Leaders of a hīkoi against David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill have rejected the ACT party leader’s offer of a meeting as they set off for Wellington.
A dawn karakia at Te Rerenga Wairua launched the national hīkoi today.
Hīkoi mō te Tiriti participants gathered for a dawn blessing ahead of a nine-day journey to Wellington. Police are preparing for 25,000 people to join, while organisers are hoping for as many as 40,000.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
The NSW Supreme Court has issued orders prohibiting a major climate protest that would blockade ships entering the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle for 30 hours. Despite the court ruling, Wendy Bacon reports that the protest will still go ahead next week.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon
In a decision delivered last Thursday, Justice Desmond Fagan in the NSW Supreme Court ruled in favour of state police who applied to have the Rising Tide ‘Protestival’ planned from November 22 to 24 declared an “unauthorised assembly”.
Rising Tide has vowed to continue its protest. The grassroots movement is calling for an end to new coal and gas approvals and imposing a 78 percent tax on coal and gas export profits to fund and support Australian workers during the energy transition.
The group had submitted what is known as a “Form 1” to the police for approval for a 30-hour blockade of the port and a four-day camp on the foreshore.
If approved, the protest could go ahead without police being able to use powers of arrest for offences such as “failure to move on” during the protest.
Rising Tide organisers expect thousands to attend of whom hundreds would enter the water in kayaks and other vessels to block the harbour.
Last year, a similar 24-hour blockade protest was conducted safely and in cooperation with police, after which 109 people refused to leave the water in an act of peaceful civil disobedience. They were then arrested without incident. Most were later given good behaviour bonds with no conviction recorded.
Following the judgment, Rising Tide organiser Zack Schofield said that although the group was disappointed, “the protestival will go ahead within our rights to peaceful assembly on land and water, which is legal in NSW with or without a Form 1.”
Main issue ‘climate pollution’
“The main public safety issue here is the climate pollution caused by the continued expansion of the coal and gas industries. That’s why we are protesting in our own backyard — the Newcastle coal port, scene of Australia’s single biggest contribution to climate change.”
In his judgment, Justice Desmond Fagan affirmed that protesting without a permit is lawful.
In refusing the application, he described the planned action as “excessive”.
“A 30-hour interruption to the operations of a busy port is an imposition on the lawful activities of others that goes far beyond what the people affected should be expected to tolerate in order to facilitate public expression of protest and opinion on the important issues with which the organisers are concerned,” he said.
During the case, Rising Tide’s barrister Neal Funnell argued that in weighing the impacts, the court should take into account “a vast body of evidence as to the cost of the economic impact of global warming and particularly the role the fossil fuel industry plays in that.“
But while agreeing that coal is “extremely detrimental to the atmosphere and biosphere and our future, Justice Fagan indicated that his decision would only take into account the immediate impacts of the protest, not “the economic effect of the activity of burning coal in power plants in whatever countries this coal is freighted to from the port of Newcastle”.
NSW Police argued that the risks to safety outweighed the right to protest.
Rising Tide barrister Neal Funnell told the court that the group did not deny that there were inherent risks in protests on water but pointed to evidence that showed police logs revealed no safety concerns or incidents during the 2023 protest.
Although he accepted the police argument about safety risks, Justice Fagan acknowledged that the “organisers of Rising Tide have taken a responsible approach to on-water safety by preparing very thorough plans and protocols, by engaging members of supportive organisations to attend with outboard motor driven rescue craft and by enlisting the assistance of trained lifeguards”.
The Court’s reasons are not to be understood as a direction to terminate the protest.
NSW government opposition
Overshadowing the case were statements by NSW Premier Chris Minns, who recently threatened to make costs of policing a reason why permits to protest could be refused.
Last week, Minns said the protest was opposed because it was dangerous and would impact the economy, suggesting further government action could follow to protect coal infrastructure.
“I think the government’s going to have to make some decisions in the next few weeks about protecting that coal line and ensuring the economy doesn’t close down as a result of this protest activity,” he said.
Greens MP and spokesperson for climate change and justice Sue Higginson, who attended last year’s Rising Tide protest, said, “ It’s the second time in the past few weeks that police have sought to use the court to prohibit a public protest event with the full support of the Premier of this State . . . ”
Higginson hit back at Premier Chris Minns: “Under the laws of NSW, it’s not the job of the Premier or the Police to say where, when and how people can protest. It is the job of the Police and the Premier to serve the people and work with organisers to facilitate a safe and effective event.
“Today, the Premier and the Police have thrown this obligation back in our faces. What we have seen are the tactics of authoritarian politics attempting to silence the people.
“It is telling that the NSW Government would rather seek to silence the community and protect their profits from exporting the climate crisis straight through the Port of Newcastle rather than support our grassroots communities, embrace the right to protest, take firm action to end coal exports and transition our economy.”
Limits of police authorised protests
Hundreds of protests take place in NSW each year using Form 1s. Many other assemblies happen without a Form 1 application. But the process places the power over protests in the hands of police and the courts.
In a situation in which NSW has no charter of human rights that protects the right to protest, Justice Fagan’s decision exposes the limits of the Form 1 approach to protests.
NSW Council for Civil Liberties is one of more than 20 organisations that supported the Rising Tide case.
In response to the prohibition order, its Vice-President Lidia Shelly said, “Rising Tide submitted a Form 1 application so that NSW Police could work with the organisers to ensure the safety of the public.
“The organisers did everything right in accordance with the law. It’s responsible and peaceful protesting. Instead, the police dragged the organisers to Court and furthered the public’s perception that they’re acting under political pressure to protect the interests of the fossil fuel industry.”
Shelly said, “In denying the Form 1, NSW Police have created a perfect environment for mass arrests of peaceful protestors to occur . . .
“The right to peaceful assembly is a core human right protected under international law. NSW desperately needs a state-based charter of human rights that protects the right to protest.
“The current Form 1 regime in New South Wales is designed to repress the public from exercising their democratic rights to protest. We reiterate our call to the NSW Government to repeal the draconian anti-protest laws, abolish the Form 1 regime, protect independent legal observers, and introduce a Human Rights Act that enshrines the right to protest.”
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS movement and the Greens. Republished with the permission of the author.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
A national hīkoi across Aotearoa New Zealand began today in the small Far North town of Te Kāo.
Supporters gathered at Pōtahi Marae, before setting out tomorrow on the first leg of the long journey south.
Travellers from Bluff at the far end of the South Island are also travelling toward Wellington to join the North Island group.
Toitū te Tiriti . . . the Māori activist group fighting for the treaty. Video: RNZ
On November 19, the hīkoi is planned to arrive on Parliament grounds, having gathered supporters from the very top and bottom of New Zealand through the nine-day journey.
Toitū te Tiriti organiser Eru Kapa-Kingi told RNZ the hīkoi was as much about Māori unity as it was opposition to government policy — in particular, the Treaty Principles Bill, which had been expected to be tabled at Parliament on November 18, the day before the hīkoi was set to arrive.
However, the Bill was tabled earlier than expected, on November 7, a move many Māori leaders labelled an attempt to undermine the the hīkoi.
In a statement posted to the Toitū te Tiriti Instagram page, Kapa-Kingi said no changes would be made to the planned hīkoi.
“We always knew a shuffle like this would come along, this is not unexpected from this coalition, they have shown us who they are for the past year.
“However this timing change does not matter, our kaupapa could never be, and will not be overshadowed. In fact, this just gives us more kaha (strength) to get on our whenua and march for our mokopuna.
“Bills come and go, but Te Tiriti is infinite, and so are we; our plans will not change. Kia kaha tātou.”
Disruptions likely on some roads – police
Police have warned that some disruption is likely on roads and highways, as the hīkoi passes through.
Superintendent Kelly Ryan said police would keep Waka Kotahi and local councils updated about the roads, so drivers in each area could find updates. She recommended travellers “plan accordingly”.
Police have also been in contact with the hīkoi organisers, she said: “Our discussions with organisers to date have been positive and we expect the hīkoi to be conducted in a peaceful and lawful manner.
“We’ve planned for large numbers to join the hīkoi, with disruption likely to some roads, including highways and main streets along the route.”
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi said it would also be monitoring the impact of the hīkoi on highways, and would provide real-time updates on any delays or disruptions.
A police Major Operations Centre has been set up at the Wellington national headquarters, to oversee the response to the hīkoi in each area, Ryan said.
“We will continue to co-ordinate with iwi leaders and our partners across government to ensure public safety and minimal disruption to people going about their daily routine.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Asia Pacific Report
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry has rejected media reports that it has pulled out of mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas but added that it has “stalled” its efforts until all parties show “willingness and seriousness” to end the war.
News of the suspension comes as Gaza marks 400 days of war with more than 43,000 Palestinians being killed, 102,000 wounded and 10,000 missing.
The death toll includes at least 17,385 children, including 825 children below the age of one, and nearly 12,000 women.
In a statement on X, the ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said Qatar had informed the relevant mediation parties 10 days ago of its intentions.
Al-Ansari also said that reports regarding the Hamas political office in Doha were inaccurate, “stating that the main goal of the of the office in Qatar is to be a channel of communication between the concerned parties”.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs @majedalansari : Qatar’s efforts to mediate between Hamas and Israel are currently stalled #MOFAQatar pic.twitter.com/pvHFKuxqA2
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Qatar (@MofaQatar_EN) November 9, 2024
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson also said that the country would not accept that its role as a mediator be used to “blackmail it”.
“Qatar will not accept that mediation be a reason for blackmailing it, as we have witnessed manipulation since the collapse of the first pause and the women and children exchange deal, especially in retreating from obligations agreed upon through mediation, and exploiting the continuation of negotiations to justify the continuation of the war to serve narrow political purposes,” he said in the statement posted on X.
Criticism aimed at Israel
Commentators on Al Jazeera pointed to the criticism being primarily aimed at Israel and the US.
Senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Qatar had been spearheading the attempt at reaching a ceasefire “for so long now”.
“Clearly, there have been attempts by a number of parties, notably the Israelis, to undermine the process or abuse the process of diplomacy in order to continue the war.”
Earlier, Cindy McCain, executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), said immediate steps must be taken to prevent an “all-out catastrophe” in northern Gaza where Israeli forces have maintained a monthlong siege on as many as 95,000 civilian residents amid its brutal military offensive in the area.
‘Unacceptable’ famine crisis
“The unacceptable is confirmed: Famine is likely happening in north Gaza,” McCain wrote on social media.
Steps must be taken immediately, McCain said, to allow the “safe, rapid [and] unimpeded flow of humanitarian [and] commercial supplies” to reach the besieged population in the north of the war-torn territory.
World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has added his voice to rising concerns, saying on social media it was: “Deeply alarming.”
A group of global food security experts has reported that famine is likely “imminent within the northern Gaza Strip”.
Meanwhile, more than 50 countries have signed a letter urging the UN Security Council and General Assembly to take immediate steps to halt arms sales to Israel.
The letter accuses the Israeli government of not doing enough to protect the lives of civilians during its assault on Gaza, reports Al Jazeera.
COMMENTARY: By Reverend James Bhagwan
“We will not sign our death certificate. We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.”
These were the words of Samoa’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster, speaking in his capacity as chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the UNFCCC COP28 in Dubai last year.
Outside, Pacific climate activists and allies, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors, were calling for a robust and comprehensive financial package that would see the full, fast, and fair transition away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy in the Global South.
This is our Pacific Way in action: state parties and civil society working together to remind the world as we approach a “finance COP” with the upcoming COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11-22 that we cannot be conveniently pigeonholed.
We are people who represent not only communities but landscapes and seascapes that are both vulnerable, and resilient, and should not be forced by polluting countries and the much subsidised and profit-focused fossil fuel industries that lobby them to choose between mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.
Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) are the uncomfortable reminder for those who want smooth sailing of their agenda at COP29, that while we are able to hold the tension of our vulnerability and resilience in the Pacific, this may make for choppy seas.
I recently had the privilege of joining the SPREP facilitated pre-COP29 gathering for PSIDS and the Climate Change Ministerial meeting in Nadi, Fiji, to provide spiritual guidance and pastoral support.
This gathering took place in a spiritually significant moment, the final week of the Season of Creation, ending, profoundly, on the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment. The theme for this year’s Season of Creation was, “to hope and act with Creation (the environment).
Encouraged to act in hope
I looked across the room at climate ministers, lead negotiators from the region and the regional organisations that support them and encouraged them to begin the preparatory meeting and to also enter COP29 with hope, to act in hope, because to hope is an act of faith, of vision, of determination and trust that our current situation will not remain the status quo.
Pacific church leaders have rejected this status quo by saying that finance for adaptation and loss and damage, without a significant commitment to a fossil fuel phase-out that is full, fast and fair, is the biblical equivalent to 30 pieces of silver — the bribe Judas was given to betray Jesus.
In endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and leading the World Council of Churches to do the same, Pacific faith communities are joining their governments and civil societies to ensure the entire blue Pacific voice reverberates clearly into the spaces where the focus on finance is dominant.
As people with a deep connection to land and sea, whose identity does not separate itself from biodiversity, the understanding of the “groaning of Creation” (Romans 8:19-25) resonates with Pacific islanders.
We were reminded of the words of St. Saint Augustine that says: “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
As we witness the cries and sufferings of Earth and all creatures, let righteous anger move us toward the courage to be hopeful and active for justice.
Hope is not merely optimism. It is not a utopian illusion. It is not waiting for a magical miracle.
Hope is trust that our action makes sense, even if the results of this action are not immediately seen. This is the type of hope that our Pasifika households carry to COP29.
Reverend James Bhagwan is general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches. He holds a Bachelor of Divinity from the Pacific Theological College in Fiji and a Masters in Theology from the Methodist Theological University in Korea. He also serves as co-chair of the Fossil Fuel NonProliferation Treaty Campaign Global Steering Committee. This article was first published by RNZ Pacific.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says Israel has stepped up systematic attacks on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign.
Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists in October and Israeli forces began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north, the global media watchdog said in a statement.
“There are now almost no professional journalists left in the north to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began,” CPJ said.
“It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna.
“Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them the world won’t be able to write history.”
“The situation is catastrophic and beyond description,” a camera operator for the privately owned Al-Ghad TV, Abed AlKarim Al-Zwaidi, told CPJ.
“We do not know what our fate will be in light of these circumstances.”
Media watchdogs have varying figures on the death toll of Gazan journalists, but the Palestine Media Office reports at least 184 have been killed in the Israeli war on the enclave.
Could not answer questions
The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these killings, repeating previous statements it could not fully address questions if sufficient details about individuals were not provided.
The statement reiterated previous comments that it “directs its strikes only towards military targets and military operatives, and does not target civilian objects and civilians, including media organisations and journalists.”
CPJ is also investigating reports that two other journalists were killed during this time in northern Gaza.
Al Jazeera report on the Amsterdam clashes. Video: AJ
Meanwhile, the UN Special Reporteur on the Occupied Palestine Territories, Francesca Albanese, has called for Western media to be investigated over their coverage of the clashes between Israeli football fans and locals in the Dutch city of Amsterdam.
The call came after some Western media outlets failed to report on or minimised the actions of the fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv ahead of and during the confrontations on Friday.
“Once again, Western media should be investigated for the role they are playing in obscuring Israel’s atrocities,” Albanese said in a post on X.
“In other contexts, international tribunals have found media figures responsible for complicity, incitement, and other international crimes.”
Once again. Western media should be investigated for the role they are playing in obscuring Israel’s atrocities. In other contexts, intl tribunals have found media figures responsible for complicity, incitement, and other intl crimes. https://t.co/YGBA9cpxNW
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 9, 2024
In one video from the clashes, Israeli fans were heard singing: “Let the [Israeli army] win, and f*** the Arabs!” while another showed them tearing down a Palestinian flag from a building.
A timeline distributed on social media clearly indicated how the Israeli fans provoked the attack by their own violence, but this was largely ignored by Western media.
We are witnessing the total collapse of journalism. Instead, cognitive dissonance and blatant falsehoods reign supreme. Did anyone expect anything different from Western and Zionist media? pic.twitter.com/7vPP4dnaxm
— red. (@redstreamnet) November 8, 2024
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
COMMENTARY: By Robert Reid
The Enemy Within, by Maire Leadbeater is many things. It is:
• A family history
• A social history
• A history of the left-wing in Aotearoa
• A chilling reminder of the origin and continuation of the surveillance state in New Zealand, and
• A damn good read.
The book is a great example of citizen or activist authorship. The author, Maire Leadbeater, and her family are front and centre of the dark cloud of the surveillance state that has hung and still hangs over New Zealand’s “democracy”.
What better place to begin the book than the author noting that she had been spied on by the security services from the age of 10. What better place to begin than describing the role of the Locke family — Elsie, Jack, Maire, Keith and their siblings — have played in Aotearoa society over the last few decades.
And what a fitting way to end the book than with the final chapter entitled, “Person of Interest: Keith Locke”; Maire’s much-loved brother and our much-loved friend and comrade.
In between these pages is a treasure trove of commentary and stories of the development of the surveillance state in the settler colony of NZ and the impact that this has had on the lives of ordinary — no, extra-ordinary — people within this country.
The book could almost be described as a political romp from the settler colonisation of New Zealand through the growth of the workers movement and socialist and communist ideology from the late 1800s until today.
I have often deprecatingly called myself a mere footnote of history as that is all I seem to appear as in many books written about recent progressive history in New Zealand. But it was without false modesty that when Maire gave me a copy of the book a couple of weeks back, I immediately went to the index, looked up my name and found that this time I was a bit more than a footnote, but had a section of a chapter written on my interaction with the spooks.
But it was after reading this, dipping into a couple of other “person of interest” stories of people I knew such as Keith, Mike Treen, the Rosenbergs, Murray Horton and then starting the book again from the beginning did it become clear on what issues the state was paranoid about that led it to build an apparatus to spy on its own citizens.
These were issues of peace, anti-conscription, anti-nuclear, de-colonisation, unemployed workers and left trade unionism and socialist and communist thought. These are the issues that come up time and time again; essentially it was seditious or subversive to be part of any of these campaigns or ideologies.
Client state spying
The other common theme through the book is the role that the UK and more latterly the US has played in ensuring that their NZ client settler state plays by their rules, makes enemies of their enemies and spies on its own people for their “benefit”.
It was interesting to read how the “5 Eyes”, although not using that name, has been in operation as long as NZ has had a spying apparatus. In fact, the book shows that 3 of the 5 eyes forced NZ to establish its surveillance apparatus in the first place.
Maire, and her editor have arranged this book in a very reader friendly way. It is mostly chronological showing the rise of the surveillance state from the beginning of the 19th century, in dispersed with a series of vignettes of “Persons of Interest”.
Maire would probably acknowledge that this book could not have been written without the decision of the SIS to start releasing files (all beit they were heavily redacted with many missing parts) of many of us who have been spied on by the SIS over the years. So, on behalf of Maire, thank you SIS.
Maire has painstakingly gone through pages and pages of these primary source files and incorporated them into the historical narrative of the book showing what was happening in society while this surveillance was taking place.
I was especially delighted to read the history of the anti-war and conscientious objectors movement. Two years ago, almost to the day, we held the 50th anniversary of the Organisation to Halt Military Service (OHMS); an organisation that I founded and was under heavy surveillance in 1972.
We knew a bit about previous anti-conscription struggles but Maire has provided much more context and information that we knew. It was good to read about people like John Charters, Ormand Burton and Archie Barrington as well more known resisters such as my great uncle Archibald Baxter.
Within living memory
Many of the events covered take place within my living memory. But it was wonderful to be reminded of some things I had forgotten about or to find some new gems of information about our past.
Stories around Bill Sutch, Shirley Smith, Ann and Wolfgang Rosenberg, Jack and Mary Woodward, Gerald O’Brien, Allan Brash (yes, Don’s dad), Cecil Holmes, Jack Lewin are documented as well as my contemporaries such as Don Carson, David Small, Aziz Choudry, Trevor Richards, Jane Kelsey, Nicky Hager, Owen Wilkes, Tame Iti in addition to Maire, Keith and Mike Treen.
The book finishes with a more recent history of NZ again aping the US’s so-called war on terror with the introduction of an anti and counter-terrorism mandate for the SIS and its sister agencies
The book traverses events such as the detention of Ahmed Zaoui, the raid on the Kim Dotcom mansion, the privatisation of spying to firms such as Thomson and Clark, the Urewera raids, “Hit and Run” in Afghanistan. Missing the cut was the recent police raid and removal of the computer of octogenarian, Peter Wilson for holding money earmarked for a development project in DPRK (North Korea).
When we come to the end of the book we are reminded of the horrific Christchurch mosque attack and massacre and prior to that of the bombing of Wellington Trades Hall and the Rainbow Warrior. Also, the failure of the SIS to discover Mossad agents operating in NZ on fake passports.
We cannot but ask the question of why multi-millions of dollars have been spent spying on, surveilling and monitoring peace activists, trade unionists, communists, Māori and more latterly Muslims, when the terrorism that NZ has faced has been that perpetrated on these people not by these people.
Maire notes in the book that the SIS budget for 2021 was around $100 million with around 400 FTEs employed. This does not include GCSB or other parts of the security apparatus.
Seeking subversives in wrong places
This level of money has been spent for well over 100 years looking for subversives and terrorists in the wrong place!
Finally, although dealing with the human cost of the surveillance state, the book touches on some of the lighter sides of the SIS spying. Those of us under surveillance in the 1970s and 1980s remember the amateurish phone tapping that went on at that time.
Also, the men in cars with cameras sitting outside our flats for days on end. Not in the book, but I have one memory of such a man with a camera in a car outside our flat in Wallace Street, Wellington.
After a few days some of my flatmates took pity on him and made him a batch of scones which they passed through the window of his car. He stayed for a bit longer that day but we never saw him or an alternate again.
Another issue the book picks up is the obsession that the SIS and its foreign counterparts had with counting communists in NZ. I remember that the CIA used to put out a Communist Yearbook that described and attempted to count how many members were in each of the communist parties all around the world.
In NZ, my party, the Workers Communist League, was smaller than the SUP, CPNZ and SAL, but one year near the end of our existence we were pleasantly surprised to see that the CIA had almost to a person, doubled our membership.
We could not work out why, until we realised that we all had code names as well as real names and we were getting more and more slack at using the correct one in the correct place. Anyone surveilling us, counting names, would have counted double the names that we had as members! We took the compliment.
Thank you, Maire, for this great book. Thank you and your family for your great contribution to Aotearoa society.
Hopefully the hardships and human cost that you have shown in this book will commit or recommit the rest of us to struggle for a decolonised and socialist Aotearoa within a peaceful and multi-polar world.
And as one of Jack Locke’s political guides said: “the road may be long and torturous, but the future is bright.”
Robert Reid has more than 40 years’ experience in trade unions and in community employment development in Aotearoa New Zealand. He is a former general secretary the president of FIRST Union. Much of his work has been with disadvantaged groups and this has included work with Māori, Pacific peoples and migrant communities. This was his address tonight for the launch of The Enemy Within: The Human Cost of State Surveillance in Aotearoa New Zealand, by Maire Leadbeater.
COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle
Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the “Axis of Genocide”. With increasing frequency I hear commentators on West Asia/Middle East news sites hold the collective West responsible for the genocide.
It’s a big come-down from the Global Labrador Puppy status New Zealand enjoyed recently.
Australia too has a record of being viewed as a country with soft-power influence, albeit while a stalwart deputy to the US in this part of the world. That is over.
Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi talks to Piers Morgan Uncensored. Video: Middle East Eye
Regrettably, Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to support US-Israel in the Red Sea (killing Yemeni people), failed to join the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel, shared intelligence with the Israelis, trained with their forces, provided R&R to soldiers fresh from the killing fields of Gaza while blocking Palestinian refugees, and extended valuable diplomatic support to Israel at the UN.
British planes overfly Gaza to provide data, a German freighter arrived in Alexandria this week laden with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of explosives to kill yet more Palestinian civilians.
Genocide is a collective effort of the Collective West.
Australia and New Zealand, along with the rest of the West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. What our governments do is at best “light condemnation” he says, but when it counts they will be silent.
‘They will allow extermination’
“They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination,” Marandi says.
Looking at our performance over the past seven decades and what is happening today, it is an assessment I would not argue against.
But why should we listen to someone from the Islamic Republic of Iran, you might ask. Who are they to preach at us?
I see things differently. In our dystopian, tightly-curated mainstream mediascape it is rare to hear an Iranian voice. We need to listen to more people, not fewer.
I’m definitely not a cheerleader for Iran or any state and I most certainly don’t agree with everything Professor Marandi says but he gives me richer insights than me just drowning in the endless propaganda of Tier One war criminals like Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Antony Blinken and their spokespeople.
Dr Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran, is a former member of Iran’s negotiating team that brokered the break-through JCPOA nuclear agreement (later reneged on by the Trump and Biden administrations).
He is no shrinking violet. He has that fierceness of someone who has been shot at multiple times. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Marandi was wounded four times, including twice with chemical weapons, key components of which were likely supplied by the US to their erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein.
Killed people he knew
Dr Marandi was in South Beirut a few weeks ago when the US-Israelis dropped dozens of bombs on residential buildings killing hundreds of civilians to get at the leader of Hezbollah (a textbook war crime that will never be prosecuted). It killed people he knew. To a BBC reporter who said, yes, but they were targeting Hezbollah, he replied:
“That’s like saying of 7/7 [the terror bombings in London]: ‘They bombed a British regime stronghold.’ How would that sound to people in the UK?”
Part of what people find discomforting about Dr Marandi is that he tears down the thin curtain that separates the centres of power from the major news outlets that repeat their talking points (“Israel has a legitimate right to self-defence” etc).
The more our leaders and media prattle on about Israel’s right to defend itself, the more we sound like the Germany that terrorised Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And the rest of the world has noticed.
As TS Eliot said: “Nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.”
Not a man to mince words when it comes to war crimes.
To his credit, Piers Morgan is one of the few who have invited Dr Marandi to do an extended interview. They had a verbal cage fight that went viral.
Masterful over pointing out racism
Dr Marandi has been masterful at pointing out the racism inherent in the Western worldview, the chauvinism that allows Western minds to treasure white lives but discount as worthless hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives taken in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
“There is no reason to expect that a declining and desperate empire will conduct itself in a civilised manner. Iran is prepared for the worst,” he says.
“In this great moral struggle, in the world that we live in today — meaning the holocaust in Gaza — who is defending the people of Gaza and who is supporting the holocaust? Iran with its small group of allies is alone against the West,” he told Nima Alkhorshid from Dialogue Works recently.
The Collective West shares collective responsibility.
Dr Marandi draws a sharp distinction between our governments and our populations. He is entirely right in pointing out that the younger people are, in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the more likely they are to oppose the genocide — as do growing numbers of young Jewish Americans who have rejected the Zionist project.
“All people within the whole of Palestine must be equal — Jews, Muslims and Christians. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Zionist regime to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza.”
I heard Mohammad Seyed Marandi extend an interesting invitation to us all in a recent interview. He said the “Axis of Resistance” should be thought of as open to all people who oppose the genocide in Gaza and who are opposed to continued Western militarism in West Asia.
I would never sign up to the policies of Iran, especially on issues like women’s rights, but I do find the invitation to a broad coalition clarifying: the Axis of Genocide versus The Axis of Resistance. Whose side are you on?
Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Former Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has been released from prison, only six months into his 12 months sentence, the Fiji Corrections Service (FCS) said via a statement today.
Bainimarama was jailed in May, alongside former police chief Sitiveni Qiliho, for perverting the cause of justice.
“The Fiji Corrections Service confirms that former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has been granted early release as of today [Friday], in accordance with section 46(3) of the Corrections Act,” it said.
“This decision follows a comprehensive review of his application, which was processed in line with the relevant legal provisions governing early release and supervised reintegration.”
It said that the section 46(3) of the Corrections Act, allows for early release of inmates based on specific criteria that ensure both the security of the community and the facilitation of an inmates reintegration.
“All requirements were rigorously assessed, including eligibility criteria, conditions for release, and supervisory measures in place, in accordance with the guidelines established under FCS regulations.”
The FCS will continue to oversee Bainimarama’s reintegration to ensure compliance with all conditions associated with his early release.
“This decision reflects the commitment of the FCS to uphold the principles of justice, rehabilitation, and reintegration, as stipulated by the Corrections Act.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
COMMENTARY: By Paul G Buchanan
Surveying the wreckage of the US elections, here are some observations that have emerged:
Campaigns based on hope do not always defeat campaigns based on fear.
Having dozens of retired high ranking military and diplomatic officials warn against the danger Donald Trump poses to democracy (including people who worked for him) did not matter to many voters.
Likewise, having former politicians and hundreds of academics, intellectuals, legal scholars, community leaders and social activists repudiate Trump’s policies of division mattered not an iota to the voting majority.
Nor did Kamala Harris’s endorsement by dozens of high profile celebrities make a difference to the MAGA mob.
Raising +US$ billion in political donations did not produce victory got Harris. It turns out outspending the opponent is not the key to electoral success.
Incoherent racist and xenophobic rants (“they are eating the dogs, they are eating the cats”) did not give the MAGA mob any pause when considering their choices. In fact, it appears that the resort to crude depictions of opponents (“stupid KaMAla”)and scapegoats (like Puerto Ricans) strengthened the bond between Trump and his supporters.
‘Garbage can’ narrative
Macroeconomic and social indicators such as higher employment and lower crime and undocumented immigrant numbers could not overcome the MAGA narrative that the US was “the garbage can of the world.”
Nor could Harris, despite her accomplished resume in all three government branches at the local, state and federal levels, overcome the narrative that she was “dumb” and a DEI hire who was promoted for reasons other than merit.
It did not matter to the MAGA mob that Trump threatened retribution against his opponents, real and imagined, using the Federal State as his instrument of revenge.
Age was not a factor even though Trump displays evident signs of cognitive decline.
Reproductive rights were not the watershed issue many thought that they would be, including for many female voters. Conversely, the MAGA efforts to court “bro” support via social media catering to younger men worked very well.
In a way, this is a double setback for women: as an issue of bodily autonomy and as an issue of gender equality given the attitudes of Trump endorsers like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate. Those angry younger men interact with females, and their misogyny has now been reaffirmed as part of a political winning strategy.
Ukraine, Europe much to fear
Ukraine and Western Europe have much to fear.
So does the federal bureaucracy and regulatory system, which will now be subject to Project 2025, Elon Musk’s razor gang approach to public spending and RFK Jr’s public health edicts.
In fact, it looks like the Trump second term approach to governance will take a page out of Argentine president Javier Milei’s “chainsaw” approach, with results that will be similar but far broader in scope if implemented in the same way.
So all in all, from where I sit it looks like a bit of a calamity in the making. But then again, I am just another fool with a “woke” degree.
Dr Paul G Buchanan is the director of 36th-Parallel Assessments, a geopolitical and strategic analysis consultancy. This article is republished with the permission of the author.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
The Tongan and Fijian prime ministers are among the first Pacific Island leaders to congratulate US President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump, 78, returned to the White House on Wednesday by securing more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, according to Edison Research projections.
Tonga’s Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, who is also the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum said on X, formerly Twitter, that he is looking forward to advancing Tonga-US bilateral relationship and the Pacific interests and initiatives.
Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka said it was his sincere hope and prayer that Trump’s return to the White House “will be marked by the delivery of peace, unity, progress, and prosperity for all Americans, and the community of nations”.
Rabuka also said Fiji was looking forward to deepening bilateral ties with America as well as furthering shared aspirations including, promoting peace and economic prosperity in the Pacific and beyond.
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minsiter James Marape today congratulated Trump, saying: “We look forward to reinforcing the longstanding partnership between our nations, grounded in shared values and mutual respect.”
Marape also expressed gratitude for outgoing President Joe Biden’s service and Kamala Harris’s “spirited challenge” for the presidency.
Similar policies
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said both the Democrats and Republics had similar policies on the Indo-Pacific and he did not expect much change.
“The US has reengaged with the Pacific in terms of diplomatic representation and increased people-to-people engagements,” Brown was quoted as saying by Cook Islands News.
“From a bipartisan perspective I don’t see any drastic changes in US policy on what they have termed as the Indo-Pacific strategy.
“Both Dems and Reps have similar policies on the Indo-Pacific. I don’t expect much change.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News
Over 30 years the French government tested 193 nuclear weapons in Māohi Nui and today Indigenous peoples still suffer the impacts through intergenerational cancers.
In 1975, France stopped atmospheric tests and moved to underground testing.
Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross was eight years old when the French nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa stopped in 1996.
“After poisoning us for 30 years, after using us as guinea pigs for 30 years, France condemned us to pay for all the cost of those cancers,” Morgant-Cross said.
She is a mother of two boys and married to another Māohi in Mataiea, Tahiti, and says her biggest worry is what will be left for the next generation.
As a politician in the French Polynesian Assembly she sponsored a unanimously supported resolution in September 2023 supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
It called on France to join the treaty, as one of the original five global nuclear powers and one of the nuclear nine possessors of nuclear weapons today.
As a survivor of nuclear testing, Morgant-Cross has worked with hibakusha, which is the term used to describe the survivors of the US atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
Together, as living examples of the consequences, they are trying to push governments to demilitarise and end the possession of nuclear arsenals.
Connections from Māohi Nui to Aotearoa
Morgant-Cross spoke to Te Ao Māori News from Whāingaroa where she, along with other manuhiri of Hui Oranga, planted kowhangatara (spinifex) in the sand dunes for coastal restoration to build resilience against storms or tsunamis at a time of increased climate crises.
In the 1970s and 1980s, many of the anti-nuclear protests were in response to the tests in Māohi Nui, French Polynesia.
The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement began in Fiji in 1975 after the first Nuclear Free Pacific Conference, which was organised by Against French Testing in Moruroa (ATOM).
The Pacific Peoples’ Anti-Nuclear Action Committee was founded by Hilda Halkyard-Harawira and Grace Robertson, and in 1982 they hosted the first Hui Oranga which brought the movement for a nuclear-free and independent Pacific home to Aotearoa.
In 1985, Greenpeace was protesting against the French nuclear tests in Moruroa on its flagship Rainbow Warrior when the French government sent spies and members of its military to bomb the ship at its berth in Auckland Harbour. The two explosions led to the death of crew member Fernando Pereira.
Condemned to intergenerational cancer
“We still have diseases from generation to generation,” she says.
Non-profit organisation Nuclear Information and Resources Services data shows radiation is more harmful to women with cancer rates and death 50 percent higher than among men.
In her family, Morgant-Cross’ great-grandmother, grandmother, aunt and sister have been diagnosed with thyroid or breast cancer.
A mother and lawyer at the time, Morgant-Cross was diagnosed with leukaemia at 25 years old.
Valentina Cross, her mother has continuing thyroid problems, needs to take pills for the rest of her life and, similarly, Hinamoeura has to take pills to keep the leukaemia dormant for the rest of her life.
Being told the nuclear tests were “clean”, Morgant-Cross didn’t learn about the legacy of the nuclear bombs until she was 30 years old when former French Polynesian President Oscar Temaru filed a complaint against France for alleged crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the the nuclear tests.
She then saw a list of radiation-induced diseases, which included thyroid cancer, breast cancer, and leukaemia and she realised it wasn’t that her family had “bad genes”.
Known impacts ‘buried’ by the French state
Morgant-Cross says her people were victims of French propaganda as they were told there were no effects from the nuclear tests.
A 2000 research paper published in the Cancer Causes & Control journal said the thyroid rates in French Polynesia were two to three times higher than Maōri in New Zealand and Hawaians in Hawaii.
In 2021, more than two decades later, Princeton University’s Science and Global Security programme, the multimedia newsroom Disclose and research collective INTERPT released an investigation — The Moruroa Files — using declassified French defence documents.
“The state has tried hard to bury the toxic heritage of these tests,” Geoffrey Livolsi, Disclose’s editor-in-chief told The Guardian.
The report concluded about 110,000 people were exposed to ionising radiation. That number was almost the entire Polynesian population at the time.
New nuclear issues and justice
Similarly in Japan, the government and scientists are denying the links between high thyroid cancer rates and the Fukushima disaster.
Morgant-Cross said she was also concerned with the dumping of treated nuclear waste especially after pushback from NGOs, Pacific states, and experts.
The Pacific Islands Forum had an independent expert panel of world-class scientists and global experts on nuclear issues who assessed the data related to Japan’s decision to discharge ALPS-treated nuclear wastewater and found it lacked a sound scientific basis and offered viable alternatives which were ignored.
In Māohi Nui, much of the taxes go towards managing high cancer rates and Morgant-Cross said they were not given compensation to cover the medical assistance they deserved.
In 2010, a compensation law was passed and between then and 2020, RNZ Pacific reported France had compensated French Polynesia with US$30 million. And in 2021, it was reported to have paid US$16.6 million within the year but only 46 percent of the compensation claims were accepted.
“During July 2024 France spent billions of dollars to clean up the river Seine in Paris [for the [Olympic Games] and I was so shocked,” Morgant-Cross said.
“You can’t help us on medical care, you can’t help us on cleaning your nuclear rubbish in the South Pacific, but you can put billions of dollars to clean a river that is still disgusting?”
As a politician and anti-nuclear activist, Morgant-Cross hopes for nuclear justice and a world of peace.
She has started a movement named the Māohi Youth Resiliency in hopes to raise awareness of the nuclear legacy by telling her story and also learning how to help Māohi in this century.
Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
COMMENTARY: By Gavin Ellis
This morning, I am afraid. I am very afraid.
I fear that by the time I go to bed democracy in the United States will be imperilled by a man, the nature of which the Founding Fathers could never envisage when creating the protective elements of the constitution.
The risks will not be to Americans alone. The world will become a different place with Donald J Trump once again becoming president.
My trepidation is tempered only by the fact that no-one can be sure he has the numbers to gain sufficient votes in the electoral college that those same founding fathers devised as a power-sharing devise between federal and state governments. They could not have foreseen how it could become the means by which a fraction of voters could determine their country’s future.
Or perhaps that is contributing to my disquiet. No-one has been able to give me the comfort of predicting a win by Kamala Harris.
In fact, none of the smart money has been ready to call it one way or the other.
The New Zealand Herald’s business editor at large, Liam Dann, predicted a Trump win the other day but his reasoning was more visceral than analytical:
Trump provides an altogether more satisfying prescription for change. He allows them to vent their anger. He taps into the rage bubbling beneath America’s polite and friendly exterior. He provides an outlet for frustration, which is much simpler than opponents to his left can offer.
That’s why he might well win. Momentum seems to be going his way.
He is a master salesman and he is selling into a market that is disillusioned with the vague promises they’ve been hearing from mainstream politicians for generations.
Heightened anxiety
Few others — including his brother Corin, who is in the US covering the election for Radio New Zealand — have been willing to make the call and today dawned no clearer.
That may be one reason for my heightened anxiety . . . the lack of certainty one way or the other.
All of our major media outlets have had staff in the States for the election (most with some support from the US government) and each has tried to tap into the “mood of the people”, particularly in the swing states. Each has done a professional job, but it has been no easy task and, to be honest, I have no idea what the real thinking of the electorate might be.
One of my waking nightmares is that the electorate isn’t thinking at all. In which case, Liam Dann’s reading of the entrails might be as good a guide as any.
I have attempted to cope with the avalanche of reportage, analysis and outright punditry from CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. I have tried to get a more detached view from the BBC, Guardian, and (God help me) Daily Mail. I have made my head hurt playing with The Economist’s poll prediction models.
I am no closer to predicting a winner than anyone else.
However, I do know what scares me.
If Donald Trump takes up residence in the White House again, the word “freedom” will lose its true meaning and become a captured phrase ring-fencing what the victor and his followers want.
Validating disinformation
“Media freedom” will validate disinformation and make truth harder to find. News organisations that seek to hold Trump and a compliant Congress to account will be demonised, perhaps penalised.
As president again, Trump could rend American society to a point where it may take decades for the wound to heal and leave residual feelings that will last even longer. That will certainly be the case if he attempts to subvert the democratic process to extend power beyond his finite term.
I worry for the rest of the world, trying to contend with erratic foreign policies that put the established order in peril and place the freedom of countries like Ukraine in jeopardy. I dread the way in which his policies could empower despots like Vladimir Putin. By definition, as a world power, the United States’ actions affect all of us — and Trump’s influence will be pervasive.
You may think my fears could be allayed by the possibility that he will not return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Were Kamala Harris facing any other candidate, that would certainly be the case. However, Donald Trump is not any other candidate and he has demonstrated an intense dislike of losing.
I am alarmed by the possibility that, if he fails to get the required 270 electoral votes, Donald Trump could again cry “voter fraud” and light the touch paper offered to him by the likes of the Proud Boys. They had a practice run on January 6, 2021. If there is a next time, it could well be worse.
Sometimes, my wife accuses me of unjustified optimism. When I think of the Americans I have met and those I know well, I recall that the vast majority of them have had a reasonable amount of common sense. Some have had it in abundance. I can only hope that across that nation common sense prevails today.
I am more than a little worried, however, that on this occasion my wife might be right.
Dr 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. Dr Ellis publishes the website knightlyviews.com where this commentary — written before the election results started coming in — was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Asia Pacific Report
As Americans voted for their next president, Israel has continued its attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has declared victory over Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, after being projected to win the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, reports Al Jazeera.
According to AP, the Republican Party was also projected to win back control of the Senate and on track to control the House of Representatives as well.
Trump was projected so far to win 267 electoral votes — three short of the necessary 270 to win — while Harris was on 224 as counting continued.
Commentator Marwan Bishara said “Trump 2.0 spells the decline and potential demise of American liberalism, as we know it, both domestically and internationally.”
Trump 2.0 spells the decline and potential demise of American liberalism, as we know it, both domestically and internationally. Dominating the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court will enable him to do and get away with almost anything …
— Marwan (@marwanbishara) November 6, 2024
Meanwhile, Israel is reported to have killed at least 61 people across Gaza in the 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
Dozens of people were also fleeing Beit Lahiya in the north, the latest forced displacement by Israel’s military, which was also shelling the Kamal Adwan Hospital for a third day.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi reported on the latest attacks and what the US election could mean for Israel’s genocidal war:
US votes, Gaza burns. Video: Al Jazeera
Israel was also in turmoil with thousands of protesters rallying in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to protest over the sudden sacking of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu and Gallant had reportedly been at odds over the war in Gaza.
But news reports said Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival before taking the step as the world’s attention was focused on the US presidential election.
Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” in his announcement as he replaced Gallant with former Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who has limited defence experience, in the midst of wars on two fronts.
The protesters called on the government to prioritise a hostage deal to return the captives still held in Gaza.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Losirene Lacanivalu of the Cook Islands News
The leading Cook Islands environmental lobby group says that if Donald Trump wins the United States elections — and he seemed to be on target to succeed as results were rolling in tonight — he will push back on climate change negotiations made since he was last in office.
As voters in the US cast their votes on who would be the next president, Trump or US Vice-President Kamala Harris, the question for most Pacific Islands countries is what this will mean for them?
“If Trump wins, it will push back on any progress that has been made in the climate change negotiations since he was last in office,” said Te Ipukarea Society’s Kelvin Passfield.
“It won’t be good for the Pacific Islands in terms of US support for climate change. We have not heard too much on Kamala Harris’s climate policy, but she would have to be better than Trump.”
The current President Joe Biden and his administration made some efforts to connect with Pacific leaders.
Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies senior lecturer Dr Anna Powles said a potential win for Harris could be the fulfilment of the many “promises” made to the Pacific for climate financing, uplifting economies of the Pacific and bolstering defence security.
Dr Powles said Pacific leaders want Harris to deliver on the Pacific Partnership Strategy, the outcomes of the two Pacific Islands-US summits in 2022 and 2023, and the many diplomatic visits undertaken during President Biden’s presidency.
Diplomatic relationships
The Biden administration recognised Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign and independent states and established diplomatic relationships with them.
The Biden-Harris government had pledged to boost funding to the Green Climate Fund by US$3 billion at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates.
Harris has said in the past that climate change is an existential threat and has also promised to “tackle the climate crisis with bold action, build a clean energy economy, advance environmental justice, and increase resilience to climate disasters”.
Dr Powles said that delivery needed to be the focus.
She said the US Elections would no doubt have an impact on small island nations facing climate change and intensified geopolitics.
Dr Powles said it came as “no surprise” that countries such as New Zealand and Australia had increasingly aligned with the US, as the Biden administration had been leveraging strategic partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan since 2018.
She said a return to Trump’s leadership could derail ongoing efforts to build security architecture in the Pacific.
Pull back from Pacific
There are also views that Trump would pull back from the Pacific and focus on internal matters, directly impacting his nation.
For Trump, there is no mention of the climate crisis in his platform or Agenda47.
This is in line with the former president’s past actions, such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2019, citing “unfair economic burdens” placed on American workers and businesses.
Trump has maintained his position that the climate crisis is “one of the great scams of all time”.
Republished with permission from the Cook Islands News and RNZ Pacific.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
With Election Day for one of the most consequential United States presidential races in recent history underway, Pasifika communities on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are considering how a new administration could impact US-Pacific relations.
Roy Tongilava, a public policy professional and Pacific community advocate in the United States, hopes to see improved US-Pacific relations under either a Harris or Trump administration.
“I’m not an expert in foreign affairs, but my hope would be that either a presidency under Harris or under Trump would continue to build those relations, to build those investments, to really help not only combat climate change but also to really aid in the Pacific development, which is inherently connected to what I believe is the Pacific Islander American experience,” he said.
New Zealand political commentator and former chair of the National Party’s Pacific Blues group, Christian Malietoa-Brown, is backing Donald Trump in the presidential race.
He says the Pacific is caught in a “tug-of-war” between major powers like the US and China, with Australia playing an increasingly significant role.
“For me, I think in terms of long-term investment, Trump likes to prevent war by showing strength . . . I think they [the US] will strategically put some investments here just because they don’t want China running around too much in this area for defence reasons.
“Under the Biden administration, we saw record investment down this way in the Pacific region, obviously to try and push away China’s influence in the region,” Malietoa-Brown says.
Picking a big player
“So you have China, you have America, you have Russia, you have India that’s coming up big,” Malietoa-Brown said.
“And if I had to pick a big player to be in charge of the world, I would pretty much stick to America as it is right now, because that’s the devil we know, rather than someone else that we don’t know. And that’s probably purely a selfish thing.”
Tongilava agrees that the Joe Biden administration has been positive for the Pacific region in terms of investment.
“The Biden administration has pumped record investment into the Pacific to a number of things, infrastructure, education, all of that. Ultimately, though, to try and cool off and push away China’s advances towards this region.
“We’ve seen Vice-President Harris during her time as Vicep-President really commit to climate change as well as building relations within the Pacific region,” he said.
Education concerns
For Tongilava, who is part of the South Pacific Islander Organization (SPIO), a nonpartisan non-profit organisation that champions education and workforce development for Pacific youth, this election has serious implications for youth.
“Our mission is laser focused on enhancing college access, college retention, and degree completion for Native Hawai’ian and Pacific Islander students throughout our college systems,” Tongilava said.
“A lot of our work has focused on expanding educational opportunity and workforce development for young Pacific Islander students.
“In terms of education, I think it is crucial that Pacific Islanders turn out today in support of the policies specifically that may hinder or create opportunity for their families and for their communities,” Tongilava said.
He said it was crucial that Pacific Islanders vote in support of the specific policies that might hinder or create opportunities for their families and their communities.
Tongilava is concerned about Trump’s proposal to dismantle the US Department of Education, noting that such a move would disproportionately harm communities like the Pacific Islanders, who often rely on federal support for educational programmes.
“This raises additional questions around what role does the federal government play within our school systems here within states and at the local level. For many Pacific Islander Americans, we live in under-resourced communities,” Tongilava said.
Republished from Pacific Media Network with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent
Kimberlyn King-Hind, from the CNMI Republican Party, won the race for the CNMI’s lone non-voting delegate in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The delegate position was one of 61 races up for grabs in the 2024 CNMI general elections.
The former Commonwealth Ports Authority chairwoman and lawyer from Tinian received 4931 votes (40.34 percent) of total ballots cast.
Democratic Party of the Northern Mariana Islands’ candidate Edwin Propst finished second, 864 votes behind with 4067 (33.27 percent).
Independent candidates John Oliver Gonzales, James Rayphand, and Liana Hofschneider gained 2282, 665, and 280 votes, respectively.
Even before the results of the 2024 general elections were certified about 5.20am on Wednesday, Propst conceded defeat and congratulated King-Hinds in a social media post.
“Congratulations to Kim King-Hinds, delegate-elect. I wish you the very best,” he wrote.
“To my amazing committee, I cannot thank you enough for your hard work and support. To our supporters, thank you for your votes, messages of support, donations, and kindness. To Daisy and Kiana, Devin, Kaden, and Logan, I love you more than anything in this world. Thank you for always being there for me,” he added.
Other electoral results
In other races, Senate President Edith DeLeon Guerrero, who ran as an independent, lost her Saipan seat to Representative Manny Castro of the Democratic Party, as the latter took 52.89 percent of the votes (5178) compared to the former’s 43 percent (4210).
For Tinian, incumbent Senator Karl King-Nabors of the GOP ran unopposed and was elected in by 803 voters.
Incumbent and longtime Senator Paul Manglona, meanwhile, lost his Senate post to fellow independent Ronnie Mendiola Calvo, 476-441.
There was not much shakeup in the House of Representatives races, as only incumbent Vicente Camacho, a Democrat, among the incumbents lost his seat. Newcomers in the incoming lower house include Elias Rangamar, Daniel Aquino, and Raymond Palacios — all independents.
Associate Judge Teresita Kim-Tenorio was also retained, receiving 9909 “yes” votes (84.21 percent) compared to 1858 (15.79 percent) “no” votes.
The US territory also elected members of the CNMI Board of Education and councillors for the municipal councils for Saipan, the Northern Islands, Tinian, and Rota.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Catrin Gardiner, Queensland University of Technology
In the middle of the Pacific, Fiji journalists are transforming their practice, as newsrooms around Suva are requiring journalists to become multimedia creators, shaping stories for the digital age.
A wave of multimedia journalists is surfacing in Fijian journalism culture, fostered during university education, and transitioning seamlessly into the professional field for junior journalists.
University of the South Pacific’s technical editor and digital communication officer Eliki Drugunalevu believes that multimedia journalism is on the rise for two reasons.
“The first is the fact that your phone is pretty much your newsroom on the go.”
With the right guidance and training in using mobile phone apps, “you can pretty much film your story from anywhere”, he says.
The second reason is that reliance on social media platforms gives “rise to mobile journalism and becoming a multimedia journalist”.
Drugunalevu says changes to university journalism curriculum are not “evolving fast enough” with the industry.
Need for ‘parallel learning’
“There needs to be parallel learning between what the industry is going through and what the students are being taught.”
Mobile journalism is growing increasingly around the world. In Fiji this is particularly evident, with large newsrooms entertaining the concept of a single reporter taking on multiple roles.
Fijian Media Association’s vice-president and Fiji Times editor-in-chief Fred Wesley says one example of the changing landscape is that the Times is now providing all its journalists with mobile phones.
“While there is still a photography department, things are slowly moving towards multimedia journalists.”
Wesley says when no photographers are available to cover a story with a reporter, the journalists create their own images with their mobile phones.
The Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) also encourages journalists to take part in all types of media including, online, radio, and television, even advertising for multimedia journalists. This highlights the global shift of replacing two-person teams in newsrooms.
Nevertheless, the transition to multimedia journalists is not as positive as commonly thought. Complaints against multimedia journalism come from journalists who receive additional tasks, leading to an increase in workload.
Preference for print
Former print journalist turned multimedia journalist at FBC, Litia Cava says she prefers focusing on just print.
She worked a lot less when she was just working in a newspaper, she says.
“When I worked for the paper, I would start at one,” she says. “But here I start working when I walk in.”
Executives at major Fijian news companies, such as Fiji TV’s director of news, current affairs and sports, Felix Chaudhary, also complain about the lack of equipment in their newsrooms to support this wave of multimedia journalism.
“The biggest challenge is the lack of equipment and training,” Chaudhary says.
Fiji TV is doing everything it can to catch up to world standards and provide journalists with the best equipment and training to prepare them for the transition from traditional to multimedia journalism.
“We receive a lot of assistance from PACMAS and Internews,” Chaudhary says. “However, we are constantly looking for more training opportunities. The world is already moving towards that, and we just have to follow suit or get left behind.”
More confidence
Fortunately for young Fijian journalists, Islands Business managing editor Samantha Magick says a lot of younger journalists are more confident to go out and produce and write their own stories.
“It’s the education now,” she says. “All the journalists coming through are multimedia, so not as challenging for them.”
University of South Pacific student journalist Brittany Louise says the practical learning of all the different media in her journalism course will be beneficial for her future.
“I think that’s a major plus,” she says. “You already have some sort of skills so it helps you with whatever different equipment it may be.”
Catrin Gardiner was a student journalist from the Queensland University of Technology who travelled to Fiji with the support of the Australian government’s New Colombo Plan Mobility Programme. This article is published in a partnership of QUT with Asia Pacific Report, Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and The University of the South Pacific.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Victor Mambor in Jayapura
Just one day after President Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration, a minister announced plans to resume the transmigration programme in eastern Indonesia, particularly in Papua, saying it was needed for enhancing unity and providing locals with welfare.
Transmigration is the process of moving people from densely populated regions to less densely populated ones in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s most populous country with 285 million people.
The ministry intends to revitalise 10 zones in Papua, potentially using local relocation rather than bringing in outsiders.
The programme will resume after it was officially paused in Papua 23 years ago.
“We want Papua to be fully united as part of Indonesia in terms of welfare, national unity and beyond,” Muhammad Iftitah Sulaiman Suryanagara, the Minister of Transmigration, said during a handover ceremony on October 21.
Iftitah promised strict evaluations focusing on community welfare rather than on relocation numbers. Despite the minister’s promises, the plan drew an outcry from indigenous Papuans who cited social and economic concerns.
Papua, a remote and resource-rich region, has long been a flashpoint for conflict, with its people enduring decades of military abuse and human rights violations under Indonesian rule.
Human rights abuses
Prabowo, a former army general, was accused of human rights abuses in his military career, including in East Timor (Timor-Leste) during a pro-independence insurgency against Jakarta rule.
Simon Balagaize, a young Papuan leader from Merauke, highlighted the negative impacts of transmigration efforts in Papua under dictator Suharto’s New Order during the 1960s.
“Customary land was taken, forests were cut down, and the indigenous Malind people now speak Javanese better than their native language,” he told BenarNews.
The Papuan Church Council stressed that locals desperately needed services, but could do without more transmigration.
“Papuans need education, health services and welfare – not transmigration that only further marginalises landowners,” Reverend Dorman Wandikbo, a member of the council, told BenarNews.
Transmigration into Papua has sparked protests over concerns about reduced job opportunities for indigenous people, along with broader political and economic impacts.
Apei Tarami, who joined a recent demonstration in South Sorong, Southwest Papua province, warned of consequences, stating that “this policy affects both political and economic aspects of Papua.”
We firmly reject Indonesia’s new transmigration policy to relocate Indonesians to West Papua, along with the world’s biggest deforestation project in Merauke, as it threatens the survival of West Papuans.
ULMWP International Spokesperson, Raki Ap.
Full: https://t.co/rM08vQu32C pic.twitter.com/5EVSgzbnpq
— Free West Papua Campaign (Nederland) (@FreeWestPapuaNL) November 4, 2024
Human rights ignored
Meanwhile, human rights advocate Theo Hasegem criticised the government’s plans, arguing that human rights issues are ignored and non-Papuans could be endangered because pro-independence groups often target newcomers.
“Do the president and vice-president guarantee the safety of those relocated from Java,” Hasegem told BenarNews.
The programme, which dates to 1905, has continued through various administrations under the guise of promoting development and unity.
Indonesia’s policy resumed post-independence on December 12, 1950, under President Sukarno, who sought to foster prosperity and equitable development.
It also aimed to promote social unity by relocating citizens across regions.
Transmigration involving 78,000 families occurred in Papua from 1964 to 1999, according to statistics from the Papua provincial government. That would equal between 312,000 and 390,000 people settling in Papua from other parts of the country, assuming the average Indonesian family has 4 to 5 people.
The programme paused in 2001 after a Special Autonomy Law required regional regulations to be followed.
Legality questioned
Papuan legislator John N.R. Gobay questioned the role of Papua’s six new autonomous regional governments in the transmigration process. He cited Article 61 of the law, which mandates that transmigration proceed only with gubernatorial consent and regulatory backing.
Without these clear regional regulations, he warned, transmigration lacks a strong legal foundation and could conflict with special autonomy rules.
He also pointed to a 2008 Papuan regulation stating that transmigration should proceed only after the Indigenous Papuan population reaches 20 million. In 2023, the population across six provinces of Papua was about 6.25 million, according to Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS).
Gobay suggested prioritising local transmigration to better support indigenous development in their own region.
‘Entrenched inequality’
British MP Alex Sobel, chair of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua, expressed concern over the programme, noting its role in drastic demographic shifts and structural discrimination in education, land rights and employment.
“Transmigration has entrenched inequality rather than promoting prosperity,” Sobel told BenarNews, adding that it had contributed to Papua remaining Indonesia’s poorest regions.
Pramono Suharjono, a resident of Arso II in Keerom, Papua, welcomed the idea of restarting the programme, viewing it as positive for the region’s growth.
“This supports national development, not colonisation,” he told BenarNews.
A former transmigrant who has served as a local representative, Pramono said transmigration had increased local knowledge in agriculture, craftsmanship and trade.
However, research has shown that longstanding social issues, including tensions from cultural differences, have marginalised indigenous Papuans and fostered resentment toward non-locals, said La Pona, a lecturer at Cenderawasih University.
Papua also faces a humanitarian crisis because of conflicts between Indonesian forces and pro-independence groups. United Nations data shows between 60,000 and 100,000 Papuans were displaced between and 2022.
As of September 2024, human rights advocates estimate 79,000 Papuans remain displaced even as Indonesia denies UN officials access to the region.
Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Charlene Lanyon in Suva
A high-level, seven-member delegation from People’s Daily, China’s most influential newspaper, has been hosted by the University of the South Pacific at its Laucala Campus in Fiji.
The delegation, headed by deputy editor-in-chief Fang Jiangshan, emphasised the longstanding bilateral ties between Fiji and China, spanning trade, economics, and cultural exchange.
People’s Daily is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP in multiple languages.
With a circulation of between 3 and 4 million, People’s Daily is one of the world’s top 10 largest newspapers, according to UNESCO.
USP’s deputy head of the School of Pacific Arts, Communication, and Education (SPACE), Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, led the university’s team that met the delegation recently.
During the meeting at the Confucius Institute, discussions covered China-Fiji relations, people-to-people connections, and youth cooperation. Both sides explored potential collaboration in news production, talent cultivation, and academic exchanges.
Dr Singh, who is also head of journalism at USP, welcomed the opportunity for collaboration, noting the growing calls within the Pacific media sector for stronger ties with Asia.
Similarities highlighted
He highlighted similarities between Asia and the Pacific in terms of history, culture, and development, which provide a natural basis for enhanced cooperation.
Dr Singh also serves on the advisory committee of the Confucius Centre and highlighted that while contact had been limited due to distance and language barriers, recent efforts to foster closer relations were promising.
Fang reflected on the historical ties between China and Fiji, noting that next year marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
He underscored the importance of language in fostering mutual understanding and praised the Confucius Institute’s role in promoting cultural and educational exchanges.
Since its inception in 2012, the institute has been a vital bridge between China and Fiji, supporting cultural cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Deputy chief editor Fang also commended the institute’s efforts during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when it continued offering online courses to strengthen the bond between the two nations.
Republished from USP News.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist
As the US election unfolds, American territories such as the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, and Guam, along with the broader Pacific region, will be watching the developments.
As the question hangs in the balance of whether the White House remains blue with Kamala Harris or turns red under Donald Trump, academics, New Zealand’s US ambassador, and Guam’s Congressman have weighed in on what the election means for the Pacific.
Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies senior lecturer Dr Anna Powles said it would no doubt have an impact on small island nations facing climate change and intensified geopolitics, including the rapid expansion of military presence on its territory Guam, following the launch of an interballistic missile by China.
Pacific leaders lament the very real security threat of climate-induced natural disasters has been overshadowed by the tug-of-war between China and the US in what academics say is “control and influence” for the contested region.
Dr Powles said it came as “no surprise” that countries such as New Zealand and Australia had increasingly aligned with the US, as the Biden administration had been leveraging strategic partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan since 2018.
Despite China being New Zealand’s largest trading partner, New Zealand is in the US camp and must pay attention, she said.
“We are not seeing enough in the public domain or discussion by government with the New Zealand public about what this means for New Zealand going forward.”
Pacific leaders welcome US engagement but are concerned about geopolitical rivalry.
Earlier this month, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa attended the South Pacific Defence Ministers meeting in Auckland.
He said it was important that “peace and stability in the region” was “prioritised”.
Referencing the arms race between China and the US, he said, “The geopolitics occurring in our region is not welcomed by any of us in the Pacific Islands Forum.”
While a Pacific Zone of Peace has been a talking point by Fiji and the PIF leadership to reinforce the region’s “nuclear-free stance”, the US is working with Australia on obtaining nuclear-submarines through the AUKUS security pact.
Dr Powles said the potential for increased tensions “could happen under either president in areas such as Taiwan, East China Sea — irrespective of who is in Washington”.
South Pacific defence ministers told RNZ Pacific the best way to respond to threats of conflict and the potential threat of a nuclear attack in the region is to focus on defence and building stronger ties with its allies.
New Zealand’s Defence Minister said NZ was “very good friends with the United States”, with that friendship looking more friendly under the Biden Administration. But will this strengthening of ties and partnerships continue if Trump becomes President?
US President Joe Biden, center, stands for a group photo with Pacific Islands Forum leaders following the Pacific Islands Forum Summit, at the South Portico of the White House in Washington on September 25, 2023. Photo: Jim Watson
US wants a slice of Pacific
Regardless of who is elected, US Ambassador to New Zealand Tom Udall said history showed the past three presidents “have pushed to re-engage with the Pacific”.
While both Trump and Harris may differ on critical issues for the Pacific such as the climate crisis and multilateralism, both see China as the primary external threat to US interests.
The US has made a concerted effort to step up its engagement with the Pacific in light of Chinese interest, including by reopening its embassies in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Tonga.
On 12 July 2022, the Biden administration showed just how keen it was to have a seat at the table by US Vice-President Kamala Harris dialing in to the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Fiji at the invitation of the then chair former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama. The US was the only PIF “dialogue partner” allowed to speak at this Forum.
However, most of the promises made to the Pacific have been “forward-looking” and leaders have told RNZ Pacific they want to see less talk and more real action.
Defence diplomacy has been booming since the 2022 Solomon Islands-China security deal. It tripled the amount of money requested from Congress for economic development and ocean resilience — up to US$60 million a year for 10 years — as well as a return of Peace Corps volunteers to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu.
Health security was another critical area highlighted in 2024 the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Declaration.
The Democratic Party’s commitment to the World Health Organisation (WHO) bodes well, in contrast to the previous Trump administration’s withdrawal from the WHO during the covid-19 pandemic.
It continued a long-running programme called ‘The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs’ which gives enterprising women from more than 100 countries with the knowledge, networks and access they need to launch and scale successful businesses.
Guam’s take
Known as the tip of the spear for the United States, Guam is the first strike community under constant threat of a nuclear missile attack.
In September, China launched an intercontinental ballistic test missile in the Pacific for first time in 44 years, landing near French Polynesian waters.
It was seen as a signal of China’s missile capabilities which had the US and South Pacific Defence Ministers on edge and deeply “concerned”.
China’s Defence Ministry said in a statement the launch was part of routine training by the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force, which oversees conventional and nuclear missile operations and was not aimed at any country or target.
The US has invested billions to build a 360-degree missile defence system on Guam with plans for missile tests twice a year over the next decade, as it looks to bolster its weaponry in competition with China.
Despite the arms race and increased military presence and weaponry on Guam, China is known to have fewer missiles than the US.
However, Guamanians are among the four million disenfranchised Americans living in US territories whose vote does not count due to an anomaly in US law.
“While territorial delegates can introduce bills and advocate for their territory in the US Congress, they have no voice on the floor. While Guam is exempted from paying the US federal income tax, many argue that such a waiver does not make up for what the tiny island brings to the table,” according to a BenarNews report.
US Congressman for Guam James Moylan has spent his time making friends and “educating and informing” other states about Guam’s existence in hopes to get increased funding and support for legislative bills.
Moylan said he would prefer a Trump presidency but noted he has “proved he can also work with Democrats”.
Under Trump, Moylan said Guam would have “stronger security”, raising his concerns over the need to stop Chinese fishing boats from coming onto the island.
Moylan also defended the military expansion: “We are not the aggressor. If we put our guard down, we need to be able to show we can maintain our land.”
Moylan defended the US military expansion, which his predecessor, former US Congressman Robert Underwood, was concerned about, saying the rate of expansion had not been seen since World War II.
“We are the closest there is to the Indo-Pacific threat,” Moylan said.
“We need to make sure our pathways, waterways and economy is growing, and we have a strong defence against our aggressors.”
“All likeminded democracies are concerned about the current leadership of China. We are working together…to work on security issues and prosperity issues,” US Ambassador to New Zealand Tom Udall said.
When asked about the military capabilities of the US and Guam, Moylan said: “We are not going to war; we are prepared to protect the homeland.”
Moylan said that discussions for compensation involving nuclear radiation survivors in Guam would happen regardless of who was elected.
The 23-year battle has been spearheaded by atomic veteran Robert Celestial, who is advocating for recognition for Chamorro and Guamanians under the RECA Act.
Celestial said that the Biden administration had thrown their support behind them, but progress was being stalled in Congress, which is predominantly controlled by the Republican party.
But Moylan insisted that the fight for compensation was not over. He said that discussions would continue after the election irrespective of who was in power.
“It’s been tabled. It’s happening. I had a discussion with Speaker Mike Johnson. We are working to pass this through,” he said.
If Trump wins
Dr Powles said a return to Trump’s leadership could derail ongoing efforts to build security architecture in the Pacific.
There are also views Trump would pull back from the Pacific and focus on internal matters, directly impacting his nation.
For Trump, there is no mention of the climate crisis in his platform or Agenda47.
This is in line with the former president’s past actions, such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2019, citing “unfair economic burdens” placed on American workers and businesses.
Trump has maintained his position that the climate crisis is “one of the great scams of all time”.
The America First agenda is clear, with “countering China” at the top of the list. Further, “strengthening alliances,” Trump’s version of multilateralism, reads as what allies can do for the US rather than the other way around.
“There are concerns for Donald Trump’s admiration for more dictatorial leaders in North Korea, Russia, China and what that could mean in a time of crisis,” Dr Powles said.
A Trump administration could mean uncertainty for the Pacific, she added.
While Trump was president in 2017, he warned North Korea “not to mess” with the United States.
“North Korea [is] best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met by fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
North Korea responded deriding his warning as a “load of nonsense”.
Although there is growing concern among academics and some Pacific leaders that Trump would bring “fire and fury” to the Indo-Pacific if re-elected, the former president seemed to turn cold at the thought of conflict.
In 2023, Trump remarked that “Guam isn’t America” in response to warning that the US territory could be vulnerable to a North Korean nuclear strike — a move which seemed to distance the US from conflict.
If Harris wins
Dr Powles said that if Harris wins, it was important to move past “announcements” and follow-through on all pledges.
A potential win for Harris could be the fulfilment of the many “promises” made to the Pacific for climate financing, uplifting economies of the Pacific and bolstering defence security, she said.
Pacific leaders want Harris to deliver on the Pacific Partnership Strategy, the outcomes of the two Pacific Islands-US summits in 2022 and 2023, and the many diplomatic visits undertaken during President Biden’s presidency.
The Biden administration recognised Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign and independent states and established diplomatic relationships with them.
Harris has pledged to boost funding to the Green Climate Fund by US$3 billion. She also promised to “tackle the climate crisis with bold action, build a clean energy economy, advance environmental justice, and increase resilience to climate disasters”.
Dr Powles said that delivery needed to be the focus.
“What we need to be focused on is delivery [and that] Pacific Island partners are engaged from the very beginning — from the outset to any programme right through to the final phase of it.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews
Palau’s largest newspaper is being sued for defamation by the company of President Surangel Whipps Jr’s father, just days ahead of general elections in the Pacific nation.
Surangel and Sons alleges “negligence and defamation” by the Island Times and its editor Leilani Reklai for an article published on Tuesday with “false and unsubstantiated allegations,” owner Surangel Whipps Sr said in a press release on Thursday.
Reklai has rejected the company’s allegations and said the “lawsuit is trying to control how media here in Palau tells a story”, a news article about the case in the Island Times reported on Friday.
“I feel like we are being intimidated, we are being forced to speak a certain narrative rather than present diverse community perspectives,” said Reklai, who is also a stringer for BenarNews.
The Micronesian nation of 17,000 people — 650 km north of Papua New Guinea — goes to the polls on November 5. Whipps Jr’s rival is his brother-in-law Tommy Remengesau Jr, who was president from 2001 to 2009 and 2013 to 2021.
The controversy comes after Palau was top of the inaugural 2023 Pacific Media Freedom Index of 14 island countries that highlighted the region’s media facing significant political and economic pressures, bribes and corruption, as well as self-censorship.
Island Times reported on Friday the suit is seeking compensation and punitive damages and that the company asserts the “monetary awards should be substantial enough to prevent similar conduct from the newspaper and Reklai in future”.
Surangel and Sons financial details — leaked from the country’s tax office — were posted on social media last weekend, prompting heated online debate over how much it paid.
A new corporate and goods and services tax system introduced by Whipps Jr’s government is currently being rolled out in Palau and its merits have been a focus of election campaigning.
The company in a statement said its “privacy rights had been violated,” the tax details were obtained illegally, posted online without consent, and some of the figures had been altered.
Motivation ‘confusing voters’
“The motivation behind the circulation of this document is clearly for misinformation and disinformation to confuse voters. In the end Surangel and Sons is not running for office. Unfortunately, it has been victimised by this smear campaign,” the company posted on social media.
Island Times in a 225-word, front-page story headlined “Surangel & Sons condemns tax report leak as privacy violation” reported the company’s statement on Tuesday. It also quoted financial details from the leaked documents and accompanying commentary.
Whipps Jr. in a press conference on Wednesday accused the Island Times of publishing disinformation.
“Island Times continues to print political propaganda, it’s not accurate,” Whipps Jr said, calling for a correction to be published.
The lawsuit against the paper and its editor was served the next day.
Whipps Jr’s spokesperson told BenarNews any questions related to the lawsuit should be directed to the parties involved.
Surangel and Sons was founded in 1980 by Whipps Sr, who also served as Palau’s president briefly in 2005 and for two years from 2007.
Business ‘offers everything’
The privately-owned business “offers everything from housing design and automotive repair to equipment rentals, groceries, and scuba gear” through its import, sales, construction and travel arms, the company’s website says.
Previously as CEO, Whipps Jr transformed the company from a family store to one of Palau’s largest and most diversified businesses, employing more than 700 people.
His LinkedIn profile states he finished as CEO in January 2021, after 28 years in the position and in the month he became president. His spokesperson did not respond to questions from BenarNews about if he still retains any direct financial or other links to the company.
Surangel and Sons said the revelation of sensitive business information threatens their competitive advantage and puts jobs at risk.
Palau’s Minister of Finance Kaleb Udui Jr told the president’s press conference on Wednesday an investigation was underway, a special prosecutor would be appointed and apologized for the leak to the company.
“I would hope the media would make extra effort to help educate the public and discourage misinformation and breaches of privacy of the tax office and any other government office,” Udui said, confirming the tax documents had been altered before being posted on social media.
He said tax office staff have previously been warned about leaks and ensuring data confidentiality, as breaches negatively impact the confidence of foreign investors in Palau.
Explanation rather than leak
Whipps Jr added that the newspaper should have explained the tax system instead of reporting the leaked information.
He also accused Island Times of failure to disclose a paid advertisement in this week’s edition of the paper for his political opponent.
“I’m disappointed in the Island Times, because there was an article that was not an article, a paid advertisement,” Whipps Jr said about a colourful blue and yellow election campaign graphic.
Island Times told BenarNews it was not usual practice to put “Paid Advertisement” on advertisements but it would review its policy for political campaign material.
Reklai fears the lawsuit could have serious consequences for the media in Palau and bankrupt Island Times, the paper reported.
“If I don’t stand up to this, it sends a signal to all journalists that they risk facing claims for damages for powerful companies and government officials while carrying out their work,” she said.
Palau has two newspapers and four radio stations and enshrined in its constitution are protections for journalists, including a guarantee they cannot be jailed for refusing to disclose sources.
Surangel and Sons said they would no longer sell Island Times through their outlets.
Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has returned from New Caledonia saying it is not a simple “black and white situation”.
Brown returned from a three-day Pacific fact-finding mission in the French Pacific territory alongside the Prime Ministers of Solomon Islands, Tonga and Fiji.
New Caledonia has been going through a period of turmoil with violence and arson since May, resulting in 13 deaths and the destruction of many businesses.
“There’s no doubt there is a call and a need for the easing of tensions in the country,” Brown said.
“This would enable more dialogue to take place between the various vested groups to find a pathway forward for New Caledonia.”
Brown said Kanaky New Caledonia’s population was diverse, made up of indigenous Kanak, French, and Pacific diaspora.
Almost all of these groups want greater autonomy from France with some also wanting full independence or to remain a French territory, he said.
“But you have quite a large group between those two extremes that want a way forward that enables New Caledonians, all of them, to be able to determine their own future.”
Pacific policing France ‘may wish to consider’
Brown said Australia’s newly proposed regional policing initiative is “an option that New Caledonians may wish to consider”.
“At the moment that’s being done by the state government through France through its gendarmes and police force.”
The last time regional policing was used was in Solomon Islands after ethnic unrest in the 2000s, he said.
When asked whether France had “militarised” New Caledonia, Brown said France sent a lot of support “to help maintain law and order” but the focus now was on the reduction of tensions and dialogue.
France’s Ambassador to the Pacific Véronique told the ABC she doubted French authorities would see the need for Pacific police to be deployed to New Caledonia.
Brown said the other issue was the need for an urgent financial package.
“Unlike most other Pacific countries in cases of disaster whether they be natural disaster or other sorts, Pacific countries have the likes of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, development partners that would support and assist.
Relying solely on France
“In the case of New Caledonia, it doesn’t have the association with any of those financial institutions and would rely solely on France for its support.”
There needed to first be a reduction of tensions so that any rebuild would not be under threat from more civil unrest, he said.
Brown said Pacific nations had taken different decolonisation paths — with the exception of Tonga which had never been colonised.
Fiji became a republic after a number of coups and Cook Islands is self-governing in free association with New Zealand.
“Each of us took a different path to where we are today to gain our autonomy and our sovereignty and it’s something that we were able to share with New Caledonia.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific presenter/Bulletin editor
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says that as far as Fiji is concerned, Fijians of Indian descent are Fijian.
While Fiji is part of the Pacific, Indo-Fijians are not classified as Pacific peoples in New Zealand; instead, they are listed under Indian and Asian on the Stats NZ website.
“The ‘Fijian Indian’ ethnic group is currently classified under ‘Asian,’ in the subcategory ‘Indian’, along with other diasporic Indian ethnic groups,” Stats NZ told RNZ Pacific.
“This has been the case since 2005 and is in line with an ethnographic profile that includes people with a common language, customs, and traditions.
“Stats NZ is aware of concerns some have about this classification, and it is an ongoing point of discussion with stakeholders.”
The Fijian Indian community in Aotearoa has long opposed this and raised the issue again at a community event Rabuka attended in Auckland’s Māngere ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa last month.
“As far as Fiji is concerned, [Indo-Fijians] are Fijians,” he said.
‘A matter of sovereignty’
When asked what his message to New Zealand on the issue would be, he said: “I cannot; that is a matter of sovereignty, the sovereign decision by the government of New Zealand. What they call people is their sovereign right.
“As far as we are concerned, we hope that they will be treated as Fijians.”
More than 60,000 people were transferred from all parts of British India to work in Fiji between 1879 and 1916 as indentured labourers.
Today, they make up over 32 percent of the total population, according to Fiji Bureau of Statistics’ 2017 Population Census.
Now many, like Sangam community NZ leader and former Nadi Mayor Salesh Mudaliar, say they are more Fijian than Indian.
“If you do a DNA or do a blood test, we are more of Fijian than anything else. We are not Indian,” Mudaliar said.
The indentured labourers, who came to be known as the Girmitiyas, as they were bound by a girmit — a Hindi pronunciation of the English word “agreement”.
RNZ Pacific had approached the Viti Council e Aotearoa for their views on the issue. However, they refused to comment, saying that its chair “has opted out of this interview.”
“Topic itself is misleading bordering on disinformation [and] misinformation from an Indigenous Fijian perspective and overly sensitive plus short notice.”
‘Struggling for identity’
“We are Pacific Islanders. If you come from Tonga or Samoa, you are a Pacific Islander,” Mudaliar said.
“When [Indo-Fijians] come from Fiji, we are not. We are not a migrant to Fiji. We have been there for [over 140] years.”
“The community is still struggling for its identity here in New Zealand . . . we are still not [looked after].
He said they had tried to lobby the New Zealand government for their status but without success.
“Now it is the National government, and no one seems to be listening to us in understanding the situation.
“If we can have an open discussion on this, coming to the same table, and knowing what our problem is, then it would be really appreciated.”
Lifting quality of data
Stats NZ said it was aware of the need to lift the quality of ethnicity data across the government data system.
“Public consultation in 2019 determined a need for an in-depth review of the Ethnicity Standard,” the data agency said.
In 2021, Stats NZ undertook a large scoping exercise with government agencies, researchers, iwi Māori, and community groups to help establish the scope of the review.
Stats NZ subsequently stood up an expert working group to progress the review.
“This review is still underway, and Stats NZ will be conducting further consultation, so we will have more to say in due course,” it said.
“Classifying ethnicity and ethnic identity is extremely complex, and it is important Stats NZ takes the time to consult extensively and ensure we get this right,” the agency added.
This week, Fijians celebrate the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali. The nation observes a public holiday to mark the day, and Fijians of all backgrounds get involved.
Prime Minister Rabuka’s message is for all Fijians to be kind to each other.
“Act in accordance with the spirit of Diwali and show kindness to those who are going through difficulties,” he told local reporters outside Parliament yesterday.
“It is a good time for us to abstain from using bad language against each other on social media.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Before the formation of the Israel Defence Forces in 1948, there were three underground Zionist militias — The Haganah, the Irgun and the Lehi.
Their methods and tactics have been unpacked in a new Middle East Eye “The Big Picture” podcast this week by New Zealand journalist Mohamed Hassan.
The IDF, which critics brand as the IOF (“Israel Offensive Forces”), claims to be the “most moral army in the world”, but it has killed almost 43,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — in a year-long war on Gaza and now more than 3000 people in the deadly attacks on Lebanon.
It has also been widely accused of committing atrocities, war crimes, and genocide.
The three Zionist militias differed in tactics and beliefs, and at times fought with each other — but together they terrorised Palestinian villages and executed attacks and bombings against the British to force them to give up control of the land.
They blew up hotels in Jerusalem, embassies in Europe and assassinated a UN mediator in the lead up to what is called the Nakba — the “Catastrophe” — in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their towns, villages and countryside.
After Israel declared its independence as a state — the three militias would combine to create the IDF, called Tzahal in the Hebrew-language acronym. The militia leaders would go on to form Israel’s government, become politicians, ambassadors and prime ministers.
And their dark history would be forgotten.
This week “The Big Picture” unpacks that history.
The untold history of the Israel Defence Forces. Podcast: Middle East Eye
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Andreas Harsono in Jakarta
In December 2008, I visited the Abepura prison in Jayapura, West Papua, to verify a report sent to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture alleging abuses inside the jailhouse, as well as shortages of food and water.
After prison guards checked my bag, I passed through a metal detector into the prison hall, joining the Sunday service with about 30 prisoners. A man sat near me. He had a thick beard and wore a small Morning Star flag on his chest.
The flag, a symbol of independence for West Papua, is banned by the Indonesian authorities, so I was a little surprised to see it worn inside the prison.
He politely introduced himself, “Filep Karma.”
I immediately recognised him. Karma was arrested in 2004 after giving a speech on West Papua nationalism, and had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for “treason”.
When I asked him about torture victims in the prison, he introduced me to some other prisoners, so I could verify the allegations.
It was the beginning of my many interviews with Karma. And I began to understand what made him such a courageous leader.
Born in 1959 in Jayapura, Karma was raised in an elite, educated family.
Student-led protests
In 1998, when Karma returned after studying from the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, he found Indonesia engulfed in student-led protests against the authoritarian rule of President Suharto.
On 2 July 1998, he led a ceremony to peacefully raise the Morning Star flag on Biak Island. It prompted a deadly attack by the Indonesian military that the authorities said killed at least eight Papuans, but Papuans recovered 32 bodies. Karma was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Karma gradually emerged as a leader who campaigned peacefully but tirelessly on behalf of the rights of Indigenous Papuans. He also worked as a civil servant, training new government employees.
He was invariably straightforward and precise. He provided detailed data, including names, dates, and actions about torture and other mistreatment at Abepura prison.
Human Rights Watch published these investigations in June 2009. It had quite an impact, prompting media pressure that forced the Ministry of Law and Human Rights to investigate the allegations.
In August 2009, Karma became seriously ill and was hospitalised at the Dok Dua hospital. The doctors examined him several times, and finally, in October, recommended that he be sent for surgery that could only be done in Jakarta.
But bureaucracy, either deliberately or through incompetence, kept delaying his treatment. “I used to be a bureaucrat myself,” Karma said. “But I have never experienced such [use of] red tape on a sick man.”
Health crowdfunding
His health problems, however, drew public attention. Papuan activists started collecting money to pay for the airfare and surgery in Jakarta. I helped write a crowdfunding proposal. People deposited the donations directly into his bank account.
I was surprised when I found out that the total donation, including from some churches, had almost reached IDR1 billion (US$700,000). It was enough to also pay for his mother, Eklefina Noriwari, an uncle, a cousin and an assistant to travel with him. They rented a guest house near the hospital.
Some wondered why he travelled with such a large entourage. The answer is that Indigenous Papuans distrust the Indonesian government. Many of their political leaders had mysteriously died while receiving medical treatment in Jakarta. They wanted to ensure that Filep Karma was safe.
When he was admitted to Cikini hospital, the ward had a small security cordon. I saw many Indonesian security people, including four prison guards, guarding his room, but also church delegates, visiting him.
Papuan students, mostly waiting in the inner yard, said they wanted to make sure, “Our leader is okay.”
After a two-hour surgery, Karma recovered quickly, inviting me and my wife to visit him. His mother and his two daughters, Audryn and Andrefina, also visited my Jakarta apartment. In July 2011, after 11 days in the hospital, he was considered fit enough to return to prison.
In May 2011, the Washington-based Freedom Now filed a petition with the UN Working Group on arbitrary detention on Karma’s behalf. Six months later, the Working Group determined that his detention violated international standards, saying that Indonesia’s courts “disproportionately” used the laws against treason, and called for his immediate release.
President refused to act
But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono refused to act, prompting criticism at the UN forum on the discrimination and abuses against Papuans.
I often visited Karma in prison. He took a correspondence course at Universitas Terbuka, studying police science. He read voraciously.
He studied Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King on non-violent movements and moral courage. He also drew, using pencil and charcoal. He surprised me with my portrait that he drew on a Jacob’s biscuit box.
His name began to appear globally. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei drew political prisoners, including Karma, in an exhibition at Alcatraz prison near San Francisco. Amnesty International produced a video about Karma.
Interestingly, he also read my 2011 book on journalism, “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme (My “Religion” Is Journalism), apparently inspiring him to write his own book. He used an audio recorder to express his thoughts, asking his friends to type and to print outside, which he then edited.
His 137-page book was published in November 2014, entitled, Seakan Kitorang Setengah Binatang: Rasialisme Indonesia di Tanah Papua (As If We’re Half Animals: Indonesian Racism in West Papua). It became a very important book on racism against Indigenous Papuans in Indonesia.
The Indonesian government, under new President Joko Widodo, finally released Karma in November 2015, and after that gradually released more than 110 political prisoners from West Papua and the Maluku Islands.
Release from jail celebration
Hundreds of Papuan activists welcomed Karma, bringing him from the prison to a field to celebrate with dancing and singing. He called me that night, saying that he had that “strange feeling” of missing the Abepura prison, his many inmate friends, his vegetable garden, as well as the boxing club, which he managed. He had spent 11 years inside the Abepura prison.
“It’s nice to be back home though,” he said laughing.
He slowly rebuilt his activism, traveling to many university campuses throughout Indonesia, also overseas, and talking about human rights abuses, the environmental destruction in West Papua, as well as his advocacy for an independent West Papua.
Students often invited him to talk about his book.
In Jakarta, he rented a studio near my apartment as his stopping point. We met socially, and also attended public meetings together. I organised his birthday party in August 2018. He bought new gear for his scuba diving. My wife, Sapariah, herself a diving enthusiast, noted that Karma was an excellent diver: “He swims like a fish.”
The resistance of Papuans in Indonesia to discrimination took on a new phase following a 17 August 2019 attack by security forces on a Papuan student dormitory in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, in which the students were subjected to racial insults.
The attack renewed discussions on anti-Papuan racial discrimination and sovereignty for West Papua. Papuan students and others acting through a social media movement called Papuan Lives Matter, inspired by Black Lives Matter in the United States, took part in a wave of protests that broke out in many parts of Indonesia.
Everyone reading Karma’s book
Everyone was reading Filep Karma’s book. Karma protested when these young activists, many of whom he personally knew, such as Sayang Mandabayan, Surya Anta Ginting and Victor Yeimo, were arrested and charged with treason.
“Protesting racism should not be considered treason,” he said.
The Indonesian government responded by detaining hundreds. Papuans Behind Bars, a nongovernmental organisation that monitors politically motivated arrests in West Papua, recorded 418 new cases from October 2020 to September 2021. At least 245 of them were charged, found guilty, and imprisoned for joining the protests, with 109 convicted of “treason”.
However, while in the past, Papuans charged with political offences typically were sentenced to years — in Karma’s case, 15 years — in the recent cases, perhaps because of international and domestic attention, the Indonesian courts handed down much shorter sentences, often time already served.
The coronavirus pandemic halted his activism in 2020-2022. He had plenty of time for scuba diving and spearfishing. Once he posted on Facebook that when a shark tried to steal his fish, he smacked it on the snout.
On 1 November 2022, my good friend Filep Karma was found dead on a Jayapura beach. He had apparently gone diving alone. He was wearing his scuba diving suit.
His mother, Eklefina Noriwari, called me that morning, telling me that her son had died. “I know you’re his close friend,” she told me. “Please don’t be sad. He died doing what he liked best . . . the sea, the swimming, the diving.”
West Papua was in shock. More than 30,000 people attended his funeral, flying the Morning Star flag, as their last act of respect for a courageous man. Mourners heard the speakers celebrating Filep Karma’s life, and then quietly went home.
It was peaceful. And this is exactly what Filep Karma’s message is about.
Andreas Harsono is the Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch and the author of its new report, “If It’s Not Racism, What Is It?”: Discrimination and Other Abuses Against Papuans in Indonesia. This article was first published by RNZ Pacific.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
RNZ Pacific
Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu has been elected as the new president of Fiji, despite opposition from women’s rights groups.
Ratu Naiqama was the current Speaker of Parliament and nominated by Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
He was elected yesterday after getting 37 out of 55 votes.
He is the high chief of the Cakaudrove confederacy, the same province as Rabuka.
He contested the December 2022 election as a candidate for the People’s Alliance Party when he received 652 votes.
The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali said Ratu Naiqama was “not fit” to be president.
“Ratu Naiqama has shown time and time again that he is a misogynist who was once suspended from Parliament for two years for making extremely derogatory comments against the late Speaker of the House, Dr Jiko Luveni,” Ali said in a statement on Wednesday before the parliamentary vote.
She also slammed Women’s Minister Lynda Tabuya for endorsing Ratu Naiqama for the president’s role, calling him a “male champion”.
“We would like the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection to explain instances — where and how — Ratu Naiqama has consistently worked as a male champion to break the cycle of patriarchy in the whole of Fiji,” Ali said.
Earlier this month, Ratu Naiqama came under fire from human rights campaigners in the country for making, what they said, was “racially charged” and “evil” remarks.
The Fiji Times reports the election of Tui Cakau, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, as the country’s next president “followed a voting pattern that heralds a significant shift from the traditional positions taken by the Government and the Opposition”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Papua New Guinea’s decision to withdraw from the upcoming United Nations climate change talks has caused concern among local environmental activists, who argue COP serves as a platform for regional solidarity.
PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko announced last week that PNG would not participate in the 29th United Nations Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP29) in protest and defence “of forest nations and small island states”.
“Papua New Guinea is making this stand for the benefit of all small island nations. We will no longer tolerate empty promises and inaction, while our people suffer the devastating consequences of climate change,” he said.
“Yet, despite contributing little to the global climate crisis, countries like PNG are left grappling with its severe impacts.”
Tkatchenko pointed to the difficulty in accessing climate finance over the years, which he said came despite making “high-level representation at the UNFCC COP”, and said the international community was failing its financial and moral commitments.
“The pledges made by major polluters amount to nothing more than empty talk,” he said.
“They impose impossible barriers for us to access the crucial funds we need to protect our people. Despite continuous attempts, we have not received a single toea in support, to date.
PNG ‘will no longer wait’
“If we must cut down our forests to sustain ourselves and develop our economy, so be it. Papua New Guinea will no longer wait for empty words while our people suffer. We are taking control of our destiny.”
Climate activist and former chair of the Commonwealth Youth Council Kim Allen said getting access to funds to deal with climate change was a big problem.
But he said the climate conference provided a platform to speak louder with other Pacific nations.
“We have to come together and say these are our challenges, this is the story of Pacific Island countries,” he said.
In August, Prime Minister James Marape said he had declared that PNG’s “non-attendance” at the annual climate talks “will signal our protest at the big nations — these industrialised nations who are big carbon footprint holders for their lack of quick support to those who are victims of climate change, and those of us who are forest and ocean nations”.
“We are protesting to those who are always coming in to these COP meetings, making pronouncements and pledges, yet the financing of these pledges seem distant from victims of climate change and those like PNG who hold substantial forests,” he said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and also with the permission of ABC Pacific.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.