The following article is a comment piece by 16 imprisoned activists. You can read more on their stories here.
We are some of the Lord Walney 16 – the sixteen peaceful people imprisoned for a combined 41 years for refusing to be bystanders to the most horrific crimes. We should have been 17. Xavi Gonzalez-Trimmer, our beloved friend, should have been with us. He will always be with us.
Our sentences will be reviewed by the Court of Appeal on 29 and 30 January.
Lord Walney: subverting free speech and the right to protest
We were jailed after former Labour Party MP John Woodcock (‘Lord’ Walney) – lobbyist for the arms and oil industry – called for those resisting genocide, whether from carbon emissions or Israeli bombs, to face the harshest response from the government, the police and the judicial system.
The brutal sentences that followed his report were aimed at ‘deterrence’. They were designed to make us give up.
To be locked up in Britain’s cruel prison system, witnessing the violence and harm undertaken by the state against its own citizens is harrowing. But our resistance is not like the addiction to fossil fuels – a habit to be broken. It is the consequence of a profound commitment to nonviolence and the refusal to be complicit in the destruction of our fellow human beings and the poisoning of life on earth.
We can never give up. The state sponsored assault on our living planet gives us no choice. We will never give up.
And we call on you – all of you who know that what is happening is so wrong – to join us in refusing to be bystanders.
When and where: the Royal Courts of Justice, London, 29-30 January
You can find out more information and sign up to attend here.
Signed:
Anna Holland
Cressida Gethin
Daniel Shaw
Gaie Delap
Dr Larch Maxey
Louise Lancaster
Lucia Whittaker De Abreu
Paul Bell
Paul Sousek
Phoebe Plummer
Roger Hallam
Happy new year! As the Canary is back from our Christmas break today I thought what better time to start new year resolutions than six days late?
Starmer needs to make some resolutions…
Of course, being a perfect baby angel I don’t need to change in any way (except maybe be better at time keeping and eating more vegetables). So instead, I thought I would give my resolutions to the prime minister and his government instead.
While there are A LOT of ways Keir Starmer should be trying to better himself and his government in the new year, he needs to make some serious pledges to disabled people. So here are some I wrote earlier for you Mr Starmer
One: I will not be a nosy cunt
As of yet, there’s been no news on whether Starmer still plans to spy on benefit claimant’s bank accounts. However, during his maiden speech as prime minister at the Labour Party Conference back in October 2024, he revealed his plans to bring in legislation that will give DWP benefits inspectors more powers to snoop on benefits claimants’ accounts.
This sounded eerily similar to Tory plans which passed through the commons but then were binned with the old government. Big Brother Watch are still running a petition to block the plans, but they need your help. You can sign it here.
Despite what the press have convinced the public, disabled people are allowed to manage their own money and should be given the privacy to do so, without living in fear of having their benefits stopped because of how they spend or make money.
In the meantime, keep the fuck out of our business, prime minister.
Two: I wont take the PIP
Another plan that it’s unclear whether the red Tories will be stealing from the blue Tories is around, surprise surprise, disability benefits.
Last year the Tories ludicrously decided they would try and stop giving benefits claimants money and instead give us vouchers for things we needed like ramps and handrails, which would definitely feed us and keep us warm during the winter.
Labour once again haven’t directly thrown this idea out. They allowed the consultation to run it’s course and minister for disabled people Stephen Timms told the Commons that the DWP would be reviewing all 16,000 responses, before coming up with their own plan – though if it’s anything like the Get Britain Working plan, it won’t be that different.
Frankly what disabled people do with any money they receive is up to them, if we all want to blow it all on cigs and booze or maybe even push the boat out and, I don’t know, buy ourselves warm winter clothes, that’s got fuck all to do with the government.
Three: I wont talk shite to my mates in the press
It seems like every other week the prime minister or members of his cabinet are suggesting benefits claimants are draining the national resources and that they could all work if they tried hard enough.
Of course the prime minister knows this isn’t true, but being a Blairite he also no doubt knows that the only way he’ll be able to destroy more disabled people’s lives is by making them public enemy number one.
What the prime minister actually needs to do is to pledge for media reform and put more pressure on outlets to not demonise marginalised groups of people. But then if he did that he’d risk the common man lookin up and seeing who’s really causing all the problems.
Four: I’ll stop being vague AF
At the end of the day, disabled people haven’t got a bloody clue what’s going to happen to us in 2025, and that’s because the government are deliberately withholding any plans.
They say they need time to develop their own green paper on disability and welfare reform, but this should’ve been something they had planned before they came into power.
While finding out about whatever they’ve got coming for us may not put our minds at ease, it will enable disabled people to mobilise against the government – but we need to know what we’re fighting before we can fight it.
As 2024 came to a close and we have stepped into a new year overshadowed by ongoing atrocities, have you stopped to consider how these events are reshaping your world?
Did you notice how your future — and that of generations to come — is being profoundly and irreversibly altered?
The ongoing tragedy in Palestine is not an isolated event. It is a crisis that reverberates far beyond borders, threatening your safety, the well-being of your children and family.
Palestinian advocate Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab . . . a powerful address in Auckland last weekend about how people in New Zealand can help in the face of Israel’s genocide. Image: APR
Even fragile ecosystems and creatures have been obliterated and affected by the fallout from Israel’s chemicals and pollution from its weapons.
The deliberate targeting of civilians, rampant violations of international law, and the obliteration of the rights of children are not distant horrors. They are ominous warnings of a world unravelling — consequences that are slowly seeping into the comfort of your home, threatening the very foundations of the life you thought was secure.
But here’s the hard truth: these outcomes don’t just happen in a a vacuum. They persist because of the silence, indifference, or complicity of those who choose not to act.
The question is, will you stand up for a better future, or will you look away? And how could Palestine possibly affect you and your family? Read on.
Israel acting with impunity for decades
Israel has been acting with impunity for decades, flouting the norms of our legal agreements, defying the United Nations and its rulings and requests to act within the agreed global rules set after the Holocaust and the Nazis disregard for humanity.
The Germans, under Nazi rule, pursued a racist ideology to restructure the world according to race, committing crimes against humanity and war crimes that resulted in a devastating world war and the deaths of millions of people, including millions of Jews. A set of rules were formed from the ashes of these victims to ensure this horror would never happen again. It’s called international law.
However, after the Nazis defeat, it took less than a few years before atrocities began again, perpetrated by the very people who had just been brutally massacred and targeted.
European Jews, including holocaust survivors, armed by Czechoslovakia, funded by the Nazis (Havaara agreement), aided militarily by Britain, the US, Italy and France among others, arrived on foreign shores to a land that did not belong to them.
Once there, they began to disregard the very rules established to protect not only them, but the rest of humanity — rules designed to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust, safeguard against the resurgence of ideologies like Nazism, and ensure impunity for such actions would never occur again.
These rules were a shared commitment by countries to conduct themselves with agreed norms and regulations designed to respect the right of all to live in safety and security, including children, women and civilians in general. Rules that were designed to end war and promote peace, justice, and a better life for all humankind.
Rules written to ensure the sacred understanding, implementation and respect of equal rights for all people, including you, were followed to prevent us from never returning to the lawlessness and terror of World War Two.
But the creation of Israel less than 80 years ago flouted and violated these expectations. The mass murder of children, women and men in Palestine in 1948, which included burning alive Palestinians tied to trees and running them over as they lay unable to move in the middle of town squares, was only the beginning of this disrespectful dehumanisation.
Terrorised by Jewish militia
Jewish militia terrorised Palestinians, lobbing grenades into Palestinian homes where families sheltered in fear, raping women and girls, and forcing every man and boy from whole villages to dig their own trenches before being shot in the back so they fell neatly into their graves.
Pregnant Palestinian women had their bellies sliced open, homes were stolen along with everything in it — including my families — and many family members were murdered.
This included my great grandmother who was shot, execution style, in front of my mother as she carried a small mattress from our home for her grandchildren when they were forcibly displaced. I still don’t know what happened to her body or where she is buried. I do know where our house is still situated in Jerusalem, although currently occupied.
These atrocities enabled Israel’s birth, shameful atrocities behind its creation. There is not one Israeli town or village that is not built on top of a Palestinian village, or town, on the blood and bones of murdered Palestinians, a practice Israel has continued.
As I write, plans to build more illegal settlements on the buried bodies of Palestinians in Gaza have already been drawn up and areas of land pre-sold.
These horrific crimes have continued over decades, becoming worse as Israel perfected and industrialised its ability to exterminate human souls, hearts and lives. Israel’s birth from its inception was only possible through terrorist actions of Jewish militia. These militia Britain designated as terrorist organisations, a designation that still stands today.
Jewish militia such as (Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang) formed into what is now known as the Israeli Defence Force, although they aren’t defending anything; Palestine was not theirs to take in the first place.
There was never a war of independence for Israel because the state of Israel did not exist to liberate itself from anyone. Instead, Britain illegally handed over land that already belonged to the Palestinians, a peaceful existing people of three pillars of faith — Palestinian Christians Muslims and Jews. If there were any legitimate war of independence, it would be that of the Palestinian people.
Free pass to act above the law
Israel continues to rely on the Holocaust’s memory to give it a free pass to act above the law, threatening world peace and our shared humanity, by using the memory of the horrors of 1945 and the threat of antisemitism to deter people from criticising and speaking out against the state’s unlawful and inhumane actions.
Yet Israel echoes the horrors of Nazi Germany and its destruction with its behaviour, the difference being the industrialisation of mass killing, modern warfare and weapons, the use of AI as a killing machine, the creation of chemical weapons and huge concentration and death camps which far surpass Germany’s capabilities.
Jews around the world have been deeply divided by Israel’s assertion that it represents all Jewish people. Not all Jews religiously and politically support Israel, many do not feel a connection to or support Israel, viewing its actions and policies as separate from their Jewish identity. For them, Israel’s claims do not define what it means to be Jewish, nor do they see its conduct as aligned with Jewish values.
This is not a “Jewish question” but a political one and conflating the two undermines the diverse perspectives within Jewish communities globally and is harmful to Jewish people. It is important to maintain a clear distinction between Judaism and the political actions of Israel.
How does a genocide across the world affect you? The perpetration of genocide and gross violations of human rights, facilitated or supported by Western powers, erodes the very foundations of the global legal framework that protects us all. This assault weakens democracy, undermines international law, and destabilises the structures you rely on for a secure future.
“The perpetration of genocide and gross violations of human rights, facilitated or supported by Western powers, erodes the very foundations of the global legal framework that protects us all.” Image: Al Jazeera headline APR
It leaves your defences crumbling, your safety compromised, and your vulnerabilities exposed to the chaos that follows such lawlessness as a global citizen of this world under the same protections and with the same equality as the Palestinians.
Palestinian children are no less deserving of safety and rights than any other children. When their rights are ignored and violated, it undermines protections for children worldwide, creating a precedent of vulnerability and injustice. If violations are deemed acceptable for some, they risk becoming acceptable for all.
Sitting safely in Aotearoa does not guarantee protection. The actions of Israel and the US, Western countries — massacring and flattening entire neighbourhoods — send a dangerous message that such horrors are only for “others”, for “brown people” who speak a different language.
But Western countries are the global minority. Many nations now view the West with growing disdain, especially in light of Israel and America’s actions, coupled with the glaring double standards and inaction of the West, including New Zealand, as they stand by and witness a genocide in progress.
When children become a legitimate target, the safety of all children is compromised. Your kids are at risk too. Just because you live on the other side of the world does not mean you are immune or beyond the reach of those who see such actions as justification for retaliation.
If such disregard for human life is deemed acceptable for one people, it will inevitably become acceptable for others. Justice and equality must extend to all children, regardless of nationality, to ensure a safer world for everyone.
But why should you care? Because Israel and the US are undermining the framework that protects you. Israel’s violations of International and humanitarian law including laws on occupation, war crimes and bombing protected institutions such as hospitals, schools, UN facilities, civilian homes and areas of safety, undermines these and sets a dangerous precedent for others to follow. Israel does not respect global peace, civilians, human rights nor has respect for life outside of its own. This lawlessness and lack of accountability is already giving other states the green light to erode the norms that protect human rights, including the decimation of the rights of the child.
The West’s support for Israel, namely the US, the UK, Canada, much of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, despite its clear violations of international law, exposes a fundamental hypocrisy. This weakens the credibility of democratic nations that claim to champion human rights and justice.
The failure of institutions like the UN to hold Israel accountable erodes trust in these bodies, fostering widespread disillusionment and scepticism about their ability to address other global conflicts. This has already fuelled an “us versus them” mentality, deepening the divide between the Global South and the Global North.
This division is marked by growing disrespect for Western governments and their citizens, who demand moral authority and adherence to the rule of law from nations in the East and South yet allow one of their “own” to brazenly violate these principles.
This hypocrisy undermines the hope for a new, respectful world order envisioned after the Holocaust, leaving it damaged and discredited.
Israel, despite its claims, has no authentic ties to the Middle East. What was once Palestinian land deeply rooted in Middle Eastern culture, has been overtaken and reshaped into to an artificial state imposed by mixed European heritage. It now stands as a Western outpost in stark contrast and isolated from surrounding Eastern cultures.
The failure of the West and the international community to stop the Palestinian genocide has begun a new period of genocide normalisation, where it becomes acceptable to watch children being blown up, women and men being murdered, shot and starved to death.
This acceptance then becomes a part of a country’s statecraft. Palestinian genocide, while it might be a little “uncomfortable” for many, has still been tolerable. If genocide is tolerable for one, then its tolerable for another.
Bias and prejudice
If you can comfortably go about your day, knowing the horror other innocent human beings are facing then perhaps it might be time to reflect on and confront any underlying biases or prejudices you hold.
An interesting thought experiment is to transform and transfer what is happening in Palestine to New Zealand.
Imagine Nelson being completely flattened, and all the inhabitants of Auckland, plus some, being starved to death.
Imagine all New Zealand hospitals being destroyed, Wellington hospital with its patients still inside is blown up. All the babies in the neonatal unit are left to die and rot in their incubators, patients in the ICU units and those immobile or too sick to move are also left to die, this includes all children unable to walk in the Starship hospital.
Electricity for the whole country is turned off and all patients and healthcare workers are forced to leave at gunpoint. New Zealand doctors and nurses are stripped down to their underwear and tortured, this includes rape, and some male doctors are left to die bleeding in the street after being raped to death with metal poles and electrodes.
Water is then shut down and unavailable to all of you. You cannot feed your family, your grandchildren, your parents, your siblings, your best friends.
Imagine New Zealanders burying bodies of their children and loved ones in makeshift mass graves, while living in tents and then being subjected to chemical weapon strikes, quad copters or small drones’ attacks that drop bombs and exterminate, shooting people as they try to find food, but targeting mostly women and children.
Imagine every single human being in Upper Hutt completely wiped out. Imagine 305 New Zealand school buses full of dead children line the streets, that’s more than 11,000 killed so far. Each day more than 10 New Zealand kids lose a limb, including your children.
This number starts to increase with the hope to finally ethnically cleanse Aotearoa to make way for a new state defined by one religion and one ethnicity that isn’t yours, by a new group of people from the other side of the world.
These people, called settlers, are given weapons to hurt and kill New Zealanders as they rampage through towns evicting residents and moving into your homes taking everything that belongs to you and leaving you on the street. All your belongings, all your memories, your pets, your future, your family are stolen or destroyed.
Starting from January 2025, up to 15 New Zealanders will die of starvation or related diseases EVERY DAY until the rest of the world decides if it will come to your aid with this lawlessness. Or maybe you will die in desperation while others watch you on their TV screens or scroll through their social media seeing you as the “terrorist” and the invaders as the “victims”.
If this thought horrifies you, if it makes you feel shocked or upset, then so too should others having to endure such illegal horrors. None of what is happening is acceptable, as a fellow human being you should be fighting for the right of all of us. Perhaps you might think of our own tangata whenua and Aotearoa’s own history.
What could this mean for New Zealand?
We are not creating a bright future for a country like New Zealand, whose remote location, dependence on trade, and its aging infrastructure, leaves it vulnerable to changing global dynamics. This is especially concerning with our energy dependence on imported oil, our dependence on global supply chains for essential goods including medicine (Israel’s pager attack against Hezbollah has compromised supply chains in a dangerous and horrific violation that New Zealand ignored), our economic marginalisation, and our security challenges.
All of this while surrounded by rising tensions between superpowers like the US and China which will affect New Zealand’s security and economic partnerships. Balancing economic and political ties is complicated by this government’s focus on strengthening strategic alliances with Western nations, mainly the US, whose complicity in genocide, war crimes, and disrespect for the rule of law is weakening its standing and threatens its very future.
Targeting marginalised groups
The precedent set in Palestine will embolden oppressive regimes elsewhere to target minority groups, knowing that the world will turn a blind eye. Israel is a violent, oppressive apartheid state, operating outside of international law and norms and has been compared to, but is much worse than the former apartheid South Africa.
This will have a huge impact felt all over the world with the continued refugee crisis. Multicultural nations such as New Zealand will struggle to cope with the support needed for the families of our citizens in need.
An increase of the far right reminiscent of Nazi ideology and extremism
Israel is a pariah state fuelled by radicalisation and extremism with an intolerance to different races, colour and ethnicity and indigenous populations. This has created a fertile ground for extremist ideologies, destabilising regions far beyond the Middle East as we have seen in Europe with the rejuvenation of the far-right movement.
Israel’s genocidal onslaughts will continue to be the cause for ongoing instability in the region, affecting global energy supplies, trade routes, and security. The Palestinian crisis will not be answered with violence, oppression and war. We aren’t going anywhere, and neither should we.
Weaponising aid and healthcare
Israel’s deliberate restriction of food, water, and medical supplies to Gaza weaponises humanitarian aid, violating basic principles of humanity. A new weapon in the arsenal of pariah states and radical violent countries and a new Israeli tactic to be copied and used elsewhere. Targeting hospitals, healthcare workers, distribution centres, ambulances, the UN, and collectively punishing whole populations has never been and will never be acceptable.
If it is not acceptable that this happens to you in Aotearoa, then nor is it acceptable for Palestinians in Palestine. It is intolerable for other “terror regimes” to commit such acts, so why is it deemed acceptable when carried out by Israel and the US?
Undermining the rights to free speech, peaceful protest and freedoms
During the covid pandemic, many New Zealanders were concerned with government-imposed restrictions that could be used disproportionately or as pretexts for authoritarian control. This included limitations on freedom of movement, speech, assembly, and privacy.
And yet Palestinians endure military checkpoints, curfews, restricted movement within and between their own territories, and the suppression of their right to protest or voice opposition to occupation — all due to Israel’s oppressive and illegal control. This is further enabled by the political cover and tacit support provided by this government’s failure to speak out and strongly condemn Israel’s actions.
Through its failure to take meaningful action or fulfil its third-party state obligations, this government continues to maintain normal relations with Israel across diplomatic, cultural, economic, and social spheres, as well as through trade. Moreover, it wrongly asserts on its official foreign affairs websites and policies that an occupying power has the right to self-defence against a defenceless population it has systematically abused and terrorised for decades.
The silencing of pro-Palestinian activists and criminalisation of humanitarian aid also create a chilling effect, discouraging global solidarity movements and undermining the moral fabric of societies. The use of victimhood to shroud the aggressor and blame the victim is a low point in our harrowed history. As is the vilification of moral activism and those that dare to stand against the illegal and sickening mass killing of civilians.
The attempt to persecute brave students standing up to Zionist and Israeli-run organisations and those supporting Israel (including academic and cultural institutions), by both trigger-happy billionaire Jewish investors and elite families and company investors whose answer to peaceful resistance is violence, demonstrates how far we have fallen from democracy and the rights of the citizen.
I find it completely bizarre that standing up against a genocide of helpless, unarmed civilians is demonised in order to protect the thugs, criminals and psychopaths that make up the Israeli state and its criminal actors, and the elite families and corporations profiting from this war.
Even here in Aotearoa, protesters have been vilified for drawing attention to Israel’s war crimes and double standards at the ASB Classic tennis tournament. Letting into New Zealand an IDF soldier who is associated with an institution directly implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity should be questioned.
These protesters were falsely labelled as “pro-Hamas” by Israeli and Western media. They were portrayed negatively, seen as a nuisance. Their messages about supporting human rights and stopping a horrific genocide from continuing were not mentioned.
The focus was the effect their chants had on the tennis match and the Israeli tennis player, who was upset. Exercising their legal rights to demonstrate, the protesters were not a security issue. Yet Lina Glushko, the Israeli tennis player, claimed she needed extra security to combat a dozen protesters, many over the age of 60, who were never in any proximity of the controversial player nor were ever a threat.
No mention that Lina Glushko lives in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or that she was in service from 2018-2020 during the Great March of Return. Or that this tennis player has made public statements mocking the suffering of Palestinians, inconsistent with Aotearoa’s commitment to combating hate speech and promoting inclusivity and respect.
Her presence erodes the integrity of international sports and sends a dangerous message that war crimes and human rights violations carry no meaningful consequences despite international law and the recent UNGA (UN General Assembly) and ICJ (International Court of Justice) resolutions and advisory opinions.
Allowing IDF soldiers entry into New Zealand disregards the pain and suffering of Palestinians and the New Zealand Palestinian community, dehumanising their plight. It sends a message of complicity to the broader international community, one that was ignored by most Western media.
Similarly, Israel’s attempts to not just control the Western media but to shut down and kill journalists, is not only a war crime, but is terrifying. Journalists’ protection is enshrined in international law due to the essential nature of their work in fostering accountability, transparency, and justice. They expose corruption, war crimes, and human rights abuses. Real journalism is vital for democracy, ensuring citizens are informed about government actions and global events.
Israel’s targeting of journalists undermines the rule of law and emboldens it and other perpetrators to commit further atrocities without fear of scrutiny or consequences.
The suffering of Palestinians is a human rights issue that transcends borders. Allowing genocide and oppression to continue undermines the shared humanity that binds us all.
Israel’s actions reflect the dehumanisation of an entire population and our failure to enforce accountability for these crimes weakens international systems designed to protect your family and you.
Israel’s influence is far reaching, and New Zealand is not immune. Any undue influence by foreign states, including Israel, threatens New Zealand’s sovereignty and ability to make independent decisions in its national interest. Lobbying efforts by organisations like the Zionist Federation or the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand push policies that do not align with New Zealand’s broader public interest.
Aligning with a state that is violating rights and in a court of law on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, leaves citizens wide open to the same controls and concerns we are now seeing Americans and Europeans face at the mercy of AIPAC and Israeli influence.
Palestine is a test of the international community’s commitment to justice, human rights, and the rule of law. If Israel is allowed to continue acting with impunity, the global system that protects us all will be irreparably weakened, paving the way for more injustice, oppression, and chaos. It is a fight for the moral and legal foundations of the world we live in and ignoring it will have far-reaching consequences for everyone.
So, as you usher in 2025, don’t sit there and clink your glasses, hoping for a better year while continuing to ignore the suffering around you. Act to make 2025 better than the horrific few years the world has been subjected to, if not for humanity, then for yourself and your family’s future. Start with the biggest threat to world peace and stability — Israel and US hegemony.
What you can do
You can make a difference in the fight against Israel’s illegal occupation and violations of human rights, including the deliberate targeting of children by taking simple yet impactful steps. Here’s how you can start today:
Boycott products supporting oppression:
Remove at least five products from your weekly supermarket shopping list that are linked to companies supporting Israel’s occupation or that are made in Israel. Use tools like the “No Thanks” app to identify these items or visit the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) website for detailed advice and information.
Hold the government accountable:
Write letters to your government representatives demanding action to uphold democracy and human rights. Remind them of New Zealand’s obligations under international law to stand against human rights abuses and violations of global norms. Demand fair and equitable foreign policies designed to protect us all.
Educate yourself:
Learn about the history of the Palestine-Israel conflict, especially the events of 1948, to better understand the roots of the ongoing crisis. Knowledge is a powerful tool for advocacy and change.
Seek alternative news sources:
Expand your perspective by accessing a wide range of news sources including from platforms such as Al Jazeera, Double Down News, and Middle East Eye.
Be a citizen, not a bystander:
Passive spectatorship allows injustice to thrive. Take a stand. Whether by boycotting, writing letters, educating yourself, or raising awareness, your actions can contribute to a global movement for justice for us all.
Together, we can challenge systems of oppression and demand accountability for crimes against humanity. Let 2025 not just be another year of witnessing suffering but one where we collectively take action to restore justice, uphold humanity, and demand accountability.
The time to act is now.
The closing weeks of 2024 brought troubling news from Hong Kong, from the jailing of 45 democracy activists to a guilty verdict for seven people charged with “rioting” for trying to stop a violent thug attack.
Away from the headlines, an equally insidious form of repression is playing out: the problem of more than 120,000 recent Hong Kong exiles who have been cut off from their retirement savings since 2021.
Hong Kong Watch has found that Hong Kongers were being denied access to over £3 billion (US$3.8 billion) of money they paid into the city’s retirement scheme, known as the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF).
On Dec. 19 in London, Hong Kong Watch joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and Stand with Hong Kong in a hearing on the withholding of Hong Kongers’ MPF savings in the British Parliament.
The MPF is a compulsory retirement savings scheme for the people of Hong Kong. Under the legal guidelines which govern MPF savings, Hong Kongers are entitled to withdraw their money in full once they complete a declaration form stating that they have permanently departed from Hong Kong.
However, after Hong Kong authorities announced in in January 2021 that they no longer recognized the British National (Overseas) (BNO) passport as a valid form of identity , an estimated 126,500 Hong Kongers have been blocked from accessing their MPF savings.
People walk past a branch of HSBC bank in Hong Kong, March 16, 2022.(Kin Cheung/AP)
The British Parliament heard that this number is likely higher, as the mere awareness of an overwhelming number of cases being rejected discourages Hong Kongers from applying for withdrawal.
The three Hong Kongers who testified this month also emphasized that the Hong Kong government’s non-recognition of the BNO passport has no basis in law, as there have been no legal changes made to the MPF Trust Deed.
As of the end of June, the total value of all MPF schemes was a little over £122 billion.
Taking the average MPF account size of £26,000, and multiplying it by the number of BNO visa holders at 127,000, there is over £3.25 billion worth of MPF assets that Hong Kongers are currently being denied access to as of Sept. 30.
Bank no-shows
The London-headquartered MPF trustee banks, HSBC and Standard Chartered, which manage £37 billion and £758 million worth of MPF savings respectively, were invited to testify at the hearing.
However, despite a personal request from Blair McDougall, the chair of the APPG on Hong Kong and host of the hearing, HSBC rejected the request to appear before Parliament and Standard Chartered failed to respond.
Their refusal and silence speaks louder than words.
Specifically, in their response to the APPG on Hong Kong and to 13 Parliamentarians who inquired about how the HSBC restructure will affect MPF claimants, HSBC claims that they are legally bound by Hong Kong legislation in their non-recognition of the BNO passport as proof of identity.
Yet the non-recognition of the BNO passport is not legally binding but a tactic of transnational repression against those who have fled from the quickly deteriorating human rights environment in Hong Kong.
The BNO passport is also a UK government-issued identity document, which the UK government should immediately make clear to the UK-headquartered MPF trustees.
In addition to the non-recognition of the BNO passport, MPF trustees have denied access to MPF savings for accounts which are “under investigation” by the Hong Kong government.
This is applicable for accounts connected to the Hong Kongers who were issued arrest warrants with HK$1 million bounties for participating in pro-democracy activities in 2023.
This further demonstrates that the blocking of MPF savings is a form of financial transnational repression.
Suffering, lost opportunities
The Hong Kongers who testified at the hearing included Chloe Lo, a single mother who shared, “Last winter, I could barely pay my heating bill and my child and I experienced the coldest winter of our lives.”
This could have been avoided if she had access to the £57,000 in her MPF account.
The other Hong Kongers said that accessing their MPF savings would allow them to pursue further education in the UK and to invest in British businesses.
Their testimonies coincided with a letter sent directly to HSBC last week from nearly 400 Hong Kongers in the UK, urging the financial institution to immediately release the savings that rightfully belong to them.
HSBC is mistaken in refusing to appear before Parliament, as their refusal only demonstrates HSBC’s complicity in the financial transnational repression of the Hong Kong government.
One Hong Konger who testified and whose MPF account has depreciated by 5% in 2024 alone said, “It is obvious that HSBC is arbitrarily holding our savings to roll up the assets and squeeze the administration cost and capital gains from the investment.”
Following the hearing, the Parliament is keen to continue raising this issue, and to press the UK government to issue guidance to and have conversations with HSBC and Standard Chartered about the validity of the BNO passport.
This is not just a matter for the Hong Kong authorities but also for the UK ones who issue BNO passports and are responsible for the more than 180,000 Hong Kongers who now call Britain home.
To conclude the hearing, chair McDougall said that we often talk about the cost of human rights violations against individuals around the world but how in this case, there is an actual number on that cost.
He also said that both HSBC and Standard Chartered “still have questions to answer, even if they are not willing to open themselves to scrutiny.”
This could not be more spot on, and this is not the end of HSBC and Standard Chartered being invited to appear before Parliament.
Megan Khoo is policy director at the international NGO Hong Kong Watch. Khoo, based in London, has served in communications roles at foreign policy non-profit organizations in London and Washington, D.C.. The views expressed here do not reflect the position of Radio Free Asia.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Megan Khoo.
Communist Party of Vietnam chief To Lam’s weaponization of the Ministry of Public Security to force the resignation of rivals, in the name of anti-corruption, has been well documented.
Between December 2022 and May of this year, eight members of the Politburo resigned, paving the way for Lam, the country’s former top cop, to succeed General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong following his death in July.
In each case, evidence of wrongdoing was presented in Politburo sessions, and each official was given a face-saving way out.
All were granted soft landings, with much of their wealth, corporate interests, and status preserved. None was brought to trial.
But that might be changing.
The actions are all Politburo decisions based on the recommendations of the Central Inspection Commission (CIC), the Central Committee’s investigative body that oversees corruption amongst central-level leaders.
The CIC can recommend four levels of disciplinary action to the Politburo: reprimand, warning, the loss of party positions, and expulsion from the party. It can recommend disciplinary action to entire party committees, as well.
Vietnam’s President To Lam attends the funeral of Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi, July 25, 2024.(Vietnam News Agency via Reuters)
In November, the CIC recommended that the Politburo give a warning to former National Assembly chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, who was forced to resign in April.
At that same session, the CIC decided not to recommend a verdict on former president Vo Van Thuong, who was forced out in March, citing health reasons.
Thuong is reportedly suffering from stage-3 lung cancer, but has been blocked from traveling for treatment overseas.
‘Severe consequences’
The CIC found that Hue and former Minister of Transportation Nguyen Van The had “violated Party and state regulations in regards to their duties, committed violations regarding anti-corruption, resulting in severe consequences and affecting the reputation of the Party and the state.”
The CIC continued their investigations in their mid-December session, which resulted in disciplinary action against three former top officials.
On December 13, the Politburo issued warnings to former Prime Minister and President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and former Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh.
Phuc was singled out for violating party and state regulations in the execution of his duties and responsibilities, “particularly in the areas of anti-corruption and combating misconduct.”
In addition, he violated party rules and engaged in “prohibited activities for members,” though it was left unsaid what those were.
Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee’s Mass Mobilization Chief Truong Thi Mai, left, and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc walk to a session of the 14th National Assembly in Hanoi, July 20, 2016.(Hau Dinh/AP)
Also disciplined was Truong Thi Mai, the former head of the CPV Secretariat and the highest-ranking woman in Vietnamese politics before her May 2024 resignation.
She received a reprimand and found to have “breached rules on controlling power in personnel matters, violated ethical codes for Party members, and failed to uphold exemplary conduct.”
Mai’s family has extensive corporate interests in healthcare, a sector that benefitted from the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
These punishments are all internal Communist Party disciplinary actions.
Why they matter is that, like in China, the party conducts its own investigation of senior officials before the judicial system gets a crack at them.
State prosecution looms?
While this does not mean that any of those individuals will face legal jeopardy, the door is now open for state prosecutors.
Charging a Politburo member is a rarity. There has only been one since the renovation period began in 1986: Dinh La Thang.
Another Politburo member from that era, Hoang Trung Hai, also received a warning, but was never charged.
Phuc’s case could be different, however
What is being investigated is a $1 billion eco-tourism development project in Lam Dong province in the Central Highlands that was being developed by Saigon Dai Ninh Joint Stock Company. Most of the funds of the barely started project appear to have been embezzled.
Both Phuc and former Deputy Prime Minister Binh had been implicated in the long-running corruption investigation into Mai Tien Dung, the former head of the Government Office.
Dung told authorities that he facilitated the project in Lam Dong at the behest of “superiors.” Phuc was the prime minister at the time and reportedly received a $3 million bribe to green-light the project.
The courts continue to investigate Saigon Dai Ninh, which has also been tied into the larger investigation into Truong My Lan.
In that scandal, 58% of that company was being sold to Lan’s company, Van Thinh Phat, though the owner tried to embezzle what Lan had paid him at the time of her arrest.
Lan was sentenced to death in 2023 for secretly controlling Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) and directing over 90% of its loans to herself, Van Thinh Phat, and other affiliated companies, resulting in bank losses of some $24 billion.
Albeit tenuous, there is now a direct link between Phuc and the largest corruption case in the country’s history.
Lan is believed to have paid Phuc and his wife, Tran Thi Nguyet Thu, significant amounts of bribes.
Phuc’s wife and daughter, Nguyen Thi Xuan Trang, are also being investigated for assisting Lan’s niece, Truong Khanh Hoang, then the acting director of SCB, of laundering money to Hong Kong.
In a separate case, Lan received a life sentence for money laundering.
In all of this, it’s important to understand that Phuc is not just a political rival of Lam, but also a commercial competitor.
Phuc’s family has a controlling stake in Trung Nam Group, with corporate interests that are in direct competition in almost every sector with Xuan Cau Holdings, the conglomerate owned by Lam’s younger brother To Dung.
The Sword of Damocles is now dangling above Phuc.
But it seems far more likely at this point that the former prime minister and president, along with several family members, is going to be criminally investigated.
A drowning man is about to be thrown an anvil.
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zachary Abuza.
Israel kills the journalists deliberately. This is unprecedented. The Western media — including here in Aotearoa New Zealand — kills the truth about genocide in Gaza.
The journalists from the Al-Quds Today TV channel were outside the al-Awada Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp when their satellite broadcast van was struck by a pre-dawn Israeli strike.
Video footage that went viral showed the van with the words “PRESS” clearly marked in red block letters engulfed in flames.
The slain journalists were – let’s honour their names — Fadi Hassouna, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohammed al-Ladah, Faisal Abu al-Qumsan and Ayman al-Jadi.
Jadi had gone to the hospital with his wife who was giving birth to their first child. He had gone out to check on the car and his mates when it was bombed.
Baby born on day father died for ‘truth’
Imagine that, the baby was born on the very day his father died while doing his job as a journalist — reporting the truth.
It is another cruel example of the tragic lives lost in this genocide by Israel which has killed more than 45,400 people, mostly women and children.
Al Jazeera’s report on the journalist killings. Video: AJ
Just last week, four other journalists were killed over two days. And now the total is 201 Palestinian journalists killed since 7 October 2023.
This is by far the highest death toll of journalists in any war or conflict.
And in 20 years of the Vietnam War, just 63 journalists were killed.
Al Jazeera reports that Israel, which has not allowed foreign journalists to enter Gaza except on military embeds with the Israeli “Defence” Forces (IDF), which is increasingly being dubbed by critics as the Israeli “Offence” Forces (“IOF”), has been condemned by many media freedom organisations.
Samoan Palestine decolonisation activist Michel Mulipola . . . speaking at today’s Auckland rally about the 95th anniversary of the Black Saturday Mau massacre by NZ forces in Samoa. Image: APR
Gaza ‘most dangerous region’
The besieged enclave is now regarded as the “most dangerous region of the world” for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders in its annual report.
New Zealand journalist and author Dr David Robie . . . critical of New Zealand media’s role over the Gaza genocide. Image: Del Abcede/APR
Al Jazeera itself was banned by Israel in May from reporting within the country, and was subsequently barred from reporting within the occupied West Bank and the closure of the Ramallah bureau in mid-September.
Israel has tried to silence Al Jazeera previously in by threatening it in 2017, bombing its broadcast office in Gaza in 2021, and assassinating celebrated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 and other reporters with impunity.
Al Jazeera, TRT News and many independent news outlets as Democracy Now!, The Intercept, Middle East Eye and The Palestine Chronicle stand in contrast to mainstream media such as BBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post that have frequently been called out in investigative reports for systemic bias against Palestine.
Among the poignant messages from Palestinian journalists documenting this war are Bisan Owda, who signs on her video reports every day with “I’m still alive”.
But I would like to share this reflection from another journalist, videographer Osama Abu Rabee who says on his X news feed that he is “capturing the untold stories of resilience and hope”. He said in one post this week:
Kia Ora Gaza facilitator Roger Fowler (in hat) . . . a tribute for his many years of support for the Palestine freedom cause. Image: APR
‘Moments away from death’
“One of my most vivid memories is when three journalists and I were in Eastern Jabalia and we needed to connect our e-sims to edit and upload content of a massacre.
“We went to a room but the connection wasn’t good so I suggested we go into another room. Less than 5 minutes later, the room we had been in got bombed.
“People came over running thinking that we were killed but luckily there were only injuries.
“This was one of the many times that I was moments away from death. I know that I’m targeted as a Palestinian but also as a journalist.
“Every single day I step out of my house and put on my ‘press’ vest and I look behind at my family, I’m not sure if I’ll see them again.
“I hope you understand the risks we are taking to show you the truth.
“Even 15 month later, we continue to go out every single day and document the horrors that people in Gaza experience.
“We do this so that when God asks what you do, we respond with ‘we did what we could’.”
NZ media’s role shameful
Can journalists and the media in Aotearoa New Zealand say with hand on heart that “we did what we could” in the face of this genocide?
Palestinian advocate Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab . . . powerful address in how people in New Zealand can help in the face of Israel’s genocide. Image: APR
Of course not, the role of New Zealand media has been shameful, apart from notable exceptions such as Gordon Campbell.
It has failed to hold the Christopher Luxon coalition government to account over its pathetic inaction over the genocide.
It has failed to press the government into taking a stronger and more principled stance at the United Nations to call for sanctions against the apartheid and genocidal regime, or to even expel Israel from the global chamber — or the ambassador from Wellington.
Take Ireland, a smallish country like New Zealand, as an inspirational example. Earlier this month, Ireland responded immediately to the closure of Israel’s embassy in Dublin by opening a Palestinian museum on the premises.
Prime Minister Simon Harris condemned Israel’s genocidal actions, particularly against children and reaffirmed his country’s commitment to human rights and international law.
“You know what I think is reprehensible? Killing children, I think that’s reprehensible.
“You know what I think is reprehensible? Seeing the scale of civilian deaths that we’ve seen in Gaza.
“You know what I think is reprehensible? People being left to starve and humanitarian aid not flowing,”
Silence of the news media
Have we ever had such a courageous statement like this from our Prime Minister. Absolutely not.
It is shameful that our government has not taken a stand.
And it is shameful that the New Zealand media has been so silent over this most horrendous episode of our times — genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in front of our very eyes for 15 months.
To my knowledge, journalists in Aotearoa have not made even made statements of solidarity with the journalists of Gaza and their horrific sacrifice to bear witness to the truth.
New Zealand journalists have already “normalised” the genocide. Shameful.
Dr David Robie is convenor of Pacific Media Watch and editor of Asia Pacific Report. This was first presented as an address to a Palestinian solidarity rally in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Te Komititanga Square in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau on 28 December 2024.
A banner condemning New Zealand media for being “silent and complicit” over Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Image: APR
The communist apparatchiks who run Laos must appease China if they are to stop their national debt crisis from worsening and avoid an outright default.
The IMF’s latest report on Laos, released last month, was particularly damning about the country’s future. Real GDP growth likely peaked this year, at around 4.1 percent, and will slide from 3.5 percent next year down to 2.5 percent by 2029.
In other words, Laos isn’t going to be able to grow itself out of debt anytime soon.
Moreover, debt servicing costs, spending that is not actually paying off the principal on its monumental debt, will rise from around $1.1 billion this year to $1.5 billion next year and peak at $1.8 billion in 2026, the equivalent of a fifth of exports.
Laos cannot even start to comprehend paying off its debt, which because of the country’s inflation crisis fluctuates as a percentage of GDP ratio. It was 131 percent of GDP in 2022, down to 108 percent this year but potentially up to 118 percent in 2025.
The IMF politely suggested that “alternative options to bring debt toward a sustainable level could also be considered,” yet noted that “the authorities’ financing plan…critically relies on the continued extension of debt relief from China.”
Debt deferrals
All that matters for Vientiane, at least for the short term, is that Beijing continues offering debt deferrals.
In 2023, these amounted to $770 million, about 5 percent of Laos’s GDP, according to the IMF. They were worth $222 million in 2020, $454 million in 2021, and $608 million in 2022.
What other options has Laos got?
It won’t turn to the IMF for a bailout, since that will come with political conditions – and half of national debt is owed to China, which doesn’t do debt write-offs.
The money Vientiane owes Beijing is vast for Laos, but peanuts for Beijing.
The International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington, D.C, Dec. 19, 2016.(Cliff Owen/AP)
Laos’s debts could be completely forgiven tomorrow and nobody in Beijing would notice. But Chinese lenders don’t like having their pockets pinched and no superpower wants to be seen as a dog being wagged by its tail.
Some people think Vientiane could offer more debt-for-equity swaps, whereby China reduces the debt in exchange for land or mineral rights or a stake in a state company.
However, for all the cries of “debt traps,” it is noticeable that there hasn’t been any major debt-for-equity swap since a Chinese state-owned firm was given majority control of a joint venture (EDL-T) with Electricite du Laos, which effectively handed Beijing Laos’ power grid, including its electricity exports. But that was in 2021!
Few desirable assets
Beijing has presumably browsed and doesn’t fancy anything it sees. As one source told me, “there aren’t enough saleable assets” in Laos for equity swaps to touch the sides of the country’s debt.
Even for natural resources or land, usually a Chinese company will get a multi-decade concession for very low rent. So it makes little sense for Chinese state firms to buy, in the form of a debt swap, what they essentially get for free, since the revenue the Lao government collects will eventually be paid back to the Chinese state.
Nor are swaps all too appealing when it comes to state-run companies.
There’s one reason why Laos’s nationalized companies are so indebted and it isn’t because they’re so well run. Électricité du Laos, the state utility, accounts for perhaps a third of all the state’s debts, for instance.
Laos’ Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone attends the 27th ASEAN-Japan Summit in Vientiane, Laos, Oct. 10, 2024.(Nhac Nguyen/AFP)
That leaves only debt deferrals, which allow Vientiane to pay back other private creditors and facilitate future loans, all the while avoiding what it must eventually do: massively increase state revenue.
According to the IMF, Laos needs a primary surplus of around 17 percent each year to bring its debt-to-GDP ratio down to a sustainable threshold (35 percent) by 2029.
Next year, Laos will likely run a primary surplus of around 3 percent, per the IMF report. In other words, Vientiane needs to boost revenue or cut expenditure (or both) by more than five-fold.
Austerity is unpopular
But the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) clearly doesn’t think now is the time to dig deeper into the pockets of ordinary people and businesses, especially as economic growth is set to slow in the coming years and the inflation crisis won’t be curbed anytime soon.
It would be politically suicidal for Vientiane to considerably raise taxes while the ordinary Loatian has seen his wealth decimated in recent years. In fact, the party has recently committed to higher state spending.
At first blush, Vientiane’s immobility might appear problematic for the current rulers of the communist party whose jobs are in the line ahead of a reshuffle at the National Congress in early 2026.
That’s especially the case for Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone, who naturally gets the most flak. Party grandees will retreat into conclaves most of next year to make these decisions, and appeasing China will be a key consideration.
Yet, while the Lao public is incensed by just how appallingly their rulers have managed the economy, the powers that be understand no-one has any real idea of how to get out of this mess other than austerity during a devastating economic crisis.
This isn’t something to be admitted publicly in a one-party state. Neither is admitting that the task of austerity is essentially being kicked to the next generation of party apparatchiks, who will have to suffer the consequences.
George Orwell once remarked that “it is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out…It takes off a lot of anxiety.”
Likewise, the current LPRP leadership must feel a certain freedom from knowing that there’s only one way out of its predicament: Keep appeasing Beijing and keep up the debt deferrals.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes theWatching Europe In Southeast Asianewsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.
The following article is a column from Nick Ballard, head organiser and founder of the ACORN Union
There’s little scarier than a knock at the door from bailiffs at Christmas time — but that’s the reality facing tens of thousands of people right across the country right now.
The reality is more and more people are struggling with household finances.
People have been slammed by the cost of living crisis – rising energy bills, increasing food costs, runaway rent increases, the list goes on. For too many, it’s a choice between heating and eating, which utilities are most needed and which bills most urgently need paying.
So it’s no surprise that council tax arrears are also growing.
Councils are using bailiffs more and more for council tax arrears
As of March 2023 (the most recent data available – it’s likely to have risen since), the total amount of council tax arrears in England alone was £5.5 billion, up £513 million from the previous year.
And more councils are turning to enforcement agents, aka bailiffs, and more often. Between April 2021 and June 2023, more than 3 million people were taken to court for council tax debt – that’s an average of 4,500 per day – staggering numbers!
If a payment is missed, in many cases residents become liable for the entire year’s council tax bill in one go. And if you can’t pay this, a knock at the door from bailiffs looking to take away your belongings often follows.
A visit from bailiffs is distressing for anyone, especially for those who are already in debt, and who are vulnerable.
Mental health and debt are mutually reinforcing: mental health issues can disrupt people’s lives and lead them into debt, while being indebted and harassed by bailiffs can create or worsen mental health issues. Half of people in debt have mental health problems.
But it’s also clear that aggressive bailiff visits have a huge effect on people’s wellbeing; with fear, stress and anxiety the most immediate.
Making matters worse
A recent report found that council tax debt collectors significantly harm the health of those struggling to pay.
Bailiff visits also push people further into debt, as bailiff and court fees add an average £310 additional debt.
Not only does the use of bailiffs fail to generate more income for councils, it can actually make the problem worse, ultimately costing local and national government more in extra health, social care, employment and housing support (£9.7 billion more, to be precise).
A few years age one of our members in Manchester, Viv, had a bailiffs at her door threatening to take away her children’s toy, and to arrest. She worked as a childminder, and was looking after children at her home.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Making change happen
Some councils have made the move away from bailiff use and Hammersmith and Fulham Council have entirely ended the use of bailiffs.
Instead of beating on their residents’ doors at 6am, the council intervenes early when people start to fall behind, and helps them to access all the support and advice available to them. Their ethical debt collection policy has led to an increase in council tax collection rates.
Ahead of the general election in July ACORN members decided to make the issue of bailiff use a key priority for the union, and throughout 2024 our branches have shown that local campaigns can build the power needed to force councils to change.
In January, Manchester City Council announced that residents in council tax debt won’t have bailiffs knocking at their door if they are eligible for council tax support, with £1 million in support pledged for struggling families. This was the result of a long running campaign by ACORN Manchester and Debt Justice, ranging from outreach to occupations of council meetings:
Manchester ACORN
And in October, our Brighton branch declared victory in their year-long ‘Boot the Bailiffs’ campaign, meaning people on benefits in council tax debt will no longer be referred to bailiffs, with an additional £2.2 million pledged by the council to support the most vulnerable residents in the city!
And the fight continues in Birmingham, Haringey, and Leeds:
But we know our communities across the country are suffering due to bailiff visits, which is why we want to expand our campaigns in 2025.
Council use of bailiffs can end in 2025
We recently launched our Christmas appeal, a fundraiser to get the resources we need to launch new campaigns on this issue across the country, building a national movement to end the practice for good.
Please consider donating, sharing and supporting this fundraiser and our future campaigns on this issue – together we can make 2025 the year we turn the tide on council bailiff use and end this cruel and outdated practise for good.
Why has Southeast Asia, hardly a pacifist region in previous centuries, been so peaceful since 1991?
The end of the Cold War; regional cooperation in the form of ASEAN; economic progress; a new birth of democracy and liberty — all are valid explanations.
Yet one simpler reason is that most of the more serious sovereignty disputes, largely a hangover of colonialism, had been fought by then.
Rival claims over Borneo between Indonesia and Malaysia ended after the “confrontation” of 1963-1966.
Tensions between Malaysia and the Philippines over Sabah — now part of Malaysia but which in previous centuries was administered by the Sultanate of Sulu, which the Philippines claims gives it authority — almost sparked a war when it formally joined the Malaysian Federation in 1963.
Manila broke off diplomatic relations and Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippine dictator, drew up plans to invade, although diplomatic relations later resumed without too many shots being fired.
What to do about Chinese-majority Singapore was settled when it was kicked out – or left, depending on whom one asks – of the Malaysian Federation in 1965.
On the mainland, the departure of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia in the late 1980s and then Vietnamese-China peace terms in 1991 allowed all governments in the region to get on with properly drawing borders that had been scribbled and traded by French colonialists.
Even though 1991 was the year of the barbaric Santa Cruz massacre in Timor-Leste’s Dili, it was obvious at the time that Indonesia’s annexation of the former Portuguese colony couldn’t persist.
Philippine President and Mrs. Ferdinand E. Marcos, center, meet with Malaysia Deputy Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, left, and Sabah’s Chief Minister Harris Salleh, right, on August 9, 1977, in Labuan, Eastern Malaysia.(Tee/AP)
Although many of these territorial disputes were, at best, shelved rather than resolved, there was a spirit after 1991 that the more pressing concern of regional governments was making money, mutually if possible, rather than squabbling over scraps of land.
It helped that the rest of the world – particularly the United States and China – had more at stake in Southeast Asian peace after 1991 than in stirring sovereignty disputes to serve their own ends.
Worldwide irredentism
Alas, we’re now living in a new age of irredentism.
Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 on the premise that the Ukrainian nation doesn’t even exist and therefore should be re-annexed by Russia.
Beijing is risking World War Three in its pursuit of “reunifying” Taiwan.
Much of the Middle East warring today rests on 1st century claims of homelands.
South Korea and North Korea both have designs to incorporate the other half of the peninsula. Venezuela apparently wants to annex Guyana.
The latest fray in Southeast Asia is between Cambodia and Thailand over the island of Koh Kood/Koh Kut – although it’s actually about who controls a 27,000 sq.km area of the Gulf of Thailand that sits on natural gas reserves.
In early November, Thai Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai travelled to the island for a visit that served no purpose other than for Thailand to restate its ownership.
Conservative circles in Bangkok are stirring this trouble primarily to offend the coalition government now led by the Thaksin family, yet these things have a way of getting out of hand.
Children hold photos some of the pro-independence demonstrators killed by Indonesian troops in 1991, at the Santa Cruz cemetery, during a commemoration in Dili, East Timor, Nov. 12, 2010.(Jordao Henrique/AP)
A few weeks ago, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet appealed for calm.
“One side claims their land is lost; the other says it isn’t. Why should we bring fire unnecessarily into our home? Acting rashly could provoke unnecessary conflict,” he said.
No doubt he has his own memories of having been a general when Cambodia and Thailand’s militaries came to blows in 2008 over the Preah Vihear Temple, a dispute that dates back to the Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1907 that swapped territory between Cambodia and Thailand, including Koh Kood/Koh Kut.
Sabah tensions
Yet, while Hun Manet’s own dictatorial ruling party has managed to quiet just about anyone capable of an independent thought, it cannot keep the Cambodian people silent whenever they get the whiff of something that smells like territorial sellout.
Intense public pressure this year led to Phnom Penh quitting the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area in September.
The decision was taken solely to appease those who claimed that the rather trivial economic scheme was a violation of Cambodian sovereignty by Vietnam, the Cambodian nationalist’s bete noire.
Now, the same voices are pressuring the Cambodian government to be tough on Bangkok. Phnom Penh cannot simply wash its hands of a lame economic agreement to appease critics this time around.
Tensions between Malaysia and the Philippines over Sabah are flaring again, as well.
In July 2020, the Philippines’ then-foreign minister, Teodoro Locsin Jr., tweeted in response to a U.S. government statement about sending aid to north Borneo: “Sabah is not in Malaysia if you want to have anything to do with the Philippines.”
Malaysia’s then-foreign minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, retorted: “This is an irresponsible statement that affects bilateral ties… Sabah is, and will always be, part of Malaysia.”
Tensions died down somewhat afterwards, yet Malaysia sent a protest note to the Philippines last month over two new maritime laws that Kuala Lumpur says encroaches upon the sovereignty of Sabah.
The leaders of both countries agreed this month not to discuss Sabah, which is perhaps better than them debating it, since Manila is aware that a 2011 Supreme Court ruling means the Philippines has not abandoned its claim and Malaysian political circles are increasingly touchy about sovereignty.
In 2022, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, perhaps more in a spirit of making himself a nuisance than making a genuine suggestion, told supporters that Singapore should be returned to the state of Johor, which ran the city’s affairs before its independence.
K Shanmugam, Singapore’s home affairs minister, warned Mahathir this is “not a game.”
“It is serious business,” he said. “If you get a leader in Malaysia like Dr. Mahathir, adventurous ideas may be attempted.”
The 99-year-old Mahathir probably won’t return to political office, but in January the Malaysian government set up a royal commission to study why, in 2018, Mahathir’s administration ended its review of an International Court of Justice ruling ten years earlier that awarded sovereignty of Pedra Branca island to Singapore.
On Dec. 5, the royal commission delivered a damning 217-page report that recommended a criminal investigation into Mahathir over his failure when premier to protect and defend Malaysia’s sovereignty.
Likely to stir up tensions with Singapore once again, the commission also ruled that “Malaysia has an arguable case” for claiming sovereignty over Pedra Branca.
Presumably, if Mahathir should be held criminally liable for not having asserted Malaysia’s claim in the past, as the commission argued, then Anwar Ibrahim, the current prime minister, now has a legal duty to reassert his country’s claims.
One might also add that this year has again seen tensions over who controls certain hamlets – mainly Naktuka – in Timor-Leste’s Oecusse enclave, which sits in the middle of West Timor, an Indonesian province.
Dili can be forgiven for nervousness after seeing Prabowo Subianto elected Indonesia’s president this year. Subianto was head of the Kopassus special forces that committed war crimes after Indonesia invaded and annexed Timor-Leste in 1975.
What seems to be driving all of this are the South China Sea disputes, which have forced every claimant government to think in terms of territorial competition.
China’s irredentist “nine-dash line” has naturally compelled governments in the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and increasingly Indonesia to restate their opinions almost weekly on what territory they possess.
Amid this scramble to assert and reassert one’s territorial claims, it isn’t surprising that voices have grown louder about reclaiming other lost lands.
Such things tend to snowball.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes theWatching Europe In Southeast Asianewsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.
The A$140 million aid agreement between Australia and Nauru signed last week is a prime example of the geopolitical tightrope vulnerable Pacific nations are walking in the 21st century.
The deal provides Nauru with direct budgetary support, stable banking services, and policing and security resources. In return, Australia will have the right to veto any pact Nauru might make with other countries — namely China.
The veto terms are similar to the “Falepili Union” between Australia and Tuvalu signed late last year, which granted Tuvaluans access to Australian residency and climate mitigation support, in exchange for security guarantees.
In exchange for investment in military infrastructure development, training and equipment, the US gains unrestricted access to six ports and airports.
Also last week, PNG signed a 10-year, A$600 million deal to fund its own team in Australia’s NRL competition. In return, “PNG will not sign a security deal that could allow Chinese police or military forces to be based in the Pacific nation”.
These arrangements are all emblematic of the geopolitical tussle playing out in the Pacific between China and the US and its allies.
This strategic competition is often framed in mainstream media and political commentary as an extension of “the great game” played by rival powers. From a traditional security perspective, Pacific nations can be depicted as seeking advantage to leverage their own development priorities.
But this assumption that Pacific governments are “diplomatic price setters”, able to play China and the US off against each other, overlooks the very real power imbalances involved.
The risk, as the authors of one recent study argued, is that the “China threat” narrative becomes the justification for “greater Western militarisation and economic dominance”. In other words, Pacific nations become diplomatic price takers.
Defence diplomacy Pacific nations are vulnerable on several fronts: most have a low economic base and many are facing a debt crisis. At the same time, they are on the front line of climate change and rising sea levels.
The costs of recovering from more frequent extreme weather events create a vicious cycle of more debt and greater vulnerability. As was reported at this year’s United Nations COP29 summit, climate financing in the Pacific is mostly in the form of concessional loans.
At the country level, government systems often lack the capacity to manage increasing aid packages, and struggle with the diplomatic engagement and other obligations demanded by the new geopolitical conditions.
In August, Kiribati even closed its borders to diplomats until 2025 to allow the new government “breathing space” to attend to domestic affairs.
In the past, Australia championed governance and institutional support as part of its financial aid. But a lot of development assistance is now skewed towards policing and defence.
Kiribati: threatened by sea level rise, the nation closed its borders to foreign diplomats until 2025. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation
Lack of good faith At the same time, many political parties in Pacific nations operate quite informally and lack comprehensive policy manifestos. Most governments lack a parliamentary subcommittee that scrutinises foreign policy.
The upshot is that foreign policy and security arrangements can be driven by personalities rather than policy priorities, with little scrutiny. Pacific nations are also susceptible to corruption, as highlighted in Transparency International’s 2024 Annual Corruption Report.
Since 2019, my country has become a hotbed for diplomatic tensions and foreign interference, and undue influence.
Similarly, Pacific affairs expert Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva has argued the Australia–Tuvalu agreement was one-sided and showed a “lack of good faith”.
Behind these developments, of course, lies the evolving AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and United Kingdom, a response to growing Chinese presence and influence in the “Indo-Pacific” region.
The response from Pacific nations has been diplomatic, perhaps from a sense they cannot “rock the submarine” too much, given their ties to the big powers involved. But former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor has warned:
Pacific leaders were being sidelined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.
Unless these partnerships are grounded in good faith and genuine sustainable development, the grassroots consequences of geopolitics-as-usual will not change.
The national organization Veterans For Peace, with chapters in over 100 US cities, is calling on US Senators to vote NO on Pete Hegseth for US Defense Secretary, should President-elect nominate him.
Veterans For Peace is astounded that someone with the track record of Pete Hegseth would seriously be considered for the critically important role of US Secretary of Defense. His dubious and questionable qualifications are far overshadowed by the many reasons that should disqualify him. These include a well-documented record of misogyny, sexual assault, white supremacy, Islamophobia, financial malfeasance, alcoholism, and opposition to VA healthcare. Are these the qualities we want in our Secretary of Defense?
Misogyny
Hegseth’s long-running abusive behavior toward women – even decried by his own mother – should be more than enough to disqualify him. His stated intention to reverse progress for women and gays in the military was only reversed by him in recent days, after pressure from key women Senators whose votes he needs if he is to be confirmed as Defense Secretary. Can he be trusted to defend the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people in the military? Would he challenge the rampant sexual abuse within the military today?
White Supremacy / Islamophobia
Pete Hegseth sports tattoos on his body that are associated with White Supremacy. In January 2021, Hegseth was one of 12 national guardsmen flagged as potential insider threats and removed from a group providing security for the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden, after a fellow Guard member reported he had a tattoo on his biceps reading “Deus Vult,” a phrase associated with the Crusades and, in the 21st century, with white supremacists. Hegseth has said that his National Guard superiors removed him because of his Jerusalem Cross tattoo, a Christian symbol which they determined was connected to extremism.
Post Traumatic Stress / Alcoholism
Pete Hegseth’s bouts with binge drinking and public drunkenness at formal organizational events have been widely reported. On one such occasion, he was heard shouting “Kill All Muslims.” Was it the alcohol talking? Islamophobia? Or both? As a national guardsman, Hegseth served at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans For Peace recognizes that many veterans who experience Post Traumatic Stress, Traumatic Brain Injury, or Moral Injury have difficulty returning to civilian life, and have problems with alcohol and antisocial behavior. They need professional help, not the additional stress associated with US war-making.
A Voice of Restraint? Or Nuclear War?
Pete Hegseth should not be making critical defense decisions for the largest military in the world, particularly at this dangerous moment of superpower confrontation and nuclear brinksmanship. The very existence of human civilization is imperiled. Would Pete Hegseth be able to provide the president with wise counsel regarding ending the war in Ukraine? Could he stop sending US weapons to fuel the horrific genocide in Gaza? Would he put a brake on the Neocon drive for wars against China and Iran? Could he be a responsible check on a president’s decision to use nuclear weapons? We fear that the answer to these questions is No.
Financial Mismanagement
Pete Hegseth has a track record of “failing upward.” He has been demoted and forced to resign from several veterans organization and PAC’s, after failing to raise funds, and spending as much as half of the organizations’ funds on Christmas parties for families and friends. Arguably, the stupendous and ever-growing Pentagon budget, which just failed its 7th audit in a row, and for which there is remarkably little accountability, might be the perfect piggy bank for Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth Threatens VA Healthcare
Of particular concern to many veterans is Hegseth’s opposition to VA healthcare. He supports “outsourcing” – or privatizing VA healthcare – a concerted goal of the Koch brothers-funded Concerned Veterans of America, which Hegseth headed up from 2013-16. For all its shortcomings, the Veterans Administration continues to provide excellent healthcare to millions of veterans, who rely on it and greatly appreciate it. Undermining, defunding and privatizing healthcare is an attack on all veterans, as well as an attack on the healthcare system, for which the VA provides one of the very best models. Senators who are interviewing Pete Hegseth should ask him why he would dismantle VA healthcare in favor of the failing private healthcare model.
Poll: Pete Hegseth should not be Secretary of Defense
Veterans For Peace’s opposition to confirming Pete Hegseth as US Defense Secretary is shared by most Americans, only 20% of whom approve, according to a recent poll. Will our Senators get the message? We should make sure that they do.
There’s occasionally something to be said for symbolic gestures, but I struggle to get too worked up over the news that an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has finally applied for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s junta chief.
The Nov. 27 request is specifically over his military’s ethnic cleansing of the Muslim-minority group, the Rohingya, between 2017 and 2018. Human Rights Watch called it a “major step towards justice for the country’s Rohingya population.” Amnesty International regarded it as a “decisive step and an important signal.”
My disappointment is for two reasons: the local and the global.
The ICC hasn’t yet issued an arrest warrant; a prosecutor has applied for one. But even if a warrant is forthcoming, it won’t be acted upon.
Rohingya refugees embrace each other after taking part in Eid al-Fitr prayers at a temporary shelter in Meulaboh, Indonesia, April 10, 2024.
Min Aung Hlaing won’t be hauled to The Hague while his junta holds power over much of the country and has the backing of Beijing.
If his junta defeats the revolutionary forces and ends the civil war, Min Aung Hlaing won’t voluntarily make a sojourn to the Netherlands.
If his junta falls and is replaced by a new, federal democratic Myanmar, we should vehemently oppose an international tribunal in favor of a local trial. In that eventuality, Min Aung Hlaing would have much more barbarism to answer to than only the Rohingya genocide.
China won’t act
Nor will an arrest warrant, if produced, alter the civil war itself. Min Aung Hlaing won’t give a fig; he claims lineage from the generals who for decades happily impoverished the nation and regarded citizens as property of the state.
Nor does Min Aung Hlaing have a real desire or need to leave Myanmar for anywhere other than China, which offered him his first invitation since the coup last month.
Yet China isn’t a member of the ICC, so won’t act upon an arrest warrant. From Southeast Asia, only Cambodia and Timor-Leste are signatories to the Rome Statute, so Min Aung Hlaing could visit any of the other nine states and probably wouldn’t be touched.
One might retort that the importance of the request for an arrest warrant lies in the “optics.” Certainly it’s a bad look for Southeast Asia.
Yet, what optics is this request supposed to change regarding Myanmar?
Granted, if the truth isn’t repeatedly stated, it risks being drowned by lies.
Yet the military’s crimes against the Rohingya have already been abundantly documented. The UN has called it “textbook ethnic cleansing.” The United States government called it a “genocide” in 2022.
If anyone needs convincing almost a decade on from the genocide and three years on from the military coup that Min Aung Hlaing isn’t a nice chap they’ve intentionally overlooked the evidence already to hand.
Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court speaks at a press conference in The Hague, Netherlands, July 3, 2023.
It isn’t as though most foreign governments have been sitting on the fence since 2021 waiting for something like an ICC arrest warrant before making up their mind whether they’re pro- or anti-junta.
The ICC prosecutor’s decision won’t isolate Min Aung Hlaing and his junta amongst friendly countries, nor motivate any more solidarity for the anti-junta revolutionaries from unfriendly states.
Waning global interest
Did China – not a signatory of the Rome Statute – even muster a shrug when this news of the warrant request broke? Is the United States – also not a signatory – now going to start supplying the anti-junta militias with proper weaponry because an international court might charge Min Aung Hlaing?
The ICC prosecutor failed to request an arrest warrant for Aung San Suu Kyi, who, though now deposed and detained, was head of the civilian government while the military was butchering the Rohingyas — a crime that Suu Kyi herself travelled to The Hague in 2017 to defend.
A Rohingya refugee looks to members of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees while they meet at a temporary shelter at a government building in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, April 22, 2024.
The global aspect of the problem is equally discouraging.
In June, Rohingya community members expressed disappointment at an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber that “enthusiasm for the ICC’s investigation appears to be at an all-time low.”
Prosecutors should have started requesting arrest warrants in 2017, but the ICC only started investigations in 2019. It was too late by the time of the February 2021 coup.
Bad timing
But now the ICC prosecutor’s request for a warrant couldn’t have come at a worse moment.
Just weeks earlier, the international court also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several members of his cabinet.
The ICC is now a spent force – a pariah not only in Moscow and other despotic nations but also in some Western capitals.
The United States has already rejected the court’s warrant for Netanyahu, and some Republicans want to sanction any country that assists the ICC in its pursuit of him.
Myanmar Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, inspects officers during a parade to commemorate Myanmar’s 79th Armed Forces Day, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2024.
The French government says it won’t comply with the Netanyahu warrant either because Israel isn’t a member of the ICC.
But neither is Myanmar a party to the Rome Statute, so hasn’t Paris just given Min Aung Hlaing a kind of Western-backed immunity?
For years the ICC has tried to rid itself of the criticism that it only goes after rulers of poor, internationally-weak nations while ignoring the crimes of first world leaders.
Unfortunately, by seeking to prosecute the leaders of Israel and Myanmar in the space of a few weeks, the court may have succeeded in removing that stigma – but at the cost of its credibility and authority.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes theWatching Europe In Southeast Asianewsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.
Uyghur-American lawyer Nury Turkel hadn’t seen his mother in more than two decades. But she and two other Uyghurs, who were subjected to an exit ban in China, were included in a prisoner swap between the United States and China in November. Here, Turkel relates the story of his long-delayed reunion with his mother.
My heart is overwhelmed with joy, relief and renewed hope this holiday season. After more than 20 years of separation, I am finally reunited with my beloved mother here in America. The most precious moment was seeing her embrace her grandchildren for the first time — a long-deferred dream finally realized. For much of my life, holidays like Thanksgiving felt hollow because of our family’s fractured reality.
I have always been close to my mother. Our family often joked that I was an only child, although I have three younger brothers. My mother relied on me when she felt stressed or sad. This deep bond traces back to my birth during China’s notorious Cultural Revolution in a Communist reeducation camp.
Chinese authorities used this bond to torment me, despite my having lived in America as a free Uyghur for nearly three decades. I had not seen my mother since 2004 and had spent only 11 months with my parents since leaving China 29 years ago.
Ayshem and her son, Mamutjan Turkel, talk with a State Department official at a military base in San Antonio, Texas, Nov. 27, 2024.
My mother, Ayshem, suffered immensely, beginning with her arrest while pregnant with me. Her “offense” was being her father’s favorite child and answering the door to his visitors, who were under the watchful eyes of the authorities in the late 1960s.
During that era of repression, her father, once an official in the short-lived Second East Turkistan Republic, became a target. Red Guards sent him to a camp and accused him of being “intoxicated with separatist ideology.”
Similarly, my father, Ablikim, an educator and public intellectual, spent three years in labor camps for having relatives across the Soviet border. His “crime” was to have been “infected with Soviet ideology.”
These family affiliations marked my parents as enemies of the state. Both were locked up in separate camps located in and around Kashgar and accused of ideological crimes.
This practice of “guilt by association” persists today, targeting those who are critical of Chinese actions and policies, serving as a harsh reminder of the enduring legacy of repression.
While on a flight from Rome, Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to the people released by China, November 2024.
I was born in 1970 in the midst of unspeakable horrors. My mother had already spent over six months in the camp before my birth.
Severely malnourished and suffering from a fractured hip and ankle, she gave birth to me while in a cast from the chest down.
We lived under dire conditions, marked by scarce food and constant surveillance. I was malnourished and frail, a living testament to my mother’s suffering. The first several months of my life were spent in detention alongside her. We were starved, isolated and stripped of our dignity.
Yet, through it all, her resilience and unwavering strength sustained me through the darkest times.
In the summer of 1995, driven by a long-standing admiration for freedom in America and inspired by the end of the Cold War, I arrived in the United States as a student and was later granted asylum.
Witnessing the collapse of former Soviet blocs, including Central Asia regions with deep cultural, historical and geographical ties to the Uyghur people, reinforced my desire for freedom and higher education.
Despite my life as a free American and four years as a U.S. official, the past continued to haunt me.
I endured years of sanctioned isolation, unable to be there when my father passed away in 2022. The Chinese government’s retaliation intensified, barring my mother from traveling and isolating her socially.
My mother, facing severe health issues, remained under constant surveillance and travel restrictions. These are common sufferings and struggles for countless Uyghurs around the world.
I have been sanctioned by both China and Russia for what appears to be retaliation against my service in the U.S. government and decades-long human rights advocacy work.
Every attempt to reunite us was blocked, and my mother’s deteriorating health intensified the urgency. Yet, our determination to be together never wavered.
On the eve of Thanksgiving, a miracle unfolded.
Three days before her arrival in America, security officials in Urumqi notified my mother that she would need to get ready to go to Beijing at 4 a.m. the next day. She had about 20 hours to prepare for this trip. It was a journey she had longed for with hope and prayer for over two decades.
In her final hours in China, she visited my father’s grave to say goodbye one last time, honoring their shared history and fulfilling a deeply personal need for closure before embarking on her long-awaited journey.
They had been married for 53 years, sharing countless memories, from raising a family to weathering life’s challenges with unwavering love and commitment.
On the night of Nov. 24, around the same time Chinese security informed my mother about the trip to Beijing, I received a call from the White House notifying me about developments I would learn more about the next day at a pre-planned meeting with a senior National Security Council official. I woke up my wife and children and shared the news.
I felt relieved, excited and deeply grateful. Early on Thanksgiving morning, while driving to Dulles Airport for my flight to Texas where I was to meet my mother, I received a call from a U.S. official who put her on the phone.
“Son, I am on a U.S. government plane and free,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. So happy beyond words.”
For so long, I lived with the constant fear that one day I might receive the unthinkable news of my mother’s imprisonment — or worse — just as I lost my father over two years ago.
But when I heard my mother’s voice, hope prevailed, and the long-held darkness lifted. That fear and the unthinkable are no longer part of my life.
At the U.S. Joint Base in San Antonio, Texas, I watched my mother descend the plane’s stairs, supported by a U.S. diplomat and greeted by a military commander in uniform.
A wave of emotions washed over me, and I ran toward my mother. We embraced, tears streaming down our faces, overwhelmed by the reality of our long-awaited reunion.
Her first words — “Thank God I’m here with you, and I won’t be alone when I die” — shattered and mended my heart all at once.
This has been more than a reunion. It’s the restoration of a piece of my soul. Words cannot fully express my gratitude.
On Thanksgiving morning, my brother, who had flown with me to Texas, and I brought our mother to Washington. Watching her embrace her grandchildren for the first time was a moment of incredible joy and healing. Though my father didn’t live to see this day, I felt his presence, his spirit guiding us toward this long-awaited reunion.
The privilege of my children knowing their grandmother is a gift that begins to heal the wounds of our family’s long separation. It bridges a gap that has weighed on my heart for two decades. I am forever grateful to my country.
America has given me everything — my freedom, my livelihood and now the joy of seeing my children play with their grandmother.
I am deeply grateful for the tireless efforts of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Ambassador Nick Burns, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Senior Director for China Sarah Beran, and countless U.S. national security officials who championed our cause across four presidential administrations.
Our family reunion should serve as a beacon of hope for thousands of Uyghurs around the world, including members of Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service, whose loved ones were forcibly taken to camps in China — seemingly in retaliation for their service to the American people.
May this moment inspire renewed efforts to reunite all separated families and restore the dignity and freedom they deserve.
Nury Turkel is a lawyer and the award-winning author of “No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs.” He serves as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and is an advisory board member of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy.
Edited by Jim Snyder and Boer Deng.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Nury Turkel.
Closing out the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s on Dec. 1, General Secretary To Lam and allies announced a sweeping set of proposals to streamline the Vietnamese government, legislature, ruling party apparatus.
If enacted, it would be the most sweeping changes that the Vietnamese government system has seen in decades, involving ministerial restructuring, the elimination of parliamentary committees, the shuttering of government offices and party committees, and some consolidation within the state-owned media, educational and research sectors.
At the government level, five of 21 ministries will be eliminated through mergers and closures.
The Ministry of Finance will absorb the Ministry of Planning and Investment, while the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Construction will merge, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will merge with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The Ministry of Information and Communications will merge with the Ministry of Science and Technology, while the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs will be dissolved with individual components parceled out to other ministries.
Three central-level government agencies will be dissolved. The Ministry of Finance and the State Bank will assume the responsibilities of the State Capital Management Committee and the National Financial Supervisory Commission.
Lam is making his mark
The Religious Affairs Committee and Ethnic Minority Affairs Committees will merge.
Other consolidation will occur within the state education and research sectors and broadcast media. Even ministries that are not affected by the restructuring will be required to streamline their own activities.
The National Assembly will eliminate four committees and one agency that reside beneath the legislature’s Standing Committee.
The proposal calls for the merger of the Economic and Finance Committees, the Social and Culture Committees, and the Judicial and Legal Committees, with the complete dissolution of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
A matter of concern is that the Legislative Research Institute, which was modeled on the U.S. Congressional Research Service to provide technical expertise on legislation, will be eliminated altogether.
Within the CPV, the Central Propaganda and Education Committee will merge with the Central Mass Mobilization Committee, while the External Relations Committee will be dissolved, with its functions transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Vietnam’s President Luong Cuong, left, and General Secretary of the Communist Party To Lam, walk to the National Assembly in Hanoi, Vietnam, Oct. 21, 2024.
The Health Care Committee will likewise be dissolved with its authorities split between the Ministry of Health and the Organization Commission.
The new central-level committee will be established to oversee other central agencies, the judiciary, including the Supreme People’s Procuracy and the Supreme People’s Court.
Lam is clearly trying to make his mark just five months after being elected CPV general secretary.
Cumbersome bureaucracy
While his predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong sought to legitimize the party in the eyes of an increasingly disgusted and apathetic public through his “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign, Lam seeks to legitimize the party through rapid economic growth.
An impediment to performance-based legitimacy is Vietnam’s cumbersome bureaucracy.
In his speech to the Central Committee, Lam reiterated that “In parallel, administrative reforms must be accelerated to create the most favorable conditions for citizens and businesses, which will contribute to improving the living standards of the people.”
Trong was a career ideologue, who spent much of his 13 years rebuilding the party apparatus in order to serve as a check on technocrats.
Lam is charting a completely different path, seeking to do away with some key communist party offices, and trying to streamline the “dual-hatted” system whereby every government and military organization has both a civil executive and a parallel party leadership structure.
The one place where this dual hat system will not be touched is the military: The party always controls the gun.
Lam knows that the country is entering into a “new revolutionary era” with significant challenges.
Labor productivity is slipping and while Vietnam attracted $36 billion in pledged foreign investment in 2024, it remains an assembler. There is an insufficient production ecosystem in the country.
There is a reason that Vietnam’s trade deficit with China is almost the same as its surplus with the United States: Vietnamese exports are made from imported components. Lam is acutely aware of the dangers of being caught in the middle income trap.
Rising star Hung
The man behind all of this is Le Minh Hung, a rising star within the Communist Party and a key ally of Lam, who oversaw his recent promotion to the Politburo.
Hung was the governor of the state bank of Vietnam, the youngest man to hold that position.
Vietnam’s State Bank Governor Le Minh Hung is seen in Hanoi, Vietnam May 31, 2017.
He is currently in charge of the CPV’s Organization Commission, which is in charge of all personnel issues, a key assignment ahead of the 14th Congress.
Hung’s father was the former Minister of Public Security and in that role a mentor to Lam during his rise through the security bureaucracy.
And this shakeup was orchestrated by the CPV Secretariat, which Lam has stacked with his allies.
Lam’s big plan appears to have the backing of the majority of the Central Committee. Editorials in state-owned media have endorsed the proposal, striking notes of urgency. But clearly not everyone in the party is on board.
Normally, we see very little change or policy implementation in the year preceding a CPV Congress.
That Lam is willing to push this is a strong indication that he is confident of the Central Committee’s faith in his leadership. He is much less of an ideologue, and more of a state-led capitalist authoritarian.
The ambitious move also speaks to Lam’s personal confidence that he will be elected to a full term at the 14th Congress in early 2026.
Empowering technocrats
Lam has called on all party organizations to complete their internal review and draft guidelines for reform by the end of the year.
The reports will be studied in mid February, and submitted by the steering committee to the Politburo in early March ahead of the next Central Committee Plenum scheduled for mid March.
But that also means no government body will be working until at least March 2025.
There is not just efficiency at play with the government and party reorganization. This is clearly a way to get rid of some dead wood and neutralize some rivals.
But more importantly, the reorganization can be seen as a way for Lam to empower close allies and true technocrats.
It is believed that the head of the Central Committee’s External Relations Committee, Le Hoai Trung, who sits on the CPV Secretariat and is a close advisor to Lam, will become the next foreign minister.
Hung is clearly being set up for a key economic position. While many had seen him being groomed for the prime ministership, the consolidation will turn the Ministry of Finance into a super-ministry, which he would be well poised to lead.
After Trong’s war against technocrats, Lam is empowering them, aware that they are needed to take Vietnam to its next stage of development.
A clear winner in this is the Ministry of Public Security, which not only came out unscathed, but with some additional autonomy.
But while this reorganization may look good to foreign investors, Vietnamese citizens don’t see how the reforms will impact or improve their day-to-day interactions with the government. Shouldn’t they be the primary beneficiaries?
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.
Dylan’s song resonates well with this writer, causing me to come to tears. Why? Well, look around you citizens of this Amerikan empire. Like lab rats running nowhere inside a maze with no exit, working stiffs and the poor and indigent cannot find a way out of this mess. As Walt Kelly put it in his unique 20th century comic strip Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he be us.” Just as with Mr. Hitler and his brown and black shirted Nazis, it was the suckers… sorry, the voters, who gave them license to become despots. Of course, in Weimar Germany’s parliamentary system, there were options for the people to form coalitions within their multi party structure. Bottom line: Hitler could have been stopped in his tracks! The sad sin of it all was how much many Germans feared the Communists more than the Nazis. Thus, it was the ‘lesser of two evils’ that put the Hitler over the top.
For decades, since WW2, our Military Industrial Empire created and protected this Two Party/One Party system. One wing of it, The Democrats, were as the late Black Agenda Report editor Glen Ford called them, the ‘Foxes.’ Shrewd enough to play upon identity politics and ignore the plight of working stiffs. They did and have always nurtured the very poor and indigent, but disregarding we who labor for ‘The Man.’ The other wing, the Republicans, Glen Ford labeled as The Wolf Pack, ready and able to devour you as they followed their leader’s dictates.
If you will read Rick Perlstein’s fantastic book, Reaganland, you will find how this Trump phenomena was strictly out of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign playbook. Trump even plagiarized the slogan ‘Make America Great Again‘ from Reagan. The 2024 Republicans, as with their 1980 counterparts, pile on the undocumented AKA Illegal Aliens (as if they are from Mars or beyond), Gay Americans, a woman’s right to choose, and of course the Democrats who caused higher food and gasoline prices (and not this Military Industrial Empire). Imagine the irony that the Air Traffic Controllers Union endorsed Ron… and then he fired their asses! So it will be with The Donald 2 when his far right-wing foolowers continue the destruction of labor unions, which are sadly down to but a bit over 6% membership in the private sector. Although we now know that over 60% of Americans polled want government-run National Health Coverage, the MAGA run cabal will see to it that the shitty Medicare Advantage will soon be all we will have a choice for. Profit before People is their mantra folks!
As I listen to Pink Floyd’s masterpiece ‘Comfortably Numb’ so it will be for the less than 1 % of our fellow citizens once January 20 comes around. Dylan was correct gang.
In early August, the authorities in Laos delivered an ultimatum to scammers operating in the notorious Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone: Clear out or face the consequences.
On Aug. 12, the Lao police, supported by their Chinese counterparts, swooped in. Some 711 people were arrested during the first week. Another 60 Lao and Chinese nationals were arrested by the end of the month, and more arrests have been made since.
The way Vientiane frames it, Laos is now getting tough on the vast cyber-scamming industry that has infested much of mainland Southeast Asia.
In Laos, the sector could be worth as much as the equivalent of 40 percent of the formal economy, according to a United States Institute of Peace report earlier this year.
The think tank estimated that criminal gangs could be holding as many as 85,000 workers in slave-like conditions in compounds in Laos.
People in Laos tell me there is some truth to Vientiane’s assertions. This might have been why Laos was downgraded to Tier 2 on the U.S. State Department’s annual human trafficking ranking in July, while Myanmar and Cambodia were downgraded to the lower Tier 3.
According to one expert, “Laos is taking this issue more seriously than Cambodia and has more capacity to respond than Myanmar.”
A man stands on a small boat travelling along the Mekong river in front of the Kings Roman casino in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in Laos, Jan. 14, 2012.
Admitting a problem is the first step, but Vientiane has been somewhat fortunate in how the scam industry has structured itself differently in Laos.
In Cambodia and Myanmar, for instance, scamming tends to be geographically dispersed with compounds across the country and controlled by different syndicates.
Zhao Wei’s empire
In Laos, however, the industry was, until very recently, almost entirely centered in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, an autonomous area long notorious for organized crime and run by the Chinese crime boss Zhao Wei and his Kings Roman Group, which has close ties to organized crime in China and Hong Kong.
The United Wa State Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Myanmar-based militias with large stakes in Southeast Asia’s drug trade, are also active in criminal activity, including scam centers, within the SEZ.
Zhao We, left, a Chinese crime figure who is tied to the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in Laos, is awarded a medal by the Bokeo Military Command, Oct. 1, 2022.
Initially, this centralization of criminality was a problem.
After the Golden Triangle SEZ was founded in 2007, on a 99-year concession awarded to Zhao, it essentially operated as a mini-fiefdom. The Lao authorities were not even allowed entrance to the economic zone, giving the criminals carte blanche.
This was a concern of a few nationalists within Laos’s communist party but tolerated by the majority, who regarded crime as a lesser evil, since Zhao and his associates were bringing in considerable foreign investment — and, of course, some cash to the political elites.
However, as the cyberscam problem has metastasized since 2022, this situation has made it somewhat easier for Laos to respond.
Because Zhao and his associates had established laundering trails to China and Myanmar years earlier, it meant that, unlike in Cambodia, most of the revenue from the scam industry immediately left Laos.
This limited the amount of money needing to be recycled or laundered through local conglomerates, thus reducing the sums needed to corrupt Laotian officials, politicians, and tycoons.
This meant that officials, especially those outside Bokeo province where the SEZ is located, weren’t contaminated by scam money, so they were not invested in protecting the racket.
Sovereignty over SEZ
By comparison, the scam industry is more geographically dispersed and controlled by more numerous players in Cambodia. This means much of the revenue stays within Cambodia where it is laundered through businesses run by some of the most prominent Cambodian oligarchs and politicians.
So well-connected has the industry become that even if a faction within Cambodia’s government favored a full-frontal assault on the scammers, they know they would have to take on most of the country’s political aristocracy and oligarchy, risking strife within the ruling party.
Scamming isn’t such an existential threat for the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, or LPRP.
Police arrest scammers in Laos’ Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, Aug. 15, 2024.
Indeed, the normally sedate National Assembly has noisily pressed Vientiane to tackle the scam problem, even last year rejecting a proposed government bill to toughen up regulations on SEZs for being too weak.
In May, the Lao government reshuffled the leadership of Bokeo province, where the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone is located, ostensibly to clean out officials who had been bought off.
Vientiane has somewhat reasserted its sovereignty over the zone this year.
Through discussion and threats, it got Zhao and his Kings Roman Group to accept greater access for Laotian police and troops to the economic zone. That said, Zhao and associates can still limit what Lao authorities can do in the zone
Another advantage is that Zhao serves more at the whim of the Chinese Communist Party, which wants to crack down on parts of the scam industry in Southeast Asia, than some of the more independent operators in Cambodia and Myanmar.
And the Lao government is also more dependent on Beijing than Cambodia’s authoritarian government.
Pressure from China
That means Vientiane, which relies almost entirely on Chinese investment for economic growth and on Chinese debt relief so the state doesn’t go bust, cannot say no when Beijing orders it to move on the scammers.
The raids on the Golden Triangle SEZ in August came after a meeting earlier that month between the Lao Ministry of Public Security and Zhao – and just weeks after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Vientiane.
However, we must also ask whether Laos’s cure is actually creating a worse disease.
According to a USIP report last month, the Aug. 6 meeting between government officials and Zhao Wei, weeks before the raid on his GTSEZ, “gave criminal kingpins and their senior [scam] compound managers ample time to relocate. Many of them shifted operations to Cambodia or the Myanmar border with Thailand.”
Simply scaring off some scammers to Cambodia might not be the best regional response, although Vientiane probably won’t give a fig about this.
An apparent call center in Laos is raided by authorities, Aug. 9, 2024.
However, Vientiane would care if scammers are now merely set up shop elsewhere in Laos. One source tells me that they are already embedding themselves in the capital and near the Laos-China border.
Depending on how things play out, Laos might end up with a diffuse scam industry that’s structured a lot more like Cambodia’s — and which is far harder to dismantle.
Dispersing the scam compounds means increasing contacts between the criminals and officials from other provinces. Less sophisticated syndicates mean more of the scamming profits stay in-country, laundered through the local economy, infecting everything.
Narco-states like Mexico and Colombia have learned the brutal lesson that it’s simpler to deal with an illegal industry run by one dominant cartel, even one you have to tolerate, rather than a scorched-earth free-for-all between many warring factions.
Possibly, a similar impulse may be why Vientiane seemingly wants to push Zhao and his associates enough for some smaller operators to flee the country, but not enough that the Golden Triangle SEZ collapses.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes theWatching Europe In Southeast Asianewsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.
If you cast your mind back to when Keir Starmer was leader of the opposition, as painful as it might be, you will be absolutely familiar with these relaunch things the failing Prime Minister likes to unravel whenever the shit hits the fan.
These repetitive relaunches — his NINETEENTH since becoming leader of the Labour Party — never actually improved Starmer’s own personal reputation and offered nothing of any substance to the people that needed a Labour government more than most.
No, Starmerites, you won a general election because the public couldn’t possibly stomach the Tories for another five years. It had absolutely nothing to do with Keir Starmer, and even less to do with focus groups.
Silly little three-word soundbites might’ve worked well for Boris ‘Get Brexit Done’ Johnson, but they’ve never served Keir ‘Boring, Inept, Hypocritical’ Starmer particularly well.
Relaunch number 19: more made-to-be-broken promises
This latest series of made-to-be-broken promises are designed to make you think Starmer is delivering the “change” he promised to all of us throughout the general election campaign and in the 2024 Labour Manifesto.
Do you really think Keir Starmer is in any sort of a position to lecture the British people on law and order when he and his government not only give the green light to weapons manufacturers to supply Israel with the tools of genocide, but also remain vocally and unashamedly supportive of Israel, its murderous aims, and its fugitive leader? No, nor do I.
Law and order under the Labour Party will be no different to the lawlessness and disorder of the past fourteen years, particularly when it comes to defending the interests of the rich and powerful that dictate government policy. One rule for us, and no rules for them.
In truth, we have witnessed the worst start for a new government in living memory, and the blame for this catastrophic failure of leadership begins with Keir Starmer and ends with Keir Starmer. No amount of resets, milestones, aspirations, missions, pledges, promises, guarantees, commitments or whatever other bullet point bullshit they come up with is ever going to change this inescapable fact.
Pandering to the right and far-right
Time and time again, the unfairly maligned Corbynites asked what sort of a nightmare we should expect from Keir Starmer in government when he was so egregious in opposition.
Time and time again they called us “cranks” and “antisemites”. It was so much easier to attack a peace-loving, jam-making, anti-racist and crow over a defeat of their own making than answer for Starmer’s glaring leadership deficiencies.
The past five months is what to expect from Keir Starmer in government:
Taylor Swift tickets and Google-funded dinners? Keir says cheers.
Sending Ukraine billions whilst talking about “difficult decisions” that invariably mean cuts to your services? Achievement unlocked.
Relaunch that lot, Mr Starmer, you diabolical, tragic waste of DNA.
If this is what just five months of a Starmer administration looks like, can you even begin to imagine what five disastrous years will look like?
Culture shocks
And which ex-I’m A Celebrity Clacton carpetbagger is most likely to benefit from the failures of yet another right-of-centre government that promises to “build, build, build” homes at a pace not seen since the 1960’s while delivering little more than a few unaffordable apartments in Surrey. We need council homes, not just ‘affordable’ housing for middle England.
The transition from opposition to government has been a terrible culture shock for Keir Starmer. They still behave like an opposition that promises the world. It’s very simple to guarantee free unicorns for all when you’re not the government of the day, but if you become the government you need to start looking for some unicorns, and pretty damn quick.
I’ll be straight with you. I didn’t watch the whole speech from Starmer. If I need sedatives, I’ll try and get an appointment with my GP, once I’ve navigated my way past an online booking system and a receptionist that has a certain XL Bully-like charm about her.
It wasn’t just the thought of listening to a man that sounds like a combine harvester trying to sing ‘The Fairytale of New York’ that kept me away from the TV, although the importance of competent oratory in politics cannot be overstated.
But it was also down to the fact that we’ve heard it all before.
Relaunch THAT
Promises that cannot be kept, pledges wiped from the internet, lots of political rhetoric but very little in the way of plausible substance that is likely to benefit a vast majority, if not every single one of you that are reading my thoughts in The Canary on this windy Sunday morning.
Starmer needs to bring a little bit of magic to the table. Starmer needs to give the country an idea of his vision for our futures. Starmer needs to rebuild our national confidence following decades of managed decline by successive governments. Starmer needs to find a bit of ‘va va voom’ rather than mediocrity and doom.
But the problem is, Starmer thinks he achieved this on Thursday, when he quite clearly didn’t, and let’s be honest, he probably never will.
Despite being bolstered by an unprecedented degree of Chinese diplomatic and material support, Myanmar’s military has had mixed results in the past few weeks, in the face of mounting economic and fiscal challenges.
The State Administrative Council (SAC) – as the junta is officially called – has continued to suffer military setbacks that have economic implications of their own.
With the capture of Kan Paik Ti, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has consolidated control of the entire border with China and stepped up their offensive in the mineral rich regions.
The KIA announced that it would allow the resumption of rare-earth mining in the Pangwa-Chipwi region, now under its control.
In Rakhine, the Arakan Army captured Toungup, which prevents overland supply to Kyaukphyu from the south.
The Arakan Army have captured the military’s last posts in Ann town, home of the headquarters of the Western Military Command and a major pumping station for the oil and gas pipelines to China.
Over 800 soldiers – mainly hastily trained conscripts – have surrendered in the recent campaign. The Arakan Army now controls 11 of 17 towns in Rakhine.
Arakan Army fighters pose outside a Myanmar junta military headquarters near Ann town after capturing it in this image released Nov. 13, 2024.
While there has been considerable tension between the Arakan Army and the fractious Chin opposition forces in the past, there’s been an unprecedented degree of cooperation now.
Local Chin Defense Forces and the Arakan Army have interrupted resupply convoys from Magwe into Ann, capturing at least 14 soldiers.
Ceasefires in Shan state
In northeastern Myanmar near the border with China, the Chinese stepped up their pressure on the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA.
On Dec. 4, the MNDAA, which has been fighting for years for autonomy for the Kokang region, declared a ceasefire in its war against the military, the second insurgent force in days to cite pressure from China for its willingness to talk peace.
The move followed the TNLA’s announcement that they would agree to talks with the junta.
Soldiers march during a parade commemorating Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw on March 27, 2023.
The regime’s counter offensive in northern Shan state continues to make little headway, and the battles have been pitched and casualties high. The regime continues to intentionally target civilians with air power.
The opposition has suffered some setbacks in Karenni and in Magwe and Sagaing, where logistics troubles continue to impede their gains. Karen forces continue to opportunistically ambush junta forces.
But the junta is facing its own resource challenges, and is desperate to reverse its losses ahead of Chinese-supported elections that are scheduled for 2025.
But with only 40% of Myanmar’s territory under its full control, it’s hard to see how elections could serve as anything but a shambolic off-ramp for the generals.
Despite the overall 12% contraction of the economy since the February 2021 coup d’etat, the junta’s defense expenditure has surged by 222%, from 1.746 trillion kyats in 2021 to 3.703 trillion kyats in 2022 to 5.635 trillion kyats (over US$2.7 billion) in 2023.
The regime has not disclosed its defense budget for 2024 or 2025.
Tight finances ahead
At a recent meeting of the SAC’s Financial Commission, Gen. Soe Win acknowledged that Min Aung Hlaing had directed spending on security to take precedence over all other public spending, despite the fact that the military’s provision of these public goods and social services has withered in the past three years.
Vendors wait for customers at their roadside food stall during an electricity blackout in Yangon on April 26, 2024.
A recent Radio Free Asia report found that the country is producing only 300MWs of electricity, a 25% decline since the coup, with many power generating facilities inoperable, or beyond the junta’s control. The country requires 540MW.
Where the money for increased defense spending will come from, is anyone’s guess. Finances are tight for the junta, with foreign exchange in perpetually short supply.
The regime’s currency controls remain in place, which has devastated the business community, forcing them to sell their foreign exchange at artificially low rates, prompting more companies to try to hide their assets abroad.
The opposition’s control of four of the five official crossings with China has added to the financial pain, as border trade can be conducted in yuan and kyats, not dollars.
That is the crux of the regime’s lobbying of China to pressure the TNLA and MNDAA, two members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance that had led offensives against the junta since October 2023, to stop their offensives.
Foreign investment has fallen each year since the coup, from $1.64 billion in FY2022-23 to $661 million in FY2023-24. Now, more than three years in, investors have lost all confidence.
Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing looks at pearls at the Myanmar Gems Emporium, Nov. 18, 2024.
The military government’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA), revealed that foreign investment in the first seven months of FY 2024-25 totaled only $226 million.
DICA’s data, as reported in Myanmar-Now, shows that most of that investment went to existing projects and operations; only four of 33 this year are greenfield investors.
Scaring up revenue
The junta has been searching for new sources of revenue.
The regime’s Minister of Energy, Ko Ko Lwin, held talks with the chairman of China National Petroleum Corporation in Beijing, where they discussed additional sales of oil and gas, and improbably increasing the capacity of Myanmar-China oil and gas pipelines.
Min Aug Hlaing made a show of attending the Myanmar Gems Emporium in Naypyidaw on Nov. 18, 2024, which remains one of the few reliable income streams for the junta.
The Irrawaddynoted that each year since the coup, the offered lots of jade have increased – from 1,955 in 2021, to 2,150 in 2022 and 4,025 in 2023.
The TNLA has worked to deprive the junta of proceeds from the ruby trade in Mogoke.
While it has allowed individual miners to continue, the TNLA has blocked all large-scale mechanized mining, which has been dominated by the military-owned Myanma Economic Holdings Limited.
Short on manpower, the junta is doing everything it can to force overseas workers home to be conscripted.
A new regulation puts the onus on manpower agencies to recall workers who have been conscripted. They have lobbied the Thai government to send the 2 million legal residents and upwards of 3 million undocumented Myanmar nationals home.
Those that continue to work abroad are a cash cow for the junta.
In September the SAC enacted a rule to force the expatriate workers to transfer 25% of their remittances through formal bank channels, where they must use the official exchange rate of 2,100 kyats to the dollar and 56 kyats to the baht. The black market rate is 3,400 kyats to the dollar and around 100 kyats per baht.
Economic warfare
The junta, however, is also waging its own economic warfare on the opposition.
While the junta has not been able to retake Mogoke or Lashio, it is actively bombing the towns to disrupt economic activity.
Damage from airstrikes by Myanmar junta forces is seen in Mogok, Mandalay region, on Nov. 12, 2024.
China’s border closures and internet and electricity outages of opposition-controlled crossings have put considerable financial pressure on the citizens in territories near the frontier controlled by ethnic armies.
Fuel distribution is now legally banned to the entire Rakhine state, northern Shan State, Kachin with the exception of the state capital Myitkyina. Some 26 townships in Sagaing region, a township in Magwe, and two in Mandalay have suffered the same bans.
As short on resources as the junta is, they still have advantages over the opposition.
But saddled with corruption and plummeting morale, will it be enough?
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zachary Abuza.
It’s been a while since I wrote this because among other things, I’ve been deep in writing my book. And after spending so long focusing on writing about how the government and media systematically and deliberately turned the public against disabled people to the point where they didn’t care when they let us all die (multiple times), its nice to be back to reality and less bleaker topics.
LOL if only.
It seems Keir and his lot don’t ever want me to end this book as they just keep giving me more and things to write about. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be left out and ensure he has a prime place in next years summer bestseller (hopefully) Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of British Disability Activism (out 3 July 2025, available to preorder now).
As my therapist said to me just last week when I expressed concern about how my house was a shit tip whilst I focused on pushing out thousands of words and supporting sick loved ones:
It’ll still be there when you’re done.
Unfortunately, the only thing more disgusting than my washing-up pile is the way the Labour Party government are treating disabled people.
#IDPD2024: what a crock
I remembered mid-yesterday afternoon that it was the United Nations International Day of Persons With Disabilities (IDPD2024) when I realised that not a single disabled person I knew had been asked to speak at events, write, or talk about it. In previous years newspapers have ran special series, disabled people have been asked on radio or TV, and you couldn’t move for the amount of events.
But this year – tumbleweed.
The only thing more drawn out than the name the United Nations International Day of Persons With Disabilities (IDPD2024) is the media and government’s pretence of seeing us as humans worthy of an agency, I suppose.
IDPD2024 feels a little bit like a farce when you live in a country that treats disabled people like we do. The purpose of the day, according to the UN, is to:
promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society.
However, this feels impossible in a country that just this year had it’s government was hauled in front of the UN Committee on the Rights of Disabled People for its “grave and systemic violations” against them. And to answer to these crimes the DWP sent a civil servant many disabled organisers in the room had never heard of.
It feels like a particularly cruel slap in the face of disabled people for the DWP to tweet about today whilst crowing about disability inclusion when you look at the events of the last week.
For #IDPD2024 we are committed to better inclusion and accessibility for disabled people
The plan to get Britain working announced last week is the first step in this Government's goal to put disabled people at the heart of employment support and benefits reform#IDPDpic.twitter.com/1wApUBNKO0
Assisted Dying Bill: a clear line from the past to the present
Last Friday of course saw the reading Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill in parliament; one disabled people had campaigned against ferociously because we could all see how easily the government could use this to kill us – after all successive governments have been trying to do so for decades.
The Bill sadly passed with 330 votes for, weirdly this is exactly the same number that voted against Rob Marris’s Bill on the same subject in 2015. It’s hard not to see some significance there and how emblematic it is of the death march that has been coming for disabled people, led by the government and media.
When the vote was announced on Friday, I was nearing the end of writing my book’s first draft. I’d rather unfortunately had a particularly disgusting earworm all week which horrifically seemed too fitting.
Whilst researching for the book, I was reminded by John Pring (of Disability News Service) of Peter Lilley’s 1992 Conservative Party Conference speech in which he takes a song from the Mikado by the high executioner and changes it to be about “benefit offenders”. The unfortunate thing that I’d had stuck in my head all week was the line he repeats to gleeful applause:
they never would be missed.
IDPD2024 in context
After being so immersed in all the disgusting ways the government had used the media to turn society against disabled people throughout the last few decades, it was impossible not to see a very clear line from Lilley singing about how he wanted to murder all benefits claimants to how disabled people were being treated as hysterical doomsayers for having legitimate concerns about how a program which allowed sick people to end their lives to be used against us.
As I said on X a couple of weeks ago, disability has been so reduced to the worst thing that can happen to a person that disabled people are regularly told “I’d kill myself if that happened to me”. But instead we were told we were being too emotive whilst all the media allowed Esther Rantzen and her family to cry about how the opposed side wanted to leave dying people in excruciating pain.
And of course, the path to getting here doesn’t start with Lilley and end with assisted suicide.
A long road to this point
Lilley was but a stop off on a journey which started decades before – with institutionalisation, only supporting disabled war veterans and workers, breezing past that Tory cunt to Tony Blair’s government responding to disabled people protesting proposed cuts by working with the media to grow public distrust, the austerity years and WCA, DNRs during Covid and the renewed benefits scroungers narrative.
When governments and the media have been working for so many years to erode the public’s support for disabled people, of course our fears of being forced to die were ignored – because nobody sees us worthy of saving. And that’s exactly what the government want – including this one.
Many of the Labour faithful on social media have been trying to brush disabled people’s concerns over Keir Starmer’s government being no different to the Tories under the carpet since July.
We’re constantly told “give them a chance, wait until March”.
However, it’s quite obvious to those of us who have been here many times before that they’re singing from the exact same hymn sheet as all the others who came before them.
IDPD2024 is meaningless
You may’ve noticed a sharp uptick in “cracking down on benefit fakers” style articles lately, and the timing is absolutely no coincidence, trust me. We’ve seen it every time there’s been big disability benefits shake-ups coming. The fact the ‘reforms’ aren’t coming until March as opposed to the Autumn Budget means we’re in for much worse than simply the awful Dispatches documentary.
While it may seem absolutely dire for disabled people at the minute, my research has taught me one other thing.
No matter how much the government and media want to destroy disabled people, disabled activists have always fought back and refused to go quietly.
Whilst the government might be doing their level best to destroy all public trust in disabled people yet again, we will be there to oppose them every step of the way – just like every time before.
In mid-November, the Biden administration (given his diminished mental capacity, whoever is now in charge) authorized the Kyiv regime to launch Lockheed Martin produced Army Tactical Missile Systems or ATACMS to hit targets 190 miles inside Russia. In response, an ICBM was fired in wartime for the first time when the Oreshnik (“Hazelnut Tree), an intermdiate range, nuclear capable missile, took only 5 minutes to hit Dinipro, Ukraine. The Kremlin gave Washington a 30 minute warning before the launch. Putin called the U.S./NATO bluff and he promised that future retaliation could target “decision making centers” in Kyiv.
This new Russian weapon can reach Warsaw in 1 minute 1 second; Berlin, 2 minutes 55 seconds; and London 6 minutes 56 seconds. Europe has no defence system that can intercept it. Putin said recently that when several Oreshniks are used simutaneously, “the resulting impact is comparable in power to that of a nuclear weapon.” Despite Russian warnings about escalating the conflict, the U.S. continues to blow past all red lines and on November 23 and 25, the Kiev regime fired a dozen more ATACMS into Russian territory.
Here it’s imperative to briefly recall how the US imperialist strategy toward Russia got us into this dire situation. Contrary to the official narrative, the war in Ukraine did not begin with an “unprovoked” Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 27, 2022. Rather, as Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University wrote, “In fact the war was provoked by the United States in ways that leading U.S. diplomats had anticipated for decades leading up to the war, which means that the war could have been avoided and should be stopped through negotiations.” (Common Dreams, 5/23/23). VIrtually all policy experts and Russian leaders warned that NATO expansion was, in the words of CIA Director William Burns, the “brightest of all red lines for the Russian elites (not just Putin) of whom would see it as a direct challenge to Russian interests.” George Kennan, architect of U.S. containment policy, called it “a tragic mistake.”
In spite of these warnings, at the June 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO leaders pronounced that “Ukraine will become a NATO member” and at the Brussels meeting on June 14, 2021, NATO reiterated that “Ukraine will be a member of NATO.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov countered, “The key to everything is that NATO will not expand eastward.” In truth, given all the U.S./NATO arms and military training flowing to the Kyiv regime it’s apparent that Ukraine was already a de facto NATO member.
Anyone with a scintllla of working brain matter understood that no government in Moscow would tolerate the decision to bring Ukraine into NATO. Russia viewed NATO expansion on its border as an existential threat and legitimately feared that the US, under the giuise of NATO, would place missiles 317 miles or 5 minutes flying time from decapitating the Kremlin. What would Washington’s response be if Russia or China struck a “defensive” alliance with Canada or Mexico and began placing missiles on the U.S. border? Or, think of the Monroe Doctrine.
In short, the war hawk neocons who prevail in Washington were fully aware of the above but wanted to provoke a proxy war to be fought to the last Ukrainian. They expected the conflict would depower Russia — and perhaps even precipitate a regime change — so the US could move along to the Strait of Taiwan and a likely confrontation with China, the primary peer challenger to US global domination.
Since 2002, the U.S. has squandered $174 billion of aid and military assistance on Ukraine, money that’s desperately needed for addressing the cost of living, health care, housing, education and health care for the working class here at home. Further, there have been more than half a million Ukrainian and Russians killed on the battlefield in a war that that could have been avoided had the U.S. given up the idea of Ukraine joining NATO.
According to the AP (11/29/2024), as many 200,000 soldiers may have deserted from the Ukrainian army. In response, Blinken is pressuring Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 which could add 350,000 in meat for the grinder. My sense is that Blinken & Co. are attempting to prolong the war as long as possible so that when the inevitable defeat does occur, we will hear the refrain, “Trump lost Ukraine.”
In spite of all the official disinformation and propaganda on behalf of the war, a majority of Ukrainians no longer support it (Gallup,19 November 2024) and Americans now oppose more military aid for Ukraine. In our recent presidential election voters registered a strong mandate to end the “endless wars.” Here in Pennsylvania, a majority believe the US is “too involved” in foreign affairs. (CATO/YouGov/9/9/24).Over the past three years, Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine and during his debate with Kamala Harris, he said “I want this war to stop.” In his November 5 victory speech, Trump declared “I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to end them.” We’ll soon see if the unpredictable and erratic Trump adheres to his promise. Given Deep State opposition and some of Trump’s appointees, I’m not optimistic.
In the meantime, no sane person can wish the current situation to unfold into a global thermonuclear exchange and the annihilation of the earth’s people. I’m old enough to recall how the U.S. responded when Russia attempted to put missiles in Cuba and I suspect we are now closer to World War III than we were during those 13 fateful days in October 1962.
U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump is heading America towards very hot wars against China, Russia, and Iran, and for rather cold wars against Mexico, Canada, Europe, and Japan. The difference from Biden-Harris is unclear with regard to the hot wars — Trump has picked a team who overall are as neoconservative as the existing team — but is clearly turning America’s colonies and former colonies (the group that collectively together is commonly refered to as ‘allies’) hostile, because of Trump’s demands regarding tariffs and regarding immigration.
Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border. We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, U.S. consumption of these drugs. It was a very productive conversation!
In our conversation with President Trump, I explained to him the comprehensive strategy that Mexico has followed to address the migration phenomenon, respecting human rights. … Thanks to this, migrants and caravans are assisted before they arrive at the border. We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and between peoples.
So: Trump had lied. And Mexico’s President went public about it, because for her not to have done so would have elicited contempt from Mexico’s own voters, who would have been outraged at Trump’s dictatorial position regarding their country. So, Sheinbaum was doing what she had to do.
Trump’s dictatorial attitude toward other countries contrasts with Biden’s, which (like Obama’s) had been entirely private — far more ‘diplomatic’ and dishonest (not like Trump’s, playing to only the stupidest of his own voters, his “voting base”, without the sugar-coating of hypocrisy that’s popularly called “liberalism”).
This replay of The Trump Show could get even lower ratings by foreign countries than his first Administration did.
For example, yesterday, on November 30, Trump appointed his brother-in-law, who is a major Trump campaign donor, Charles Kushner, a convicted felon, to be America’s next Ambassador to France. Irrespective of anything else, this appointment will be negatively viewed by, and perceived as an insult to, the French people, and will therefore make even harder than would otherwise have been the case, for Trump to win his way with the French Government.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Trump will be even worse a President than Biden-Harris, or Obama-Biden, or Bush-Cheney, were, but only that the billionaires who have placed Trump into office, and who are approving his nominees for federal offices, take a more simplistic approach toward their governing, than do the Democratic Party’s billionaires. Whereas the latter group rely far more upon deception-about-deception — or “hypocrisy” — in order to rule, the former group rely more upon brute force, as “Might makes right” dictatorships typically do. The American tradition, ever since whatever democracy there was in America, became ended here, and America became a Two-Party dictatorship by the billionaires, in 1968 — consisting 100% of representatives of billionaires occupying the U.S. White House — has been, in both Parties, ‘justified’ by ideological fraud, instead of by “Might makes right” rule.
The best example of this brute-force ethic on display by our rulers, was on 24 July 2020, when Tesla corporation’s founder, Elon Musk, tweeted back in response to a tweet from “Armani” which criticized “the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.” Musk replied “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” That’s Trump’s style, too. Naturally, Musk donated at least $118,557,604 to Trump’s campaign. He was the second-largest: the big three were Timothy Mellon $150,000,000; Musk’s Space x $118,557,604; and Miriam Adelson’s Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse Treatment & Research $100,000,000. The fourth-biggest was only $21,256,643, but all of the major donors to his campaign have fascist if not outright racist-fascist-imperialistic agendas; and, so, that is what Trump actually represents (just click onto each one of those big-three donors, to find what Trump’s real commitments are), and it is what foreign countries will be dealing with in his second term.
Like I said, the Democratic Party’s billionaires aren’t any better. According to opensecrets, no individual who was responsible for having donated $100 million or more to Kamala Harris’s campaign is publicly known, but “Future Forward USA Action” is listed for $136,459,651. According to InfluenceWatch, in 2023, “several nonprofit organizations managed by billionaire and foreign national Hansjorg Wyss had donated roughly $475 million to several left-leaning nonprofit organizations,” and the affiliated Future Forward PAC (FF PAC) “has been criticized by the left-leaning Center for Responsive Politics for being funded by ‘dark money.’2’,” so that there is a possibility for individual billionaires to have gotten control of the White House on the Democratic Party side if Trump had lost. It’s not that one Party is controlled by billionaires and the other isn’t. So, the problem in today’s America isn’t only that individual billionaires, even foreign ones such as Wyss (who has relocated to Wyoming), control this Government far more than the mere voters (who become fooled by them) do, but that the very idea (touted in their propaganda) that a multi-Party Government is more democratic than a single-Party one is, is false if all of the major Parties are controlled by the billionaires, which is the case in this country — and is so now in the transition to Trump2 just as it has been ever since at least 1980. So, the only way to rectify such a situation would be a Second American Revolution. Nothing short of that will have any possibility to succeed.
Since the disappointment that will set in — not only within the United States but globally — regarding Trump’s second term, will almost certainly be even more intense than has been the case regarding the other American Presidents so far this Century, the likelihood of success for a Second American Revolution will probably be significantly higher than it has ever been before, but it will need to be appropriately organized in order for it to have a chance to succeed, against the billionaires and their agencies, who control this country now. It needs to be done, and it needs to be done right — like the First American Revolution was.
Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall? Are you hoping that the snow will start to fall?
Okay, I’ll shut up. No more Slade and no daft Christmas puns. Whatsoever.
Although I must admit, it didn’t feel like capitalism had stolen Christmas when I was a youngster, or at least nothing like what we see today where you wouldn’t be surprised to see McDonalds and Google become the official sponsors of the Yuletide season.
It’s beginning to feel a lot like November and December is more about an economic stimulus leading to massive monthly profits for ginormous tax-shy corporations and the brazen exploitation of the working classes, crushed by inhuman workloads.
The Santa Claus we see today, shaped by Coca Cola in the 1930s, probably wasn’t meant to be the new face of the age of capitalism’s mighty reign, just a useful decorative marketing tool. But the world chose to adopt Mr Cola’s idea and Santa Claus became the embodiment of our culture’s capitalistic fervour.
We need to reclaim Christmas
Over in the United States, it all begins with Thanksgiving, or a celebration of colonial genocide, if you prefer. We then effortlessly glide into the capitalist schemes of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the next thing you know, you’re in December paying for a Robovac that you didn’t actually need and a huge smart TV that you didn’t actually want — neither of which you can afford.
A trip to Woolworths and Our Price felt pretty magical back in the 1980’s. Late night shopping was on a Thursday evening, and if you went into the town centre it kind of smelt like Christmas, rather than piss.
But even forty-something years ago, the capitalist project had already tightened its cancerous grip on society. Most of us just didn’t realise it at the time, me included.
Wouldn’t it be incredible if we could take back Christmas from the capitalist marketers? I don’t wish to sound bah humbug, but our society has been manipulated into a culture that bases Christmas around the giving and receiving of presents, and the biggest winner is always going to be capitalism.
What would Jesus do?
I’m sure that I have just been incredibly unlucky, this past week, because it seems every time I switch the wireless on to catch up with this and that, we are having the political and media elite once again looking to blame their own litany of failures on migrants and refugees.
Will Keir Starmer address just one question?
Probably not, but I will ask anyway.
How many migrants is the right amount? He must have a figure in mind. Why does Keir Starmer feel unable to tell us what he thinks is the right number of migrants that are needed to keep Britain running?
We do all know a vast majority of migrants arrive in the country perfectly legally, and not in a small rubber dinghy as the likes of Farage and the several-hundred-thousand people that signed a never likely to succeed petition as many times as they fancied will have you believe, right?
The Tories answer to cutting migration numbers lies within the power of automation, and if all goes to plan you’ll have a robot asking you if you want a 200 gram special offer Toblerone with your 10 litres of unleaded.
Starmer won’t solve anything
Let me put this on record now. Keir Starmer, like those before him, will fail to solve the migration ‘crisis’, because the crisis he is trying to solve doesn’t need solving.
I can just imagine Starmer and his cronies coming together to decide the answer to their ‘crisis’ is further clickbait headlines for right-wing tabloids, because that’s been a rip roaring success for the previous umpteen Jonny-Foreigner-obsessed governments, hasn’t it?
Despite the numbers gradually falling, there are still an estimated 831,000 job vacancies in the UK. Surely the ‘economist’ chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will know only too well that unfulfilled vacancies have a massively damaging effect on our economy?
To be completely honest with you, beyond the utterly shameful demonisation of people who are looking to improve and contribute to our society, my immediate concern for the Labour government’s war on disabled people is far greater than it is for yet another government ‘failing’ on immigration.
Assisted Suicide
This malignant Labour government wants people living in mental distress to be forced to receive visits from ‘work coaches’, in hospital.
This hateful, inept Labour government is going to freeze thousands of older people to death, according to their own figures.
This despicable, unpopular Labour government wants to force unemployed people to take dangerous weight loss drugs.
And don’t even get me started on the Assisted Dying Bill.
Disabled people thinking they are some sort of burden, being coerced into ending their own lives? No, absolutely not.
330 members of parliament voted in favour of the bill, including Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer, and you seriously want me to worry about the never-ending failure of successive governments to come up with something that resembles a sensibly balanced immigration policy, while British parliament has just legitimised the killing of sick and disabled people?
I’m not going to waste my life getting angry about foreigners when there is so much awfulness in our own country that has absolutely nothing to do with small boats, a plumber from Poland, a surgeon from Syria, an Amazon driver from Albania, a bricklayer from Bulgaria, or a genocide victim from Gaza.
Merry Christmas – and it’s only 1 December
Indeed, I most likely have more in common with the aforementioned foreign folk than I ever will with the divisive, nationalistic flag-shagging agenda that seeps out of the House of Commons
Desperate Keir Starmer wilfully fuels the immigration fire whilst the friendlier right-wing tabloids will dutifully fan the flames on his behalf, because it serves as the most perfect of covers for his own Diddyesque personal approval ratings, and his government’s deeply unpopular policies.
You might vaguely remember Starmer’s “Five Missions”?
The first pledge was to achieve the highest growth in the G7, and it was central to Labour’s general election campaign.
1) Kickstart economic growth to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.
A report from the New Statesman claims this mission/pledge/promise/commitment has been unceremoniously dumped by the Labour Party.
What? Keir Starmer, breaking yet another sacred vow to the British electorate?
A week ago, my wife and I went to John Lewis to look at air fryers. As we entered the store, I put on an FFP3 mask because of Covid. My wife looked at me in disgust and said, “Oh, you’re wearing a mask?” I replied, “Yes. There’s a lot of Covid around, and I don’t want it. Do you?”
She responded, “Well, the trouble is, I’m not wearing a mask”.
I said, “Yes, I can see that. I wish you would. The trouble is, every time I’ve caught Covid, it’s been from you. I’m disabled with long COVID, and every time I get reinfected, it makes me really, really ill”.
So here’s my question: does my wife not care?
I want to use this piece to spark a debate about who we are as people. Are we kind and virtuous, or are we selfish and indifferent? Writing an article about what stops people from wearing masks, while I live with the pain caused by my wife not masking, feels like an oddly meta activity.
That’s right, folks: it was probably my wife who gave me Covid in the first place. Although, to be fair, neither of us knew about masking or long Covid back then.
The case for masks amid rising Covid
I need people to wear masks or ensure clean air so it’s safe for me to go out—especially in healthcare settings. Yet, most people refuse. I asked my wife why she doesn’t wear a mask, and she said, “There’s no point, because nobody else does.”
I understand the futility in her statement. Many people don’t wear masks simply because they don’t care or because they think Covid is over.
If my wife were a cruel or unkind person, it would be easier to accept her refusal to wear a mask. But in my experience, even many kind people—even those on the political Left—can be cruel when it comes to disabled individuals.
Although my wife has struggled with my disability, she is generally a kind person. In my autistic brain, it seems perfectly logical that she should wear a mask to protect me from airborne viruses. Yet, logic loses when it comes to personal choices and disability.
Misconceptions about Covid and masks
People think Covid is “just a cold.” Some even believe masks themselves make you ill. I think people don’t mask because of ableism and because they’ve been conditioned to associate masks with the pandemic itself.
It’s the same conditioning that leads them to blame lockdowns and vaccines for Covid, rather than recognising these measures were designed to mitigate its spread.
When people see me in a mask, they’re reminded of the acute phase of the pandemic. My presence confronts them with an uncomfortable truth: their refusal to mask contributes to the deaths and disabling of others. It reveals they may not be as caring as they like to think.
I wish more people would remember the Covid dead and choose to wear a mask to prevent further loss of life.
Why people don’t mask
The biggest reason, I believe, is a failure of public health communication over wearing a mask. The government declared Covid “over,” and most people still trust what they’re told. Many would resume masking if asked, but the government is too afraid of the right-wing media and too indifferent to disability to make that request.
Then there’s the pervasive idea of “health supremacy”:
The belief that only people with pre-existing conditions get long Covid.
The notion that a “healthy” immune system can fight off the virus.
The argument that we don’t need vaccines or other preventative measures.
Some even suggest that “living your best life” and going out for brunch are more important than protecting loved ones. The low mortality rate of Covid is used as justification, with a dismissive attitude towards the elderly and those with long Covid.
Many fail to consider the quality of life endured by those with long Covid or the rising number of children affected. Parents, it seems, don’t care enough about their kids, or they’re unaware that long COVID in children has doubled in the past year.
There’s also peer pressure and groupthink. No one wants to stand out by wearing a mask. “If it were really unsafe, wouldn’t everyone else wear one? Wouldn’t the authorities tell us to mask up?”
When I do convince others to wear masks, it’s usually a flimsy surgical one—barely adequate protection.
The personal cost of not wearing a Covid mask
If we continue as we are, everyone will eventually develop long Covid. Those who still mask are only delaying the inevitable because we’re so outnumbered.
I know people who’ve lost friendships and family connections over masking. Others restrict their contact with loved ones to stay safe. Some have even been lied to by family members about masking.
And all because people must have brunch.
It feels grossly unfair to be forced to choose between family and health. For me, it’s not just about Covid. With a weakened immune system, other airborne viruses are just as harmful. Every cold or similar illness sets me back by months.
The fatalist in me whispers: stop masking. If no one else is wearing a mask, why fight it – just let long Covid take me. Every reinfection only worsens my condition.
A systemic failure
The government—New Labour or otherwise—has shown little interest in preventing the spread of Covid or developing treatments for long Covid. The societal denial of this reality is overwhelming.
Until we build a society and government centred on community and care instead of selfish individualism, we’re doomed. Is thinking of others really too much to ask?
If only long Covid weren’t an invisible disability. If it caused something visible—like the loss of a limb—perhaps people would be forced to act.
The point of wearing a mask: not just for Covid
Here’s why masking matters:
It reduces your viral load if you get infected.
It sets a good example for others.
It shows courage and strength.
It protects vulnerable people, including the disabled, chronically ill, and immunosuppressed.
The position of a state broadcaster, one funded directly by taxpayers from a particular country, places it in a delicate position. The risk of alignment with the views of the day, as dictated by one class over another; the danger that one political position will somehow find more air than another, is ever present. The pursuit of objectivity can itself become a distorting dogma.
Like its counterpart in the United Kingdom, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation can count itself lucky to be given a place of such dominance in the media market. None of that gimmickry to boost subscriber numbers. No need for annual, or half-yearly fund drives.
Why, then, did the ABC chairman, Kim Williams, do it? And by doing it, this involved attacking US-based podcaster Joe Rogan in an address to the National Press Club in Canberra, a foolish, bumbling excursion into the realms of broadcasting and podcasting the ABC might do well to learn from.
In the question session, when asked about the influence of Rogan (“the world’s most influential podcaster”, sighs the ABC journalist), Williams shows little interest in analysis. Rather than understanding the scope of his appeal, one that drew Donald Trump to the microphone in a meandering conversational epic of waffle and disclosure lasting three hours, he “personally” found “it deeply repulsive, and to think that someone has such remarkable power in the United States is something that I look at in disbelief.” He further felt a sense of “dismay that this can be a source of public entertainment when it’s really treating the public as plunder for purposes that are really quite malevolent.”
Williams makes a point of juxtaposing the weak, impressionable consumer of news – one who will evidently be set straight by the likes of his network – and those of Rogan and his tribe of entrepreneurial podcasting fantasists who “prey on all the elements that contribute to uncertainty in society”, suggesting that “conspiracy outcomes” are merely “a normal part of social narrative”.
It is worth noting here that Williams is a former chief executive of an organisation that loved (and still loves) preying on anxieties, testing the waters of fear, and pushing absurdly demagogic narratives in boosting readership and subscriptions. That most unscrupulous outfit is a certain News Corp, its imperishable tycoon Rupert Murdoch still clinging to the pulpit with savage commitment.
Once Williams crossed the commercial river to become ABC chair, he had something of a peace-loving conversion, all part of a festival of inclusivity that has proven tedious and meretricious. The public broadcaster, he said in June this year, should become “national campfire” to enable a greater understanding of Australia’s diverse communities.
It did not take long for the Williams show of snark to make its way to Rogan Land and his defenders, notably Elon Musk, who spent time with Rogan in the lead-up to November’s US presidential election spruiking the credentials of Trump. Showing how Williams had exposed his flank, and that of the organisation he leads, the tech oligarch, relevantly the director of X Corp (formerly Twitter), was bound to say something given his ongoing skirmishes with Australian regulators and lawmakers in their efforts to regulate access to social media.
From such infantilising bureaucrats as eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to the spluttering Williams who bemoans the “Joe Rogan effect”, Musk is being given, rather remarkably, a whitewash of respectability. Their efforts to protect Australians from any prospect of being offended, mentally corrupted, unduly influenced and one might even say being excited, is of such an order as to beggar belief. With little imagination, Musk retorted with boring predictability: “From the head of Australian government-funded media, their Pravda.”
Williams remains truly dumbfounded by this. “You make a comment in response to a legitimate question from a journalist, you answer it concisely and give an honest answer in terms of what your own perception of what [Rogan] is and suddenly I get this huge pile-on from people in the most aggressive way”. Accusations include having “a warped outlook on the world”, being “an embarrassment” and showing signs of being “unhinged”. Ignorance would be the better distillation here.
There is something to be said about Williams being hermetic to media forms that have prevented him from getting to the national campfire he championed. He speaks of communities and users as vague constructions rather than accessible groups. He also ignores, for instance, that Rogan was open to allowing Trump’s opponent, the Democrat contender, Kamala Harris, to come onto his program conducted in his Texas podcast studio during the campaign. This offer was eventually withdrawn given the conditions Harris, ever terrified by unscripted formats and lengthy interviews, demanded Rogan follow. The strategists and handlers had to have their say, and for their role and for Harris’s caution, she paid a price.
For a man with a News Corp pedigree and one no doubt familiar with the Murdoch Empire’s creepy techniques of influence and seduction exercised over the electorates and political processes of other countries – the United States, the UK and Australia immediately come to mind – Williams has shown himself the media iteration of a bamboozled, charmless Colonel Blimp.
Williams might best focus on the problems at his own broadcaster, the organisation the Australians call Auntie. It boasts, constantly, that it is the place where “news” can be found, but more importantly, “news you can trust”. But the current iteration of news remains bland, benign and pitifully regulated. It is clear what the talking points are when it comes to reporting on such areas of the world as the Middle East. Killings by the Israeli Defence Forces, even if they do involve the liquidation of whole buildings and villagers, are never massacres but measures of overzealous self-defence. Hamas and Hezbollah, being Israel’s adversaries, are always prefaced as indulgent terrorists. The list goes on, and, it would seem, the problems Williams is facing.
“Flashpoint” in a foreign news story usually brings to mind the Middle East or the border between North and South Korea. It is not a term usually associated with New Zealand but last week it was there in headline type.
News outlets around the world carried reports of the Hīkoi and protests against Act’s Treaty Principles Bill, with the overwhelming majority characterising the events as a serious deterioration in this country’s race relations.
The Associated Press report carried the headline “New Zealand’s founding treaty is at a flashpoint: Why are thousands protesting for Māori rights?”. That headline was replicated by press and broadcasting outlets across America, by Yahoo, by MSN, by X, by Voice of America, and by news organisations in Asia and Europe.
Reuters’ story on the hikoi carried the headline: “Tens of thousands rally at New Zealand parliament against bill to alter indigenous rights”. That report also went around the world.
So, too, did the BBC, which reaches 300 million households worldwide: “Thousands flock to NZ capital in huge Māori protest”.
The Daily Mail’s website is given to headlines as long as one of Tolstoy’s novels and told the story in large type: “Tens of thousands of Māori protesters march in one of New Zealand’s biggest ever demonstrations over proposed bill that will strip them of ‘special rights’”. The Economist put it more succinctly: “Racial tensions boil over in New Zealand”.
In the majority of cases, the story itself made clear the Bill would not proceed into law but how many will recall more than the headline?
An even bleaker view
Readers of The New York Times were given an even bleaker view of this country by their Seoul-based reporter Yan Zhuang. He characterised New Zealand as a country that “veers sharply right”, electing a government that has undone the “compassionate, progressive politics” of Jacinda Ardern, who had been “a global symbol of anti-Trump liberalism”.
Critiquing the current government, The Times story stated: “In a country that has been celebrated for elevating the status of Māori, its indigenous people, it has challenged their rights and prominence of their culture and language in public life, driving a wedge into New Zealand society and setting off waves of protests.”
Christopher Luxon may have judged “limited” support for David Seymour’s highly divisive proposed legislation as a worthwhile price to pay for the numbers to give him a grip on power. For his part, Seymour may have seen the Bill as a way to play to his supporters and hopefully add to their number.
Did either man, however, consider the effect that one of the most cynical political ploys of recent times — giving oxygen to a proposal that has not a hope in hell of passing into law — would have on this country’s international reputation?
Last week’s international coverage did not do the damage. Those outlets were simply reporting what they observed happening here. If some of the language — “flashpoint” and “boiling over” — look emotive, how else should 42,000 people converging on the seat of government be interpreted?
The damage was done by the architect of the Bill and by the Prime Minister giving him far more freedom than he or his proposal deserve.
Nor will the reputational damage melt away, dispersing in as orderly manner like the superbly organised Hīkoi did last Tuesday. It will endure even beyond the six months pointlessly given to select committee hearings on the Bill.
Australia’s ABC last week signalled ongoing protest and its story on the Treaty Principles Bill would have left Australians bewildered that a bill “with no path forward” could be allowed to cause so much discord. Image: AJ screenshot APR
Alerted to the story
International media have been alerted to the story and they will continue to follow it. Many have staff correspondents and stringers in this country or across the Tasman who will be closely monitoring events.
Australia’s ABC last week signalled ongoing protest and its story on the Treaty Principles Bill would have left Australians bewildered that a bill “with no path forward” could be allowed to cause so much discord.
“The Treaty Principles Bill may be doomed,” said the ABC’s Emily Clark, “but the path forward for race relations in New Zealand is now much less clear.”
So, too, is New Zealand’s international reputation as a country where the rights of its tangata whenua were indelibly recognised by those that followed them. Even though imperfectly applied, the relationship is far more constructive than that which many colonised countries have with their indigenous peoples.
We are held by many to be an example to others and that is part of the reason New Zealand has a position in the world that is out of proportion to its size and location.
Damage to that standing is a very high price to pay for giving a minor party a strong voice . . . one that will be heard a very long way away.
Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies.He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century.
The following article is a comment piece from Jewish Network for Palestine (JNP) on the Labour Party government, Keir Starmer, and British state using anti-terror laws against journalists and activists.
Ever since the coming to power of the Labour Party government in June 2024, headed by a famous ex human-rights jurist, the British government has used police forces in the UK and its dependencies in a highly controversial, arguably illegal, and deeply damaging manner, to support Western imperialist interests rather than using its influence to oppose Israel’s illegal and immoral genocide against the Palestinians, and now also against other countries in the Middle East.
The British state: bending to the will of genociders
Highly respected journalists, academics, and retired politicians were arrested through the improper use of the Terrorism Act 2000, and in Jersey under the Terrorism Act 2002.
The arrest few days ago of a senior civil servant, Natalie Strecker, is but the latest legal atrocity enacted against public figures who are acting for the end of the genocide in Gaza, the release of the hostages on both sides, and a peaceful, just, and negotiated solution to the colonial conflict in Palestine.
Strecker, a lifelong peace activist supporting Palestinian human rights, joins a long list of well-known and respected others who have been intimidated by the unlawful use of the Terrorism Act, both the UK and its dependencies.
Journalist Richard Medhurst, former ambassador Craig Murray, respected journalists Sarah Wilkinson and Asa Winstanley, the Israeli activist and second-generation Holocaust survivor Yael Kahn, author and activist Tony Greenstein, historian and author Prof. Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, and now Natalie Strecker, were all arrested on false pretences and a misuse of the anti-terror legislation.
Are all these people terrorists, or do they support terrorism in any manner? Why are so many of the arrestees Jewish anti-Zionist peace activists? We find this behaviour totally uncalled for, unacceptable and illegal, an abuse of the legal system, and an undermining of the rights of the British people.
Why is all this taking place such a short time after the coming to power of the famous jurist, Sir Keir Starmer?
The answer was provided by Keir himself, more than once.
Keir Starmer must stop this campaign against peaceful activists and journalists
Starmer is a committed and unreconstructed Zionist, as he keeps telling us all.
He has been using a new approach against critics of Israel by using the law for illegal purposes of silencing, intimidating, punishing, and criminalising a totally legal, moral, and principled position taken by these people, and many thousands of others. It is a position mandated by international law, International humanitarian law, UN numerous resolutions, and the Genocide Convention of 1948, requiring us all, everywhere, to act against genocide or attempted genocide in every way they can, and against those who support and abet genocide.
As a committed Zionist, Starmer chose NOT to conform with the law, but to oppose it.
Instead of accepting the view of the International Court of Justice – the highest UN court on earth – he denies their interim ruling in March 2024 that Israel is committing ‘plausible genocide’ and demanding it puts a stop to the mass murder in Gaza.
We call on the government to stop this campaign of besmirching and hounding peaceful activists such as Strecker, to stop supplying arms to states under genocide investigation, and to actively support international law and international humanitarian law.
On Nov. 19, Sok Chenda Sophea, who was only brought in as Cambodia’s foreign minister last year, was given the heave-ho and replaced by his predecessor, Prak Sokhonn.
The previous day, the urbane and much-praised Saleumxay Kommasith was dismissed as the foreign minister of Laos and demoted upstairs to the Prime Minister’s Office.
It is unusual for foreign ministers in both countries to be reshuffled.
Sok Chenda Sophea was only the third foreign minister since the ruling Cambodian People’s Party cemented its power in 1998; Saleumxay was only the fourth foreign minister since the communist takeover in Laos in 1975.
In one interpretation, Saleumxay was merely a casualty of an ongoing carve-up of the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party by the Siphadones and Phomvihanes, the two most important political clans.
Laos’ Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith takes to the podium to speak during a press conference after the 57th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)
It is expected that 2025 will be a year of horse trading and in-fighting between grandees ahead of the National Congress in January 2026, when the party’s new five-year leadership is announced.
Saleumxay was replaced by Thongsavanh Phomvihane, previously head of the ruling communist party’s foreign policy commission and brother of the National Assembly chair, Saysomphone Phomvihane.
Saysomphone stands a good chance of becoming the next party chief, but there are still doubts about whether Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone, the scion of the Siphandone clan, will get a second term.
Uncertain geopolitics ahead
Once considered the party’s “crown prince,” Sonexay’s reputation has suffered badly because of his handling of Laos’s ongoing economic catastrophe, which shows no signs of improving.
Saleumxay was seen by some as a challenger to Sonexay, especially after impressing this year as the minister who guided Laos’s ASEAN chairmanship.
Yet, he was not universally popular within the ruling communist party. Many apparatchiks perceived him as an aloof, independent-minded upstart who rose too quickly.
Removing Saleumxay increases Sonexay’s chances of keeping his job. Putting a Phomvihane in the foreign ministry also increases that family’s influence, too.
Beyond domestic political concerns, the removal of the two foreign ministers comes as their governments prepare for more uncertain times internationally.
According to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Prak’s reappointment will increase the “government’s capabilities” amid intensifying geopolitical tensions.
Prak is an experienced diplomat accustomed to fighting Cambodia’s corner amid new Cold War rivalries, whereas Sok Chenda Sophea was principally an economics-minded functionary – appointed last year because he wasn’t geopolitically-minded.
The neophyte Hun Manet administration wanted a foreign minister who would focus entirely on increasing trade and investment, which was Sok Chenda Sophea’s sole remit as the former head of Cambodia’s investment council.
Cambodia Foreign Minister Sok Chenda Sophea, center, walks during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Foreign Ministers meeting in Vientiane, Laos, July 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)
Under Sok Chenda, the foreign ministry shifted many of its diplomatic duties, allowing it to concentrate on tapping foreign governments for more money.
That left other ruling party grandees like Hun Manet and his father, Hun Sen, still in power in Phnom Penh, to operate their own foreign policy – pursuing controversial issues, like the territorial disputes with neighboring Vietnam and Thailand, that could impair economic relations.
Trump tariffs
Phnom Penh presumably thinks this dual system is no longer workable. Donald Trump’s return as U.S. president in 2025 means Washington will no longer separate geopolitics from trade, so it makes little sense for Phnom Penh to do so, either.
Moreover, it knows it will face a much more hostile relationship with the incoming Trump administration, with its threatened blanket 10-20% tariff on global imports when the U.S. is the largest purchaser of Cambodian goods.
Trump also will bring Marco Rubio in as secretary of state. Washington’s leading China hawk is expected to take a much tougher stance on Beijing’s partners in Asia, such as Cambodia, and on mainland Southeast Asia’s vast scam industry that is increasingly victimizing U.S. citizens.
Unlike Sok Chenda Sophea, Prak is more of a ruling-party partisan who can push back against U.S. criticism. Presumably, Phnom Penh realizes it’ll soon have to wade into a new fight with Washington, making it even more important to be on the best terms with Beijing.
Beijing won’t be displeased by Prak’s return.
Attuned to Beijing
China is believed to have grown weary with some of the princelings installed in Hu Manet’s cabinet during last year’s vast generational succession process.
It has been lobbying for the return of Prak, an old-style politician who understands how Beijing prefers things to be done.
In Vientiane, Saleumxay did a good job in recent years of pitching Laos to the rest of the world, including the West, and as the only fluent English speaker in the Politburo was key to securing some important development assistance packages from Japan, the U.S., and European states.
Yet Laos’s dire economic situation, particularly its massive debts to China, isn’t improving, and only Beijing has the ability to assist meaningfully.
A damning report by the IMF published last week noted that Laos’s economy “critically relies on the continued extension of debt relief from China.” Vientiane knows it must narrow its foreign relations again to focus squarely on China.
Indeed, the communist party is eager to find a more senior role for pro-Beijing figures like Sommath Pholsena, currently a deputy president of the National Assembly and a childhood friend of Xi Jinping, China’s president. He’ll likely be the next National Assembly chair.
Thongsavanh Phomvihane, the new foreign minister, started his career at Laos’s embassy in Beijing, has closer ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and is more of a party loyalist than Saleumxay.
Like Prak, he’s an older, more traditional and safer pair of hands, someone who understands what Beijing wants and how to provide that.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes theWatching Europe In Southeast Asianewsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.
Keir Starmer is less popular with British people than Donald Trump.
Read that back, and then say it out loud.
Now, I know as well as anyone just how detestable Keir Starmer is.
Keir Starmer is that failed MOT that you cannot afford to put right.
Keir Starmer is missing the last bus home by a few seconds.
Keir Starmer is the excruciating dental abscess that keeps you awake at night and leaves you looking a bit like one of the Tweenies.
Okay, maybe I’m being a little bit too kind. But more hated than Trump, in Britain? We really are plunging head first down the most slippery of slopes right now.
What a mess, Keir Starmer – and that’s without Donald Trump
While the British media seems deeply troubled — albeit predictably — by the thought of multi-millionaire land owning farmers having to consider the implications of having to pay a little more tax in the future, I will save my concerns for the farmers in Gaza that have witnessed the systematic destruction of their crops and their land by the Israeli military, because they no longer have the means to feed themselves and the Gazan population.
According to Labour’s own impact assessment, their own cuts to the winter fuel payments are likely to force another 100,000 pensioners in England and Wales into relative poverty. You honestly want me to care about multimillionaires while this shit is happening, under a Labour government?
This is an absolute masterclass in how not to make policy, and the sooner this ridiculous government admit to making one almighty great fuck up, the better for everyone.
Farmers what?
Millions of British children are growing up in poverty. Disabled people are no better off under Labour and are facing more cuts. Our NHS is in a permanent state of crisis with privatisation being seen as the go to solution for Labour. Homelessness and rough sleeping are a national disgrace, as great as any other. We continue to fuel conflict and violence across the globe. Energy prices are set to rise again in January.
And you want us to join a vigil for a group of farmers that fail to understand that lots of people in Britain work bloody hard their entire lives to still have no more than a few trinkets for a memory box to pass down to their children, if we’re lucky?
Fuck off, Clarkson. If you are standing on the opposite side of the argument to that narcissistic Tory pig, you must be doing something right.
Unlike the dangerously stupid Keir Starmer, who is hopeful of dragging Britain into an unwinnable conflict with Putin’s Russia – simply to create a mushroom-cloud-sized smokescreen for his multiple crises on the domestic front.
Vote Labour – bomb and genocide everywhere?
I don’t seem to remember “vote Labour, bomb Russia” appearing at any point in the most recent Labour Party manifesto.
When you find yourselves less popular than a pair of septic, racist hate preachers in the shape and musty, pissy mattress stench of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, surely you would start asking some difficult questions of yourself, prime minister?
Did the ICC feel sorry for Joe Biden? Maybe they have also realised the guy is quite simply non compos mentis, and just maybe they didn’t see the point of following up his complicity with a warrant?
The fugitive, Netanyahu is already on record as describing the ICC as “disgraceful”, and the old favourite, “antisemitic”, a word that has been completely devalued, misused and exaggerated by bad faith actors whenever they feel the need to shut down perfectly legitimate criticism of the Israeli terrorist state.
Under international law, any state that has signed up to the ICC’s Rome Statute is obliged to detain the wanted war criminal Netanyahu ‘on sight’, and that includes the UK.
Hand-wringing
When questioned on how Britain would respond to the arrest warrant, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper (another hater of disabled people) claimed it wasn’t a matter for her.
Sorry to disappoint you, Yvette, but you’re in charge of the police, so cut this no comment bullshit and ensure Britain fully complies with international law. If we really wanted a government of corrupt, freeloading, Israel first stooges that hold no regard for international law we would’ve kept the last lot in place.
Britain’s full throttled support for Israel — for which it will be judged by history not dissimilar to how those that supported the Nazis are judged — now has to come to a sudden and immediate halt.
While the US will deny the charge of genocide until they are red, white, and blue in the face, we can and must be better. If the US wants to be an ally of a war criminal state, let them. We don’t have to nod along with every Washington diktat, even if you have been taught to believe it is compulsory.
If Keir Starmer believes he can save his own bacon in Britain by kicking off with a well-armed superpower like Russia, he is more foolish than I ever thought possible. Has he considered what an incoming Trump presidency is likely to mean for Russia, Ukraine, and little, worryingly isolated Britain?
There’s no appetite for war, Keir Starmer
There is no appetite for war in Britain. Even to this day, the horrors of the invasion of Iraq still leave an indelible stain on the British national conscience.
The Labour Party should know this better than anyone else.
I’m sure the right-wing media will get fully behind the son-of-a-toolmaker Starmer’s posturing, they love a bit of fighting talk. But the sycophantic hacks and their editors will be at back of the queue when it comes to volunteering to book their journeys home to Britain, loaded on to the rear end of an RAF plane in a fucking flag-draped wooden box.
Keir Starmer is painfully out of his depth, both domestically and on the global stage. Why did anyone think his experience of locking away a few shoplifters made him suitable to run a country?
I used to answer phone calls for Vodafone, many, many years ago, back in the days of the Nokia 3310. Based on Starmer’s career progression, perhaps I should put myself forward to be a nuclear physicist, or better still, the next poet laureate?
Dr. Peter Carter, an Expert Reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has new information about the status of climate change that meets the IPCC 6th Assessment worst-case scenario. Carter makes the case that the climate system is several years ahead of expectations, and in fact, knocking on the door of the IPCC’s 6th Assessment worst-case scenario decades early.
Experts on climate change are at a loss for words and at a loss for understanding how and why the climate change issue, which is negatively impacting planetary ecosystems, is largely ignored. The proof of this is found at the celebrated UN climate conferences, where talk is cheap, like COP29 held in oil-rich Azerbaijan. These are annual events with a long history of poor results. This frustrating stagnation has been ongoing for over 30 years.
Meanwhile, climate denialists, including the entire Republican Party, have brainwashed the public that climate change is not all that it’s cracked out to be, “no worries, it’s a hoax, ignore the radical leftists, ignore science, and oh, yes, they are communists.”
Meanwhile, insurance premiums for home ownership skyrocket, especially Florida and California. Climate change is challenging homeownership as some insurers in regions where radical climate change hit hardest drop coverage altogether: “Cimate Change Should Make You Rethink Homeownership,” New York Times, October 29, 2024.
When studying climate change, there are climate scientists and advocates of all sorts, but few understand and relate the true impact as well as Dr. Peter Carter, who’s studied the science since 1988 and an Expert Reviewer of IPCC reports. His analyses go to the core of the climate change issue. He’s openly critical of the failures of national economies to act quickly enough, and he’s on a warpath to crush climate deniers that preach falsehoods.
Tough Climate Times Ahead
Dr. Peter Carter (retired physician and founder of Climate Emergency Institute, est. 2008) posted a climate update, “November 2024: Tough Climate Times Ahead.” A synopsis of his report, in part, follows herein:
Ever since the IPCC 2018 1.5C warning of a climate emergency that required immediate mitigation efforts by major economies of the world to hold temps to 1.5C pre-industrial, everybody that can make a difference has sort of disappeared while the emergency gets worse, and worse. Where are they?
With the ranks of active advocates shrinking, Carter has appealed for help in taking the case to the major nations of the world, reaching out to climate scientists to get involved publicly by telling it like it is, making the case for immediate mitigation measures to stem “a dire climate emergency.”
And he’s looking for help to counter massive denial campaigns, especially in the U.S.: “There’s still dangerous climate change denial.” Social media is full of ridiculous denials, which originate from fossil fuel corporations and from the Republican Party. It’s not just Trump who is skeptical; it’s the whole Republican Party.
However, there’s plenty of news to dispel the lies.
The US has suffered back-to-back powerful hurricanes, not totally unusual, but the intensity is very unusual and off-the-charts bred by abrupt climate change. Hurricanes have caused $100B damage.
These things don’t happen by themselves in isolation. Human influence has changed the climate and not for the better. It’s important to connect the dots of what is happening right before our eyes, meaning fossil fuel companies, big banks, and big economy governments all threaded to climate change: “They must be held accountable… They are getting away with mass murder on a scale we have never seen before.” (Carter)
It’s a scientific fact that as the lower atmosphere warms via greenhouse gases, the more moisture it holds. Moreover, with tropical storms, water vapor increases five-to-seven times per degree of Centigrade, resulting in torrential rains, atmospheric rivers, and floods, some of the most damaging aspects of climate change.
For example, because the UK is experiencing much heavier rains than ever before, agricultural fields become waterlogged, resulting in a decline of agricultural production. This new era of extreme climate behavior impacts food supply, as the UK suffers from “weather whiplash”: “Climate Change is a Growing Threat to UK Farming,” Yale Climate Connections, October 25, 2024.
The IPCC 6th Assessment calls for immediate action on global emissions, but that call to action is nowhere to be found; it’s not happening. Therefore, we must force governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels, a dead-end industry. For decades we’ve known fossil fuels can be completely replaced by renewables as “Fossil Fuel Subsidies Surge to Record $7 Trillion,” IMF, Aug. 24, 2023. Imagine splurging $7 Trillion per year on renewables, a 10-fold increase over current spending.
Shocking New News for 2024
“It’s very clear climate change is no longer decades in the future. It’s very obvious it’s happening now, so we need to adapt.” (Jim Skea, chairman IPCC)
“The whole of Europe is vulnerable and especially the Mediterranean. We are already seeing desertification taking place, not only in North Africa, but some of the southern margins of Europe, like Greece, Portugal and Turkey,” (Jim Skea)
The Telegraph interviewed IPCC Chair Jim Skea: It’s too Late to save Britain from Overheating, Says UN Climate Chief, October 5, 2024. According to the interview, humanity has lost the opportunity to hold global temperature to 1.5C. And it will take a heroic effort to limit it to 2C.
Since the mid 1990s, the ultimate danger has been set at 2C above pre-industrial, which incidentally, according to Dr. Carter, is catastrophe on a global basis. All tipping points will be triggered at that level… then, it’s too late.
The most feared tipping point is permafrost thaw, which is emitting more and more CO2 (carbon dioxide) and CH4 (methane) than ever. It is melting in the Arctic and subarctic regions, emitting three major greenhouse gases, CO2, CH4 and N2O (nitrous oxide). Atmospheric CH4 is going up a lot.
According to Dr. Carter, scientists are uniformly agreed that the permafrost plight may be irreversible. In the most recent The State of the Cryosphere Report scientists claim permafrost melt is so bad/threatening that people should “be frightened.” This alone should motivate worldwide mitigation measures to halt CO2 emissions.
Alas, permafrost is now officially competing with cars, trains, planes, and industry: “An international team, led by researchers at Stockholm University, discovered that from 2000 to 2020, carbon dioxide uptake by the land was largely offset by emissions from it.” (Source: “NASA Helps Find Thawing Permafrost Adds to Near-Term Global Warming,” NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, October 29, 2024)
Moreover, some of the most shocking news is the State of Climate Change Report in 2023 of huge global surface increases in temperature, part of which was El Nino related, but it was not nearly powerful enough to kick up temperatures so radically. Obviously, something else was at work. Putting the 2023 experience of massive heat into IPCC projections, it hits the “very worst-case scenario category,” because the planet is now tracking above the worst-case scenarios at 8.5 W/m² (watts per square meter) which measures the radiative forcing that heats the planet. This is serious trouble.
[Side Note: According to NOAA data, the Earth’s average radiative forcing in 2000 was approximately 2.43 W/m², with most of this forcing coming from increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. “Before the industrial era, incoming and outgoing radiation were in very close balance, and the Earth’s average temperature was more or less stable” – MIT Climate Portal]
A major source behind the issue is straight-forward: We’ve never produced or burned more coal than today. It’s the worst thing we can do. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2023 global coal usage reached an all-time high, driven by strong demand in China and India, with production also peaking at record levels… for 2024, global coal demand is expected to remain largely flat with production levels of 2023. This crushes Paris ’15.
Earth’s Carbon Sinks Are Failing
Earth’s carbon sinks are losing efficiency. This is horrific news. The Global Carbon Project of the past three years discovered land and ocean carbon sinks starting to lose efficiency. According to Dr. Carter, “this is a terrifying development.” We may be losing our most important natural buffers by up to 50%. The IPCC didn’t expect this to happen until after 2050, if at all, but it’s here now.
A recent study claims the planet’s overall carbon sink absorbed zero carbon or negligible amounts last year. This is the shocker of the year. Well, actually, it’s the shocker of the century. It’s a game-changer, and a devastating climate curse.
The Global Carbon Project 2nd Assessment on the status of methane CH4 and nitrous oxide N2O found each greenhouse gas to be tracking the “IPCC worst-case scenario.” This confirms Dr. Carter’s overriding thesis that we’re pushing the climate system to the edge of a dangerous spiral.
Carter: “Yes, honestly, it is time to panic…. but mysteriously there is no panic in the world.” The 2nd Assessment found all three greenhouse gases going up faster than anybody ever thought possible.
Is there hope?
Dr. Carter says we must communicate with people and tell the truth. We must make sure the world knows we are in a global climate planetary emergency. All kinds of emergency declarations were initiated in 2018 with the alarming IPCC 1.5C warning, but it has faded; it is gone. That warning can be put back into place. And we must harass politicians “to stop fossil fuels, to stop wiping out our future.” And hold corporations accountable. And stop harassing and jailing peaceful climate protestors.
There are possibilities of hope because we have the nuts and bolts of renewables to replace fossil fuels many times over. But fossil fuels are increasing at the same rate, or faster, as renewables. This is a road to nowhere.
In summation, the climate system is tracking above the IPCC’s worst-case scenario, and in Dr. Carter’s words: “It is time to panic: Yes, panic.” But who really knows this? And who really knows but could care less? Something somehow must be done well in advance of the world suddenly waking up one day when it’s too late with the sudden realization: “We are screwed.”
Academy Award Nominee Don’t Look Up (2021) is a perfect analogy for today’s situation.
The storyline: Astronomy grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) discover a comet the size of Mount Everest headed straight for Earth. Warned by Dibiasky and Mindy, the political establishment, brushing off the astronomers while they’re preoccupied with an election campaign, adopt a political slogan: “Don’t Look Up” to win the election.
It now appears to be a question of “when, not if” Chinese security personnel will arrive in Myanmar, with Beijing looking to secure its strategic interests in the war-torn country and those of its ally, the military junta that has lost large chunks of the country since the 2021 coup.
The Irrawaddy online news outlet reported that the junta formed a 13-member working committee on October 22 to prepare the groundwork to establish a “joint security company” with China.
According to the report, the committee, chaired by Major-General Toe Yi, the junta’s deputy home affairs minister, is currently tasked with “scrutinizing the importing and regulating of weapons and special equipment” until Beijing signs a drafted MOU on forming a “security company.”
After that, according to the narrative from Beijing and Naypyidaw, Chinese personnel would join a “company” — more like a militia — alongside junta troops, which would be tasked with defending Chinese strategic and economic interests in the country.
I’m told that China will send troops from the military and police in a “private” capacity, giving the fiction of detachment.
Yet this would not be a joint venture in anything but name.
Soldiers of Chinese People’s Liberation Army fire a mortar during a live-fire military exercise in Anhui province, China May 22, 2021. (Reuters)
Does one seriously think that Chinese troops or police are going to listen to the Myanmar generals who have lost battle after battle to ethnic armies and ill-trained civilian militias over the past four years?
Moreover, there is no reason to think that the China-junta “militia” will stick to merely protecting Chinese nationals and Chinese-owned businesses in Myanmar.
Chinese projects delayed
It is true that Chinese assets have come under increased levels of attack from anti-junta forces in recent months.
There is some logic, if you’re sitting in Beijing and Naypyidaw, in wanting to allow Chinese forces to help command most of northern Myanmar, giving junta forces a better chance of mopping up rebel forces elsewhere.
The civil war has delayed key Chinese projects in the country, such as the long-planned China-Myanmar Economic Corridor between China’s Yunnan province and Myanmar’s Indian Ocean coast.
Chinese soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army sit on the back of a truck on the highway to Nyingchi, Tibet Autonomous Region, China, October 19, 2020)
Strategically key for Beijing is a port it wants to build in Rakhine state, allowing China to import oil and gas from the Middle East without ships needing to pass through the Malacca Strait, a potential chokepoint.
This would be essential in the event of a conflict in the South China Sea, during which the Philippines or Taiwan could try to blockade Chinese trade, including oil and gas imports on which China’s economy depends.
My sources say that the majority of the PLA contingent will be deployed to Rakhine state.
According to statements released by Beijing, almost certainly intended to construct a peace narrative ahead of the deployment, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told junta leader Min Aung Hlaing in August that he hoped “Myanmar will earnestly safeguard the safety of Chinese personnel and projects.”
When Min Aung Hlaing visited China earlier this month, his first visit since the coup, Chinese Premier Li Qiang instructed him to “take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals, institutions, and projects in the country.”
The reality, as Beijing knows well, is that the junta cannot ensure these things.
That’s the entire reason why the “security companies” are deemed necessary by the Chinese government.
Offensive operations
Once Chinese security personnel are on the ground in Myanmar, the fiction that they’re just standing guard outside a few industrial compounds or pipelines will become difficult to maintain.
Indeed, they’re likely to have no choice but to mount offensive operations.
The most obvious reason to expect this is that many Chinese-run enterprises are in territory currently controlled by resistance groups that will presumably need to be taken by Chinese forces.
If not, why would Beijing make a u-turn on its existing policy, which had been to cajole and pay the ethnic militias to leave Chinese entities out of their fight with the junta?
Ethnic rebel group Ta’ang National Liberation Army patrol near Namhsan Township in Myanmar’s northern Shan State. (AFP)
Secondly, after years of dallying, Beijing now clearly thinks that it cannot trust the anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG), presumably because it’s too pro-Western, nor most of the anti-junta ethnic militias – even those who have taken money from Beijing.
Chinese authorities reportedly detained Peng Daxun, the leader of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), a militia that has inflicted heavy casualties on the junta, after he was summoned to Yunnan for a parlay last month.
This may be a temporary detention pour encourager les autres, or it may be Beijing trying to dismantle disloyal militias more permanently.
Yet, in essence, Beijing has now thrown its weight behind the junta because it presumably believes China’s interests would be best served by an outright junta victory.
So if Beijing thinks the ultimate way of protecting Chinese business interests in Myanmar, for now and in the long term, is for the civil war to be ended and for junta forces to win the conflict decisively, the difference between Chinese security personnel conducting defensive and offensive operations is paper thin.
Why wouldn’t Beijing use its troops to bring about its overarching goal? Why would Beijing overlook the opportunity to end a civil war that it wants over?
Anti-China sentiment
Why would Beijing merely send personnel to defend Chinese factories and pipelines for a few months or years if it thinks there is the possibility that forces hostile to Chinese interests could eventually take power nationally?
Under these circumstances, Chinese personnel would think it justified, under the narrative of “safeguarding the safety of Chinese nationals, institutions and projects in the country,” to wage offensive assaults against anti-junta forces across Myanmar.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a meeting with Russia’s President in Saint Petersburg on Sept. 12, 2024. (AFP Photo/Kristina Kormilitsyna)
Granted, the junta is touchy about being seen as a lackey of Beijing — or about Myanmar becoming a protectorate of China.
That is why Beijing has offered platitudes of a joint “security company,” a fiction to get around Myanmar’s constitution that forbids the deployment of foreign troops.
But what position will the junta be in to dictate what Chinese personnel can do or where they can go once they are in Myanmar?
Lastly, does one imagine that anti-junta forces won’t retaliate against Chinese intervention, especially when that intervention is so clearly on behalf of the regime?
Anti-China sentiment is running high in Myanmar and will boil over once Chinese troops and police step foot in the country.
One can very easily imagine an escalating campaign of attacks by anti-junta forces on Chinese interests – increasing the incentives for Chinese security personnel to launch offensive operations.
Once Chinese boots are on the ground in Myanmar, this means direct intervention by China – not merely an economic peacekeeping effort by joint “security companies.”
And Chinese personnel will have to conduct offensive operations – not just stand guard at Chinese-run factories and pipelines.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes theWatching Europe In Southeast Asianewsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
