift to renewable energy; nor is he building 7,000 affordable homes each year. Trump, instead, is drastically cutting federal spending for social needs.

    Rather than following a Nicaraguan “playbook” of peaceful cooperation with its neighbors, both Trump administrations (and Biden’s, both echoing Reagan in 1985) have incredulously declared Nicaragua an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the US. But it is Nicaragua’s remarkable battle against poverty, unmentioned in the articles, that is seen by Washington as the real “threat,” because it challenges the neoliberal order.

    The article by Bell, a former USAID worker, is perhaps unintentionally the most revealing. Prior to the 2018 coup attempt, USAID spent millions of dollars creating Nicaragua’s anti-Sandinista media apparatus. After the coup attempt failed, the Sandinista government justifiably closed NGOs and media outlets funded by USAID or its auxiliary body, the National Endowment for Democracy. They did so based on legislation patterned after the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act. Nevertheless this funding continues – going to anti-Sandinista outfits in Costa Rica and in the US itself.

    USAID had maintained a Nicaraguan presence by having staffers like Bell in the US embassy in Managua. Their role, as his article makes clear, was not to assist the government in fighting poverty but to engage with “exiled civil society leaders and independent [sic] journalists” opposed to the revolution. The ”independence” of US government-funded journalists goes unquestioned.

    Meanwhile, the USAID, while formally independent, now operates under the direction of the State Department. But its clandestine work assuredly continues.

    The saddest of the four articles is by teenager Jaden Hong. If he were to visit Nicaragua, he would see for himself how young people have free, good quality education right through to university level and beyond. He would see how the government has addressed malnutrition in youngsters by providing all of them with free school meals. He would note that parks, playgrounds and sports facilities have sprung up around the country.

    Above all, if he took part in one of the frequent mass demonstrations in support of the government, he might wonder at the fact that most of those around him are other young people. Unlike Gioconda Belli, they are too young to recall the revolutionary years of the 1980s. But they are old enough to recognize the revolution’s achievements and to be determined to protect them from Washington’s attacks.

    The post A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook

    In recent weeks, a motley crew of writers has found common cause in attacking Nicaragua’s Sandinista government: Jaden Hong, a high-school student from Sammamish, Washington, who has never visited the country; Jared O. Bell, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer; Barb Arland-Fye, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa; and Gioconda Belli, a 76-year-old Nicaraguan novelist in self-exile. Writing in outlets ranging from The Teen Magazine to the New York Times, they have produced a string of biased, ill-informed pieces that repeat the same well-worn falsehoods about Nicaragua’s elected government.

    Their attacks on Nicaragua’s revolution reflect Washington’s talking points as it pursues its regime-change agenda. Jaden Hong tells “Gen Z” in The Teen Magazine that Nicaragua’s democracy is fading. Jared O. Bell, who lost his USAID job in Managua when Trump shuttered the agency, complains in Peace Voice about the country’s “stolen democracy.” Barb Arland-Fye, in The Catholic Messenger, writes glowingly about a key organizer of the violent coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018. Novelist Gioconda Belli is given a guest essay in the New York Times to lament her “country’s dictator.”

    Belli, born in Nicaragua but living abroad since the 1980s, has been a critic of the Sandinista government since it first regained power through the ballot box in 2007. Her status as a novelist ensures that the NYT, the Guardian, Spain’s El Pais and other mainstream outlets give her space to vent her anger against a revolution which she supported initially but has since labeled a “farse.”

    Many of Nicaragua’s liberal intellectuals opposed the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s, but their commitment faded as the initial glamour of the revolution turned into the hard work of tackling the needs of the country’s poor and working people. As ordinary Nicaraguans were given greater voice, and taxes were raised to pay for new schools and hospitals (60% of the country’s budget goes to social programs), they maligned people’s power as an emerging “dictatorship.”

    The list of privileged critics of the Sandinista government, whose status gives them access to the New York Times and other corporate outlets, include Belli and her brother Humberto, along with Sergio Ramirez (a “novelist betrayed by the revolution”), journalist Carlos Chamorro and many more. Some work directly for mainstream media, such as Wilfredo Miranda (El Pais) and Gabriela Selser (Reuters). Supposedly revolutionary in their youth, they are now part of Washington’s soft power apparatus and help feed its imperialist agenda.

    Of the lies in Belli’s recent NYT article, one stands out: that “peaceful protesters were shot” during the coup attempt against Nicaragua’s elected government in 2018. This falsehood is repeated in the other three articles. Bell says that “student-led protests… were met with brutal, deadly repression.” Hong says that “lethal force” led to “355 dead and hundreds injured.” For Arland-Fye, it was a “deadly crackdown.” That the protestors were far from “peaceful” is obvious from the fact that 22 police officers were killed and over 400 injured in attacks launched from the hundreds of roadblocks erected by the coup-mongers throughout the country.

    Arland-Fye’s sycophantic piece is about opposition figure Bishop Silvio José Báez Ortega. The cleric had called the coup roadblocks “a wonderful idea” and said he hoped to see President Daniel Ortega in front of a firing squad. The Iowa bishopric, for which Arland-Fye writes, has just awarded Baez a “peace prize.”

    The suggestion that Trump is following an Ortega “playbook” appears in two of the articles: it could hardly be more absurd. Unlike Ortega, Trump is not building public hospitals, he’s dismantling Medicare. Also unlike Ortega, he isn’t presiding over a country which is championing the shift to renewable energy; nor is he building 7,000 affordable homes each year. Trump, instead, is drastically cutting federal spending for social needs.

    Rather than following a Nicaraguan “playbook” of peaceful cooperation with its neighbors, both Trump administrations (and Biden’s, both echoing Reagan in 1985) have incredulously declared Nicaragua an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the US. But it is Nicaragua’s remarkable battle against poverty, unmentioned in the articles, that is seen by Washington as the real “threat,” because it challenges the neoliberal order.

    The article by Bell, a former USAID worker, is perhaps unintentionally the most revealing. Prior to the 2018 coup attempt, USAID spent millions of dollars creating Nicaragua’s anti-Sandinista media apparatus. After the coup attempt failed, the Sandinista government justifiably closed NGOs and media outlets funded by USAID or its auxiliary body, the National Endowment for Democracy. They did so based on legislation patterned after the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act. Nevertheless this funding continues – going to anti-Sandinista outfits in Costa Rica and in the US itself.

    USAID had maintained a Nicaraguan presence by having staffers like Bell in the US embassy in Managua. Their role, as his article makes clear, was not to assist the government in fighting poverty but to engage with “exiled civil society leaders and independent [sic] journalists” opposed to the revolution. The ”independence” of US government-funded journalists goes unquestioned.

    Meanwhile, the USAID, while formally independent, now operates under the direction of the State Department. But its clandestine work assuredly continues.

    The saddest of the four articles is by teenager Jaden Hong. If he were to visit Nicaragua, he would see for himself how young people have free, good quality education right through to university level and beyond. He would see how the government has addressed malnutrition in youngsters by providing all of them with free school meals. He would note that parks, playgrounds and sports facilities have sprung up around the country.

    Above all, if he took part in one of the frequent mass demonstrations in support of the government, he might wonder at the fact that most of those around him are other young people. Unlike Gioconda Belli, they are too young to recall the revolutionary years of the 1980s. But they are old enough to recognize the revolution’s achievements and to be determined to protect them from Washington’s attacks.

    The post A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Why Israel’s assassination of Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif and crew threatens all journalists

    By David Robie, convenor of Pacific Media Watch

    I never knew Anas al-Sharif personally. But somehow he seemed to be part of our whānau.

    We watched so many of his reports from Gaza that it just appeared he would be always around keeping us up-to-date on the horrifying events in the besieged enclave.

    Although he actually worked for Al Jazeera Arabic, the 28-year-old was probably the best known Palestinian journalist in the Strip and many of his stories were translated into English.

    It is yet another despicable act by the Israeli military to assassinate him and four of his colleagues on the eve of launching their new mass crime to seize and demolish Gaza City with a population of about one million as part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to occupy the whole of Gaza.

    In many ways the bravery of al-Sharif — he had warned several times that he was being targeted — was the embodiment of the Palestinian courage under fire when UNESCO awarded the 2024 World Press Freedom Award collectively to the Gazan journalists.

    But it wasn’t enough just to “murder” him and his colleagues — as the Al Jazeera channel proclaimed in red banner television headlines — Israel attempted unsuccessfully to try to smear him in death as a “Hamas platoon leader” without a shred of evidence.

    The drone attack late on Sunday night hit a journalists’ work tent near the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven people. Among those killed beside al-Sharif were fellow Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.

    Call for UNSC emergency session
    Al Jazeera later said a sixth journalist, freelancer Mohammad al-Khaldi, was also killed in the strike. Reporters Without Borders said three more journalists had been wounded and called for a UN Security Council emergency session to discuss journalist safety.

    In a statement, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network condemned in “the strongest terms” the killing of its media staff in “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”, noting that the Israeli occupation force had “admitted to their crimes”.

    “This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” Al Jazeera said.

    “Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people.”

    Five Al Jazeera journalists killed in Gaza by Israel’s “psychopathic liar” — Marwan Bishara Video: Al Jazeera

    Ironically, the killings came hours after Netanyahu told media he had decided to “allow” some foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip.

    “In fact, we have decided, and I’ve ordered, directed the military, to bring in foreign journalists, more foreign journalists,” Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem.

    Israeli authorities have in the past barred any foreign media from entering the Gaza Strip, while it has been deliberately targeting and killing local Palestinian journalists.

    Other attacks on Al Jazeera
    The deadly strike on Anas al-Sharif and his four colleagues is not the first attack on Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza since the start of Israel’s current war on the Palestinian territory in October 2023

    Israeli forces have previously killed five Al Jazeera journalists: Samer Abudaqa, Ismael al-Ghoul, Ahmed al-Louh, Hossam Shabat and Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, as well as many of the family members of Al Jazeera journalists.

    The Israeli military has been systematically killing journalists, photographers and local media workers in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war in an attempt to silence their reports.

    The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has verified the killing of at least 186 journalists since October 7, 2023. At least 90 journalists have been imprisoned by Israel.

    But some media freedom groups put the casualty figure even higher. The Government Media Office in Gaza, for example, reports that 242 journalists have been killed.

    The Israeli military have frequently accused journalists of being “terrorists” without evidence.

    According to Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, Anas al-Sharif was a “loved by everyone, by his entire community”.

    ‘Enormous influence’
    “He’s held enormous influence there, and that’s precisely why Israel murdered him.

    Shehada told Al Jazeera he had “looked into the allegations” that Israel produced, trying to smear him as a Hamas militant, adding that “the allegations were completely contradictory.” He added:

    “There’s zero evidence that al-Sharif took part in any hostilities, in any armed actions, aided or abetted any kind of these hostilities. None at all. His entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening.”

    An early Instagram report of the killing of the Gazan journalists
    An early Instagram report of the killing of the Gazan journalists . . . later updated to five Al Jazeera staff and a sixth journalist. Image: AJ

    Reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel banned Al Jazeera from reporting from inside Israeli territory and the occupied West Bank, Hoda Abdel-Hamid said: “When you read the statement issued by the Israeli army, which was well prepared before all this happened, it’s almost as if it is bragging about it.”

    It had been alleged by Israel that Anas al-Sharif was a member of the military wing of Hamas, and the army claimed that it had found documents in Gaza that proved their point.

    “It includes some links to content that anyone could have printed,” she said. “This has been going on for a few weeks, ever since Anas started reporting on the starvation in Gaza, and he had such a huge impact on the Arab world.

    “Immediately after, a spokesman for the Israeli army in Arabic… posted a video on social media, accusing al-Sharif of being a Hamas member and threatening him.”

    ‘Knew he was at serious risk’
    Abdel-Hamid said she had been going through his X feed.

    “He knew his life was at serious risk, and he repeatedly wrote that he was just a journalist, and he wanted his message to be spread widely, because he thought that was a way to protect him.”

    Posted on his X account in case he was killed was his “last will” and final message. He wrote in part:

    “I entrust you with Palestine — the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace.

    “Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

    “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland . . . “

    Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said that last October Israel had accused al-Sharif and “a number of other journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof”.

    “We warned back then that this felt to us like a precursor to justify assassination, and, of course, last month… we saw again, a repeated smear campaign”, she told Al Jazeera.

    “This is not solely about Anas al-Sharif, this is part of a pattern that we have seen from Israel… going back decades, in which it kills journalists.”

    Accusations repeated
    Al-Sharif had warned last month about the starvation facing journalists — “and we saw then the accusations repeated.

    “Of course, now we are seeing a new offensive, plans for a new offensive, in Gaza, the kind of thing that Anas has been reporting on for the best part of three years.”

    The medical director of al-Shifa Hospital said that Israel had killed the journalists to prevent coverage of atrocities it intended to carry out in its Gaza City seizure.

    “The [Israeli] occupation is preparing for a major massacre in Gaza, but this time without sound or image,” Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya told Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency.

    “It wants to kill and displace the largest number of Palestinians in Gaza City but this time in the absence of the voice of Anas, Mohamed, Al Jazeera and all satellite channels.”

    Assassinated Gazan journalist Anas al-Sharif
    Assassinated Gazan journalist Anas al-Sharif . . . “killed to prevent coverage of atrocities” Israel intends to carry out in its Gaza City seizure. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Fabrications don’t wash’
    Al Jazeera’s senior analyst Marwan Bishara warned that “Israel’s lies” about al-Sharif endangered journalists everywhere, saying that the “best response to the killing of our colleagues is by continuing to do what we do”.

    “I want to correct one thing [about Western media reports], and I need our viewers and readers around the world to pay attention:

    “It doesn’t matter whether what Israel said about al-Sharif is correct or not.

    “It’s an absolute fabrication. It’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter.

    “Because if every American journalist who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been killed because there’s a suspicion that they worked for the CIA; if every French and British journalist would be killed because they work for the MI5 or something like that, then I think there will be no Western journalists working in the Middle East.

    “It’s not OK to kill a journalist in a tent of journalists because you accuse him of something.

    “If you accuse him of something, you take him to court, you make a complaint, you follow certain procedures, with the network, with the [International Federation of Journalists], and so on and so forth.

    “You don’t kill a journalist who has been doing their job for months on, day in, day out, night and day, and claim later that they work for Hamas.

    “That doesn’t wash.

    “It’s wrong, it’s a lie, it’s a fabrication as usual, but this psychopathic liar should not get away with killing a journalist and simply attaching an accusation to it.

    “It doesn’t wash, because otherwise, every single Western journalist covering a war that a Western government is involved in is going to be a target.

    “Why?

    “Because Israel has done it.”

    In January 2024, three months into the war, I wrote an article for Declassified Australia about “Silencing the messenger” when I made the point that while “Israel killed journalists, the West merely censored them”.

    I wrote that it was time for journalists to take a moral stand for truth and justice, and although I expected a strong response, the feedback was merely tepid. It was as if Western journalists did not comprehend the enormity of the Gaza crisis facing the world.

    It is shameful that New Zealand journalists and media groups have not come out in the past 22 months with strong denunciations of Israel’s war on both journalists and truth – and the genocide against Palestinians.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CPJ condemns Israeli killing of Gaza journalist Anas al-Sharif and video crew of four

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Committee to Protect Journalists has made a statement today that it is appalled to learn of the killing of an Al Jazeera media crew of five, including journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa by Israeli forces in Gaza.

    The journalists were killed in an attack on a tent used by media near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during a targeted Israeli bombardment, according to Al Jazeera which has described the killings as “murders”.

    In a statement announcing the killing of Al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops”.

    Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.

    “Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

    “Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”

    Al-Sharif had been one of Al Jazeera’s best-known reporters in Gaza since the start of the war and one of several journalists whom Israel had previously alleged were members of Hamas without providing evidence.

    Reported on starvation
    Most recently, Al-Sharif had reported on the starvation that he and his colleagues were experiencing because of Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient food aid into Gaza.

    In a July 24 video, Avichay Adraee, an Israel Defence Forces spokesperson, accused Al-Sharif of having been a member of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam, since 2013 and working during the war “for the most criminal and offensive channel”, apparently referring to Al Jazeera Arabic.

    Al-Sharif told CPJ in July: “Adraee’s campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction — it is a real-life threat.”

    He said: “All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world.

    “They accuse me of being a terrorist because the occupation wants to assassinate me morally.”

    The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Irene Khan, said she was “deeply alarmed by repeated threats and accusations of the Israeli army” against al-Sharif.

    Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7, 2023, CPJ has documented 186 journalists having been killed. At least 178 of those journalists are Palestinians killed by Israel.

    However, other sources and media freedom groups put the death toll even higher. Al Jazeera reports the death toll as “more than 200” and the Gaza Media Office has documented 142 journalists.

    UNESCO awarded its 2024 World Press Freedom Prize to the Palestinian journalists of Gaza.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel’s Biggest US Donor Now Owns CBS

    After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison—the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison—has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

    Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

    David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising “unbiased” news coverage and “varied ideological perspectives,” which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network’s new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her “pro-Israel stance.”

    The post Israel’s Biggest US Donor Now Owns CBS appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • 600+ Journalists Renew Call To Let Foreign Press Enter Gaza

    As Israel prepares for a full occupation of Gaza, foreign journalists have renewed calls to be allowed into the besieged strip.

    More than 600 journalists and media organizations have signed a petition released Monday by Freedom to Report (FTR) demanding “immediate, unsupervised foreign press access” to Gaza, which they said is “the worst press blackout in modern conflict.”

    “This is not a call to be heard,” said the renowned war photographer André Liohn, FTR’s founder. “We demand that independent, professional journalists be allowed into Gaza. What’s happening today is not only a humanitarian blackout but also an information blackout, and it must end.”

    The post 600+ Journalists Renew Call To Let Foreign Press Enter Gaza appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Trump’s FCC Considers Supercharging Corporate TV Consolidation

    Critics say Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr is ignoring legal precedent as the FCC moves to eliminate rules that effectively limit the number of local TV stations that corporate media conglomerates can own and operate. The FCC controls local TV and radio licenses, and while the telecom regulator is independent and overseen by Congress, advocates say Carr…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘You will hear us!’ -New anti-genocide protest interrupts live media broadcasts


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Enemies of the people’- Max Blumenthal blasts media role in Gaza genocide


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • No, Nuking Cities Did Not Save Lives

    It’s oddly encouraging that the New York Post had to bring up its kookiest right-wing propagandist on Friday to argue that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. It’s almost as if the New York Times’ kookiest right-wing propagandist’s claiming that killing Palestinians is not genocide had to be one-upped by the Post. It’s even more encouraging that the Post felt obliged to expand the usual definition of “lives” to include the lives of Japanese people, claiming that nuking people saved not only U.S. lives but also Japanese lives — an argument it would have been very hard to find even being attempted during the early decades of this myth.

    But it isn’t true that claims that nukes saved lives or nukes ended the war are only made by fringe crackpots. Those claims may be fading out among serious historians, but they are basic accepted fact to the general public, even the most educated sections of the general public; so they continue popping up like zombies in books and articles whose authors seem to have no idea they’re even writing anything controversial, much less utterly debunked. (The Post calls it “one of the most controversial historical questions in American history.”)

    The argument in the Post (quoting an author named Richard Frank) is this:

    “Not only has no relevant document been recovered from the wartime period, but none of them,” he writes of Japan’s top leaders, “even as they faced potential death sentences in war-crimes trials, testified that Japan would have surrendered earlier upon an offer of modified terms, coupled to Soviet intervention or some other combination of events, excluding the use of atomic bombs.”

    Well here’s a relevant document. Weeks before the first bomb was dropped, on July 13, 1945, Japan had sent a telegram to the Soviet Union expressing its desire to surrender and end the war. The United States had broken Japan’s codes and read the telegram. Truman referred in his diary to “the telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.” President Truman had already been informed through Swiss and Portuguese channels of Japanese peace overtures as early as three months before Hiroshima. Japan objected only to surrendering unconditionally and giving up its emperor, but the United States insisted on those terms until after the bombs fell, at which point it allowed Japan to keep its emperor. So, the desire to drop the bombs may have lengthened the war. The bombs did not shorten the war.

    It’s odd for the Post to build its case entirely on the absence of a certain type of testimony by proud Japanese defendants facing trials for their lives with zero motivation to admit that the Japanese government had been wanting to surrender, and for the Post to completely omit the testimony of all U.S. authorities.

    Defenders of nuking cities may now claim the nukes saved lives, but at the time the bombs were not even intended to do any such thing. The war ended six days after the second nuke, six days into the Russian invasion of Japan. But the war was going to end anyway, without either of those things. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, “… certainly prior to 31 December, 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

    One dissenter who had expressed this same view to the Secretary of War and, by his own account, to President Truman, prior to the bombings was General Dwight Eisenhower. Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard, prior to the bombings, urged that Japan be given a warning. Lewis Strauss, Advisor to the Secretary of the Navy, also prior to the bombings, recommended blowing up a forest rather than a city. General George Marshall apparently agreed with that idea. Atomic scientist Leo Szilard organized scientists to petition the president against using the bomb. Atomic scientist James Franck organized scientists who advocated treating atomic weapons as a civilian policy issue, not just a military decision. Another scientist, Joseph Rotblat, demanded an end to the Manhattan Project, and resigned when it was not ended. A poll of the U.S. scientists who had developed the bombs, taken prior to their use, found that 83% wanted a nuclear bomb publicly demonstrated prior to dropping one on Japan. The U.S. military kept that poll secret. General Douglas MacArthur held a press conference on August 6, 1945, prior to the bombing of Hiroshima, to announce that Japan was already beaten.

    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy said angrily in 1949 that Truman had assured him only military targets would be nuked, not civilians. “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender,” Leahy said. Top military officials who said just after the war that the Japanese would have quickly surrendered without the nuclear bombings included General Douglas MacArthur, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, General Curtis LeMay, General Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, Admiral Ernest King, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, and Brigadier General Carter Clarke. As Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick summarize, seven of the United States’ eight five-star officers who received their final star in World War II or just after — Generals MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Arnold, and Admirals Leahy, King, Nimitz, and Halsey — in 1945 rejected the idea that the atomic bombs were needed to end the war. “Sadly, though, there is little evidence that they pressed their case with Truman before the fact.”

    On August 6, 1945, President Truman lied on the radio that a nuclear bomb had been dropped on an army base, rather than on a city. And he justified it, not as speeding the end of the war, but as revenge against Japanese offenses. “Mr. Truman was jubilant,” wrote Dorothy Day. We have to remember that in the U.S. media of the time, killing more Japanese people was decidedly preferable to killing fewer, and required no justification of supposedly saving lives or ending wars. Truman, the guy whose action is being defended and whose diary is being carefully ignored, made no such claims, as he was not doing restrospective propaganda.

    So, why then were the bombs dropped?

    Presidential advisor James Byrnes had told Truman that dropping the bombs would allow the United States to “dictate the terms of ending the war.” Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal wrote in his diary that Byrnes was “most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in.” Truman wrote in his diary that the Soviets were preparing to march against Japan and “Fini Japs when that comes about.” The Soviet invasion was planned prior to the bombs, not decided by them. The United States had no plans to invade for months, and no plans on the scale to risk the numbers of lives that the Post will tell you were saved.

    Truman ordered the bombs dropped, one on Hiroshima on August 6th and another type of bomb, a plutonium bomb, which the military also wanted to test and demonstrate, on Nagasaki on August 9th. The Nagasaki bombing was moved up from the 11th to the 9th to decrease the likelihood of Japan surrendering first. Also on August 9th, the Soviets attacked the Japanese. During the next two weeks, the Soviets killed 84,000 Japanese while losing 12,000 of their own soldiers, and the United States continued bombing Japan with non-nuclear weapons — burning Japanese cities, as it had done to so much of Japan prior to August 6th that, when it had come time to pick two cities to nuke, there hadn’t been many left to choose from.

    Here’s what the Post claims was accomplished by killing a couple of hundred thousand people and commencing the age of apocalyptic nuclear danger:

    “The end of the war made unnecessary a US invasion that could have meant hundreds of thousands of American casualties; saved millions of Japanese lives that would have been lost in combat on the home islands and to starvation; cut short the brief Soviet invasion (that alone accounted for hundreds of thousands of Japanese deaths); and ended the agony that Imperial Japan brought to the region, especially a China that suffered perhaps 20 million casualties.”

    Notice that the Post feels obliged to blame (at the time it would have been credit) the Soviet invasion with killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese people, even while claiming, pace Truman, that it did not influence the Japanese decision to surrender. Notice also that the only alternative to the war ending after the nukes, in this view, would have been the war continuing for a great long time costing millions of Japanese lives. But the facts above do not bear this out. The 2025 propagandist is disagreeing with the consensus of the leaders of his beloved military in 1945.

    Why is he doing that?

    He concludes with his motivation: “This is why President Donald Trump’s vision of a Golden Dome to protect the U.S. from missile attack is so important, and why we need a robust nuclear force to deter our enemies.”

    Here is a different view of what World War II tells us about a Golden Dome.

    Here are things you can do to make the 80th anniversaries of the nuclear bombings without lying about them.

    The post No, Nuking Cities Did Not Save Lives first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Indo-Pak Leaders Should “Have a Nice Dinner Together”

    Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (left) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi IMAGE/PPI/AFP/The News

    Troublemakers

    Many leaders1 are averse to running their countries in a peaceful and progressive manner. Instead of concentrating on the problems the majority of their people face, they create trouble by introducing or undoing things, in order to gain political mileage and divert the public’s attention from important issues requiring government focus. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one such leader.

    In the Indian Lok Sabha, on August 5, 2019, Modi’s Home Minister Amit Shah announced revocation of Article 370 which had granted limited autonomy to the Indian occupied Kashmir.

    Constitutional expert and eminent scholar A. G. Noorani told Akshay Deshmane what that revocation meant:

    It is utterly and palpably unconstitutional. An unconstitutional deed has been accomplished by deceitful means. For a fortnight, the Governor and other people told a whole load of lies. And I am sorry that the Army Core Commander (Chief) was also enlisted to spread this false thing of inputs from Pakistan. It was all a falsehood. They have undermined the Army’s non-political character. This is patently unconstitutional. Thing is that I had always predicted that they are out to fulfill their Saffron agenda: Uniform Civil Code, Ayodhya and Abrogation of Article 370. It remains to be seen how they accomplish the Ayodhya agenda.

    The Revocation of Article 370 was in complete violation of the 2018 Indian Supreme Court ruling which stated that Article 370 was a permanent part of the Indian Constitution and the only way it could be revoked was through the legislative body that had drafted the Article originally- only they could rescind it. That body, however, stopped functioning in 1957.

    India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said in the Lok Sabha on June 26 and August 7, 1952.

    “I say with all respect to our Constitution that it just does not matter what your Constitution says; if the people of Kashmir do not want it, it will not go there. Because what is the alternative? The alternative is compulsion and coercion…” “We have fought the good fight about Kashmir on the field of battle… (and) …in many a chancellery of the world and in the United Nations, but, above all, we have fought this fight in the hearts and minds of men and women of that State of Jammu and Kashmir. Because, ultimately – I say this with all deference to this Parliament – the decision will be made in the hearts and minds of the men and women of Kashmir; neither in this Parliament, nor in the United Nations nor by anybody else,”

    — Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 18, p. 418 and vol. 19 pp. 295-6, respectively in A. G. Noorani, “Article 370: Law and politics,” Frontline, September 6, 2000.

    That has never happened. The Kashmiri people have never been given a choice to decide their own destiny. Immediately after revoking Article 370, political leaders and thousands of Kashmiri civilians, including those who want Kashmir to be a part of India, were arrested. Kashmir and Jammu was locked down and all communication was blocked for eighteen months. Kashmir was cut off from the rest of the world.

    Pahalgam

    In September 2024, Kashmir Times’ editor Anuradha Bhasin told Al Jazeera:

    “For the last five years, all Kashmiris have seen is an arrogant bureaucracy and the important missing layers of a local government.”

    Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in parliament, addressing a rally in the Jammu region said:

    “Non-locals are running Jammu and Kashmir.” “Your democratic right was snatched. We have given priority to the demand for restoration of statehood.” “If [Modi’s party BJP] fails to restore statehood after the elections, we will put pressure on them to ensure it.”

    Bhasin painted a gloomy picture:

    “The hands of the clock have never moved back. Whatever has been taken from the people, in terms of their autonomy or democratic rights, has never been given back. I doubt that would change in the near future.”

    In May 2024, Omar Abdullah, prior and the current Chief Minister since October 2024, had warned about presenting a rosy picture:

    “The situation [in Kashmir] is not normal and talk less about tourism being an indicator of normalcy; when they link normalcy with tourism, they put tourists in danger.” “You are making the tourists a target.”

    Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group:

    “New Delhi and its security agencies started buying their own assessment of peace and stability, and they became complacent, assuming that the militants will never attack tourists.” “But if pushed to the wall, all it takes is two men with guns to prove that Kashmir is not normal.”

    While Modi was in Saudi Arabia, on April 22, 2025, terrorists associated with The Resistance Front killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam, a beautiful hill station and a favorite destination for visitors. The victims were asked about their religion and were killed on communal basis.

    Modi cut short his Saudi Arabia visit and flew back to India’s capital city, Delhi where he didn’t mention Pahalgam at all.

    However, Modi’s divisive inflammatory rhetoric and strategy is well known to the Bihar-based Rashtriya Janata Dal who predicted Modi’s politics:

    “The pyres of the victims of the Pahalgam terrorist attack have not yet been lit, but the country’s Prime Minister will come to Bihar tomorrow to campaign and deliver speeches because Bihar is holding elections this year.”

    Modi, as if on an election campaign in Bihar, the second most populous state (with a large Dalit and Muslim population), gave a fiery speech:

    “Today from the soil of Bihar I say to the whole world. India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth.”

    Veteran journalist Jawed Naqvi points out that in foreign countries Modi typically gives his speeches in Hindi but he gave this address using English to Bihar’s Hindi speakers (perhaps, to fully capitalize from the foreign press present.)

    The accusing finger immediately implied Pakistan, rather than question the security lapse of the Indian security forces or trying to determine the perpetrators. Pakistan has been involved in the past but, this time no proof exists of its involvement. The rhetoric reached fever pitch and culminated in India’s attack on its neighbor, and when Pakistan asked for evidence of the accusation, India didn’t provide it.

    Pakistan also offered to join a “neutral and transparent” investigation but India refused the offer.

    India blamed Pakistan’s military chief Asim Munir’s speech of April 15, 2025 for the Pahalgam tragedy.

    It’s a well known fact that Kashmir is the world’s most militarized zone with very numerous Indian check points all over the state. The question: where was Indian security? was not addressed by the government. Two months later, on June 22, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested two persons who provided shelter to three persons involved in the act, according to NIA allegations.

    Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced 5 major decisions taken by the Indian Government in April, 2025:

    1. Suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (1960) with Pakistan.

    2. Immediate closure of the Atari Integrated Checkpost.

    3. Cancellation of all SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme visas for Pakistani nationals.

    4. Expulsion of defense, naval, and air advisors from the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi.

    5. Reduction of staff in both High Commissions from 55 to 30.

    The CCS reaffirmed India’s resolve to bring perpetrators to justice and hold their sponsors accountable.

    These are extreme measures that, if implemented, especially the water treaty suspension, will undoubtedly create more trouble and could result in a bigger war in the future.

    On July 28, Indian government said its security forces killed three persons responsible for the April 22 killing.

    Asim Munir

    On April 15, while addressing the Overseas Pakistanis (OPs), Munir came out as Indian Hindu Modi’s2 Pakistani version: full of hate, divisiveness, and communalism.

    “Our forefathers thought that we are different from the Hindus in every possible aspect of life. Our religion is different. Our customs are different. Our traditions are different. Our thoughts are different. Our ambitions are different.”

    “… we are two nations, we are not one nation.”

    The army, not popular in Pakistan for its constant interference in politics and disappearing critics and people as Balochis, seemingly, feels driven to frequently do something to make itself relevant. Munir’s speech to OPs was one such attempt.

    India blaming Munir for Pahalgam attack does not seem very credible. The oppressed people, Kashmiris in India or Balochis in Pakistan, don’t need any inciting speech to fight back; they’re just waiting for the right time because they don’t have the luxury of attacking at will, like the governments do, in the name of “national security.” The oppressed can’t reach the state so they attack innocent people to communicate their plight.

    In Pakistan, Baloch separatists have stopped buses and killed Punjabis after checking their IDs, perhaps in revenge as Punjab is Pakistan’s most populous and dominant province, and has a strong hold over the central government.

    The attacks are cruel, but these kind of ugly incidents may continually occur if governments involved refuse to negotiate and reach amicable solutions.

    War

    On 29 April, Indian government sources quoted Modi: “They [the Indian army] have complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets, and timing of our response,”

    On May 7, India struck some sites in Pakistan, that then counter-struck.

    India’s Israeli Ambassador Reuven Azar posted on X: “Israel supports India’s right for self-defense. Terrorists should know there’s no place to hide from their heinous crimes against the innocent.”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Modi: “Israel stands with India in its fight against terrorism.”

    There can be no better person than Netanyahu, the great terrorist and genocider, to advice another terrorist.

    Trump’s ceasefire

    The four-day-war ended when US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire on his Truth Social media site:

    “I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.”

    Propaganda

    In 2014, when Modi was to become Prime Minister for the first time, Amit Shah had bragged about BJP having 3.2 million WhatsApp groups who could instantly turn anything into believable stuff. In May 2024, BJP had at least 5 million WhatsApp groups and its infrastructure is so strong that any message relayed from Delhi could circulate all over India within 12 minutes.

    Kiran Garimella of Rutgers University who researches WhatsApp in India, warned that WhatsApp is not an open social media like X or Facebook which is worrying and a cause for concern for many people.

    “It is concerning that such a huge ‘hidden’ infrastructure plays a huge role in how the public consumes information.” “Only the creators of these groups know the extent to which the tentacles of this WhatsApp infrastructure are spread.”

    What is the result?

    War is like a game to the war inciters, war lovers, war media, and common people under the spell of the media frenzy and are most interested in the one question, who won and who lost?

    The winners

    There were two clear winners: Indian news media and the Pakistan army and its Chief of Army Staff: Asim Munir.

    False news stories and AI generated images came from both sides but India was way ahead in fake news:

    • Indian Navy destroyed sea port Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and financial center, with “over ten blasts.”
    • The city of Peshawar was turned to “dust.”
    • Pakistani soldiers were “deserting” and generals were “fleeing” the country,
    • Some channels announced destruction of 5 cities where as another settled for 26 cities
    • India’s fake news-master Arnab Goswami also declared a huge blast was heard outside Pakistan PM’s house and he was taken away to a place “20.5” kilometers (12.74 miles) away. Goswami also said it’s not clear whether it was for a safety reason or was it a coup.
    • Zee News declared a coup happened resulting in the arrest of General Asim Munir.
    • and so on…

    For a very long time now, most Indian media has turned into “Godi Media,” a term used by Ravish Kumar, the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award winner. (Kumar was NDTV India’s Managing Editor but left when it was bought by billionaire Gautam Adani, a Modi supporter and fellow Gujarati.)

    Kumar queried as to who should get an award for riveting fake news?

    • News Nation who gave news of Sharif on the run or,
    • Zee News who located Sharif, who was never missing?

    Sumitra Badrinathan, an assistant professor at the American University, observed in an interview with the New York Times that in India “previously credible journalists and major media news outlets ran straight-up fabricated stories [on the 4 day war].”

    The losers

    The victims of the bombings, dead or wounded, are always the first ones to endure the horrors of war. They are the losers.

    Pakistan said 40 civilians and 13 military personnel were killed. India’s figure was 21 civilians and 8 military and paramilitary personnel died. Hundreds of people on both sides got injured.

    The politicians and generals on both sides claimed victory. The war was of a very short duration, thus politicians and generals didn’t feel populace hostility or face dire consequences like resignations.

    Winner and loser honor

    That honor goes to Modi. He was a winner and also a loser.

    • Modi the winner. To his followers, Modi’s heroism enhanced when the Indian news media falsely started giving way too inflated stories of India beating Pakistan.
    • Modi also succeeded in cutting off whatever little cooperation existed between Indians and Pakistanis through arts and sports. The Indian government ordered all Pakistani songs removed from Spotify. All media streaming services, digital intermediaries, and OTT platforms were ordered to discontinue Pakistani films, web series, songs, etc. Pakistani TV channels and dramas, very popular in India, were banned and still are. Pakistani artists and sportspersons social media accounts were blocked and still are.
    • The extent of Modi’s hatred can be gauged from the following film posters: before and after.

    Indian actor Harshvardhan Rane and Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane in Indian film poster of Sanam Teri Kasam IMAGE/BrandSynario/Duck Duck Go

    In an Orwellian move, Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane was removed from the film poster of Sanam Teri Kasam IMAGE/Hindustan Times/Duck Duck Go

    The original film poster had Mawra Hocane but in the revised one, Hocane disappeared in an Orwellian manner. Shah Rukh Khan‘s movie posters of Raees with Pakistani actress Mahira Khan have faced the same fate.

    • Indian singer, actor, producer Diljit Dosanjh film Sardaar Ji 33 with the Pakistani actress Hania Aamir got banned in India. The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and Minister of Information & Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw to revoke passports of Daljit Dosanjh, Gunbir Singh Sidhu, Manmord Sidhu and Director Amar Hundal. Just for working with a Pakistani artist, thus displaying the toxic mixture of hate, idiocy, and faulty logic.
    • FWICE’s letter contained many lies about Hania Aamir who had lamented the loss of life: “I don’t have fancy words right now. I just have anger, pain, and a heavy heart. A child is gone. Families are shattered. And for what? This is not how you protect anyone. This is cruelty – plain and simple.

    Mind you, Modi personally may not be giving orders, but, people get emboldened to inflict damage as they know they won’t be stopped.

    Many fields of life, from economics to education and from culture to cricket, have suffered due to rigidity, egotism, and ideology of politicians on both sides. Pakistani military’s control over politicians has never let both countries cooperate and utilize fully the trade, talents, and technology. Hardly a 100 or so Pakistani artists and playback singers have ever worked in Indian films.

    Official trade between both countries has dropped and is routed through Singapore, Colombo (Sri Lanka), and Dubai (UAE), costing more money. Even in peace times, these routes are used for trade due to some or other reason. It’s foolish, but than you can’t make people with power to understand, because the powerful don’t allow discussions or arguments.

    Modi the loser. On May 10, 2025, at 6:55 A.M. Eastern Time (that is 4:55 P.M. Pakistan time and 5:25 P.M. Indian time) on his Truth Social site, Trump announced:

    “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

    It was sobering news for Modi. Modi has created an image of himself as Indian superman with broad 56-inch chest who is globally famous giving hugs to presidents, prime ministers, billionaires, whether they want it or not. He has made 91 foreign trips till July 2025. He has made India a superpower not in reality but by creating such perception. Modi who likes to control the narrative and who desperately wanted to announce victory had to get a ceasefire order from Trump. Trump is such a character that you can’t argue with him because then you face more humiliation — not because Trump is more vitriolic than Modi but because US is economically much more stronger than India, who is economically heavily interconnected with the US.

    Imbecile

    Then there is Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. He got so carried away by Pakistan army’s downing of less than half a dozen Indian fighter planes that he equated it as a victory compensating for the loss of half the country (55% of its population in 1971) when East Pakistan seceded with Indian help to become independent Bangladesh.

    That is clearly just a fictional ego boosting comparison.

    Unpredictable Outcome

    Who could have predicted that Modi’s war would give Pakistan army and Munir a new lease on popularity?

    Avoid war

    Poet Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem O Decent People has a quatrain:

    whether the blood spilled is ours or theirs

    it is the blood of Adam’s progeny, after all

    whether the war is in the east or west

    it is the murder of world peace, after all

    War should be avoided at all cost. All wars between Pakistan and India inflict tremendous cost in lives and finances, and, affect the entire South Asian region.

    Both possess nuclear weapons which if, by mistake or bravado, get deployed in the war, would end in great disaster for the entire world. According to climatologist Alan Robock, 1,000,000,000 to 2 billion people would face starvation worldwide, in such case, there would be immediate climate changes, leading to much colder weather than the Little Ice Age and many other disasters, including destruction of ozone layer.

    Dinner date

    Trump advised Indian and Pakistani leaders to go for a dinner date.

    “Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, Marco [Rubio, the US Secretary of State], where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

    Improve relations

    The population of South Asia, including Afghanistan, comprises 25% of global population. With China’s 17% added, the percentage shoots up to 42%.

    The World Inequality Lab study observed that income and wealth contrast in Modi’s India is worse, more than it was during the British colonial rule. Other countries in the region are not any better.

    Suggestions:

    • If 42% of people increase trade in way that exchange of dollars is minimized, either through barter trade or using own currencies, this would save them hustle for dollars and foreign exchange.
    • Increased trade also brings people closer and aids in creating more understanding and tolerance.
    • In the best interest of both countries and the entire South Asian region, it would be better if SAARC (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation) is revived.
    • Visas should be issued to enjoy tourism and appreciate each other’s natural beauty of land, flora and fauna and cultures
    • Exchange student programs should be initiated
    • Joint cultural, artistic, sports, entertainment, and other such events should be organized and promoted.
    • India and Pakistan should avoid competing to get in the good books of US administration and try to sort out their problems themselves.
    • Pakistan feels insecure when Trump is close to Modi and vice versa.
    • India is the most populous country and Pakistan is the fifth most populated nation, both are made of many nations held together with very weak ties. They should concentrate on making that connection stronger by addressing the problems of various ethnic, caste, gender, and religious groups and by improving relations between the countries of SAARC.

    Gur Mehar Kaur, whose father died during one of the Indo-Pak wars when she was 2 year old, wishes peace:

    “… Only mutual cooperation can drive South Asia ahead. A peaceful subcontinent is the greatest gift we can give our families, our soldiers and ourselves.”

    “Hate is the most anti-national force that we face. The worst thing the BJP under Modi did was nurture a mob that can only be satisfied with blood, killings and hate. For 10 years, this mob has been empowered.”

    Notes:

    The post Indo-Pak Leaders Should “Have a Nice Dinner Together” first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    In the Shanghai Communique, 1972, the US declared:

    The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position.

    For almost five decades, peace prevailed between China and the United States on the issue of Taiwan. The above policy was maintained without any serious incident. It could have gone on for decades but for some US generals and others who visited Taiwan in March 2022. Author Eve Ottenberg surmised, “to beat the war drums and provoke China.” Same year in August, Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan too, to incite China.

    The “world’s greatest democracy” seems devoid of a peace gene; it follows it’s own motto: “I war, therefore I am.”
    2    In 1924, 1,165 in-person hate speech events took place in India; 259 were openly calling for violence. Many important BJP leaders, including Modi, his Home Minister Amit Shah, and Yogi Adityanath, the rogue governor of largest state Uttar Pradesh, were involved in these events.
    3    The 2016, the Indian film Sanam Teri Kasam had a Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane as the female protagonist. The film was re-released in February and became highest-grossing re-released Indian film. They are making a sequel but now without Hocane because of the war. (VIDEO/Soham Rockstar Entertainment/Youtube)Dosanjh made a great move. He didn’t implore authorities for the film to be released in India but instead had it released worldwide, including Pakistan, where it became the second highest-grossing film in Pakistan’s history. It is also the highest-grossing Punjabi language film internationally. The film has made almost double the money it cost to make the movie. (VIDEO/White Hill Music/Youtube) Dosanjh’s actions will encourage those Indian and Pakistani artists who wants to collaborate to release their work worldwide to cover the cost and make profit internationally, rather than be at the mercy of local politicians’ whims. Indian film Abir Gulaal with Indian actress Vaani Kapoor and Pakistani actor Fawad Khan was to release on May 9 but was postponed indefinitely. The makers should think of forgoing the Indian market and releasing it worldwide if possible and if it won’t hurt them financially.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Australian media faces existential crisis after realising ‘free Palestine’ might extend well beyond university lawns and Instagram

    COMMENTARY: By Clancy Overell, editor of The Betoota Advocate

    After years of sitting on the fence and looking the other way, the Australian media is today reckoning with the fact that showing basic sympathy towards the starving and war-weary people of Gaza is actually a very mainstream sentiment.

    This explosive moment of self-reflection has rocked newsrooms all over the country, from the talk back radio stations to the increasingly gun-shy ABC.

    This comes as the tens of thousands of everyday Australians marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in solidarity in protest against the abhorrent war crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people.

    • READ MORE: More satire about Israel’s horrendous war on Gaza

    This existential media feeling of extreme detachment from the general public is only amplified by the undeniable fact this crowd actually isn’t even that representative of the actual number of people who are horrified by the events taking place on the Gaza Strip — as the extreme weather conditions clearly shrank the overall number of people who would have otherwise attended this record-breaking protest.

    The crowd that did make it there is still one of the biggest to ever march the Harbour Bridge, many who braved heavy winds and rain to join the chants “ceasefire now” and “free Palestine”.

    With a large number of high-profile household names such as Julian Assange and former NSW Premier Bob Carr making their presence known, it’s now very difficult for the media to now write these protesters off as “terrorist sympathisers”.

    It’s also clear that the plight of the Palestinians is something that ripples far beyond the university lawns and instagram timelines that have since been dismissed as the musings of “detached inner-city elites” and “brazen antisemites”.

    Sydney’s “Rainy Sunday” march also comes as a blow to both the Federal and State Labor governments, which have worked tirelessly to squash these protests using police powers and anti-free speech laws.

    The Betoota Advocate is an Australian satirical news website that takes its name from the deserted regional western Queensland town of Betoota but is actually published in Sydney.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • For Media, Trying To Help Gazans Survive Turns Heroes Into Zeroes

    Last week, Smalls took on another Goliath. As part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, he tried to deliver life-saving aid—including food and baby formula—to the people of Gaza, who are suffering from a severe famine deliberately engineered by the Israeli government.

    The Handala, the ship carrying the aid, was illegally seized in international waters by Israel’s military, and Smalls was singled out for violence, choked and kicked by Israeli soldiers, apparently because he’s Black. Past attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have been dealt with even more harshly by Israel: In 2010, 57 activists aboard the aid ship Mavi Marmara were shot—nine of them killed—on their way to Gaza.

    The post For Media, Trying To Help Gazans Survive Turns Heroes Into Zeroes appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Corporation For Public Broadcasting Shutdown

    The truth is, from Nixon to Trump, Republicans were actually rather successful in manipulating the CPB to serve their partisan agenda. Back in 2005, when Republican Kenneth Tomlinson was in charge, the New York Times reported that the chairman aggressively pressed “public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias.” The chief executive of PBS even accused Tomlinson of threatening “editorial independence.” 

    Peter Hart of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) further noted that an unnamed senior official at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claimed Tomlinson was “engaged in a systematic effort not just to sanitize the truth, but to impose a right-wing agenda on PBS.”

    The post The Corporation For Public Broadcasting Shutdown appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Palestine surveillance author says Australian protesters ‘outraged’ by Israel’s war on Gaza

    Pacific Media Watch

    Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book on the Israeli arms and surveillance industry, says Australian protesters are “outraged” not just by what Israel is doing in Gaza, but also by the Australian government’s “complicity”.

    Loewenstein, who also spoke at the rally, told Al Jazeera that Australia has, for many years, including since the start of the war, been part of the global supply chain for the F-35 fighter jets that Israel has been using in attacking the besieged enclave.

    “A lot of Australians are aware of this,” he said. “We are deeply complicit, and people are angry that their government is doing little more than talk at this point.”

    Asked about opinions within Israel, Loewenstein, who is an Australian-German and Jewish, condemned what he called a prevailing climate of “genocide mania” and also criticised the role of the mainstream media in not reporting accurate coverage of the reality in Gaza.

    Organisers of the Palestine Action Group Sydney-led march across the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge have said at least 100,000 people — and perhaps as many as 300,000 — took part in the biggest pro-Palestinian held in Australia. Police say more than 90,000.

    Mehreen Faruqi, the New South Wales senator for the left-wing Greens party, addressed the crowd gathered at central Sydney’s Lang Park before the march, calling for the “harshest sanctions on Israel”, accusing its forces of “massacring” Palestinians.

    At least 175 people, including 93 children, have died of starvation and malnutrition across the enclave since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, according to latest Gaza Health Ministry figures.

    The horrifying images of Gazans being deliberately starved is adding to the pressure on Western governments which have been enthusiastic supporters of Israel’s genocide, reports the Sydney-based Green-Left magazine.

    Former US President Barack Obama has started to push for an end to Israel’s military operations. Sections of Israeli society, including five human rights organisations, now agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

    Media corporations, such as BBC, AFP, AP and Reuters, which have been complicit in manufacturing consent for “Israel has a right to defend itself” line, are now condemning the killing of Palestinian journalists.

    These shifts reflect the scale of the horror, but also the success of the global Palestine solidarity movement.

    It is undermining support for Israel — a factor which is starting to weigh on Western governments. Only 32% of Americans approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, according to a new Gallup poll.

    With the exception of Ireland and Spain, Western governments have refused to describe Israel’s war as an act of genocide.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel’s International Isolation Has Begun

    We’ve never lived through such rapid change in the politics of Israel as we are now. Two nights ago more than half of Democratic senators – 27– voted to block some arms sales to Israel. A day before that, the UK and Canada said they will recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N, echoing France’s recent statement. 

    These are steps that advocates for Palestinians thought might be years away. But today the world is shocked by Israel’s starvation of Gaza, and the mainstream press is at last reporting the charge of genocide.  

    Israel’s international isolation has begun. 

    The post Israel’s International Isolation Has Begun appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Israel backing Gaza ‘gangs’ to create unlivable chaos, says academic

    Asia Pacific Report

    While the Israeli government claims it is backing “clans” in Gaza to counter the resistance movement Hamas, the groups it supports more closely resemble criminal gangs, says a British-based security specialist.

    Dr Rob Geist Pinfold, international security lecturer at King’s College London, says: “These are criminal gangs. Many were in prison before October 7 for drug offences, not for being political dissidents.

    “They rob Palestinians on the streets. They feed off and contribute to the chaos and disorder,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “Many of these people, like Yasser Abu Shabab, are outcasts from their clans. Israel has basically chosen the least popular people in Gaza to arm and equip.

    “It’s not trying to create a viable political alternative to Hamas, it’s identifying people who thrive off chaos and encouraging them to further that chaos.”

    Dr Pinfold said Israel appeared to be intentionally sowing chaos in Gaza to make the territory “unlivable”.

    “It used to look like this chaos in Gaza was the product of Israel not having a day-after plan,” he said. “But I think it is now evident that this chaos is . . .  part of the day-after plan, which is a grander strategy to make Gaza unlivable in the long term.”

    Arming criminal gangs
    To accomplish this, Israel is arming the criminal gangs that “thrive off chaos” and funnelling the little aid coming in through the dysfunctional and violence-ridden GHF [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] system.

    From Israel’s perspective, “I actually think this is working very well”, he said, “because its undeclared aims are to create chaos and ensure Gaza becomes unlivable”.

    “Unfortunately, so far, that is proving to be a very successful strategy.”

    Earlier this week it was announced that the death toll had topped 60,430 people (not including the tens of thousands buried under the rubble, or missing and believed dead). This number of dead included more than 18,000 children.

    Also, 148,722 wounded were wounded.

    Already there have been 162 deaths from starvation in Gaza, 92 of them children and the predictions are dire.

    Also, more than 1300 Palestinians have been killed near the GHF aid depots.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.