Reporter’s arrest–on charges that have since been dropped–poses grave threat to press freedom and the public’s right to know
New York, July 18, 2025—Lawyers representing Mario Guevara, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Free Press, and the Georgia First Amendment Foundation will hold a press conference on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, at 10 a.m. to reaffirm calls for the release of the Atlanta-based journalist from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.
The press conference will highlight the troubling implications Guevera’s case has for First Amendment rights in Georgia and across the nation.
Guevara, an Emmy-winning, Spanish-language journalist, who frequently filmed ICE and law enforcement raids, was originally arrested on First Amendment-related charges while livestreaming a “No Kings” protest in an Atlanta suburb on June 14. He is currently the only journalist in custody in the U.S. whose arrest was in relation to the work of newsgathering.
The journalist, who has lawfully resided in the U.S. for over 20 years, was placed in ICE custody on June 18 where he remains, despite being in the country legally.
Guevara arrived legally in the United States from El Salvador in April 2004. He has remained in the country lawfully since, applying for asylum in 2005 due to the dangers he faced as a journalist in El Salvador. Over the next twenty years, Guevara developed a large following in the Atlanta area, as well as national recognition, for his reporting on immigration issues.
WHO:
Opening remarks from Senator Josh McLaurin and José Zamora, CPJ Americas Director
Speakers:
Giovanni Diaz, managing partner of Diaz & Gaeta and Mario Guevara’s lawyer
Katherine and Oscar Guevara, Mario Guevara’s children
Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ’s U.S., Canada and Caribbean program coordinator
Nora Benavidez, Free Press’ senior counsel and Georgia First Amendment Foundation board member
WHAT: Press conference on journalist Mario Guevara’s continued ICE detention
WHEN: Tuesday, July 22, 2025, 10 a.m. EDT. Please arrive ahead of time. ID required.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
Free Press is a nonprofit organization that advocates for equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what’s actually happening in their communities.
We speak to Loris Taylor, president of Native Public Media, about the Trump administration’s drastic defunding of public media and its impact on tribal nations. Fifty-nine tribal radio stations and one tribal television station that depend on federal funding will be among the first to face possible closure, putting some of the essential services that public broadcasting provides, including warning systems for missing Indigenous women and girls, at risk. Taylor shares how Native-led public media helps preserve Indigenous languages and helped keep communities informed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. She fears that without these same resources and “with the climate crisis increasing, [we] are going to be operating on the margins of information and are not going to have real lifesaving information available to our citizens when they need it most.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
We speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna about his bipartisan bill calling for the full release of federal documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal charges for sexual trafficking and abuse, which is also currently backed by nine Republicans and every House Democrat. Khanna explains why he’s calling for transparency and accountability regarding the Epstein case, and how Trump is working to prevent the same.
Ro Khanna also discusses the massive loss to public media and local news as the Trump administration has successfully stripped $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds over 1,500 NPR and PBS stations across the country. The major cut to funding is possible thanks to the rare process of rescission, which allows the president to request Congress to rescind already-allocated federal funding. Trump’s OMB Director Russell Vought has indicated that the administration intends to expand its use of rescission in future legislative sessions. “It’s a devastating blow to the education of our children in America and to our democracy,” says Khanna, who notes that the cut to public media comes just one week after Republicans voted to pass Trump’s deficit-enlarging budget bill. “It’s just not true that this has anything to do with fiscal responsibility,” Khanna adds.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Nobody has a bad word to say about the French Resistance in the Second World War, right? Who would criticise a group confronting fascism, right?
Yet this month the UK group Palestine Action has been proscribed as a “terrorist” organisation by their government for their non-violent direct action against UK-based industries supplying technology to fuel Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people.
Are they terrorists or the very best of us in the West?
Stéphane Hessel, a leading member of the French Resistance, survived time in Nazi concentration camps, including Buchenwald. After the war he was one of the co-authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), a pillar of international law to this day.
The Declaration affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans. In later years Hessel (d. 2013), who was Jewish, saw the treatment of the Palestinians as an affront to this and repeatedly called Israel out for crimes against humanity.
Hessel argued people needed to be outraged just as he and his fellow fighters had been during the war.
In 2010, he said: “Today, my strongest feeling of indignation is over Palestine, both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The starting point of my outrage was the appeal launched by courageous Israelis to the Diaspora: you, our older siblings, come and see where our leaders are taking this country and how they are forgetting the fundamental human values of Judaism.”
In his book Indignez-vous (Time for Outrage!) he called for a “peaceful insurrection” and pointed to some of the non-violent forms of protests Palestinians had used over the years.
In Kendal, UK, this fellow wasn’t arrested. In Cardiff, this woman was. Perhaps the “terrorism” isn’t saying you support Palestine Action – it’s saying you oppose genocide?! Image: Private Eye/X/@DefendourJuries
“The Israeli authorities have described these marches as ‘nonviolent terrorism’. Not bad . . . One would have to be Israeli to describe nonviolence as terrorism.”
How wrong Stéphane Hessel was on this point. The British Parliament has just proscribed Palestine Action as “terrorists” despite them having never attacked anyone, never used weapons, but only undertaken destruction of property linked to the arms industry.
Does Palestine Action really bear resemblance to Al Qaeda or ISIS, or Israel’s Stern Gang or the IDF? Or, like the French Resistance, will they eventually be recognised as heroes of our time? Will Hollywood romanticise them in their usual tardy way in 50 years time?
In respect to the Palestinians, Hessel was clear that resistance could take many forms: “We must recognise that when a country is occupied by infinitely superior military means, the popular reaction cannot be only nonviolent,” he said.
In his time, he lived by those words.
Resistance – a precious band of brothers and sisters Here’s a statistic that should make you think. In the Second World War less than 2 percent of French people played any active role in the Resistance. Most people just sat back and got on with their lives whether they liked the Germans or didn’t.
The Jews and others were dealt to, stamped on and shipped out, while most of the French could trundle on unharassed. The heavy lifting of resistance was done by a small band of brothers and sisters who took it to the enemy.
History salutes them, as we now salute the Suffragettes, the anti-Apartheid activists, the American civil rights groups and Irish liberation fighters. We’re living through something similar now — and our governments are the bad guys.
I first learned that shocking fact about the composition of the Resistance from my history teacher at l’Université de Franche-Comté, in France in the 1980s. He was the distinguished historian Antoine Casanova, a specialist on Napoleon, Corsica and the Resistance.
Perhaps the low level of resistance is not surprising. Most of the people who put their bodies on the line in Occupied France during the Second World War were either communists or Jews. Good on them. Jewish people made up as much as 20 percent of the French Resistance despite numbering only about 1 percent of the population. This massive over-representation can, understandably, be explained as recognition of the existential threat they faced — but many were also passionate communists or socialists, the ideological enemies of the racist, fascist ideology of their occupiers.
Looking at the Israeli State today, many of those same Jewish Resistance fighters would instantly recognise the racism and fascism that they opposed in the 1940s. We should remember our leaders tell us we share values with Israel.
For anyone not in the United Kingdom (where it is illegal to show any support for Palestine Action) I highly recommend the recently released documentary To Kill A War Machine which gives an absolutely riveting account of both the direct action the group has undertaken and the moral and ideological underpinnings of their actions.
Having seen the documentary I can see why the British Labour government is doing everything in its power to silence and censor them. They really do expose who the true terrorists are. Stéphane Hessel would be proud of Palestine Action.
This week a former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made clear what is going on in Gaza.
The “humanitarian city” Israel is planning to build on the ruins of Rafah would be, in his words, a concentration camp. Others have described it as a Warsaw-ghetto or a “death camp”. Olmert says Israel is clearly committing war crimes in both Gaza and the West Bank and that the concentration camp for the Gazan population would mark a further escalation.
It would go beyond ethnic cleansing and take the Jewish State of Israel shoulder-to-shoulder with other regimes that built such camps. Israel, we should never forget, is our close ally.
Millions of people have hit the streets in Western countries. A majority clearly repudiate what the US and Israel are doing. But the political leadership of the big Western countries continues to enable the racist, fascist genocidal state of Israel to do its evil work. Lesser powers of the white-dominated broederbond, like Australia and New Zealand, also provide valuable support.
Until our populations in the West mobilise in sufficient numbers to force change on our increasingly criminal ruling elites, the heavy-lifting done by groups like Palestine Action will remain powerful forms of the resistance.
I grew up in the Catholic faith. One of the lines indelibly printed on my consciousness was: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Palestine Action is doing that. Francesca Albanese is doing that. Justice for Palestine and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa are doing this.
The real question, the burning question each of us must answer is — given there is no middle ground, there is no fence to sit on when it comes to genocide — whose side are you on? And what are you going to do about it? Vive la Resistance! Vive the defenders of the Palestinian cause!
Rest in Peace Stéphane Hessel. Le temps passe, le souvenir reste.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
Greenpeace pioneer and activist Susi Newborn is among the “nuclear free heroes” featured in a video tribute premiered this week in an exhibition dedicated to a nuclear-free Pacific.
A segment dedicated to the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement features Newborn making a passionate speech about the legend of the “Warriors of the Rainbow” on the steps of the Auckland Museum in July 2023 just weeks before she died.
Newborn was an Aotearoa New Zealand author, documentary film-maker, environmental activist and a founding director of Greenpeace UK and co-founder of Greenpeace International.
She was an executive director of the New Zealand non-for-profit group Women in Film and Television.
Newborn was also one of the original crew members on the first Rainbow Warrior which was bombed in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 2025.
The ship’s successor, Rainbow Warrior III, a state-of-the-art environmental campaign ship, has been docked at Halsey Wharf this month for a memorial ceremony to honour the 40th anniversary of the loss of photographer Fernando Pereira and the ship, sabotaged by French secret agents.
Effective activists
In a tribute after her death, Greenpeace stalwart Rex Weyler wrote: “Susi Newborn [was] one of the most skilled and effective activists in Greenpeace’s 52-year history.”
“In 1977, when Susi arrived in Canada for her first Greenpeace action to protect infant harp seal pups in Newfoundland, she was already something of a legend,” Weyler wrote.
“Journalistic tradition would have me refer to her as ‘Newborn’, a name that rang with significance, but I can only think of her as Susi, the tough, smart activist from London.”
Legends of a Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific. Video: Talanoa TV
Among other activists featured in the video are NFIP academic Dr Marco de Jong; Presbyterian minister Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua; Professor Vijay Naidu, founding president of the Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG); Polynesian Panthers founder Will ‘Ilolahia; NFIP advocate Hilda Halkyard-Harawira (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawe); community educator and activist Del Abcede; retired media professor, journalist and advocate Dr David Robie; Anglican priest who founded the Peace Squadron, Reverend George Armstrong; and United Liberation Movement for West Papua vice-president Octo Mote, interviewed at the home of peace author and advocate Maire Leadbeater.
The video sound track is from Herbs’ famous French Letter about nuclear testing in the Pacific.
“It is so important to record our stories and history — especially for our children and future generations,” said video creator Nik Naidu.
Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific . . . an early poster.
“They need to hear the truth from our “legends” and “leaders”. Those who stood for justice and peace.
“The freedoms and benefits we all enjoy today are a direct result of the sacrifice and activism of these legends.”
The video has been one of the highlights of the “Legends” exhibition, created by Heather Devere, Del Abcede and David Robie of the Asia Pacific Media Network; Nik Naidu of the APMN as well as co-founder of the Whānau Community Hub; Antony Phillips and Tharron Bloomfield of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga; and Rachel Mario of the Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group and Whānau Hub.
Support has also come from the Ellen Melville Centre (venue and promotion), Padet (for the video series), Pax Christi, Women’s International League for Peace Freedom (WILPF) Aotearoa, and the Quaker Peace Fund.
Professor Vijay Naidu of the University of the South Pacific . . . founding president of the Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG), one of the core groups in the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement. Image: APR
On Aug. 21, 2021, the editorial board of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) published its support for “Cop City”—a then-proposed $90 million training facility for police and fire personnel; the cost of which has since ballooned to over $109 million, according to the most recently available reports. The Atlanta City Council had tabled a vote on a lease agreement for the proposed Cop City facility just days earlier after receiving tremendous opposition from residents, activists, and environmentalists. In its letter, which ran in the legacy paper’s Sunday edition, the editorial board—whose members included Kevin Riley, the paper’s editor-in-chief—argued that a “crime wave” necessitated the facility’s quick approval and pleaded with the city council to revisit the vote as early as its next meeting.
The New York Times has published an op-ed by a genocide scholar who says that he resisted acknowledging the truth of what Israel is doing in Gaza for as long as he could, but can no longer deny the obvious.
It’s an admission that may as well have come from The New York Times itself.
In an article titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”, a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies named Omer Bartov argues that “Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza,” and denounces his fellow Holocaust scholars for failing to acknowledge reality.
“My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” Bartov writes. “Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer, and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one.”
And resist he did. In November 2023, Bartov wrote another op-ed for The New York Times saying, “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening.”
Apparently, he is seeing the proof now and has stopped resisting what has been clear from the very beginning. And it would seem the editors of the Gray Lady have ceased resisting as well.
In an internal memo obtained by The Intercept last year, New York Times reporters were explicitly told to avoid the use of the word “genocide”, as well as terms like “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territory”.
“‘Genocide’ has a specific definition in international law,” the memo reads. “In our own voice, we should generally use it only in the context of those legal parameters. We should also set a high bar for allowing others to use it as an accusation, whether in quotations or not, unless they are making a substantive argument based on the legal definition.”
Earlier this year, the American Friends Service Committee cancelled its paid advertisement in The New York Times calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, saying the outlet had wanted them to change the word “genocide” to “war” in order for their ad to be published.
What is significant is that even experts who’ve been resisting acknowledging the reality of the genocide in Gaza because of their bias toward Israel have stopped doing so, and that even the imperial media outlets most fiendishly devoted to running propaganda cover for that genocide have run out of room to hide.
The Israel apologists have lost the argument. They might not know it yet, but they have. Public sentiment has turned irreversibly against them as people’s eyes are opened to the truth of what’s happening in Gaza, and more and more propagandists are choosing to rescue what’s left of their tattered credibility instead of going down with the sinking ship.
Truth is slowly beginning to get a word in edgewise.
The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate is on the verge of stripping more than a billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which could decimate local news stations. On Tuesday, the chamber voted 50-50, with a tie broken by Vice President JD Vance to move forward with debate on the package, which is underway as of Wednesday morning. Three Republicans — Sens.
During President Donald Trump’s second term, education has remained a central battleground in American politics. Republicans claim that classrooms have become hotbeds of “woke” indoctrination, accusing educators of promoting progressive agendas and tolerating antisemitism. In contrast, Democrats argue that conservatives are systematically defunding and dismantling public and higher education precisely because it teaches values like diversity, equity, and inclusion. While these partisan skirmishes dominate headlines, they obscure a much deeper and more enduring issue that encompasses all of these issues and more: the influence of corporate and military power on public education.
For decades, scholars have warned that corporations have steadily infiltrated the classroom—not to promote critical thinking or democratic values, but to cultivate ideologies that reinforce capitalism, nationalism, and militarism. Critical media literacy educators, in particular, have drawn attention to the convergence of tech firms and military entities in education, offering so-called “free” digital tools that often serve as Trojan horses for data collection and ideological control.
One striking example is the rise of programs like NewsGuard, which uses public fears over fake news to justify increased surveillance of students’ online activity. Relatedly, in 2018, the Atlantic Council partnered with Meta to perform “fact-checking” on platforms such as Facebook. In 2022, the US Marine Corps discussed developing media literacy training. It remains to be seen what training, if any, they will develop. However, what is known is that a large global player has entered the media literacy arena: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While NATO presents its initiatives as supportive of media literacy and democratic education, these efforts appear to be oriented more toward reinforcing alignment with its strategic and political priorities than to fostering critical civic engagement.
NATO was created in 1949, during the Cold War, as a military alliance to contain communism. Although the war officially ended in 1991, NATO has expanded both its mission and membership. Today, it encompasses more than thirty member nations and continues to frame itself as a global force for peace, democracy, and security. But this self-image masks real conflicts of interest.
NATO is deeply intertwined with powerful nation-states and corporate actors. It routinely partners with defense contractors, tech firms, think tanks, and Western governments—all of which have a vested interest in maintaining specific political and economic systems. These relationships raise concerns when NATO extends its reach into education. Can a military alliance—closely linked to the defense industry and state propaganda—credibly serve as a neutral force in media education?
In 2022, NATO associates collaborated with the US-based Center for Media Literacy (CML) to launch a media literacy initiative framed as a strategic defense against misinformation. The initiative included a report titledBuilding Resiliency: Media Literacy as a Strategic Defense Strategy for the Transatlantic, authored by CML’s Tessa Jolls. It was accompanied by a series of webinars featuring military personnel, policy experts, and academics.
On the surface, the initiative appeared to promote digital literacy and civic engagement. But a closer look reveals a clear ideological agenda. Funded and organized by NATO, the initiative positioned media literacy not as a means of empowering students to think critically about how power shapes media, but as a defense strategy to protect NATO member states from so-called “hostile actors.” The curriculum emphasized surveillance, resilience, and behavior modification over reflection, analysis, and democratic dialogue.
Throughout their webinars, NATO representatives described the media environment as a battlefield, frequently using other war metaphors such as “hostile information activities” and “cognitive warfare.” Panelists argued that citizens in NATO countries were targets of foreign disinformation campaigns—and that media literacy could serve as a tool to inoculate them against ideological threats.
A critical review of NATO’s media literacy initiative reveals several troubling themes. First, it frames media literacy as a protectionist project rather than an educational one. Students are portrayed less as thinkers to be empowered and more as civilians to be monitored, molded, and managed. In this model, education becomes a form of top-down, preemptive defense, relying on expert guidance and military oversight rather than democratic participation.
Second, the initiative advances a distinctly neoliberal worldview. It emphasizes individual responsibility over structural analysis. In other words, misinformation is treated as a user error, rather than the result of flawed systems, corporate algorithms, or media consolidation. This framing conveniently absolves powerful actors, including NATO and Big Tech, of their role in producing or amplifying disinformation.
Third, the initiative promotes a contradictory definition of empowerment. While the report and webinars often use the language of “citizen empowerment,” they ultimately advocate for surveillance, censorship, and ideological conformity. Panelists call for NATO to “dominate” the information space, and some even propose systems to monitor students’ attitudes and online behaviors. Rather than encouraging students to question power—including NATO itself—this approach rewards obedience and penalizes dissent.
Finally, the initiative erases the influence of corporate power. Although it criticizes authoritarian regimes and “hostile actors,” it fails to examine the role that Western corporations, particularly tech companies, play in shaping media environments. This oversight is especially problematic given that many of these corporations are NATO’s partners. By ignoring the political economy of media, the initiative offers an incomplete and ideologically skewed version of media literacy.
NATO’s foray into media literacy education represents a new frontier in militarized pedagogy. While claiming to promote democracy and resilience, its initiative advances a narrow, protectionist, and neoliberal approach that prioritizes NATO’s geopolitical goals over student empowerment.
This should raise red flags for educators, policymakers, and advocates. Media literacy is not a neutral practice. The organizations that design and fund media literacy programs inevitably shape the goals and methods of those programs. When a military alliance like NATO promotes media education, it brings with it a strategic interest in ideological control.
Educators must ask: What kind of media literacy are we teaching—and whose interests does it serve? If the goal is to produce informed, critically thinking citizens capable of questioning power in all its forms, then NATO’s approach falls short. Instead of inviting students to explore complex media systems, it simplifies them into a binary struggle between “us” and “them,” encouraging loyalty over literacy.
True media literacy must begin with transparency about who and what is behind the curriculum. It must empower students to question all forms of influence—governmental, corporate, and military alike. And it must resist the creeping presence of militarism in our classrooms. As educators, we must defend the right to question, not just the messages we see, but the institutions that shape them.
In today’s more integrated world, content is king. But for those independent creators of media – filmmakers and documentarians, podcasters and YouTubers – language barriers have been a prohibitive fortress. Traditional audio dubbing, with its high prices, long turnaround times, and complicated logistical requirements, has been beyond their reach. This has kept incredible, powerful stories in their original languages, drastically reducing their global reach and potential impact. But an extraordinary revolution is brewing: free and extremely accessible AI-driven audio dubbing. This technology is no marginal upgrade; it is an earth-shattering disruptor, equalizing international content distribution and evening the playing field for individual voices.
For far too long, the independent media sector has faced serious hurdles when reaching international targets. Resource limitations, access to capital, and sheer logistics of localization have historically limited growth. Independent filmmakers, journalists, and content producers typically work with limited budgets, meaning thousands of dollars spent on professional human dubbing is a pipe dream. This was a reality that ensured impressive storytelling, diverse viewpoints, and crucial information created beyond mainstream studios hardly crossed their initial language boundaries. This meant that a tremendous international audience, hungry for varied content, went largely without, and independent producers lacked important revenue channels and greater reach.
The Dawn of AI Dubbing
Here comes AI audio dubbing. This state-of-the-art technology uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to translate dialogue into numerous languages and generate voiceovers. In contrast to its conventional version, AI dubbing streamlines a lot of the process, significantly minimizing the required huge studio time and costly voice actors. The outcome? Localization is not only substantially quicker – 30 times faster than traditional practices – but also much cheaper, bringing it within reach of nearly anyone with access to the internet. This historic cost-effectiveness is where the real potential of AI dubbing free tools (or at least extremely cheap freemium models) resides. It converts an exorbitantly costly luxury into a real, daily tool for free creators, enabling them to invest in other key areas such as boosting visual effects or promotions.
Shattering Language Barriers and Expanding Reach
The most direct and far-reaching effect of free audio dubbing is its capacity to erase language boundaries. Content providers can now convert their material into various languages with ease, opening doors for them to international audiences hitherto inaccessible. Picture a low-budget indie movie out of India with deep cultural undertones made available to audiences in Spain, Germany, or Japan. Or an educational niche podcast, in French to begin with, suddenly engaging listeners in English-speaking territories. This broadening of audience reach is no longer a fantasy but a concrete reality, promoting cultural exchange and facilitating diverse tales to resonate across the globe.
This media democratization goes beyond simple translation. AI dubbing systems are getting highly advanced, allowing for reproductions of voice tone and pitch nuances and even emotional expression so that the original performance loses no expressiveness. While human dubbing remains a luxury for high-budget productions calling for subtle emotional complexity, AI solutions offer a great, scalable, and adjustable alternative that is continually improving. This allows independent creators to keep their distinct brand voice and personality intact throughout all language versions, creating greater connections to their newly expanded international communities.
Cost and Time Efficiency: The Savior of Independents
For independent media, where every hour and every dollar matters, the cost and time-saving benefits of AI dubbing are a lifeline. The old-fashioned methods of dubbing take weeks or months, looking more like original production workflows in their complexity and cost. AI dubbing facilitates this significantly, cutting down production time to just hours or days from weeks, which is perfect for time-critical projects such as news, episodic shows, or live events. This enables solo creators to concentrate more on their primary content, edit their storytelling, and interact with their viewers instead of being overwhelmed by the lengthy and expensive process of localization.
In addition, AI dubbing scalability is paramount to independent organizations. Either a single video or a full library of content, AI can dub multiple languages at the same time. This gives independent media the capability to roll out content across the world significantly quicker, leveraging current events and growing their marketplace presence without the investment hurdle historically necessary. Case studies, even from business AI dubbing solutions, emphasize how this technology facilitates new streams of revenue and lowers time-to-market considerably for different types of media, such as news and episodic programming.
Conclusion: A New Era for Independent Voices
The future of independent media is deeply influenced by available AI voice technology. Beyond translation, AI dubbing boosts accessibility for all audiences, including the visually impaired, with sophisticated text-to-speech. AI dubbing also provides content personalization beyond any other technology, adapting voices to regional accents and tastes – a capability previously unimaginable for independent producers. As AI tools improve in realism and integrate smoothly into workflows, they enable a new generation of creators. This revolution is not merely technological; it’s about making the world more heard, seen, and understood and enriching our media culture with many varied voices.
One might naively think that a national public-service broadcaster would inform the public about matters of national interest. Surely no reasonable person would deny that the public has a right to know what the government is doing in our name. But, over and above this basic requirement, a responsible public-service broadcaster should also scrutinize the government’s actions and statements, and challenge them robustly.
Instead, as Declassified UK has reported, Britain’s ‘obedient’ defence correspondents, including BBC journalists, are covering up British spy flights for Israel. The RAF has carried out more than 500 surveillance flights over Gaza since December 2023. The Ministry of Defence insists that the flights, undertaken by aircraft based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, are solely to assist in providing information about Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October 2023. But the British ‘mainstream’ media, which largely serves state-corporate interests, not the public interest, have not carried out a single investigation into the extent, impact, or legal status of these flights.
Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based charity that records, investigates, and disseminates evidence of armed violence against civilians worldwide, has analysed flight-tracking data over or close to Gaza. They found that between 3 December 2023 and 27 March 2025, the RAF carried out at least 518 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) flights in or near Gaza’s airspace.
AOAV found that the RAF conducted 24 flights in the two weeks leading up to and including the day of Israel’s deadly attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp on 8 June 2024, which reportedly killed 274 Palestinians and injured over 700. Four Israeli hostages were rescued in the operation.
Iain Overton, the Executive Director of AOAV, noted that:
‘This is not the only instance where UK ISR flights have coincided with major Israeli military assaults. In the two weeks leading up to Israel’s attack on Rafah on 12 February 2024, which killed at least 67 Palestinians, the RAF flew 15 ISR missions over Gaza. Flights continued even during the so-called “limited ceasefire” in early 2025, with six flights recorded in February alone.’
He added:
‘With no parliamentary oversight or public scrutiny, it remains unclear how much British intelligence gathered from these flights has been shared with Israel.’
This is surely a significant question that responsible journalists should be raising, particularly the national broadcaster. But, as Declassified UK has observed, the BBC has essentially remained ‘silent’ on whether these flights are contributing to the UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide and war crimes in Gaza.
In an article jointly published by Declassified UK and The National newspaper in Scotland, Des Freedman, Professor of Media & Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, wrote:
‘thanks to dogged work by campaigners, independent journalists and pro-Palestine MPs, we know both that the flights are continuing to operate (as they did even throughout the ceasefire) and that spikes in the number of flights have coincided with especially deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza.
‘The lack of curiosity on the part of mainstream media is perhaps not surprising but it is deeply troubling.’
He added:
‘It’s hard to reconcile this silence with the energy with which mainstream media have investigated Russian spy planes flying over Ukraine and other military manoeuvres related to Putin’s invasion.’
On 7 July, we challenged Jonathan Beale, the BBC’s defence correspondent, via X, linking to Freedman’s article:
‘Why are you claiming “cover-up” – without a shred of evidence of what’s supposed to have been covered up? I’m curious as to how a media lecturer at Goldsmiths seems to have knowledge of “intelligence” that no other journalist has seen?’
A few minutes later, having now been alerted to the Declassified UK article, he confronted Freedman:
‘Please tell us Des as to how we can get the classified intelligence only you seem to know about. Why teach media studies when you can clearly scoop us all?’
‘As you know Jonathan, I don’t have access to classified files but to open news databases. Is any of the story incorrect? Instead of a snippy response, surely it would be better to use your contacts to investigate a story that’s in the public interest?’
‘In a bizarre admission he [Beale] suggests that open source information on military flights is “classified”, raising the question – how do BBC journalists investigate the British military?’
The answer, of course, is that BBC journalists, along with other state stenographers, have learned not to investigate too deeply if they are to retain their privileged position.
When Declassified UK challenged Richard Burgess, the BBC’s director of news content, he gave this response befitting a senior news apparatchik:
‘I don’t think we should overplay the UK’s contribution to what’s happening in Israel.’
Why did Burgess say, ‘in Israel’? Did he just erase Palestine? Is he actually unaware that Gaza is an occupied Palestinian territory?
As if that was not already a bizarre and misleading form of words, consider this. Nobody is asking the BBC to ‘overplay’ what the UK is doing; but simply to report it, rather than bury it to the point of invisibility. Whitewashing genocide as ‘what’s happening in Israel’ is wretched BBC newspeak.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour Party leader, has called for a public inquiry to determine what the UK government is hiding about its role in Israel’s genocide, including RAF flights from Cyprus. In an article for the Morning Star, he wrote:
‘We have also repeatedly asked for the truth regarding the role of British military bases in Cyprus, concerning the transfer of arms and the supply of military intelligence.
‘When the Prime Minister visited RAF Akrotiri in December 2024, he was filmed telling troops: “The whole world and everyone back at home is relying on you.” He added: “Quite a bit of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time. We can’t necessarily tell the world what you’re doing.” What does the government have to hide?’
Corbyn continued:
‘Over the past 18 months, our questions have been met with evasion, obstruction and silence, leaving the public in the dark over the ways in which the responsibilities of government have been discharged. Transparency and accountability are cornerstones of democracy. The British public deserves to know the full scale of Britain’s complicity in crimes against humanity.’
And the British public-service broadcaster, along with the UK’s other major news outlets, should have been reporting this since October 2023. As Mark Curtis, co-director of Declassified UK, commented:
‘Britain’s national media are doing a wonderful job covering up the extent of British support for Israel during a genocide. It’s their most impressive performance since destroying the prospects of a decent government under Jeremy Corbyn in 2015-19.’
A Devastating Indictment Of BBC ‘Impartiality’
The BBC’s Richard Burgess, quoted above, was speaking in parliament at the launch of a study by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) into the BBC’s coverage of Israel and Gaza. The report examined BBC content from 7 October 2023 to 7 October 2024. A total of 3,873 BBC articles and 32,092 segments broadcast on BBC television and radio were analysed.
Palestinian deaths treated as less newsworthy: Despite Gaza suffering 34 times more casualties than Israel, BBC gave Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage per fatality and ran almost equal numbers of humanizing victim profiles (279 Palestinians vs 201 Israelis).
Systematic language bias favouring Israelis: BBC used emotive terms four times more for Israeli victims, applied ‘massacre’ 18 times more to Israeli casualties, and used ‘murder’ 220 times for Israelis versus once for Palestinians.
Suppression of genocide allegations: BBC presenters shut down genocide claims in over 100 documented instances whilst making zero mention of Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements, including Netanyahu’s biblical Amalek reference (see below).
Muffling Palestinian voices: The BBC interviewed significantly fewer Palestinians than Israelis (1,085 v 2,350) on television and radio, while BBC presenters shared the Israeli perspective 11 times more frequently than the Palestinian perspective (2,340 v 217).
These findings show that the BBC values the lives of Israelis much more than the lives of Palestinians. This is part of a bigger picture of BBC News coverage conforming to the Israeli narrative, a key feature of BBC journalism going back decades. The CfMM report is a devastating indictment of the BBC’s endlessly repeated, robotic claim of ‘impartiality’.
At the parliamentary launch of the CfMM report, Burgess was also challenged by Peter Oborne, the former chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph. The exchange was filmed by someone at the meeting. Oborne robustly confronted Burgess with as many as six ways in which BBC News has misled its audiences. Independent journalist Jonathan Cook helpfully detailed these six points, while providing crucial context, which can be summarised as follows:
1. The BBC has never mentioned the Hannibal directive, implemented by Israel on 7 October 2023, that permitted the Israeli killing of Israeli civilians, often by Apache helicopter fire, to prevent them from being taken captive by Hamas. See our media alert about this from February 2025.
2. The BBC has never mentioned Israel’s Dahiya doctrine, which underlies Israel’s murderous ‘mowing the lawn’ Gaza strategy over the past two decades: repeated devastating assaults on the Palestinians in Gaza to weaken their resistance to the brutal and illegal Israeli occupation, and to make it easier to ethnically cleanse them.
3. The BBC has not reported the many dozens of genocidal statements from Israeli officials since 7 October. In particular, the BBC buried Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblically-inspired comparison of the Palestinians to ‘Amalek’ – a people the Jews were instructed by God to wipe from the face of the earth.
4. By contrast, as reported in the CfMM study, on more than 100 occasions when guests have tried to refer to what is happening in Gaza as genocide, BBC staff have immediately shut them down on air.
5. The BBC has largely ignored Israel’s campaign of murdering Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
6. Finally, Oborne observed that the distinguished Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, who lives in the UK and teaches at Oxford University, has never been invited to appear on the BBC.
Cook noted:
‘Unlike the Israeli spokespeople familiar to BBC audiences, who are paid to muddy the waters and deny Israel’s genocide, Shlaim is both knowledgeable about the history of Israeli colonisation of Palestine and truly independent. […] His research has led him to a series of highly critical conclusions about Israel’s historical and current treatment of the Palestinians. He calls what Israel is doing in Gaza a genocide.’
Cook added:
‘He is one of the prominent Israelis we are never allowed to hear from, because they are likely to make more credible and mainstream a narrative the BBC wishes to present as fringe, loopy and antisemitic. Again, what the BBC is doing – paid for by British taxpayers – isn’t journalism. It is propaganda for a foreign state.’
The BBC Is Being led by A ‘PR Person’
When the BBC dropped the powerful documentary, ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’, it compounded its complicity in Israel’s genocide. The Corporation’s earlier withdrawal of ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’, had already epitomised how much the UK’s national broadcaster is beholden to the Israel lobby (see our media alert here).
‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack’ details how Israel has systematically targeted hospitals, health care centres, medics themselves, and even their families. Doctors told the filmmakers of how they had been detained, beaten, and tortured by the Israelis, as confirmed by an anonymous Israeli whistleblower. The nonsensical reason given by the BBC for cancelling the film, which it had itself commissioned from Basement Films, was the risk that broadcasting it would create ‘a perception of partiality’. Reporting the truth about Israel’s crimes would be ‘partial’? Such inversion of reality has become standard for the national broadcaster.
The film was instead shown by Channel 4 on 2 July. After watching it, Gary Lineker, who had essentially been pushed out of the BBC for his honesty on Gaza and other issues, said that, ‘The BBC should hang its head in shame.’
Yanis Varoufakis, the economist and former Greek finance minister, said:
‘I can’t see how the BBC will ever recover from its headlong leap into this ethical void, all in the name of not upsetting the perpetrators of the most horrific genocide since the end of the 2nd World War.’
Ben de Pear, the documentary’s executive producer for Basement Films and a former Channel 4 News editor, accused the BBC of trying to gag him and others over its decision not to show the documentary. In a statement that he posted to LinkedIn, de Pear said the film had passed through many ‘BBC compliance hoops’ and that the BBC were now attempting to stop him talking about the film’s ‘painful journey’ to the screen:
‘I rejected and refused to sign the double gagging clause the BBC bosses tried multiple times to get me to sign. Not only could we have been sued for saying the BBC refused to air the film (palpably and provably true) but also if any other company had said it, the BBC could sue us.
‘Not only could we not tell the truth that was already stated, but neither could others. Reader, I didn’t sign it.’
At a conference in Sheffield, de Pear criticised Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, over the BBC’s decision to drop the film:
‘All the decisions about our film were not taken by journalists, they were taken by Tim Davie. He is just a PR person. Tim Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making.’
De Pear added:
‘The BBC’s primary purpose is TV news and current affairs, and if it’s failing on that it doesn’t matter what drama it makes or sports it covers. It is failing as an institution. And if it’s failing on that then it needs new management.’
Of course, as Media Lens has long argued and demonstrated with copious examples since our inception in 2001, the BBC isn’t ‘failing’. It is doing precisely what it was set up to do: namely, act as a mouthpiece for establishment power and as an enabler of state crimes.
Almost two months ago, a UN special rapporteur, Dr Michael Fakhri, penned an opinion article in The Guardian newspaper warning that “if aid doesn’t enter Gaza now, 14,000 babies may die.”
“UN peacekeepers must step in,” he added.
Dr Fakhri is the UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food and an associate professor of international law at the University of Oregon.
His article came 15 days after a long list of UN experts — including Dr Fakhri and beginning with the outspoken Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese — published an extraordinary joint statement declaring: “End unfolding genocide or watch it end life in Gaza: UN experts say States face defining choice.”
The joint statement said humanity was descending into “a moral abyss”, and Dr Fakhri decried the response so far of nations as “slow and ghastly”.
On the other hand, he praised the individuals who “mobilise and enforce international law through their own hands”, particularly the Gaza Freedom Flotillas and the land marchers attempting to reach the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza.
Dr Fakhri appears to consider the deployment by the UN General Assembly of UN Peacekeepers as the only feasible option that is practical and also fast enough and vigorous enough to properly address the gravity of the situation in Gaza.
Many others have expressed similar sentiments. For instance, just days after The Guardian article, Ireland’s Labour Party asked the Irish government “to use every lever at its disposal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through a UN-mandated peacekeeping force”.
Dr Fakhri makes his case for UN peacekeepers action. Video: Badil Resource Centre
As another example, DAWN, a group promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa has long advocated for UN Peacekeepers for Gaza and has just started a petition.
Dr Michael Fakhri . . . deployment by the UN General Assembly of peacekeepers is the only feasible option that is practical and fast enough for saving Gaza. Image: UN
DAWN’s petition may have been timed to influence the “emergency summit”
on the crisis being held today and tomorrow in Bogota, Colombia. It is co-hosted by Colombia and South Africa and will be attended by representatives from more than 30 nations and prominent actors such as Albanese.
A crucial point is that Dr Fakhri and others have explained how the UN General Assembly can rapidly deploy a UN Peacekeeping Force for this purpose. This is important because of the widespread, but erroneous, belief that only the UN Security Council — the UN’s other main legislative organ — can authorise UN peacekeeping missions.
Arab League calls for UN peacekeepers . . . but the subheading in this report wrongly says it is up to UNSC to make the call. Image: NYT screenshot
An example of this falsehood being spread by the corporate news media is shown by this New York Times claim.
Whereas all UN member states are equally represented in the General Assembly, the Security Council is dominated by its five permanent members — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, and France — with each having the power to veto all proposals.
But the US is actively supporting Israel’s activities in occupied Palestine, and it would surely block any such peacekeeping initiative if submitted to the Security Council. This leaves it up to the UN General Assembly to organise any UN Peacekeeping Force for Gaza.
As indicated by Dr Fakri, the founding UN Charter of 1945 provides for the General Assembly to step in to restore peace where the Security Council has failed in its primary responsibility to act.
Relevant sections of the UN Charter.
As shown above, primary responsibility was given to the Security Council under the UN Charter for practical reasons only, “to ensure prompt and effective action”.
Formal protocols for the General Assembly to take over from the Security Council were added in 1950, in what is widely referred to as the “Uniting for Peace” resolution. It explicitly provides the option of setting up an armed force, as shown below.
The Uniting for Peace resolution, 1950.
As also shown, Uniting for Peace resolutions are addressed in Emergency Special Sessions of the UN General Assembly. These can be called within 24 hours and from a request by any member state. To be passed, a resolution requires a two-thirds majority of the states that voted either for, or against, the resolution.
Historically, the very first UN Peacekeeping force was set up in this way in response to the Suez Crisis of 1956-7 — see below. Those UN Peacekeepers oversaw the prompt retreat from Egypt of Israel and of the Security Council permanent members, Britain and France. Eventually, in 1957 they were present for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza itself, then a protectorate of Egypt.
UN General Assembly resolutions setting up the first UN Peacekeeping Force in 1956.
Returning to the current circumstances, Dr Fakhri says that if a UN peacekeeping force is formed then Israel’s permission is not required for its deployment in Gaza.
The actual main impediment to the success of the plan may come from covert bullying of UN member nations by the US and Israel. As explained by prominent law professor Francis Boyle: “The US government will bribe, threaten, intimidate and blackmail all members of the UN General Assembly not to [act against] Israel.”
Dr King is a physicist researching topics in renewable energy, with an interest in humanitarian issues.
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has called on the New Zealand government to not follow Australia’s policy moves which would effectively criminalise the Palestine solidarity movement.
Co-chair John Minto said PSNA had no tolerance for anti-semitism in Aotearoa New Zealand, or anywhere else.
“But equally there should be no place for any other kind of racism, such as Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Our government must speak out against all forms of discrimination and support all communities when racism rears its ugly head,” he said.
“Let’s not forget the murderous attacks on the Christchurch mosques.”
Minto said the Australian measures would “inevitably” be used to criminalise the Palestinian solidarity movement across the country.
Trump ‘demonising’ support
“We see it happening in the US, to attack and demonise support for Palestinian human rights by the Trump administration. We see it orchestrated in the UK to shut down any speech which Prime Minister Starmer and the Israeli government don’t like.”
“undermining Australia’s democratic freedoms, inflaming community divisions, and entrenching selective approaches to racism that serve political agendas.”
Minto said the free speech restrictions in the US, UK and Australia had nothing to do with what people usually understand as anti-semitism.
“The drive comes from the Israeli government. They see making anti-semitism charges as the most effective means of preventing anyone publicly pointing to the genocide its armed forces are perpetrating in Gaza,” he said.
“The definition of anti-semitism, usually inserted into codes of ethics or legislation, is from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The IHRA definition includes 11 examples. Seven of the examples are about criticising Israel.”
“It’s quite clear the Israeli campaign is to distract the community from Israel’s horrendous war crimes, such as the round-the-clock mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, and deflect calls for sanctions against Israel.
“Already we can see in both the UK and US, that people have been arrested for saying things about Israel which would not have been declared illegal if they’d said it about other countries, including their own.”
Worrying signs
Minto said there were already worrying signs that the New Zealand government, media and police were “falling into the trap”.
“Just over the past few weeks, there has been an unusually wide-ranging mainstream media focus on anti-semitism,” Minto said citing:
At least one opinion article in the Stuff newspapers from NZ Jewish Council spokesperson Ben Kepes on anti-semitism in New Zealand
A New Zealand Herald podcast featuring Holocaust Foundation spokesperson Deborah Hart. The Holocaust Foundation is partly funded by the Israeli Embassy.
An enthusiastic 1News item on the latest appeal to the government to adopt similar measures here to those taken in Australia (TVNZ One News, 13 July 2025)
Stories highlighting anti-semitic graffiti in Wellington — numerous reports along these lines
However, New Zealand politicians and media had been silent about:
An attack which knocked a young Palestinian woman to the ground when she was using a microphone to speak during an Auckland march
An attack where a Palestine supporter was kicked and knocked to the pavement outside the Israeli embassy in Wellington. The accused was wearing an Israeli flag. He was not held in custody and the Post newspaper has reported neither the arrest nor the resulting charge (this case is due in court July 15)
An attack on a Palestine solidarity marshal in Christchurch who was punched in the face, in front of police, but no action taken.
An attack in Christchurch when a Destiny Church member kicked a solidarity marshal in the chest (no action taken by police)
Anti-Palestinian racist attacks on the home of a Palestine solidarity activist in New Plymouth. One supporter has had their front fence spraypainted twice with pro-Israel graffiti and their car tyres slashed twice (4 tyres in total) and had vile defamatory material circulated in their neighbourhood. (Police say they cannot help)
The refusal of the Human Rights Commission to publicly correct false statements it published in The Post newspaper which claimed anti-semitism was increasing, when in fact the evidence it was using was that the rate of incidents had declined.
‘Silence on mass killings’
Minto said that in each of the cases above there would have been far more attention from politicians, the police and the media had the victims been Israeli supporters.
“Meanwhile, both our government and the New Zealand Jewish Council have refused to condemn Israel’s blatant war crimes. There is silence on the mass killing, mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.
“The Jewish Council and our government stand together and refuse to hold Israel’s racist apartheid regime to account in just about any way.
“Adding to the clear perception of appalling bias on the part of our government, both the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs have met with New Zealand Jewish Council spokespeople over the war in Gaza.
“But both have refused to meet with representatives of Palestinian New Zealanders, or the huge number of Jewish supporters of the Palestine solidarity movement.”
Minto said New Zealand must “stand up and be counted against genocide” wherever it appeared and no matter who the victims were.
A FAIR study found that CNN’s primetime coverage of the Los Angeles anti-ICE protests in early June rarely included the voices of the protesters themselves. Instead, the network’s sources were overwhelmingly current and former government and law enforcement officials. The resulting coverage rarely took issue with Trump’s desire to silence the people who were defending their undocumented neighbors—but mainly debated his decision to deploy the California National Guard to do so.
KJ Noh, peace activist, journalist and co-host of The China Report on @BreakThroughNews joins us to dismantle the ideological architecture of U.S. empire. He exposes how atrocity becomes infrastructure and propaganda becomes profession. From the Ford Foundation’s role in Indonesia’s Cold War genocide to the rise of figures like Orville Schell and Johnny Harris, KJ unpacks how soft power functions as a weapon: manufacturing consent, laundering imperial violence, and shaping global narratives. He exposes how US think tanks, journalism schools, and digital platforms are not just media ecosystems, but actually, ideological battlegrounds built atop bloodshed.
An opposition Labour Party MP today paid tribute to the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, saying it should inspire Aotearoa New Zealand to maintain its own independence, embrace a strong regionalism, and be a “voice for peace and demilitarisation”.
But Phil Twyford, MP for Te Atatu and spokesperson on disarmament, warned that the current National-led coalition government was “rapidly going in the other direction”.
“It mimics the language of the security hawks in Washington and Canberra that China is a threat to our national interests,” he said.
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“That is then the springboard for a foreign policy ‘reset’ under the current government to a closer strategic alignment with the United States and with what are often more broadly referred to as the ‘traditional partners’.
“For that read the Five Eyes members, but particularly the United States.”
Speaking at the opening of the week-long “Legends of the Pacific: Stories of a Nuclear-Free Moana 1975-1995” exhibition at the Ellen Melville Centre, Twyford referred to the 40th anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing by French secret agents on 10 July 2025.
“Much has been made in the years since of what a turning point this was, and how it crystallised in New Zealanders a commitment to the anti-nuclear cause,” he said.
However, he said he wanted to talk about the “bigger regional phenomenon” that shaped activism, public attitudes and official policies across the region, and what it could “teach us today about New Zealand’s place in the world”.
“I am talking about the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement.
The Te Vaerua O Te Rangi dance group performing at the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition opening in Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“Activists and leaders from across the Pacific built a movement that challenged neocolonialism and colonialism, put the voices of the peoples of the Pacific front and centre, and held the nuclear powers to account for the devastating legacy of nuclear testing.”
The NFIP movement led to the creation of the Treaty of Rarotonga, the Pacific’s nuclear weapons free zone, Twyford said. It influenced governments and shaped the thinking of a generation.
Twyford said that with increasing great power rivalry, the rise of authoritarian leaders, and the breakdown of the multilateral system “the spectre of nuclear war has returned”.
Labour’s Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford admiring part of the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition after opening it in Auckland today. Image: Del Abcede/APR
New Zealand faced some stark choices about how it made its way in the world, kept their people and the region safe, and remained “true to the values we’ve always held dear”.
The public debate about the policy “reset” reset had focused on whether New Zealand would be part of AUKUS Pillar Two, “the arrangement to share high end war fighting technology that would sit alongside the first pillar designed to deliver Australia its nuclear submarines”.
Part of the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition honouring Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace photographer killed by French state saboteurs when they bombed the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985. Image: APR
While the New Zealand government had had little to say on AUKUS Pillar Two since the US elections, the defence engagement with the US had “escalated”.
It now included participation in groupings around supply chains, warfighting in space, interconnected naval warfare, and projects on artificial intelligence and cyber capabilities.
China’s growing assertiveness as a great power was not the main threat to New Zealand.
“The biggest threat to our security and prosperity is the possibility of war in Asia between the United States and China,” he said.
NFIP activist Hilda Halkyard-Harawira (Ngāti Haua featured in one of the storytelling videos at the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition. Image: APR
“Rising tensions could conceivably affect trade, and that would be disastrous for us. All-out war, especially if it went nuclear, would be catastrophic for the region and probably for the planet.”
Labour’s view was that security for New Zealand and the Pacific could be pursued through active engagement with the country’s partners across the Tasman and in the Pacific, and Asia — and be a voice for peace and demilitarisation.
Twyford acknowledged Dr Robie’s “seminal book” Eyes of Fire, thanking him for “a lifetime’s work of reporting important stories, exposing injustice and holding the powerful to account”.
Dr Robie spoke briefly about the book as a publishing challenge following his earlier speech at the launch on Thursday.
Other speakers at the opening of the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition included veteran activist such as Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua; Bharat Jamnadas, an organiser of the original Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) conference in Suva, Fiji, in 1975; businessman and community advocate Nikhil Naidu, previously an activist for the Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG); and Dr Heather Devere, peace researcher and chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).
The Te Vaerua O Te Rangi dance group also performed Cook Islands items.
The exhibition has been coordinated by the APMN in partnership with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, with curator Tharron Bloomfield and Antony Phillips; Ellen Melville Centre; and the Whānau Communty Centre and Hub.
It is also supported by Pax Christi, Quaker Peace and Service Fund, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
The exhibition recalls New Zealand’s peace squadrons, a display of activist tee-shirt “flags”, nuclear-free buttons and badges, posters, and other memorabilia. A video storytelling series about NFIP “legends” such as Hilda Halyard-Harawira and Dr Vijay Naidu is also included.
The elite liberal class are having a collective fit of hysteria at the prospect of Zohran Mamdani becoming mayor of New York City. The hand wringing caused by Mamdani’s victory in the recent Democratic Party primary proves to anyone who wasn’t paying attention, that the people allegedly represented by the democrats in fact have no representation at all. The possibility of even a small amount of liberal reformism is terrifying to the ruling class and that can clearly be seen in the way Mamdani has been treated not just by Democratic Party elected officials who don’t want to support him, but by corporate media as well.
And so it has come to pass: US President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” has set the stage for tax cuts for the rich, slashed services for the poor, and a host of other things that qualify as “beautiful” in the present dystopia. Some cuts, like those to Medicaid, have been heavily covered by the corporate media. But one key piece of the bill has gotten much less media scrutiny: The preposterous sum of $175 billion has been allocated to fund Trump’s signature mass deportation campaign, which, as a Salon article (7/3/25) points out, exceeds the military budget for every single country in the world aside from the US and China.
Nuclear-free and independent Pacific advocates are treating Aucklanders to a lively week-long exhibition dedicated to the struggle for nuclear justice in the region.
It will be opened today by the opposition Labour Party’s spokesperson on disarmament and MP for Te Atatu, Phil Twyford, and will include a range of speakers on Aotearoa New Zealand’s record as a champion of a nuclear-free Pacific and an independent foreign policy.
Speaking at a conference last month, Twyford said the country could act as a force for peace and demilitarisation, working with partners across the Pacific and Asia and basing its defence capabilities on a realistic assessment of threats.
Veteran nuclear-free Pacific spokespeople who are expected to speak at the conference include Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua; Bharat Jamnadas, an organiser of the original Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) conference in Suva, Fiji, in 1975; businessman and community advocate Nikhil Naidu, previously an activist for the Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG) and Dr Heather Devere, peace researcher and chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).
A group of Cook Islands young dancers will also take part.
Knowledge to children
One of the organisers, Nik Naidu, told Asia Pacific Report, it was vital to restore the enthusiasm and passion around the NFIP movement as in the 1980s.
“It’s so important to pass on our knowledge to our children and future generations,” he said.
“And to tell the stories of our on-going journey and yearning for true independence in a world free of wars and weapons of mass destruction. This is what a Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific is.”
One of the many nuclear-free posters at the exhibition. Image: APR
The exhibition is is coordinated by the APMN in partnership with the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, with curator Tharron Bloomfield and coordinator Antony Phillips; Ellen Melville Centre; and the Whānau Communty Centre and Hub.
It is also supported by Pax Christi, Quaker Peace and Service Fund, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
It recalls New Zealand’s peace squadrons, a display of activist tee-shirt “flags”, nuclear-free buttons and badges, posters, and other memorabilia.
“It is a sort of back to the future situation where the world is waking up again to a nuclear spectre not really seen since the Cold War years,” he said.
“With the horrendous Israeli genocide on Gaza — it is obscene to call it a war, when it is continuous massacres of civilians; the attacks by two nuclear nations on a nuclear weapons-free country, as is the case with Iran; and threats against another nuclear state, China, are all extremely concerning developments.”
A journalist who was on the Rainbow Warrior voyage to Rongelap last night condemned France for its “callous” attack of an environmental ship, saying “we haven’t forgotten, or forgiven this outrage”.
David Robie, the author of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, said at the launch that the consequences of almost 300 US and French nuclear tests – many of them “dirty bombs” — were still impacting on indigenous Pacific peoples 40 years after the bombing of the ship.
French saboteurs had killed “our shipmate Fernando Pereira” on 10 July 1985 in what the New Zealand prime minister at the time, David Lange, called a “sordid act of international state-backed terrorism”.
Although relations with France had perhaps mellowed over time, four decades ago there was a lot of hostility towards the country, Dr Robie said.
“And that act of mindless sabotage still rankles very deeply in our psyche,” he said at the launch in Auckland Central’s Ellen Melville Centre on the anniversary of July 10.
About 100 people gathered in the centre’s Pioneer Women’s Hall for the book launch as Dr Robie reflected on the case of state terrorism after Greenpeace earlier in the day held a memorial ceremony on board Rainbow Warrior III.
“One of the celebrated French newspapers, Le Monde, played a critical role in the investigation into the Rainbow Warrior affair — what I brand as ‘Blundergate’, in view of all the follies of the bumbling DGSE spy team,” he said.
Plantu cartoon
“And one of the cartoons in that newspaper, by Plantu, who is a sort of French equivalent to Michael Leunig, caught my eye.
“You will notice it in the background slide show behind me. It shows François Mitterrand, the president of the French republic at the time, dressed in a frogman’s wetsuit lecturing to school children during a history lesson.
“President Mitterrand says, in French, ‘At that time, only presidents had the right to carry out terrorism!’
Tahitian advocate Ena Manurevia . . . the background Plantu cartoon is the one mentioned by the author. Image: Asia Pacific Report
He noticed that in the Mitterrand cartoon there was a “classmate” sitting in the back of the room with a moustache. This was none other than Edwy Plenel, the police reporter for Le Monde at the time, who scooped the world with hard evidence of Mitterrand and the French government’s role at the highest level in the Rainbow Warrior sabotage.
Dr Robie said that Plenel now published the investigative website Mediapart, which had played a key role in 2015 revealing the identity of the bomber that night, “the man who had planted the limpet mines on the Rainbow Warrior — sinking a peace and environmental ship, and killing Fernando Pereira.”
Jean-Luc Kister, a retired French colonel and DGSE secret agent, had confessed to his role and “apologised”, claiming the sabotage operation was “disproportionate and a mistake”.
“Was he sincere? Was it a genuine attempt to come to terms with his conscience. Who knows?” Dr Robie said, adding that he was unconvinced.
Hilari Anderson (right on stage), one of the speakers, with Del Abcede and MC Antony Phillips (obscured) . . . the background image shows Helen Clark meeting Fernando Pereira’s daughter Marelle in 2005. Image: Greenpeace
French perspective
Dr Robie said he had asked Plenel for his reflections from a French perspective 40 years on. Plenel cited three main take ways.
“First, the vital necessity of independent journalism. Independent of all powers, whether state, economic or ideological. Journalism that serves the public interest, the right to know, and factual truths.
“Impactful journalism whose revelations restore confidence in democracy, in the possibility of improving it, and in the usefulness of counterbalancing powers, particularly journalism.”
Secondly, this attack had been carried out by France in an “allied country”, New Zealand, against a civil society organisation. This demonstrated that “the thirst for power is a downfall that leads nations astray when they succumb to it.
“Nuclear weapons epitomise this madness, this catastrophe of power.”
Finally, Plenel expressed the “infinite sadness” for a French citizen that after his revelations in Le Monde — which led to the resignations of the defence minister and the head of the secret services — nothing else happened.
“Nothing at all. No parliamentary inquiry, no questioning of François Mitterrand about his responsibility, no institutional reform of the absolute power of the president in a French republic that is, in reality, an elective monarchy.”
‘Elective monarchy’ trend
Dr Robie compared the French outcome with the rapid trend in US today, “a president who thinks he is a monarch, a king – another elective monarchy.”
He also bemoaned that “catastrophe of power” that “reigns everywhere today – from the horrendous Israeli genocide in Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, from Trump to Putin to Netanyahu, and so many others.”
The continuous Gaza massacres were a shameful indictment of the West that had allowed it to happen for more than 21 months.
Dr Robie thanked many collaborators for their help and support, including drama teacher Hilari Anderson, an original crew member of the Rainbow Warrior, and photographer John Miller, “who have been with me all the way on this waka journey”.
He thanked his wife, Del, and family members for their unstinting “patience and support”, and also publisher Tony Murrow of Little Island Press.
Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . published 10 July 2025. Image: David Robie/Little Island Press
Launching the book, Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn said one thing that had stood out for her was how the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior had continued despite the attempt by the French government to shut it down 40 years ago.
“We said then that ‘you can’t sink a rainbow’, and we went on to prove it.
“When the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland harbour, it was getting ready to set sail to Moruroa Atoll, to enter the test exclusion zone and confront French nuclear testing head-on.”
So threatened
The French government had felt so threatened by that action that it had engaged in a state-sanctioned terror attack to prevent the mission from going ahead.
“But we rebuilt, and the Rainbow Warrior II carried on with that mission, travelling to Moruroa three times before the French finally stopped nuclear testing in the Pacific.
“That spirit and tenacity is what makes Greenpeace and what makes the Rainbow Warrior so special to everyone who has sailed on her,” she said.
“It was the final voyage of the Rainbow Warrior to Rongelap before the bombing that is the focus of David Robie’s book, and in many ways, it was an incredibly unique experience for Greenpeace — not just here in Aotearoa, but internationally.
“And of course David was a key part in that.”
O’Flynn said that as someone who had not even been born yet when the Rainbow Warrior was bombed, “I am so grateful that the generation of nuclear-free activists took the time to pass on their knowledge and to build our organisation into what it is today.
“Just as David has by writing down his story and leaving us with such a rich legacy.”
Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn . . . “That spirit and tenacity is what makes Greenpeace and what makes the Rainbow Warrior so special to everyone who has sailed on her.” Image: APR
Other speakers
Among other speakers at the book launch were teacher Hilari Anderson, publisher Tony Murrow of Little Island Press, Ena Manuireva, a Mangarevian scholar and cultural adviser, and MC Antony Phillips of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
Anderson spoke of the Warrior’s early campaigns and acknowledged the crews of 1978 and 1985.
“I have been reflecting what these first and last crews of the original Rainbow Warrior had in common, realising that both gave their collective, mostly youthful energy — to transformation.
“This has involved the bonding of crews by working hands-on together. Touching surfaces, by hammer and paint, created a physical connection to this beloved boat.”
She paid special tribute to two powerful women, Denise Bell, who tracked down the marine research vessel in Aberdeen that became the Rainbow Warrior, and the indomitable Susi Newborn, who “contributed to naming the ship and mustering a crew”.
Manuireva spoke about his nuclear colonial experience and that of his family as natives of Mangareva atoll, about 400 km from Muroroa atoll, where France conducted most of its 30 years of tests ending in 1995.
He also spoke of Tahitian leader Oscar Temaru’s pioneering role in the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, and played haunting Tahitian songs on his guitar.
After the observance of Muharram on July 6, 2025, a video showing a man seated atop what appeared to be a stack of loudspeakers caught the attention of some news channels. The man held a large flag bearing a crescent and star motif. The footage was aired in news bulletins with the claim that the Pakistani national flag had been carried in a Muharram procession in Jamui, Bihar.
News18 Bihar aired the video on July 6, with anchors highlighting the incident and identifying the flag as Pakistan’s national flag. Remarking that the Pakistani flag drew inspiration from the Islamic flag, News18 clarified that the video had not been independently verified by the channel. The location of the incident, was, however, identified as Pairamatihana village in Sono block of Jamui district in Bihar.
During the bulletin, the anchors described the act as potentially problematic and turned to an on-ground reporter for an update. The reporter stated that a formal complaint had been lodged, and police had initiated an investigation. Authorities were currently reviewing the footage, and efforts were underway to identify the individual seen waving the flag, he further reported, adding, once the person was identified, appropriate legal action would be taken.
It is worth noting that News18 Bihar has since deleted both the video and the corresponding post on X. One can watch the relevant part of the bulletin below. An archived version of the X post by the media outlet can be seen here.
Dainik Bhaskar, on July 7, published a report on this in which the headline described the flag as an Islamic flag, but the photo caption and the story itself said it was a Pakistani flag. The story stated that on the evening of Sunday, July 6, during a Muharram procession in Sono, a man was seen waving a flag of Pakistan while being seated over the sound system. The report further claimed that Sono police station-in-charge Dharmendra Kumar acknowledged that the flag had not been noticed by officers at the time. However, he assured that efforts were underway to identify the individual, and appropriate legal action would be taken.
Bhaskar also made a voice-over video report on this which is embedded in the above-mentioned article. At the 5-second mark, the reporter can be heard saying, “Ek yuvak Pakistani Jhandda lehrate huye dikh rahe hai” (A young man is seen waving a Pakistani flag). Again, at the 20-second mark in the video, the reporter alleges the flag in question was the Pakistani national flag. Watch it here:
Right-wing propaganda website OpIndia published an article detailing instances of violence reported during several Muharram processions in Bihar. The article referenced the incident and claimed that the Pakistani national flag had been waved in Jamui. Although police were present at the location, they did not take any action, the article added.
Fact Check
Upon closer examination of the video, it becomes evident that the flag held by the man is an Islamic flag, not the national flag of Pakistan. The flag in question appears black in colour, featuring a crescent and a star, common Islamic symbols. In contrast, Pakistan’s national flag is bright green with a white vertical stripe towards the mast, also bearing a white crescent and a star.
A visual comparison has been done below for clarity.
Alt News reached out to the Sono police station-in-charge Dharmendra Singh, who clarified that the flag seen in the viral video was not the national flag of Pakistan, but an Islamic flag. He further stated that no formal complaint or FIR had been registered in connection with the incident. Singh also noted that the authenticity of the video’s location — whether it was indeed filmed in Sono — was still under investigation.
To sum up, the flag waved by a man at a Muharram procession reportedly in Bihar’s Jamui was not Pakistan’s national flag; it was the Islamic flag. Several media outlets and propaganda website OpIndia misreported the incident and falsely claimed that the Pakistani national flag had been waved.
Forty years ago today, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship Rainbow Warrior in an attempt to stop the environmental organisation’s protest against nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in Mā’ohi Nui.
People gathered on board Rainbow Warrior III to remember photographer Fernando Pereira, who was killed in the attack, and to honour the legacy of those who stood up to nuclear testing in the Pacific.
The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before the bombing was Operation Exodus, a humanitarian mission to the Marshall Islands. There, Greenpeace helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing.
The dawn ceremony was hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and attended by more than 150 people. Speeches were followed by the laying of a wreath and a moment of silence.
Photographer Fernando Pereira and a woman from Rongelap on the day the Rainbow Warrior arrived in Rongelap Atoll in May 1985. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
Tui Warmenhoven (Ngāti Porou), the chair of the Greenpeace Aotearoa board, said it was a day to remember for the harm caused by the French state against the people of Mā’ohi Nui.
Warmenhoven worked for 20 years in iwi research and is a grassroots, Ruatoria-based community leader who works to integrate mātauranga Māori with science to address climate change in Te Tai Rāwhiti.
She encouraged Māori to stand united with Greenpeace.
“Ko te mea nui ki a mātou, a Greenpeace Aotearoa, ko te whawhai i ngā mahi tūkino a rātou, te kāwanatanga, ngā rangatōpū, me ngā tāngata whai rawa, e patu ana i a mātou, te iwi Māori, ngā iwi o te ao, me ō mātou mātua, a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku,” e ai ki a Warmenhoven.
Tui Warmenhoven and Dr Russel Norman in front of Rainbow Warrior III on 10 July 2025. Image:Te Ao Māori News
A defining moment in Aotearoa’s nuclear-free stand “The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was a defining moment for Greenpeace in its willingness to fight for a nuclear-free world,” said Dr Russel Norman, the executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa.
He noted it was also a defining moment for Aotearoa in the country’s stand against the United States and France, who conducted nuclear tests in the region.
Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman speaking at the ceremony on board Rainbow Warrior III today. Image: Te Ao Māpri News
In 1987, the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act officially declared the country a nuclear-free zone.
This move angered the United States, especially due to the ban on nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships entering New Zealand ports.
Because the US followed a policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons, it saw the ban as breaching the ANZUS Treaty and suspended its security commitments to New Zealand.
The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before it was bombed was Operation Exodus, during which the crew helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing between 1946 and 1958.
The evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejatto by the Rainbow Warrior crew in May 1985. Image: Greenpeace/Fernando Pereira
The legacy of Operation Exodus Between 1946 and 1958, the United States carried out 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.
For decades, it denied the long-term health impacts, even as cancer rates rose and children were born with severe deformities.
Despite repeated pleas from the people of Rongelap to be evacuated, the US government failed to act until Greenpeace stepped in to help.
“The United States government effectively used them as guinea pigs for nuclear testing and radiation to see what would happen to people, which is obviously outrageous and disgusting,” Dr Norman said.
He said it was important not to see Pacific peoples as victims, as they were powerful campaigners who played a leading role in ending nuclear testing in the region.
Marshallese women greet the Rainbow Warrior as it arrived in the capital Majuro in March 2025. Image: Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace
Between March and April this year, Rainbow Warrior III returned to the Marshall Islands to conduct independent research into the radiation levels across the islands to see whether it’s safe for the people of Rongelap to return.
What advice do you give to this generation about nuclear issues? “Kia kotahi ai koutou ki te whai i ngā mahi uaua i mua i a mātou ki te whawhai i a rātou mā, e mahi tūkino ana ki tō mātou ao, ki tō mātou kōkā a Papatūānuku, ki tō mātou taiao,” hei tā Tui Warmenhoven.
A reminder to stay united in the difficult world ahead in the fight against threats to the environment.
Warmenhoven also encouraged Māori to support Greenpeace Aotearoa.
Tui Warmenhoven and the captain of the Rainbow Warrior, Ali Schmidt, placed a wreath in the water at the stern of the ship in memory of Fernando Pereira. Image: Greenpeace
Dr Norman believed the younger generations should be inspired to activism by the bravery of those from the Pacific and Greenpeace who campaigned for a nuclear-free world 40 years ago.
“They were willing to take very significant risks, they sailed their boats into the nuclear test zone to stop those nuclear tests, they were arrested by the French, beaten up by French commandos,” he said.
Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.
Join us for this guided “virtual tour” around the Rainbow Warrior III in Auckland Harbour on the afternoon of 10 July 2025 — the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original flagship.
The Rainbow Warrior is a special vessel — it’s one of three present-day Greenpeace ships.
The Rainbow Warrior works on the biggest issues affecting the future of our planet. It was the first ship in our fleet that was designed and built specifically for activism at sea.
Virtual tour of the Rainbow Warrior. Video: Greenpeace
It also represents a continuation of the legacy of the previous two Rainbow Warriors.
On this anniversary day we explored the ship and talked to key people about the current campaign to protect the world’s oceans.
Programmes director Niamh O’Flynn presented the tour, starting on Halsey Wharf.
Thanks to third mate Adriana, oceans campaigner Ellie; author David Robie, who sailed on the original Rainbow Warrior on the 1985 Rongelap relocation mission and whose new anniversary edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior is being launched tonight, radio engineer Neil and Captain Ali!
I didn’t know much about the surrounding context of the infamous Rainbow Warrior bombing 40 years ago on Thursday. All I knew was that we, as a country, have not forgotten.
I was born in 1996, and although I didn’t know much about the vessel’s bombing, which galvanised anti-nuclear sentiment across Aotearoa further, the basics were common knowledge growing up.
On 10 July 1985, French secret agents destroyed the Rainbow Warrior at Marsden Wharf in Auckland, killing Portuguese-born Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira and sparking global outrage.
The Rainbow Warrior protested nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, specifically targeting French atmospheric and underground nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls.
Their efforts drew international attention to the environmental devastation and human suffering caused by decades of radioactive fallout.
There’s plenty to learn from this book in terms of the facts, but what I took away from it most is its continued relevance since its original publication in 1986.
The opening prologue is former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark’s reflection on the Warrior’s bombing, Pereira’s death and the current socio-political climate of today in relation to back then.
Clark makes remarks on AUKUS, nuclear weapons and geopolitical pressures, describing it all as “storm clouds gathering again”.
The Nuclear Free Pacific banner on the Rainbow Warrior. Image: David Robie
Nuclear fallout It has been a tumultuous period for the Pacific region in the political realm, between being at the mercy of a tug-of-war between global superpowers and the impending finality of climate change to the livelihoods of many.
With EOF’s 40th Anniversary edition, it is yet another documentation of these turbulent times for the Pacific, which have never really stopped since colonial powers first made contact.
Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 atmospheric and underwater tests in the Marshall Islands. Then, in 1966, the French launched 46 atmospheric tests between 1966 and 1974, followed by 147 underground bombs from 1975 to 1996 after widespread international protest and scrutiny.
Specifically, the US 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test, the largest atmospheric hydrogen bomb test, resulted in the fallout’s ash coating Rongelap Atoll. Though the US evacuated residents days later, they returned them in 1957, leaving them to suffer from health effects like miscarriages, cancer, and birth deformities.
Eventually, the Rainbow Warrior helped evacuate the Rongelap people in 1985 over several trips, where the locals packed down their homes and brought them onboard.
Throughout history to today, there’s a theme of constant disregard and dehumanisation of my people by the West.
PMN News interview with Dr David Robie on 20 May 2025.
When does it stop? A decade prior to the Rongelap evacuation, the infamous Dawn Raids occurred, where it wasn’t until 1986 that a Race Relations investigation found Pacific people comprised roughly a third of overstayers yet represented 86 per cent of all prosecutions.
The 506-day Bastion Point protest also occurred between 1977 and 1978, where Ngāti Whātua, led by Joe Hawke, pushed back against a proposed Crown sale of that land.
In the end, around 500 NZ police and army forcefully evicted the peaceful protestors.
So, while this was all happening, the Pacific, specifically the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia region, were reeling from the decades of nuclear testing and consequential sickness, pain and death.
Today, the Pacific is stuck between geopolitical egos, the fear of being used as a resource stepping stone, internal struggles, economic destabilisation and pleas for climate change to be made a priority not to save sinking islands but the world.
Amid this “political football”, it constantly feels like Pacific and Māori end up being the ball.
Robie’s book tells heartfelt moments with its facts, which helps connect to its story at a deeper level beyond sharing genealogy with the people involved.
Voices within it don’t hold back their urgency or outrage towards what happened, especially how that past negligence by bodies of power continues today.
When I read books like EOF 40th, whether it’s about my tangata Māori or Tagata Moana, I often close them and wonder: When do we get a break? When does it stop?
I wish I had an answer, but I don’t. At least we will always have answers on what happened to the Rainbow Warrior and why.
No matter what, it is indisputable that an informed generation will navigate the future better than their predecessors, and with EOF 40th, they’ll be well-equipped.
Interested in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement is up to? Step right up to read ICE’s many press releases touting their accomplishments, watch Dr. Phil’s ICE ride-alongs on his new TV network, and, of course, follow ICE on social platform X.
Just don’t expect to read independent reporting about ICE activity — at least not if government officials get their way. Journalists and members of the public who report on ICE are increasingly under attack by officials who would prefer to silence them so government propaganda can fill the information void.
The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has sailed into Auckland to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior in 1985.
Greenpeace’s vessel, which had been protesting nuclear testing in the Pacific, sank after French government agents planted explosives on its hull, killing Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.
Today, 40 years on from the events on July 10 1985, a dawn ceremony was held in Auckland.
Author Margaret Mills was a cook on board the ship at the time, and has written about her experience in a book entitled Anecdotage.
Author Margaret Mills tells TVNZ Breakfast about the night of the Rainbow Warrior bombing 40 years ago. Image: TVNZ
The 95-year-old told TVNZ Breakfast the experience on board “changed her life”.
“I was sound asleep, and I heard this sort of bang and turned the light on, but it wouldn’t go on.
She said when she left her cabin, a crew member told her “we’ve been bombed”.
‘I laughed at him’
“I laughed at him, I said ‘we don’t get bombs in New Zealand, that’s ridiculous’.”
She said they were taken to the police station after a “big boom when the second bomb came through”.
“I realised immediately, I was part of a historical event,” she said.
TVNZ reporter Corazon Miller talks to Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman (centre) and journalist David Robie after the Rainbow Warrior memorial dawn service today. Image: TVNZ
Journalist David Robie. who travelled on the Rainbow Warrior and wrote the book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior published today, told Breakfast it was a “really shocking, shocking night”.
“We were so overwhelmed by the grief and absolute shock of what had happened. But for me, there was no doubt it was France behind this.”
“But we were absolutely flabbergasted that a country could do this.”
He said it was a “very emotional moment” and was hard to believe it had been 40 years since that time.
‘Momentous occasion’
“It stands out in my life as being the most momentous occasion as a journalist covering that whole event.”
Executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa Russel Norman said the legacy of the ship was about “people who really stood up for something important”.
“I mean, ending nuclear testing in the Pacific, imagine if they were still exploding bombs in the Pacific. We would have to live with that.
“And those people back then they stood up and beat the French government to end nuclear testing.
“It’s pretty inspirational.”
He said the group were still campaigning on some key environmental issues today.
On March 10, 2024, five months into Israel’s accelerated genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people of Gaza, English filmmaker Jonathan Glazer ascended the stage at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California, to accept an Oscar for his film The Zone of Interest (2023). A historical drama and psychological thriller, The Zone of Interest recasts the story of the Auschwitz…
She has become a notorious figure of international interest, shamelessly exploited for news cycles, commercial worth, and career advancement. After a trial lasting nine weeks, conducted at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, Victoria, Erin Patterson, a stocky, thick-set mother of two, was found guilty of three murders and an attempted murder. Date: July 29, 2023, in the town of Leongatha. Her weapon in executing her plot of Sophoclean extravagance: death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides) served in a beef Wellington. Her targets: in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. Of the four, only Ian survived the culinary killings – barely. Prudently, estranged husband Simon chose not to attend.
News outlets thought it useful to produce graphics about this Australian’s terminating exploits. CNN produced one with voyeuristic relish, making it appear much like a Midsomer Murders episode. Details aplenty are provided, including the gruesome end for the victims. “Gail and Heather died on August 4 [2023] from multiorgan failure, followed by Don on August 5 after he failed to respond to a liver transplant.” Fortunately, Ian Wilkinson survived, but the rumour-mongering hack journalist can barely take it, almost regretful of that fact: “after almost two months of intensive treatment”, he was discharged.
Having an opinion on this case has become standard fare, amassing on a turd heap of supposition, second guessing and wonder. The range is positively Chaucerian in its village variety. The former court official interviewed about the killer’s guilty mind and poisoning stratagems, stating the obvious and dulling. The criminologist, keen on career advancement and pseudo-psychology, attempted to gain insight into Patterson’s mind, commenting on her apparent ordinariness.
One example of the latter is to be found in The Conversation, where we are told by Xanthe Mallett with platitudinous and forced certainty how Patterson, speaking days after the incident, “presented as your typical, average woman of 50.” If attempting to kill four people using fungi is a symptom of average, female ordinariness of a certain age, we all best start making our own meals. But Mallett thinks it is precisely that sense of the ordinary that led to a public obsession, a mania with crime and motivation. “The juxtaposition between the normality of a family lunch (and the sheer vanilla-ness of the accused) and the seriousness of the situation sent the media into overdrive.”
This is certainly not the view of Dr. Chris Webster, who answered the Leongatha Hospital doorbell when Patterson first presented. Realising her link to the other four victims suffering symptoms of fungal poisoning, Webster explained that death cap mushrooms were suspected. Asking Patterson where she got them, she replied with one word: “Woolworths.” This was enough for the doctor to presume guilt, an attitude which certainly gave one of Australia’s most ruthless supermarket chains a graceful pardon. “She was evil and very smart to have planned it all and carried out but didn’t quite dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’.”
The marketer, thrilled with branding and promotion, suggests how Patterson Inc. can become an ongoing concern of merchandise, plays, and scripts. (Think of a shirt sporting the following: “I ate beef Wellington and survived”.) The ABC did not waste much time commissioning Toxic, a show created by Elise McCredie and Tony Ayres, aided by ABC podcaster Rachel Brown. Ayres hams it up by saying that, “True stories ask storytellers to probe the complexities of human behaviour. What really lies beneath the headlines? It’s both a challenge and a responsibility to go beyond the surface – to reveal, not just to sensationalise.” Given that this project is a child of frothy publicity born from sensationalism and hysteria, the comment is almost touching.
The media prompts and updates, mischaracterising Patterson as “The Mushroom Murderer”, leave the impression that she really did like killing fungi. But an absolute monster must be found, and the press hounds duly found it. Papers like the Herald Sun preferred the old Rupert Murdoch tactic: till the soil to surface level to find requisite dirt. According to a grimy bit of reporting from that most distinguished of Melbourne rags, “the callous murderer, whose maiden name was Scutter before marrying Simon Patterson in 2007, was secretly dubbed ‘Scutter the Nutter’ among her training group.” The Australianwas in a didactic mood, unhappy that the judge did not make it even more obvious that a crime, committed by a woman involving poison and “not a gun or a knife”, was equally grave.
To complete the matter was an aggrieved home cook, Nagi Maehashi, who also rode the wave of publicity by expressing sadness that her recipe had become a lethal weapon. (Presumably, Maehashi did not have lethal mushrooms in her original recipe, but precision slides in publicity.) Overcome with false modesty in this glare of publicity, Maehashi did not wish to take interviews, but felt her misused work deserved a statement. “It is, of course, upsetting to learn that one of my recipes – possibly the one I’ve spent more hours perfecting than any other – something I created to bring joy and happiness, is entangled in a tragic situation,” she moaned on Instagram. Those familiar with Maehashi will note her tendency to megalomania in the kitchen, especially given recipes that have been created long before she turned to knife and spatula.
The ones forgotten will be those victims who died excruciatingly before their loved ones in a richly sadistic exercise. At the end of it all, the entire ensemble of babblers, hucksters, and chancers so utterly obsessed with what took place in Leongatha should thank Patterson. Her murders have excited, enthralled, and given people purpose. She will start conversations, fill pockets, extend careers, and, if we are to believe some recent reporting, make meals for her fellow inmates in prison.
On the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior prior to its sinking by French secret agents in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985 the ship had evacuated the entire population of 320 from Rongelap in the Marshall Islands.
After conducting dozens of above-ground nuclear explosions, the US government had left the population in conditions that suggested the islanders were being used as guinea pigs to gain knowledge of the effects of radiation.
Cancers, birth defects, and genetic damage ripped through the population; their former fisheries and land are contaminated to this day.
Denied adequate support from the US – they turned to Greenpeace with an SOS: help us leave our ancestral homeland; it is killing our people. The Rainbow Warrior answered the call.
Human lab rats or our brothers and sisters? Dr Merrill Eisenbud, a physicist in the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) famously said in 1956 of the Marshall Islanders: “While it is true that these people do not live, I might say, the way Westerners do, civilised people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”
Dr Eisenbud also opined that exposure “would provide valuable information on the effects of radiation on human beings.” That research continues to this day.
A half century of testing nuclear bombs Within a year of dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US moved part of its test programme to the central Pacific. Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands was used for atmospheric explosions from 1946 with scant regard for the indigenous population.
In 1954, the Castle Bravo test exploded a 15-megaton bomb — one thousand times more deadly than the one dropped on Hiroshima. As a result, the population of Rongelap were exposed to 200 roentgens of radiation, considered life-threatening without medical intervention. And it was.
Part of the Marshall Islands, with Bikini Atoll and Rongelap in the top left. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
Total US tests equaled more than 7000 Hiroshimas. The Clinton administration released the aptly-named Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), report in January 1994 in which it acknowledged:
“What followed was a program by the US government — initially the Navy and then the AEC and its successor agencies — to provide medical care for the exposed population, while at the same time trying to learn as much as possible about the long-term biological effects of radiation exposure. The dual purpose of what is now a DOE medical program has led to a view by the Marshallese that they were being used as ‘guinea pigs’ in a ‘radiation experiment’.
This impression was reinforced by the fact that the islanders were deliberately left in place and then evacuated, having been heavily radiated. Three years later they were told it was “safe to return” despite the lead scientist calling Rongelap “by far the most contaminated place in the world”.
Significant compensation paid by the US to the Marshall Islands has proven inadequate given the scale of the contamination. To some degree, the US has also used money to achieve capture of elite interest groups and secure ongoing control of the islands.
Entrusted to the US, the Marshall Islanders were treated like the civilians of Nagasaki The US took the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944. The only “right” it has to be there was granted by the United Nations which in 1947 established the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, to be administered by the United States.
What followed was an abuse of trust worse than rapists at a state care facility. Using the very powers entrusted to it to protect the Marshallese, the US instead used the islands as a nuclear laboratory — violating both the letter and spirit of international law.
Fellow white-dominated countries like Australia and New Zealand couldn’t have cared less and let the indigenous people be irradiated for decades.
The betrayal of trust by the US was comprehensive and remains so to this day:
Under Article 76 of the UN Charter, all trusteeship agreements carried obligations. The administering power was required to:
Promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the people
Protect the rights and well-being of the inhabitants
Help them advance toward self-government or independence.
Under Article VI, the United States solemnly pledged to “Protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.” Very similar to sentiments in New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi. Within a few years the Americans were exploding the biggest nuclear bombs in history over the islands.
Within a year of the US assuming trusteeship of the islands, another pillar of international law came into effect: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) — which affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans. Exposing colonised peoples to extreme radiation for weapons testing is a racist affront to this.
America has a long history of making treaties and fine speeches and then exploiting indigenous peoples. Last year, I had the sobering experience of reading American military historian Peter Cozzens’ The Earth is Weeping, a history of the “Indian wars” for the American West.
The past is not dead: the Marshall Islands are a hive of bases, laboratories and missile testing; Americans are also incredibly busy attacking the population in Gaza today.
Eyes of Fire – the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior Had the French not sunk the Rainbow Warrior after it reached Auckland from the Rongelap evacuation, it would have led a flotilla to protest nuclear testing at Moruroa in French Polynesia. So the bookends of this article are the abuse of defenceless people in the charge of one nuclear power — the US — and the abuse of New Zealand and the peoples of French Polynesia by another nuclear power — France.
Senator Jeton Anjain (left) of Rongelap and Greenpeace campaign coordinator Steve Sawyer on board the Rainbow Warrior . . . challenging the abuse of defenceless people under the charge of one nuclear power. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
This incredible story, and much more, is the subject of David Robie’s outstanding book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, published by Little Island Press, which has been relaunched to mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack.
A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace’s Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it’s with us right now.
Between them, France and the US have exploded more than 300 nuclear bombs in the Pacific. Few people are told this; few people know this.
Today, a matrix of issues combine — the ongoing effects of nuclear contamination, sea rise imperilling Pacific nations, colonialism still posing immense challenges to people in the Marshall Islands, Kanaky New Caledonia and in many parts of our region.
Unsung heroes Our media never ceases to share the pronouncements of European leaders and news from the US and Europe but the leaders and issues of the Pacific are seldom heard. The heroes of the antinuclear movement should be household names in Australia and New Zealand.
Vanuatu’s great leader Father Walter Lini; Oscar Temaru, Mayor, later President of French Polynesia; Senator Jeton Anjain, Darlene Keju-Johnson and so many others.
Do we know them? Have we heard their voices?
Jobod Silk, climate activist, said in a speech welcoming the Rainbow Warrior III to Majuro earlier this year: “Our crusade for nuclear justice intertwines with our fight against the tides.”
Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific . . . the Rainbow Warrior taking on board Rongelap islanders ready for their first of four relocation voyages to Mejatto island. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
Former Tuvalu PM Enele Sapoaga castigated Australia for the AUKUS submarine deal which he said “was crafted in secret by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison with no public discussion.”
He challenged the bigger regional powers, particularly Australia and New Zealand, to remember that the existential threat faced by Pacific nations comes first from climate change, and reminded New Zealanders of the commitment to keeping the South Pacific nuclear-free.
Hinamoeura Cross, a Tahitian anti-nuclear activist and politician, said in a 2019 UN speech: “Today, the damage is done. My people are sick. For 30 years we were the mice in France’s laboratory.”
Until we learn their stories and know their names as well as we know those of Marco Rubio or Keir Starmer, we will remain strangers in our own lands.
The Pacific owes them, along with the people of Greenpeace, a huge debt. They put their bodies on the line to stop the aggressors. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, killed by the French in 1985, was just one of many victims, one of many heroes.
A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie’s excellent book.
You cannot sink a rainbow.
Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira being welcomed to Rongelap Atoll by a villager in May 1985 barely two months before he was killed by French secret agents during the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
West Papuan independence advocate Octovianus Mote was in Aotearoa New Zealand late last year seeking support for independence for West Papua, which has been ruled by Indonesia for more than six decades.
Mote is vice-president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) and was hosted in New Zealand by the Green Party, which Mote said had always been a “hero” for West Papua.
He spoke at a West Papua seminar at the Māngere Mountain Education Centre and in this Talanoa TV segment he offers prayers for the West Papuan solidarity movement.
In a “blessing for peace and justice”, Octo Mote spoke of his hopes for the West Papuan struggle for independence at lunch at the Mount Albert home of New Zealand activist Maire Leadbeater in September 2024.
He gave a tribute to Leadbeater and the Whānau Community Centre and Hub’s Nik Naidu, saying:
“We remember those who cannot eat like us, especially those who oppressed . . . The 80,000 people in Papua who have had to flee their homes because of the Indonesian military operations.”
Video: Nik Naidu, Talanoa TV
Blessings by Octo Mote. Video: Talanoa TV
On Saturday, 12 July 2025 Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford will open the week-long Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) exhibition at the Ellen Melville Centre Women’s Pioneer Hall at 3pm.
