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Category: Pacific Report

  • French Overseas Minister pushes ahead with Bougival deal despite FLNKS snub

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific Correspondent French Pacific desk

    French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls has ended an extended seven-day visit to New Caledonia with mixed feelings.

    On one hand, he said he was confident his “Bougival deal” for New Caledonia’s future is now “more advanced” after three sittings of a “drafting committee” made up of local politicians.

    On the other hand, despite his efforts and a three-hour meeting on Tuesday before he returned to Paris, he could not convince the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — the main component of the pro-independence camp — to join the “Bougival” process.

    The FLNKS recently warned against any attempt to “force” an agreement they were not part of, raising concerns about possible unrest similar to the riots that broke out in May 2024, causing 14 deaths and more than 2 billion euros (about NZ$3.8 billion) in material damage.

    The unrest has crystallised around a constitutional reform bill that sought to change the rules of eligibility for voters at local provincial elections. The bill prompted fears among the Kanak community that it was seeking to “dissolve” indigenous votes.

    But despite the FLNKS snub, all the other pro-independence and pro-France parties took part in the committee sessions, which are now believed to have produced a Constitutional Reform Bill.

    That bill is due to be tabled in both France’s parliament chambers (the National Assembly and the Senate) and later before a special meeting of both houses (a “Congress” — a joint meeting of both Houses of Parliament).

    Valls still upbeat
    Speaking to local reporters just before leaving the French Pacific territory on Tuesday, Valls remained upbeat and adamant that despite the FLNKS snub, the Bougival process is now “better seated”.

    “When I arrived in New Caledonia one week ago, many were wondering what would become of the Bougival accord we signed. Some said it was still-born. Today I’m going back with the feeling that the accord is comforted and that we have made considerable advances,” he said.

    "Gone" . . . the vanishing French and New Caledonian flags symbolising partnership on the New Caledonian driving licence
    “Gone” . . . the vanishing French and New Caledonian flags symbolising partnership on the New Caledonian driving licence. Image: NC 1ère TV

    He pointed out that non-political players, such as the Great Traditional Indigenous Chiefs Customary Senate and the Economic and Social Council, also joined some of the “drafting” sessions to convey their respective input.

    Valls hailed a “spirit of responsibility” and a “will to implement” the Bougival document, despite a more than three-hour meeting with a new delegation from FLNKS just hours before his departure on Tuesday.

    The FLNKS still opposes the Bougival text their negotiators had initially signed, that was later denounced following pressure from their militant base, invoking a profound “incompatibility” of the text with the movement’s “full sovereignty” and “decolonisation” goals.

    Also demands for this process to be completed before the next French Presidential elections, currently scheduled for April-May 2027.

    The Bougival deal signed on July 12 near Paris was initially agreed to by all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented at the local parliament, the Congress. However, it was later denounced and rejected “in block” by the FLNKS.

    Door ‘remains open’
    Valls consistently stressed that his door “remains open” to the FLNKS throughout his week-long stay in New Caledonia. This was his fourth trip to the territory since he was appointed to the post by French Prime Minister François Bayrou in December 2024.

    Manuel Valls (right) and his team meet FLNKS delegation on 26 August 2025 – PHOTO supplied
    Manuel Valls (right, standing) and his team met a FLNKS delegation on 26 August 2025. Image: RNZ Pacific

    He pointed out that non-political players, such as the (Great Traditional Indigenous Chiefs) Customary Senate and the Economic and Social Council, also had joined some of the “drafting” sessions to convey their input.

    In a statement after meeting with Valls, the FLNKS reiterated its categorical rejection” of the Bougival process while at the same time saying it was “ready to build an agreement on independence with all [political] partners”.

    “I will continue working with them and I also invite FLNKS to discuss with the other political parties. I don’t want to strike a deal without the FLNKS, or against the FLNKS,” he told local public broadcaster NC 1ère on Tuesday.

    He said the Bougival document was still in a “decolonisation process”.

    ‘Fresh talks’ in Paris
    Valls repeated his open-door policy and told local media that he did not rule out meeting FLNKS president Christian Téin in Paris for “fresh talks” in the “next few days”.

    Téin was released from jail mid-June 2025, but he remains barred from returning to New Caledonia as part of judicial controls imposed on him, pending his trial on criminal-related charges over the May 2024 riots.

    At the time, Téin was the leader of a CCAT (field action coordinating cell) to mount a protest campaign against a Constitutional reform bill that was eventually scrapped.

    The CCAT was set up late 2023 by one of the main components of the FLNKS, Union Calédonienne.

    While he was serving a pre-trial jail term, in August 2024, Téin was elected president in absentia of the FLNKS.

    As for FLNKS’s demand that they and no other party should be the sole representatives of the pro-independence movement, Valls said this was “impossible”.

    “New Caledonia’s society is not only [made up of] FLNKS. There still exists a space for discussion, the opportunity has to be seized because New Caledonia’s society is waiting for an agreement”.

    However, some political parties (including moderates such as Eveil Océanien (Pacific Islanders’ Awakening) and pro-France Calédonie Ensemble have expressed concern on the value of the Bougival process if it was to be pushed through despite the FLNKS non-participation.

    Other pro-independent parties, the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie), have distanced themselves from the FLNKS coalition they used to belong to.

    They remain committed to their signature and are now working along the Bougival lines.

    ‘There won’t be another May 13’
    Valls said the the situation is different now because an agreement exists, adding that the Bougival deal “is a comprehensive accord, not just on the electoral rules”.

    On possible fresh unrest, the former prime minister said “this time, [the French State will not be taken by surprise. There won’t be another 13 May”.

    He stressed during his visit that some 20 units (over 2000) of law enforcement personnel (gendarmerie, police) remain posted in New Caledonia.

    “And there will be more if necessary”, Valls assured.

    When the May 2024 riots broke out, the law enforcement numbers were significantly lower and it took several days before reinforcements from Paris eventually arrived in New Caledonia to restore law and order.

    Very tight schedule
    The Constitutional Reform Bill would cover a large spectrum of issues, including the creation, for the first time in France, of a “State of New Caledonia”, as well as a dual France/New Caledonia citizenship, all within the French Constitutional framework.

    Two other documents — an organic law and a fundamental law (a de facto constitution) — are also being prepared for New Caledonia.

    The organic law could come into force some time mid-October, if approved, and it would effectively postpone New Caledonia’s crucial provincial election to June 2026.

    The plan was to have the freshly-produced text scrutinised by the French State Council, then approved by the French Cabinet on September 17.

    Before the end of 2025, it would then be tabled before the French National Assembly, then the Senate, then the French special Congress sitting.

    And before 28 February 2026, the same text would finally be put to the vote by way of a referendum for the people of New Caledonia.

    French government to fall again?
    Meanwhile, Valls is now facing another unfavourable political context: the announcement, on Monday, by his Prime Minister François Bayrou, to challenge France’s National Assembly MPs in a risky motion of confidence.

    This, he said, was in direct relation to his Appropriation Bill (budget), which contains planned sweeping cuts of about 44 billion euros (NZ$87.4 billion) to tackle the “danger” of France further plunging into “over-indebtment”.

    If the motion, tabled to be voted on September 8, reveals more defiance than confidence, then Bayrou and his cabinet (including Valls) fall.

    In the face of urgent initial plans to have New Caledonia’s texts urgently tabled before French Parliament, Bayrou’s confidence vote is highly likely to further complicate New Caledonia’s political negotiations.

    Pro-France leader and former French cabinet member Sonia Backès, who is also the leader of local pro-France Les Loyalistes party, however told local media she remained confident and that even if the Bayrou government fell on September 8, “there would still be a continuity”.

    “But if this was to be followed by a dissolution of Parliament and snap elections, then, very clearly, this would impact on the whole New Caledonian process”, she said.

    “The Bougival agreement will be implemented,” Valls said.

    “And those who think that the fall of the French government would entail delays on its implementation schedule are mistaken, notwithstanding my personal situation which is not very important.

    “I will keep a watch on New Caledonia’s interests.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ media workers call for ‘decisive action’ by Luxon over Gaza journalists

    Asia Pacific Report

    About 120 journalists, film makers, actors, media workers and academics have today called on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and two senior cabinet ministers in an open letter to “act decisively” to protect Gaza journalists and a free press.

    “These are principles to which New Zealand has always laid claim and which are now under grave threat in Gaza and the West Bank,” the signatories said in the letter about Israel’s war on Gaza.

    The plea was addressed to Luxon, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith.

    Among the signatories are many well known media personalities such as filmmaker Gemma Gracewood, actor Lucy Lawless, film director Kim Webby, broadcaster Alison Mau, and comedian and documentarian Te Radar, and journalist Mereana Hond.

    The letter also calls on the government to urgently condemn the killing of 13 Palestinian journalists and media workers this month as the death toll in the 22-month war has reached almost 63,000 — more than 18,000 of them children.

    Global protests against the war and the forced starvation in the besieged enclave have been growing steadily over the past few weeks with more than 500,000 people taking part in Israel last week.

    Commitment to safety
    The letter urged Luxon and the government to:

    1. Publicly reaffirm New Zealand’s commitment to the safety of journalists worldwide and make clear this protection applies in every conflict zone, including Gaza.

    2. Reiterate the Media Freedom Coalition call for access for international press, ensuring safety, aid and crucial reporting are guaranteed; paired with New Zealand’s existing call for a ceasefire and safe humanitarian access corridors.

    3. Back international action already underway, by publicly affirming support for ICC investigations into attacks on journalists anywhere in the world, and by advocating that the United Nations adopt an international convention for the safety of journalists and media workers so that states parties meet their obligations under international law.

    4. Formally confirm that New Zealand’s free press and human rights principles apply to Palestinian journalists and media workers, as they do to all others.

    The letter said these measures were “consistent with New Zealand’s values, our history of independent foreign policy, and the rules-based international order we have always claimed to champion, and for which our very future as a country is reliant upon”.

    It added: “They do not require us to choose sides and they uphold the principle that a free press and those who embody it must never be targeted for doing their jobs.”

    Condemn the killings
    The recent deaths brought the number of Palestinian journalists and media workers killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to at least 219 at the time of writing, said the letter.

    “Many more are injured and missing. Many of those killed were clearly identified as members of the press. Some were killed alongside their families,” it said.

    The letter called on the government to urgently condemn the killings of:

    ● Al Jazeera journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, along with freelance journalist Mohammad Al-Khalidi and freelance cameraman Momen Aliwa, who were targeted and killed in, or as a result of, an August 10 airstrike on their tent in Gaza City.

    ● Correspondents Hussam al-Masri, Hatem Khaled, Mariam Abu Daqqa, Mohammad Salama, Ahmed Abu Azi and Moaz Abu Taha, all killed in a strike on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on August 25.

    ● Journalist and academic Hassan Douhan, killed in Khan Younis on August 25.

    “From Malcolm Ross to Margaret Moth, Peter Arnett to Mike McRoberts, New Zealand has a proud history of war correspondents. The same international laws that have protected them are meant to protect all journalists, wherever they work,” said the letter.

    “Today, those protections are being violated with impunity.

    “Our media colleagues are being murdered, and we have a duty to speak up.”

    As journalists, editors, producers, writers, documentary-makers, media workers and storytellers, said the letter, “we believe in the essential role of a free press.

    “These killings are in violation of international rules-based order, including humanitarian law, and are intended to erase witnesses to the truth itself. These media professionals are doing their jobs under extremely challenging conditions, and are civilians worthy of protection under human rights laws.

    “This is not only a matter of professional solidarity, this is a matter of principle. Journalists are civilians. They are witnesses to history. They deserve the same protection anywhere in the world.”

    “We urge you to lead, knowing you have the voices of Aotearoa’s storytellers and history-keepers standing with you.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A ‘scathing’ report on RNZ’s performance obscures the good news – and the challenge of serving many audiences

    ANALYSIS: By Peter Thompson, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    The recent internal report on RNZ’s performance, variously described as “scathing” and “blunt” in news coverage, caused considerable debate about the state broadcaster’s performance and priorities — not all of it fair or well informed.

    The report makes several operational recommendations, including addressing RNZ National’s declining audience share by targeting the 50+ age demographic and moving key programme productions from Wellington to Auckland.

    But RNZ’s diminishing linear radio audience has to be understood in the context of its overall expansion of audience reach online, and audience trends across the radio sector in general.

    Total audience engagement with RNZ content on third-party platforms (including social media, YouTube and content-sharing partners who are permitted to republish RNZ material) now exceeds the reach of its radio audience.

    There has also been a steady but significant decline in the daily reach of linear radio overall. NZ On Air audience research shows that in 2014, 67 percent of New Zealanders listened to linear broadcast radio every day. A decade later, this had dropped to 42 percent.

    RNZ National’s share of the total 15+ audience peaked at 12 percent in 2021, following the initial pandemic period. By 2024, this had declined to 7 percent, having been overtaken by Newstalk ZB on 8 percent (also down from 9 percent in 2021).

    But using comparative audience reach and ratings data to gauge the performance of a public service media operator does not capture the quality or diversity of audience engagement, or the extent to which its charter obligations are being met.

    Nor do audience data reflect the positive structural role RNZ plays in supporting other media through its content-sharing model, the Local Democracy Reporting scheme or its RNZ Pacific service.

    Clashing priorities
    Data provided by RNZ show the decline in RNZ National’s audience to be primarily in the 60+ age groups. How much that reflects recent efforts to appeal to a more diverse demographic through changed programming formats is unclear.

    The RNZ report also suggests staff are uncertain about what audiences their programmes are aiming at. If so, this could explain the departure of some older listeners.

    But that doesn’t necessarily support the report’s conclusion that RNZ National should stick to its radio knitting and double down on the 50+ audience, especially in Auckland, to compete with Newstalk ZB.

    In fact, prioritising the 50+ audience at the expense of a broader appeal might reinforce RNZ’s brand image as a legacy service for older listeners — a prospect its commercial rivals would doubtless welcome.

    Between 2007 and 2017, RNZ was subject to a funding freeze and was pressured by successive National-led governments to justify any claim for future increases with evidence of improved performance. Its Queenstown, Tauranga and Palmerston North offices all closed during this period of austerity.

    In the 2017 budget, RNZ eventually received an extra NZ$11.4 million over four years. Its statement of intent that year acknowledged funding increases were premised on achieving a wider audience and that budgets needed to make “operational expenditure available for new online initiatives and updated technology”.

    Given that expanding the online arm of RNZ would affect investment in its radio service, it would be surprising if operational priorities didn’t sometimes clash. While commercial broadcasters prioritise their most lucrative demographics, public service operators have the perennial challenge of providing something for everyone.

    The risk of pleasing no one
    The online reach of RNZ’s website and app is now comparable to the reach of its linear broadcasts. Critics might frame that as under-performance on the radio side, but it also shows audience reach has grown beyond the older-skewing linear radio demographic.

    According to RNZ’s 2024 audience research, 80 percent of New Zealanders engage with its content every month. Meanwhile, amid growing concern about declining trust in news, RNZ ranked top in the 2025 JMAD survey on trust in media.

    None of this supports the narrative of a failing legacy operator that has lost its way.

    Some of the issues raised in the RNZ report may simply reflect the reality of modern media management: maintaining the character, quality and demographic appeal of existing radio services while trying to reach broader demographics on new platforms.

    Meeting that challenge was perhaps made more realistic when the previous Labour government increased RNZ’s baseline funding by $25.7 million in 2023. So the current government’s recent decision to cut RNZ’s budget by $18 million over the next four years represents a real setback.

    RNZ’s charter obliges it to serve a diverse range of audiences, something the data show it achieves with a broad cross-section across all platforms.

    If it were to now prioritise the 50+ or even 60+ radio audience at the expense of expanding online services and audience diversification, there would likely be more criticism and calls for further defunding from the broadcaster’s political and commercial enemies.

    Rather like the moral of Aesop’s fable about the man, the boy and the donkey, if RNZ is expected to please everyone, it runs the risk of pleasing no one.The Conversation

    Dr Peter Thompson is associate professor in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Bougainville’s President Ishmael Toroama candid and relaxed a week out from polling

    By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    The President of Bougainville, Ishmael Toroama, says he is not feeling the pressure as he seeks a second five-year term in office.

    Bougainville goes to the polls next Thursday, September 4, with 404 candidates vying for 46 seats in the Parliament of the autonomous Papua New Guinea region.

    Toroama is being challenged by six others — all men.

    He spoke with RNZ Pacific as he continues campaigning in Central Bougainville.

    Ishamel Toroama in his younger days.
    Ishamel Toroama in his younger days. Image: FB/Ishmael Toroama/RNZ Pacific

    Don Wiseman: Last time you and I spoke before an election, you had just been ushering a rock band around Bougainville. It’s a very different situation for you this time round.

    Ishmael Toroama: Yes, indeed, it’s a totally different situation. But you know, principle never changes. Principles of everything, in terms of whatever we do, remain the same. But it changes as environment changes.

    DW: What are your key planks going into this election? What are the most important things that you’re telling people?

    ‘Political independence’
    IT:     It’s what my government has done in the last five years.

    I am telling them, firstly, of the political independence. Political independence has been agreed by the national constitution of Papua New Guinea, amendment on part 14, which gives the people of Bougainville the right to vote for independence referendum.

    As our leaders at that time, while they were negotiating with late Kabui [first Bougainville President Joseph Kabui], they told the Papua New Guinea government that if you cannot change your constitution, then we will no longer sign a peace agreement that creates that opportunity for Papua New Guinea and Bougainville.

    So what I’m telling them is it has been guaranteed by the national constitution, which created the amendment of part 14, the Organic Law on Peace Building, Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Constitution of the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

    In all consultation, national constitution guarantees us to even the consultation, even through the definition of independence, which most Bougainvilleans have voted for, which has been defined by the national government, saying that it is a separate state apart from the state of Papua New Guinea.

    And the United Nations must also verify that, and that is the definition which national government has given to the people of Bougainville before the actual voting happened. If you closely look at all consultation, the Bougainville Peace Agreement says after the referendum vote made by the people, the two governments will consult over the result.

    What I’m telling my people is that as your fifth president in the fourth House of Representatives, we have made a consultation at Kokopo, Wabag, and in Moresby we signed the Era Kone Covenant. And latest is the Melanesian Relationship Agreement [signed at Burnham, New Zealand, in June this year].

    Constitutional guarantee
    Having said in order that constitutional guarantee as a guarantor guarantees the people’s right to vote for independence, that is what I’m telling them.

    DW: Yes but you’re not carrying Port Moresby with you on this. Are you? You guys are not very much closer to resolution of this problem than you were five years ago.

    IT: Well, that is in line with the consultation process. Whatever they say to me, I see that. It has been amended of the national constitution, then it gives us the opportunity whether the national government likes it or not.

    It is a national constitution guarantee or the framework of the Bougainville Peace Agreement, and that is how I’m saying to them, whether we come into consultation, we have different views.

    At least it is the constitutional guaranteed process censored by the National Constitution.

    A young Ishamel Toroama during his time as a member of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army.
    A young Ishmael Toroama as a commander in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA). Image: FB/Ishmael Toroama/RNZ Pacific

    DW: There are people, including some running against you in this election, who are saying that your approach through these negotiations has been too strident, that you go into these meetings making bold statements beforehand and there’s no room to move, that you’re not giving room for negotiation.

    Defining result
    IT:     If you look at all the consultation that we have consulted. You will look at the consultation which I am saying we are consulting over the result. The Bougainville Peace Agreement says that the consultation should be over the result.

    And what is the result? It is the 97.7 percent and who has defined the 97.7 percent — it is the national government of Papua New Guinea.

    I understand where they’re coming from, because if you want to retain a political power, you can make all sorts of arguments trying to say that President Toroama has not left room, [made] political spaces available.

    But if you closely look at what the Bougainville Peace Agreement says, we are consulting over the result, whether these presidents or candidates are saying that I haven’t made a room.

    You just look at every space that we have gone into. And a consultation, as per the Bougainville Peace Agreement, is over the result.

    What is the result? It is the independence which people voted — 97.7 percent. We cannot deny the people’s power moving into the referendum saying that we want to govern ourselves. So yes, people’s power.

    DW: Except you’re overlooking that that referendum is a non-binding referendum?

    Where is it non-binding?
    IT: Can you specifically say to me, can you give me a clause within the Bougainville Peace Agreement that it says it is a non-binding.

    I’m asking you, you will not find any non-binding clause within the framework of the Peace Agreement. It has been cultivated in there by people that want to drive us away from the exact opposition of the people.

    There is no clause within the political peace agreement that says non-binding. There is no clause.

    DW: We’re here now, just a week out from the election. How will you go?

    IT: I’m the kind of man that has process. They voted me for the last five years. And if the people wish to put me [back], the decision, the power to put people, it is democracy. They will vote for me.

    If not, they can choose another president. I don’t get too much pressure, but because it has been described within the constitution of the autonomous government that a president can serve two terms, so that’s why I am running.

    But I’m not in a pressure mood. I am all right.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Samoa general election: Pre-polling kicks off

    By Grace Tinetali-Fiavaai, RZ Pacific reporter in Apia, Samoa

    Pre-polling has kicked off in Samoa today, with around 1700 people expected to cast their votes ahead of Friday’s polling day.

    At the Tuana’imato Sports Complex in the capital, Apia, the atmosphere was upbeat as special voters began arriving.

    Special voters include those from Savai’i, the largest island in Samoa. There are no polling booths open on Wednesday in Savai’i, so all voters from there have to come to Upolu to cast their votes.

    Five constituencies have been through the polling booths at Tuana’imato to vote. Voters are being called in by election officials according to their constituency.

    Families are on hand to assist elderly relatives and members of the disabled community, making sure they can exercise their right to vote.

    The country’s Electoral Commissioner, Toleafoa Tuiafelolo Alexander Stanley, said pre-polling was open only to those who had been pre-approved, including the elderly, disabled, and others unable to vote on Friday.

    Pre-polling has officially kicked off in Samoa. 27 August 2025
    Pre-polling under way in Samoa. Image: RNZ Pacific/Grace Tinetali-Fiavaai

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Antony Lowenstein: Israel’s murderous killing spree against Palestinian journalists

    By Antony Loewenstein in Sydney

    The grim facts should speak for themselves. Since 7 October 2023, Israel has deliberately killed an unprecedented number of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

    Those brave individuals are smeared as Hamas operatives and terrorists by Israel and its supporters.

    But the real story behind this, beyond just Western racism and dehumanisation towards Arab reporters who don’t work for the corporate media in London or New York, is an Israeli military strategy to deliberately (and falsely) link Gazan journalists to Hamas.

    The outlet +972 Magazine explains the plan:

    “The Israeli military has operated a special unit called the ‘Legitimization Cell,’ tasked with gathering intelligence from Gaza that can bolster Israel’s image in the international media, according to three intelligence sources who spoke to +972 Magazine and Local Call and confirmed the unit’s existence.

    “Established after October 7, the unit sought information on Hamas’ use of schools and hospitals for military purposes, and on failed rocket launches by armed Palestinian groups that harmed civilians in the enclave.

    “It has also been assigned to identify Gaza-based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives, in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel’s killing of reporters — the latest of whom was Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif, killed in an Israeli airstrike this past week [august 10].

    According to the sources, the Legitimisation Cell’s motivation was not security, but public relations. Driven by anger that Gaza-based reporters were “smearing [Israel’s] name in front of the world,” its members were eager to find a journalist they could link to Hamas and mark as a target, one source said.

    As a journalist who’s visited and reported in Gaza since 2009, here’s a short film I made after my first trip, Palestinian journalists are some of the most heroic individuals on the planet. They have to navigate both Israeli attacks and threats and Western contempt for their craft.

    I stand in solidarity with them. And so should you.

    After the Israeli murder of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif on August 10, I spoke to Al Jazeera English about him and Israel’s deadly campaign:


    Antony Loewenstein speaking on Al Jazeera English on 11 August 2025.   Video: AJ


    Antony Loewenstein interviewed by Al Jazeera on 11 August 2025.  Video: AJ

    News graveyards - how dangers to journalists endanger the world
    News graveyards – how dangers to journalists endanger the world. Image: Antony Loewenstein Substack

    Republished from the Substack of Antony Lowenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory,  with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New Zealand challenged to vote for Israel’s suspension at UN

    Asia Pacific Report

    The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has challenged the New Zealand government to support a move by Türkiye to vote to suspend Israeli membership of the United Nations.

    Türkiye Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has told the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Riyadh that Israel should be suspended from the crucial meeting of the UN General Assembly next month, for its “genocidal aggression”.

    PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement that New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters would have to take a stand on this issue.

    “Cabinet should give him clear instructions to vote against Israeli war crimes and support Palestinian rights,” he said.

    “Suspension of Israel will have a lot of backing from many countries horrified with the starvation and carnage in Gaza, and they want to do something effective, instead of just recognising Palestine as a state.

    “Even if the US vetoes such a move in the Security Council, there is a precedent going back to 1974 when South Africa was suspended from the General Assembly because it practised apartheid.

    “The General Assembly suspended a member then, and New Zealand should back such a move now.”

    Original condition
    Minto said Israel’s original condition in 1948 for joining the UN was that it allowed the 750,000 Palestinians it had expelled from Palestine to create Israel to return home.

    “Israel won’t even talk about its obligations to let Palestinians return, and certainly never had any intention of allowing them to go home. Israel should pay a price for that, along with punishment for its genocide,” he said.

    Minto said the escalation of the Israeli assault on Gaza called for immediate international action without waiting wait until the General Assembly debate next month.

    “The Israeli ambassador in Wellington should be told to leave right now, because his government is openly committing war crimes.”

    “We’ve just seen a famine declared in Gaza City. Aid is totally insufficient and deliberately so,” Minto said.

    “Israel has called up its military reservists for the major assault it’s conducting on Gaza City to drive nearly a million of its inhabitants out.

    “Israel’s latest dumping ground of choice is South Sudan, even though its government says it doesn’t want to have expelled Palestinians turn up there.”

    “And we’ve had the news that Israel has once again killed journalists, who work for international news agencies, such as Reuters, Al Jazeera and NBC.”

    “Netanyahu says it was a mistake. Who believes that?”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Palestinian journalists treated like ‘robots’ by Western media, says Gaza reporter in wake of latest Israeli killings

    Pacific Media Watch

    An Al Jazeera journalist who has documented Israel’s trail of atrocities for almost the past two years has condemned Western news agencies covering the war on Gaza as treating Palestinian reporters like “robots”.

    “You see how Palestinian journalists are treated. There’s no protection when they are alive,” Hind Khoudary told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

    “And after they are killed, no one even mentions them.”

    She said today was a “very, very angry morning” after five journalists were killed yesterday among at least 21 people, including medical workers, at al-Nasser Medical Centre in Khan Younis in a “double tap” strike by the Israeli military.

    The slain news professionals have been named as Hossam al-Masri, a freelance photographer for the Reuters news agency; Mariam Abu Daqqa, freelance journalist for The Independent and the Associated Press (AP); Moaz Abu Taha, correspondent for the American broadcasting network NBC; Mohamad Salama, press photographer for Al Jazeera; and Ahmed Abu Aziz, freelance journalist working for Middle East Eye and the Tunisian radio station Diwan FM, who died later from his injuries.

    “Palestinian journalists do not know how to mourn their five colleagues and there’s a wave of anger at the international news agencies.

    “Many news outlets [that the killed journalists worked for] did not even mention their contributors. The Reuters news agency did not mention in their headline their cameraman who had been working for them for months.

    “In their article, they simply described him as a Reuters ‘contractor’.

    ‘Not mentioned’
    As for Moaz Abu Taha [another journalist killed in the Nasser medical centre attack], not a single news organisation that he was working for said he was working for them,” she said.

    A moment just after the second strike hit the journalists at the al-Nasser Medical Centre in southern Gaza
    A moment just after the second strike hit the journalists at the al-Nasser Medical Centre in southern Gaza yesterday. Image: Reporters Without Borders

    “Palestinian journalists have been risking their lives for 23 months now, and after they are killed, they are not even mentioned in headlines.

    “In the end, they are mentioned as ‘contractors’, as ‘freelancers’ – while, when they were alive, they were working 24/7 to produce, fix and document for these news outlets.

    “This is how most Palestinian journalists feel — that we’re just being used as robots to report on what’s going on because there are no foreign journalists.

    “We get killed and then everyone forgets about us.”


    Gaza’s silenced voices.     Video: Al Jazeera

    RSF ‘fiercely condemns’ killings
    The Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) “fiercely condemned” the latest killings, saying they came after the murder of Khaled al-Madhoun on Saturday, 23 August 23.

    This was a toll of six journalists killed in two days. It follows the killing of six other journalists two weeks ago on August 10.

    According to RSF information, all were deliberately targeted. RSF again called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to “end this massacre of journalists”.

    Thibaut Bruttin, director-general of RSF, said: How far will the Israeli armed forces go in their gradual effort to eliminate information coming from Gaza? How long will they continue to defy international humanitarian law?

    “The protection of journalists is guaranteed by international law, yet more than 200 of them have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the past two years.

    “Ten years after the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2222, which protects journalists in times of conflict, the Israeli army is flouting its application.

    “RSF calls for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to ensure this resolution is finally respected, and that concrete measures are taken to end impunity for crimes against journalists, protect Palestinian journalists, and open access to the Gaza Strip to all reporters.”

    Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary
    Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary . . . reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Suicide drone’
    According to Al Jazeera, the first strike on the live broadcast post that killed Hossam al-Masri was carried out using a loitering munition — also known as a “suicide drone” — typically equipped with a camera and an explosive charge.

    A Reuters article also confirmed the death of its contractor, Hussam al-Masri.

    The second strike 8 minutes later targeted the hospital yet again after rescue teams and journalists had arrived.

    The Al-Nasser complex is a well-known gathering place for displaced journalists in Gaza who, since October 2023, have been living in tents around the hospital to access information on injured and deceased patients, as well as available facilities.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Photojournalist resigns from Reuters over its ‘betrayal of journalists’ in Gaza

    By Asiye Latife Yilmaz in Istanbul

    Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned after eight years with Reuters, criticising the news agency’s stance on Gaza as a “betrayal of journalists” and accusing it of “justifying and enabling” the killing of 245 journalists in the Palestinian enclave.

    “At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza,” Zink said today via the US social media company X.

    Zink said she worked as a Reuters stringer for eight years, with her photos published by many outlets, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and others worldwide.

    She criticised Reuters’ reporting after the killing of Anas al-Sharif and an Al Jazeera crew in Gaza on August 10, accusing the agency of amplifying Israel’s “entirely baseless claim” that al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, which was “one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she said.

    “I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief,” Zink said.

    Zink also emphasised that the agency’s willingness to “perpetuate Israel’s propaganda” had not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide.

    “I don’t know what it means to begin to honour the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza, the bravest and best to ever live, but going forward I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that front of mind,” Zink highlighted, reflecting on the courage of Gaza’s journalists.

    “I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more,” she added.

    ‘Double tap’ strike
    Referring to the killing of six more journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri, in Israel’s Monday attack on the al-Nasser hospital in Gaza, Zink said: “It was what’s known as a ‘double tap’ strike, in which Israel bombs a civilian target like a school or hospital; waits for medics, rescue teams, and journalists to arrive; and then strikes again.”

    Zink underlined that Western media was directly culpable for creating the conditions for these events, quoting Jeremy Scahill of Drop Down News, who said major outlets — from The New York Times to Reuters — had served as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda,” sanitising war crimes, dehumanising victims, and abandoning both their colleagues and their commitment to true and ethical reporting.

    She said Western media outlets, by “repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility” and abandoning basic journalistic responsibility, have enabled the killing of more journalists in Gaza in two years than in major global conflicts combined, while also contributing to the suffering of the population.

    The new fatalities among the media personnel in Gaza brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 to 246.

    Israel has killed more than 62,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

    Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

    Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its war on the enclave.

    Republished from Anadolu Ajansi.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French PM’s confidence vote hits New Caledonia’s political negotiations

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    French Prime Minister François Bayrou’s surprise announcement yesterday that he will call for a parliamentary confidence vote in his government is set to further complicate protracted talks in New Caledonia on the French territory’s political future.

    The announcement comes as French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls has extended his stay in New Caledonia, where he has supervised a “drafting committee” to translate a “Bougival Accord” signed in July to set the path for major political reforms for New Caledonia.

    In a surprise and “risky” announcement yesterday, Bayrou said a confidence vote in his government would take place on September 8.

    He said this was in direct relation to his budget, which contains planned sweeping cuts of around 44 billion euros (NZ$87.6 billion) to tackle the “danger” of France plunging further into “over-indebtedness”.

    “Yes it’s risky, but it’s even riskier not to do anything,” he told a press conference.

    According to article 49.1 of the French Constitution, if a majority of parties votes in defiance, then Bayou and his minority government automatically fall.

    Reacting to the announcement, parties ranging from far right, far left to the Greens have already indicated they would express defiance towards Bayrou and his cabinet.

    ‘End of the government’
    Far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party chief Jordan Bardella said Bayrou, by calling for the vote, had effectively announced “the end of his government”.

    Radical left France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) also said the vote would mark the end of the government.

    This will place the Socialist MPs, whose votes could make the difference, in a crucial position.

    Socialist party spokesman MP Arthur Delaporte, deplored Bayrou for remaining “deaf to the demands of the French” and appeared to remain “quite stubborn”.

    “I don’t see how we could vote the confidence,” Delaporte told reporters.

    To further compound the situation in France, a national “block everything” strike has been called on September 12, with the active support and backing from the far left parties and a number of trade unions.

    Valls is still in New Caledonia, after he extended his stay twice and is now set to fly back to Paris later today.

    Bid for FLNKS talks
    The extension was an attempt to resume talks with the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), which has attended none of the three sessions of the “drafting committee” on August 21, 23 and 35.

    Participants at New Caledonia’s drafting committee launched at the French High Commission.
    French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls . . . at New Caledonia’s drafting committee meeting launched at the French High Commission. Image: Photo: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie/RNZ Pacific

    Talks within the committee were reported to be not only legal (with the help of a team of French high officials, including constitutionalists, but also highly political.

    Valls announced a last-ditch session today with FLNKS before he flies back to Paris.

    All of the other parties, both pro-independence and pro-France, took part in the committee sessions, which is now believed to have produced a Constitutional reform Bill that was to be tabled at both France’s Parliament chambers (the National Assembly and the Senate) and later before a special meeting of both houses (a “Congress”).

    The Constitutional Bill would cover a large spectrum of issues, including the creation, for the first time in France, of a “State of New Caledonia”, as well as a dual France/New Caledonia citizenship.

    Two other documents, an organic law and a fundamental law (a de facto constitution) are also being prepared for New Caledonia.

    The Bougival deal signed on July 12 near Paris was initially agreed to by all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented at the local Parliament, the Congress.

    Rejected ‘in block’
    But it was later denounced and rejected “in block” by the FLNKS.

    Valls has consistently stressed that his door “remains open” to the FLNKS.

    Several local parties across the political chessboard (including the Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and moderate pro-France Calédonie Ensemble) have already expressed doubts as to whether the implementation of the Bougival deal could carry any value if they had taken place without the FLNKS.

    In the face of urgent initial plans to have New Caledonia’s texts urgently tabled before French Parliament, Bayrou’s confidence challenge is highly likely to further complicate New Caledonia’s political negotiations.

    The plan was to have the freshly-produced text scrutinised by the French State Council, then approved by the French Cabinet on September 17.

    Before the end of 2025, it would then be tabled before the French National Assembly, then the Senate, then the French special Congress sitting.

    And before 28 February 2026, the same text would finally be put to the vote by way of a referendum for the people of New Caledonia.

    Pro-France leader and former French cabinet member Sonia Backès however told local media she remained confident that even if the Bayrou government fell on September 8, “there would still be a continuity”.

    “But if this was to be followed by a dissolution of Parliament (and snap elections), then, very clearly, this would impact on the whole (New Caledonian) process,” she said.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘All destroyed’: Fire engulfs Marshall Islands parliament complex

    RNZ Pacific

    Fire engulfed the Marshall Islands Nitijela (Parliament building) just after midnight on last night with firefighters risking their lives as they battled the blaze early today in a bid to save the complex.

    “Sometime around midnight or shortly after this morning, the Parliament building in Majuro caught fire, started burning,” RNZ Pacific’s correspondent in the Marshall Islands Giff Johnson said.

    “The fire department here is pretty nonexistent, except for an airport fire fighting team, which was called in, but they weren’t able to get there for over an hour.”

    Marshall Islands firefighters try to contain the fire.
    Marshall Islands firefighters try to contain the fire. Image: Chewy Lin Photo & Film/Chewy Lin/RNZ Pacific

    Johnson said the building was completely engulfed by the time the fire truck arrived on site.

    He said the Parliament chamber and offices, the library and all the archives, “have been all destroyed”.

    “Everything’s wiped out. All the records are gone,” he said.

    “A lot of the structure, which is concrete, is still standing, but it’s now noontime (Tuesday, NZT), and it’s still smoking. Firefighters are still on site, trying to quell it.

    ‘Alternative plans’
    “The building is no longer usable, and already, alternative plans are being talked about, about where they’re going to hold Parliament, because Parliament is actually in session right now.

    “Fortunately, the fire started late overnight so no indication that anybody was harmed.”

    Johnson said the Marshall Islands did not have much capacity in firefighting and fire inspection processes, making it difficult to determine the cause of the fire.

    He said a lot of entities in the Marshall Islands did not have back-ups and it would take people weeks to figure out what they had lost and what they could access.

    “From purely a records point of view, and just getting their system back up and running, it’s going to be a while because everything has been digitised at the Parliament, and it’s a really complicated situation.”

    Nitjela up in flames: Marshall Islands firefighters try to contain the fire.
    Nitjela up in flames. Image: Chewy Lin Photo & Film/Chewy Lin

    The Marshall Islands Cabinet was holding an emergency meeting and was expected to make a statement later today.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Media analyst slams Israeli killing of four Gaza journalists – calls for Western outrage

    Pacific Media Watch

    A media studies analyst has condemned the latest deadly attack by Israel on journalists in Gaza and challenged Western media over the carnage, asking “where is the outrage” and international solidarity?

    Four journalists were reported to have been assassinated among 20 people killed in the air strike on the al-Nasser Medical Centre in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

    The others killed were first responders and medical staff, said the Gaza Health Ministry.

    Dr Mohamad Elmasry, media studies professor at Qatar’s Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera in an interview he was “at a loss for words” over the latest attack.

    Earlier this month, four Al Jazeera journalists and two other media people were among seven killed on August 10 in what the Israeli military admitted was a targeted attack.

    “Israel has been at war with journalism and journalists from the very beginning of the war,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera. “They’re not hiding it. They’re very open about this.

    “But the question that I have is, where are the international journalists?

    ‘Where is Western media?’
    “Where is The New York Times? Where is CNN? Where are the major mainstream Western news outlets?

    “Because when Charlie Hebdo [a French satirical magazine based in Paris] journalists were killed in 2015, that caused global outrage for months.

    “It was a major story in every single Western news outlet. And I applauded journalists for coming to the aid of their colleagues. But now, where is the outrage?”

    The Gaza Media Office said the death toll of Palestinian journalists in Gaza had risen to 246 and identified latest casualties as:

    Hossam al-Masri – photojournalist with Reuters news agency
    Mohammed Salama – photojournalist with Al Jazeera
    Mariam Abu Daqa – journalist with several media outlets including The Independent Arabic and US news agency Associated Press
    Moaz Abu Taha – journalist with NBC network

    In a statement when announcing that the death toll from the al-Nasser hospital attack had risen to 20, the Gaza Health Ministry said:

    “The [Israeli] occupation forces’ targeting of the hospital today and the killing of medical personnel, journalists, and civil defence personnel is a continuation of the systematic destruction of the health system and the continuation of genocide.

    “It is a message of defiance to the entire world and to all values of humanity and justice.”

    ‘Killed in line of duty’
    The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, posted on X after the Israeli strikes killed the journalists and members of Gaza’s civil defence:

    “Rescuers killed in line of duty. Scenes like this unfold every moment in Gaza, often unseen, largely undocumented,” she wrote.

    “I beg states: how much more must be witnessed before you act to stop this carnage?

    “Break the blockade. Impose an arms embargo. Impose sanctions.”

    Her remarks came after she shared a video appearing to show a second Israeli air strike during a live broadcast on Al-Ghad TV — just minutes after the first attack on al-Nasser hospital.

    Albanese later gave an interview, renewing her call for sanctions on Israel.

    One of Al Jazeera’s reporters described working with hospitals as a base.

    Deprived of electricity, internet
    Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said: “I’m one of the Palestinian journalists reporting from hospitals.

    “We are in a two-year war where we have been deprived of electricity and internet, so Palestinian journalists are using these services at hospitals to continue reporting.

    “We are also following news of wounded Palestinians, funerals, and malnutrition cases, as these are always transferred to hospitals.

    “That is why Palestinian journalists are making hospitals their base and end up being attacked.”

    The Australian author of The Palestine Laboratory, Antony Loewenstein
    The Australian author of The Palestine Laboratory, Antony Loewenstein, being interviewed by Al Jazeera from Sydney. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Why the International Criminal Court is under attack – it must be defended

    COMMENTARY: By Greg Barns

    If it were China or Russia, the imposition of sanctions and threats of harm to prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court would be front page news in Australia- and in New Zealand.

    The Australian’s headline writers and columnists, for example, would be apoplectic. Prime Minister Albanese, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and Foreign Minister Penny Wong would issue the strongest possible warnings to those countries about consequences.

    But, of course, that’s not happening because instead it is the US that is seeking to put the lives and well-being of the ICC’s staff in danger, the reasons the ICC has rightly issued arrest warrants against undoubted war criminals and genocide enablers such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

    Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, purely a slavish appendage of the worst US president on record, Donald Trump, announced sanctions on two judges and two prosecutors at the ICC.

    Rubio issued a statement calling the ICC “a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare” against the US and Israel. A statement that, no doubt, war criminals around the world will be applauding.

    These are not the first attacks on the ICC.

    In February this year, Trump issued an order that said the US “will impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC’s transgressions, some of which may include the blocking of property and assets, as well as the suspension of entry into the US of ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members, as their entry into our nation would be detrimental to the interests of the US”.

    The ICC was established in 2002 to administer the Rome Statute, the international law that governs war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and other crimes.

    Leading atrocity nations
    Australia is a signatory, but the US and Israel have not signed up in the case of the former, and failed to ratify in the case of the latter, because they are, of course, leading nations when it comes to committing atrocities overseas and — in the case of Israel — within its own borders, through what many scholars say is a policy of apartheid inflicted on Arab Israelis.

    So, despite the relatively muted interest in Australia today at the latest outrage against the international order by the corrupt thugs in the Trump Administration, what should the Albanese government do?

    Trump’s shielding of Netanyahu and his advisers from criminal proceedings through sanctions and threats to members of the court is akin to both aiding and abetting crimes under the Rome Statute and clearly threatening judges, prosecutors and court officials.

    This means Australia should make it very clear, in very public terms, that this nation will not stand for conduct by a so-called ally, which is clearly running a protection racket.

    Australia has long joined with the US and other allies in imposing sanctions on regimes around the world.

    When it comes to Washington, those days are over.

    Sarah Dehm of UTS and Jessica Whyte of the University of New South Wales, writing in The Conversation in December last year, referenced Trump and Rubio’s thuggery towards the ICC among other sanctions outrages, and observed correctly that “Australian sanctions law and decision-making be reoriented towards recognising core principles of international law, including the right of all people to self-determination”.

    A ‘trigger mechanism’
    Dehm and Whyte argued this “could be done through ‘a trigger mechanism’ that automatically implements sanctions in accordance with decisions of the International Court of Justice concerning serious violations and abuses of human rights”.

    What the Albanese government could do immediately is make it abundantly clear that any person subject to an ICC arrest warrant would be detained if they set foot in Australia. This would obviously include Netanyahu and Gallant.

    And further, that Australia stands to contribute to protection for any ICC personnel.

    Not only that, but given the Rome Statute is incorporated into domestic law in Australia via the Commonwealth Criminal Code, a warning should be given by Attorney-General Rowland that any person suspected of breaches of the Rome Statute could be prosecuted under Australian law if they visit this country.

    What Australia could also do is make it mandatory, rather than discretionary, for the attorney-general to issue an arrest warrant if Netanyahu and others subject to ICC warrants came to this country.

    As Oxford international law scholar, Australian Dane Luo, has observed, while Foreign Minister Wong has said in relation to the Netanyahu and Gallant warrants that “Australia will act consistently with our obligations under international law and our approach will be informed by international law, not by politics”, this should not be taken as an indication that Rowland would have them arrested.

    The Trump administration must be told clearly Australia will not harbour international criminals. And while we are at it, tell Washington we are imposing economic, cultural, educational and other sanctions on Israel.

    Greg Barns SC is a former national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance. This article was first published by Pearls and Irritations : John Menadue’s public poiicy journal.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gearing up for the 2025 Samoan general election – three-way split?

    COMMENTARY: By Asofou So’o

    Although seven political parties have officially registered to contest Samoa’s general election this Friday, three have been politically visible through their campaign activities and are likely to share among them the biggest slice of the Parliament’s 51 seats.

    The question on everyone’s lips is: which one of them will win enough seats to form the next government without the assistance of possible coalition partners?

    The three main political parties are the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party and Sāmoa United Party (SUP), under the leadership of Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi (Tuila’epa), La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polata’ivao Schmidt (La’auli) and Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa (Fiamē) respectively.

    La’auli and Fiamē were both long-serving members of the HRPP until their defection from that party when Tuila’epa was prime minister to form the FAST party before the last general election in April 2021.

    Fiamē and La’auli became the leader and president of the FAST party respectively while Tuila’epa continued his parliamentary career as the leader of the opposition following the election.

    A falling-out between La’auli and Fiamē in January 2025 resulted in the break-up of the FAST into two factions with Fiamē and the 14 ministers of cabinet of her caretaker government establishing the SUP following the official dissolution of Parliament on June 3.

    La’auli, now leader of the FAST party, has retained the support of the remaining 19 FAST members of Parliament.

    First to publicise manifesto
    HRPP was the first political party to publicise its campaign manifesto, launched on June 23. Its promises include:

    • a $500 cash grant per year for every family member;
    • tax cuts; expansion of hospital services;
    • a new bridge between Upolu and Savai’i Islands;
    • disability benefit enhancements;
    • a $1000 one-off payment at the time of birth to help families cover essential costs for newborn babies;
    • an additional $1,000 one-off payment upon completion of infant vaccinations (Hexa-B and MMR-2) at 15 months; and
    • zero-rating of Value Added Goods and Services Tax (VAGST) on essential food items.

    The FAST party’s manifesto, launched on July 12, reflects a strong focus on social welfare and economic revitalisation. It promises:

    • free public hospital services;
    • monthly allowances for pregnant women and young children;
    • cash top-ups for families earning under $20,000 per annum;
    • an increase in the retirement age from 55 to 65;
    • VAGST exemptions on essential goods;
    • development of a $1.5 billion carbon credit market;
    • establishment of a national stock exchange; injection of $300 million into Sāmoa Airways; and
    • the expansion of renewable energy and district development funding.

    FAST’s signature campaign promise in the last general election was giving each electoral constituency one million tala for them to use however they wanted. That amount will increase to two million tala this time around.

    Officially registered on 30 May 2025 and launched on June 5, the SUP launched its campaign manifesto on July 15. It promises:

    • free education and hospital care;
    • disability allowances and increased Accident Compensation Act payouts;
    • land restitution to villages;
    • pension increases; and
    • expanded services for outer islands that were not reached during Fiame’s premiership — all with a focus on restoring public trust in government.

    ‘People first’ party
    SUP is promoting itself as a people-first party focused on continuity and ongoing reform.

    The three main parties are following the practice established by the FAST party in the last general elections in 2021 where all party election candidates and their supporters tour the island group to meet with constituencies and publicise their manifestos.

    As part of this process, the HRPP has been branding various FAST claims from last general election as disinformation.

    It had been claimed, for example, that the HRPP was moving to cede ownership of Samoan customary land to Chinese people, that the HRPP presided over a huge government deficit and that, as Prime Minister, Tuila’epa was using public funds to send his children overseas on government scholarships.

    At the HRPP rallies, Tuila’epa did not mince words in labelling La’auli a persistent liar, asserting that La’auli had been involved in several questionable and unauthorised dealings during the three-year life of the last FAST government, and that La’auli alone was responsible for the break-up of the FAST party when he refused to step down from cabinet following the Ministry of Police’s lawsuit against him in relation to the death of a young man on the eve of FAST general election victory in 2021.

    Fiamē, equally, blames La’auli for the unsuccessful completion of the FAST government’s parliamentary term when he refused to step down from cabinet following the Ministry of Police’s lawsuit against him.

    Convened caucus meeting
    After refusing to step down, La’auli convened a FAST party caucus meeting at which a resolution was passed to terminate the party membership of Fiamē and four other ministers of her cabinet. The split between Fiamē and La’auli culminated in the defeat of Fiamē’s budget and the abrupt dissolution of Parliament.

    HRPP said at their rallies that, should they win government, they would pass a law to prohibit roadshows as they do not want “outsiders” influencing constituencies’ voting preferences.

    Furthermore, these road shows are costly in terms of resources and time, and are socially divisive.

    Instead, they prefer the traditional method of choosing members of Parliament where political parties restrict themselves to compiling manifestos, leaving constituencies to choose their own preferred representatives in Parliament.

    Given that the HRPP was the first political party to publicise its manifesto, they probably have a valid point in suggesting that other political parties, in particular the FAST party and SUP, have not come up with original ideas and have instead replicated or added to what the HRPP has taken some time to put together in its manifesto.

    Given the political visibility achieved by the HRPP, FAST and SUP through their campaign road shows and their full use of the media, it is to be expected that collectively they will win the most seats.

    Furthermore, owing to the FAST party’s turbulent history, HRPP is probably the front-runner, followed by FAST, then SUP. It is unlikely that the smaller parties will win any seats; likewise the independents.

    Enough seats main question
    The main question is whether HRPP will have enough seats to form a new government in its own right. Coalition government does not seem to work in Samoa’s political landscape.

    The SNDP/CDP coalition in the 1985-1988 government and the last FAST quasi-coalition government of 2021-2025 (FAST depended on the support of an independent as well as pre-election alliances with other parties to form government) all saw governments fail to deliver on their election manifestos and provide needed public services.

    Perhaps a larger question is how the three parties might fund their extravagant campaign promises.

    The HRPP leadership is confident it will be able to deliver on the main promises in its manifesto — compiled and costed by the HRPP Campaign Committee, consisting of former Government ministries and corporations CEOs (Finance, Custom and Inland Revenue, National Provident Fund, Electoral Commissioner, President of the Land and Titles) and a former senior employee of the Attorney-General’s Office — within 100 days of assuming government.

    The other two main parties, FAST and SUP, are equally confident.

    The public will have to wait and see whether the campaign promises of their preferred party will be realised. Right now, they are more interested in whether their preferred party will get across the line.

    Dr Asofou So’o was the founding professor of Samoan studies at the National University of Samoa from 2004 before being appointed as vice-chancellor and president of the university from 2009 to 2019. He is currently working as a consultant. This article was first published by ANU’s Development Blog and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ’s Christopher Luxon condemns Israel’s West Bank settlement plan

    RNZ News

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is condemning Israel’s E1 settlement plan for the occupied West Bank, despite New Zealand not signing a joint statement on the matter.

    Twenty-seven countries, including the UK and Australia, have condemned Israel’s plans to build an illegal settlement east of Jerusalem.

    The countries have said the plan would “make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem”.

    Luxon said he fully agreed with the statement.

    “That is something [signing the stement]I would address to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but there are a lot of joint statements that we try and align with, often at short notice, to make sure we are putting volume and voice to our position,” he said.

    “Irrespective of that, we are very, very concerned about what is happening in the West Bank, particularly the E1 settlement programme.

    “We have believed for a long time that those settlements are illegal.”

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


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • 200,000 plus march in Australia to demand Canberra sanctions Israel, ends arms trade

    By Pip Hinman and Alex Bainbridge of Green Left

    More than 200,000 people took the streets across Australia on Saturday in a national day of action demanding that the Labor government sanctions Israel and stops the two-way arms trade.

    It comes after 300,000 people marched, in driving rain, across Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3 to demand the same.

    Palestine solidarity groups across the country are coordinating their plans as Israel’s illegal deliberate starvation policy is delivering its expected results.

    Protests were organised in more than 40 cities and towns– a first in nearly two years since the genocidal war began.

    At least 50,000 rallied on Gadigal Country/Sydney, 10,000 in Nipaluna/Hobart, 50,000 in Magan-djin/Brisbane, 100,000 in Naarm/Melbourne, 10,000 in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide, 15,000 in Boorloo/Perth, 600 in the Blue Mountains, 500 in Bathurst, 5000 in Muloobinba/Newcastle, 1600 in Gimuy/Cairns and 700 in Djilang/Geelong.


    Sydney’s turnout for Australia’s nationwide protests against Israeli genocide. Video: GreenLeft


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bombs fail to silence West Papuan journalist Victor Mambor

    By Alifereti Sakiasi in Suva

    West Papuan journalist Victor Mambor has vowed not to be silenced despite years of threats, harassment and even a bomb attack on his home.

    The 51-year-old founder and editor-in-chief of Jubi, West Papua’s leading media outlet, was in Fiji this week, where he spoke exclusively to The Fiji Times about his fight to expose human rights abuses.

    “Despite them bombing my home and office with molotov bombs, I am still doing journalism today because my people are hurting — and I won’t stop,” Mambor said.

    In January 2023, an improvised explosive device detonated outside his home in Jayapura in what he describes as a “terror” attack.

    Police later closed the case citing “lack of evidence”.

    He was in Suva on Tuesday night as Jubi Media Papua, in collaboration with University of the South Pacific Journalism and PANG, screened its documentary Pepera 1969: A Democratic Integration?

    “I believe good journalism is journalism that makes society better,” he said.

    Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.


    Victor Mambor: ‘I need to do better for my people and my land.’   Video: The Fiji Times

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • FLNKS snubs Nouméa constitutional reform talks for New Caledonia

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    A newly established “drafting committee” held its inaugural meeting in Nouméa this week, aiming to translate the Bougival agreement — signed by New Caledonian political parties in Paris last month — into a legal and constitutional form.

    However, the first sitting of the committee on Thursday took place without one of the main pro-independence parties, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), which chose to stay out of the talks.

    Visiting French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls, who was in New Caledonia until the weekend, met a delegation of the FLNKS on Wednesday for more than two hours to try and convince them to participate.

    The FLNKS earlier announced a “block rejection” of the deal signed in Bougival because it regarded the text as “incompatible” with the party’s objectives and a “lure” in terms of self-determination and full sovereignty.

    The deal outlines a roadmap for New Caledonia’s political future.

    It is a compromise blueprint signed by New Caledonia’s parties from across the political spectrum and provides a vision for a “State” of New Caledonia, a dual French-New Caledonian citizenship, as well as a short-term transfer of such powers as foreign affairs from France to New Caledonia.

    Even though FLNKS delegates initially signed the document in Bougival on July 12, their party later denounced the agreement and said its negotiators had no mandate to do so.

    On Wednesday, as part of a round-up of talks with most political parties represented at the New Caledonian Congress, Valls held a separate meeting with a new delegation from FLNKS officials in Nouméa, in a last-ditch bid to convince them to take part in the “drafting committee” session.

    Draft document for a State of New Caledonia.
    The draft document for a “State of New Caledonia”. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie

    ‘Serene but firm’, says FLNKS
    The FLNKS described the talks with Valls as “serene but firm”.

    The FLNKS is demanding a “Kanaky Agreement” to be concluded before 24 September 2025 and a fully effective sovereignty process to be achieved before the next French Presidential elections in April 2027.

    It also wants the provincial elections, initially scheduled to take place no later than November 30, to be maintained at this date, instead of being postponed once again to mid-2026 under the Bougival prescriptions.

    But they were nowhere to be seen on Thursday, when the drafting group was installed.

    Valls also spoke to New Caledonia’s chiefly (customary) Senate to dispel any misconception that the Bougival deal would be a setback in terms of recognition of the Indigenous Kanak identity and place in New Caledonia.

    He said the Bougival pact was a “historic opportunity” for them to seize “because there is no other credible alternative”.

    Indigenous recognition
    The minister stressed that. even though this Indigenous recognition may be perceived as less emphatic in the Bougival document, the same text also clearly stipulated that all previous agreements and accords, including the 1998 Nouméa Accord which devoted significant chapters to the Kanak issue and recognition, were still fully in force.

    And that if needed, amendments could still be made to the Bougival text to make this even more explicit.

    The chiefs were present at the opening session of the committee on Thursday.

    So was a delegation of mayors of New Caledonia, who expressed deep concerns about New Caledonia’s current situation, 15 months after the riots that broke out in New Caledonia mid-May 2024, causing 14 deaths, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.8 billion) in material damages and thousands of jobless due to the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

    New Caledonia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have dropped by 10 to 15 percent over the past 15 months.

    As part of the post-riot ongoing trauma, New Caledonia is currently facing an acute shortage in the medical sector personnel — many of them have left following security issues related to the riots, gravely affecting the provision of essential and emergency services both in the capital Nouméa and in rural areas.

    Participants at New Caledonia’s drafting committee launched at the French High Commission.
    Participants at New Caledonia’s drafting committee launched at the French High Commission. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie

    Who turned up?
    Apart from the absent FLNKS, two other significant components of the pro-independence movement, former FLNKS moderate members Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance (UNI), consisting of PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) were also part of the new drafting committee participants.

    UNI leaders said earlier they had signed the Bougival document because they believe even though it does not provide a short-term independence for New Caledonia, this could be gradually achieved in the middle run.

    PALIKA and UPM, in a de facto split, distanced themselves from the FLNKS in August 2024 and have since abstained from taking part in the FLNKS political bureau.

    On the side of those who wish New Caledonia to remain part of France (pro-France), all of its representative parties, who also signed the Bougival document, were present at the inaugural session of the drafting committee.

    This includes Les Loyalistes, Le Rassemblement-LR, Calédonie Ensemble and Wallisian-based “kingmaker” party Eveil Océanien.

    After the first session on Thursday, pro-France politicians described the talks as “constructive” on everyone’s part.

    New Caledonia’s drafting committee launched at the French High Commission.
    New Caledonia’s drafting committee launched at the French High Commission in Nouméa. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie

    ‘My door remains wide open’
    But there are also concerns as to whether such sessions (the next one is scheduled for Saturday) can viably and credibly carry on without the FLNKS taking part.

    “We just can’t force this or try to achieve things without consensus,” Eveil Océanien leader Milakulo Tukumuli told local media on Thursday.

    Since Valls arrived in New Caledonia (on his fifth trip since he took office late 2024) this week, he has mentioned the FLNKS issue, saying his door remained “wide open”.

    “I am well aware of the FLNKS position. But we have to keep going”, he told the drafting committee on Thursday.

    The “drafting” work set in motion will have to focus in formulating, with the help of a team of French officials (legalists and constitutionalists), a series of documents which all trickle down from the Bougival general agreement so as to translate it in relevant and appropriate terms.

    Pro-France leaders Sonia Backès, Nicolas Metzdorf at New Caledonia’s drafting committee launch.
    Pro-France leaders Sonia Backès and Nicolas Metzdorf at New Caledonia’s drafting committee launch. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie

    Some of the most urgent steps to be taken include formalising the postponement of the provincial elections to mid-2026, in the form of an “organic law”.

    Among other things, the “organic law” is supposed to define the way that key powers should be transferred from France to New Caledonia, including following a vote by the local Congress with a required majority of 36 MPs (over two thirds), the rules on the exercise of the power of foreign affairs “while respecting France’s international commitments and fundamental interests”

    Tabled in French Parliament
    The text would be tabled to the French Parliament for approval, first before the Senate’s Law Committee on 17 September 2025 and then for debate on 23 September 2025. It would also need to follow a similar process before the other Parliament chamber, the National Assembly, before it can be finally endorsed by December 2025.

    And before that, the French State Council is also supposed to rule on the conformity of the Constitutional Amendment Bill and whether it can be tabled before a Cabinet meeting on 17 September 2025.

    Another crucial text to be drafted is a Constitutional amendment Bill that would modify the description of New Caledonia, wherever it occurs in the French Constitution (mostly in its Title XIII), into the “State of New Caledonia”.

    The modification would translate the concepts described in the Bougival Agreement but would not cancel any previous contents from the 1998 Nouméa Accord, especially in relation to its Preamble in terms of “founding principles related to the Kanak identity and (New Caledonia’s) economic and social development”.

    In the same spirit, every paragraph of the Nouméa Accord which does not contradict the Bougival text would remain fully valid.

    The new Constitutional amendment project is also making provisions for a referendum to be held in New Caledonia no later than 28 February 2026, when the local population will be asked to endorse the Bougival text.

    Another relevant instrument to be formulated is the “Fundamental Law” for New Caledonia, to be later endorsed by New Caledonia’s local Congress.

    The “Fundamental Law”, a de facto Constitution, is supposed to focus on such notions and definitions as New Caledonia “identity signs” (flag, anthem, motto), a “charter of New Caledonia values, as well as the rules of eligibility to acquire New Caledonia’s nationality and a “Code of Citizenship”.

    Valls said he was aware the time frame for all these texts was “constrained”, but that it was a matter of “urgency”.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Asia-Pacific activists ready to set sail with largest-ever Gaza aid flotilla

    Two New Zealand Palestinians, Rana Hamida and Youssef Sammour, left Auckland today to join the massive new Global Sumud Flotilla determined to break Israel’s starvation blockade of the besieged enclave. Here, two journalists report on the Asia-Pacific stake in the initiative.

    Ellie Aben in Manila and Sheany Yasuko Lai in Jakarta

    Asia-Pacific activists are preparing to set sail with the Global Sumud Flotilla, an international fleet from 44 countries aiming to reach Gaza by sea to break Israel’s blockade of food and medical aid.

    They have banded together under the Sumud Nusantara initiative, a coalition of activists from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Maldives, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan, to join the global flotilla movement that will begin launching convoys from August 31.

    Sumud Nusantara is part of the GSF, a coordinated, nonviolent fleet comprising mostly small vessels carrying humanitarian aid, which will first leave Spanish ports for the Gaza Strip, followed by more convoys from Tunisia and other countries in early September.

    The international coalition is set to become the largest coordinated civilian maritime mission ever undertaken to Gaza.

    “This movement comes at a very crucial time, as we know how things are in Gaza with the lack of food entering the strip that they are not only suffering from the impacts of war but also from starvation,” Indonesian journalist Nurhadis said ahead of his trip.

    “Israel is using starvation as a weapon to wipe out Palestinians in Gaza. This is why we continue to state that what Israel is doing is genocide.”

    Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians and injured over 157,000 more.

    Gaza famine declared
    As Tel Aviv continued to systematically obstruct food and aid from entering the enclave, a UN-backed global hunger monitor — the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — declared famine in Gaza on Friday, estimating that more than 514,000 people are suffering from it.

    Nurhadis is part of a group of activists from across Indonesia joining the GSF, which aims to “break Israel’s illegal blockade and draw attention to international complicity in the face of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.”

    “We continue to try through this Global Sumud Flotilla action, hoping that the entire world, whether it’s governments or the people and other members of society, will pressure Israel to open its blockade in Palestine,” he said.

    “This is just beyond the threshold of humanity. Israel is not treating Palestinians in Gaza as human beings and the world must not keep silent. This is what we are trying to highlight with this global convoy.”

    The GSF is a people-powered movement that aims to help end the genocide in Gaza, said Rifa Berliana Arifin, Indonesia country director for the Sumud Nusantara initiative and executive committee member of the Jakarta-based Aqsa Working Group.

    “Indonesia is participating because this is a huge movement. A movement that aspires to resolve and end the blockade through non-traditional means.

    “We’ve seen how ineffective diplomatic, political approaches have been, because the genocide in Gaza has yet to end.

    ‘People power’ movement
    “This people-power movement is aimed at putting an end to that,” Arifin said.

    “This is a non-violent mission . . .  Even though they are headed to Gaza, they are boarding boats that have no weapons . . .  They are simply bringing themselves . . .  for the world to see.”

    As the Sumud Nusantara initiative is led by Malaysia, activists were gathering this weekend in Kuala Lumpur, where a ceremonial send-off for the regional convoy is scheduled to take place on Sunday, led by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

    One of them is Philippine activist Drieza Lininding, leader of civil society group Moro Consensus Group, who is hoping that the Global Sumud Flotilla will inspire others in the Catholic-majority nation to show their support for Palestine.

    “We are appealing to all our Filipino brothers and sisters, Muslims or Christians, to support the Palestinian cause because this issue is not only about religion, but also about humanity. Gaza has now become the moral compass of the world,” he said.

    “Everybody is seeing the genocide and the starvation happening in Gaza, and you don’t need to be a Muslim to side with the Palestinians.

    “It is very clear: if you want to be on the right side of history, support all programmes and activities to free Palestine . . .  It is very important that as Filipinos we show our solidarity.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Rallies across NZ honour Gaza Strip journalists, condemn own news media

    Pacific Media Watch

    Three media spokespeople addressed the 98th week of New Zealand solidarity rallies for Palestine in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland today, criticising the quality of news reporting about the world’s biggest genocide crisis this century.

    Speakers at other locations around the country also condemned what they said was biased media coverage.

    The critics said they were affirming their humanity in solidarity with the people of Palestine as the United Nations this week officially declared a man-made famine in Gaza because of Israel’s weaponisation of starvation against the besieged enclave with 2 million population.

    More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 22 months of conflict – mostly women and children.

    One of the major criticisms was that the New Zealand media has consistently framed the series of massacres as a “war” between Israel and Hamas instead of a military land grab based on ethnic cleansing and genocide.

    The first speaker, Mick Hall, a former news agency journalist who is currently an independent political columnist, said the way news media had covered these crimes had “undoubtedly affected public opinion”.

    “As Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza devolved into a full-blown genocide, our media continued to frame Israel’s attack on Gaza as a war against Hamas, while they uncritically recorded Western leaders’ claims that Israel was exercising a ‘right of self-defence’,” he said.

    NZ media lacking context
    New Zealand news outlets continued to “present an ahistorical account of what has transpired since October 7, shorn of context, ignoring Israel’s history of occupation, of colonial violence against the Palestinian people”.

    “An implicit understanding that violence and ethnic cleansing forms part of the organisational DNA of Zionism should have shaped how news stories were framed and presented over the past 22 months.

    Independent journalist Mick Hall
    Independent journalist Mick Hall speaking at today’s rally . . . newsrooms “failed to robustly document the type of evidence of genocide now before the International Court of Justice.”

    “Instead, newsroom leaders took their lead from our politicians, from the foreign policy positions from those in Washington and other aligned centres of power.”

    Hall said newsrooms had not taken a “neutral position” — “nor are they attempting to keep us informed in any meaningful sense”.

    “They failed to robustly document the type of evidence of genocide now before the International Court of Justice.

    “By wilfully declining to adjudicate between contested claims of Israel and its victims, they failed to meet the informational needs of democratic citizenship in a most profound way.

    “They lowered the standard of news, instead of upholding it, as they so sanctimoniously tell us.”

    Evans slams media ‘apologists’
    Award-winning New Zealand cartoonist Malcolm Evans congratulated the crowd of about 300 protesters for “being on the right side of history”.

    “As we remember more than 240 journalists, camera and media people, murdered, assassinated, by Zionist Israel — who they were and the principles they stood for we should not forget our own media,” he said.

    Cartoonist and commentator Malcolm Evans
    Cartoonist and commentator Malcolm Evans . . . “It wasn’t our reporters living in a tent in Gaza whose lives, hopes and dreams were blasted into oblivion because they exposed Zionist Israel’s evil intent.” Image: Asia Pacific Report

    “The media which, contrary to the principles they claim to stand for, tried to tell us Zionist Israeli genocide was justified.”

    “Whatever your understanding of the conflict in Palestine, which has brought you here today and for these past many months, it won’t have come first from the mainstream media.

    “It wasn’t our reporters living in a tent in Gaza whose lives, hopes and dreams were blasted into oblivion because they exposed Zionist Israel’s evil intent.

    “The reporters whose witness to Zionist Israel’s war crimes sparked your outrage were not from the ranks of Western media apologists.”

    Describing the mainstream media as “pimps for propaganda”, Evans said that in any “decent world” he would not be standing there — instead the New Zealand journalists organisation would be, “expressing solidarity with their murdered Middle Eastern colleagues”.

    Palestinian journalists owed debt
    David Robie, author and editor of Asia Pacific Report, said the world owed a huge debt to the Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

    “Although global media freedom groups have conflicting death toll numbers, it is generally accepted that more than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed — many of them deliberately targeted by the IDF [Israeli Defence Force], even killing their families as well.”

    Journalist and author Dr David Robie
    Journalist and author Dr David Robie . . . condemned New Zealand media for republishing some of the Israeli “counter-narratives” without question. Image: Del Abcede/APR

    Dr Robie stressed that the Palestinian journalist death toll had eclipsed that of the combined media deaths of the American Civil War, First and Second World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cambodian War, Yugoslavia Wars, Afghan War, and the ongoing Ukraine War.

    “The Palestinian death toll of journalists is greater than the combined death toll of all these other wars,” he said. “This is shocking and shameful.”

    He pointed out that when Palestinian reporter Anas al-Sharif was assassinated on August 10, his entire television crew was also wiped out ahead of the Israeli invasion of Gaza City — “eliminating the witnesses, that’s what Israel does”.

    Six journalists died that day in an air strike, four of them from Al Jazeera, which is banned in Israel.

    Dr Robie also referred to “disturbing reports” about the existence of an IDF military unit — the so-called “legitimisation cell” — tasked with smearing and targeting journalists in Gaza with fake information.

    He condemned the New Zealand media for republishing some of these “counter-narratives” without question.

    “This is shameful because news editors know that they are dealing with an Israeli government with a history of lying and disinformation; a government that is on trial with the International Court of Justice for ‘plausible genocide’; and a prime minister wanted on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said.

    “Why would you treat this government as a credible source without scrutiny?”

    Mock media cemetery
    The protest included a mock pavement cemetery with about 20 “bodies” of murdered journalists and blue “press” protective vests, and placards declaring “Killing journalists is killing the truth”, “Genocide: Zionism’s final solution” and “Zionism shames Jewish tradition”.

    The demonstrators marched around Te Komititanga Square, pausing at strategic moments as Palestinians read out the names of the hundreds of killed Gazan journalists to pay tribute to their courage and sacrifice.

    Last year, the Gazan journalists were collectively awarded the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.

    Author and journalist Saige England
    Author and journalist Saige England . . . “The truth is of a genocide carried out by bombs and snipers, and now there is another weapon.” Image: Claire Coveney/APR

    In Ōtautahi Christchurch today, one of the speakers at the Palestine solidarity rally there was author and journalist Saige England, who called on journalists to “speak the truth on Gaza”.

    “The truth of a genocide carried out by bombs and snipers, and now there is another weapon — slow starvation, mutilation by hunger,” she said.

    “The truth is a statement by Israel that journalists are ‘the enemy’. Israel says journalists are the enemy, what does that tell you?

    “Why? Because it has carried out invasions, apartheid and genocide for decades.”

    Some of the mock bodies today representing the slaughtered Gazan journalists with Al Jazeera's Anas al-Sharif in the forefront
    Some of the mock bodies today representing the slaughtered Gazan journalists with Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif in the forefront. Image: APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Activist slams Pacific’s ‘dreadful response’ to Palestine amid growing links with Israel

    By ‘Alakihihifo Vailala of Pacific Media Network

    As Israel expands its relationships with Pacific Island nations, an activist is criticising the region for its “dreadful response” to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

    The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rooted in the 1948 Nakba and decades of seized land and expelled indigenous people, escalated after Hamas’ attacks on 7 October 2023.

    Since then, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials.

    John Minto, co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). says the Pacific has failed to show adequate support to Palestine and should be “ashamed”.

    In an interview with William Terite on Radio 531pi Pacific Mornings, Minto said the Pacific was one of the few areas in the world where support for the Palestinians was diminishing.

    “I think this is a real tragedy,” he said.

    “They are coming under pressure from the US and from Israel to try and bolster support for Israel at the United Nations. For this part of the world, that’s something we should be ashamed of.”

    Minto said several island countries, including Fiji, Nauru, Palau, and Tonga, had refused to recognise Palestinian statehood. But bigger Pacific nations like Papua New Guinea — and Fiji — had recently established an embassy in Jerusalem.

    Fiji and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1970 and have developed partnerships in security, peacekeeping, agriculture, and climate change.


    Watch John Minto’s full interview

    In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced its commitment to diplomacy in the Pacific.

    Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel will lead a delegation to the Pacific to discuss strengthening Israel-Pacific relations.

    PNG Prime Minister James Marape (left) and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu
    PNG Prime Minister James Marape (left) and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on 6 September 2023. Image: Israeli Prime Minister’s Office

    In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced its commitment to diplomacy in the Pacific.

    Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel will lead a delegation to the Pacific to discuss strengthening Israel-Pacific relations.

    The Pacific region has been one of Israel’s strategic development partners, through numerous projects and training programmes led by MASHAV, Israel’s International Development Agency,” the statement read.

    Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka (left) and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu
    Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka (left) and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu met in 2023. Image: Fiji Government

    “This forthcoming visit, and the broader diplomatic effort accompanying it, reflects Israel’s profound appreciation for the Pacific Island states and underscores Israel’s commitment to strengthening cooperation with them.”

    Minto highlighted the irony in the support for Israel from small Pacific nations, given their reliance on principles of international law in view of their own vulnerability.

    “I’m sure there’s a lot of things that happen behind closed doors that should be happening out in the public,” he told Terite.

    “The people of Sāmoa, Tonga, Fiji should be involved in developing their foreign policy. I think if they were, then we would have much stronger support for Palestine.”

    Republished from Pacific Media Network (PMN) with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • West Papuan media plea for Melanesian support against Indonesian media blackout

    By Andrew Mathieson

    Exiled West Papuan media are calling for Fiji — in a reflection of Melanesian solidarity — to hold the greater Pacific region to account and stand against Indonesia’s ongoing media blackout in addition to its human rights abuses.

    The leaders in their field which include two Papuans from Indonesia’s occupied provinces have visited the Pacific country to forge media partnerships, university collaboration and joint advocacy for West Papua self-determination.

    They were speaking after the screening of a new documentary film, Pepera 1969: A Democratic Integration, was screened at The University of the South Pacific in Fiji.

    The documentary is based on the controversial plebiscite 56 years ago when 1025 handpicked Papuan electors, which were directly chosen by the Indonesian military out of its 800,000 citizens, were claimed to have voted unanimously in favour of Indonesian control of Western New Guinea.

    Victor Mambor — a co-founder of Jubi Media Papua — in West Papua; Yuliana Lantipo, one of its senior journalists and editor; and Dandhy Laksono, a Jakarta-based investigative filmmaker; shared their personal experiences of reporting from inside arguably the most heavily militarised and censored region in the Pacific.

    “We are here to build bridges with our brothers and sisters in the Pacific,” Mambor told the USP media audience.

    Their story of the Papuan territory comes after Dutch colonialists who had seized Western New Guinea, handed control of the East Indies back to the Indonesians in 1949 before The Netherlands eventually withdrew from Papuan territory in 1963.

    ‘Fraudulent’ UN vote
    The unrepresentative plebiscite which followed a fraudulent United Nations-supervised “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 allowed the Indonesian Parliament to grant its legitimacy to reign sovereignty over the West Papuans.

    That Indonesian authority has been heavily questioned and criticised over extinguishing independence movements and possible negotiations between both sides.

    Indonesia has silenced Papuan voices in the formerly-named Irian Jaya province through control and restrictions of the media.

    Mambor described the continued targeting of his Jubi Media staff, including attacks on its office and vehicles, as part of an escalating crackdown under Indonesia’s current President Prabowo Subianto, who took office less than 12 months ago.

    “If you report on deforestation [of West Papua] or our culture, maybe it’s allowed,” he said.

    “But if you report on human rights or the [Indonesian] military, there is no tolerance.”

    An Indonesian MP, Oleh Soleh, warned publicly this month that the state would push for a “new wave of repression” targeting West Papuan activists while also calling the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) – the West Papuan territory’s peak independence movement – as a “political criminal group”.

    ‘Don’t just listen to Jakarta’
    “Don’t just listen to what Jakarta says,” Mambor said.

    “Speak to Papuans, listen to our stories, raise our voices.

    “We want to bring West Papua back to the Pacific — not just geographically, but politically, culturally, and emotionally.”

    Press freedom in West Papua has become most dire more over the past 25 years, West Papuan journalists have said.

    Foreign journalists are barred entry into the territory and internet access for locals is often restricted, especially during periods of civil unrest.

    Indigenous reporters also risk arrest and/or violence for filing politically sensitive stories.

    Most trusted media
    Founded in 2001 by West Papuan civil society, Jubi Media Papua’s English-language publication, the West Papua Daily, has become arguably the most trusted, independent source of news in the territory that has survived over its fearless approach to journalism.

    “Our journalists are constantly intimidated,” Mambor said, “yet we continue to report the truth”.

    The word Jubi in one of the most popular Indigenous Papuan languages means to speak the truth.

    Mambor explained that the West Papua Daily remained a pillar of a vocal media movement to represent the wishes of the West Papuan people.

    The stories published are without journalists’ bylines (names on articles) out of fear against retribution from the Indonesian military.

    “We created a special section just to tell Pacific stories — to remind our people that we are not alone, and to reconnect West Papua with our Pacific identity,” Mambor said.

    Lantipo spoke about the daily trauma faced by the Papuan communities which are caught in between the Indonesian military and the West Papua national liberation army who act on behalf of the ULMWP to defend its ancestral homeland.

    ‘Reports of killings, displacement’
    “Every day, we receive reports: killings, displacement, families fleeing villages, children out of school, no access to healthcare,” Lantipo said.

    “Women and children are the most affected.”

    The journalists attending the seminar urged the Fijian, Melanesian and Pacific people to push for a greater awareness of the West Papuan conflict and its current situation, and to challenge dominant narratives propagated by the Indonesian government.

    Laksono, who is ethnically Indonesian but entrenched in ongoing Papuan independence struggles, has long worked to expose injustices in the region.

    “There is no hope from the Asian side,” Laksono said.

    “That’s why we are here, to reach out to the Pacific.

    “We need new audiences, new support, and new understanding.”

    Arrested over tweets
    Laksono was once arrested in September 2019 for publishing tweets about the violence from government forces against West Papua pro-independence activists.

    Despite the personal risks, the “enemy of the state” remains committed to highlighting the stories of the West Papuan people.

    “Much of Indonesia has been indoctrinated through school textbooks and [its] media into believing a false history,” he said.

    “Our film tries to change that by offering the truth, especially about the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969, which was neither free nor a genuine act of self-determination.”

    Andrew Mathieson writes for the National Indigenous Times.

    Melanesian supporters for West Papuan self-determination at USP
    Melanesian supporters for West Papuan self-determination at The University of the South Pacific. Image: USP/NIT

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ joins calls for urgent, independent foreign media access to Gaza

    RNZ News

    New Zealand has joined more than two dozen other countries to call for “immediate and independent” foreign media access to Gaza.

    Earlier this month, an Israeli strike in the city killed six journalists — four Al Jazeera correspondents and cameramen, and two other media workers.

    The Israeli military admitted in a statement to targeting well-known Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Anas al-Sharif.

    A joint statement by the Media Freedom Coalition — signed by 27 countries, including New Zealand — urged Israel to offer protection for journalists in Gaza “in light of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe”.

    “Journalists and media workers play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war. Access to conflict zones is vital to carrying out this role effectively,” the statement said.

    “We oppose all attempts to restrict press freedom and block entry to journalists during conflicts.

    “We also strongly condemn all violence directed against journalists and media workers, especially the extremely high number of fatalities, arrests and detentions.

    “We call on the Israeli authorities and all other parties to make every effort to ensure that media workers in Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem — local and foreign alike — can conduct their work freely and safely.

    “Deliberate targeting of journalists is unacceptable. International humanitarian law offers protection to civilian journalists during armed conflict. We call for all attacks against media workers to be investigated and for those responsible to be prosecuted in compliance with national and international law.”

    It reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire, and the unconditional release of remaining hostages, unhindered flow of humanitarian aid.

    The statement also called for “a path towards a two-state solution, long-term peace and security”.

    Other countries to sign the statement included: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ukraine.

    The Media Freedom Coalition is a partnership of countries that advocates for media freedom around the world. New Zealand joined the coalition in March 2021.

    NZ silent on West Bank
    Meanwhile, in another joint statement released overnight, about two dozen countries condemned Israel’s plan to expand its presence in the West Bank.

    New Zealand was not among the signatories of this statement, which was signed by the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom and 22 of its international partners — including Australia and Canada.

    The statement called on Israel to reverse its decision.

    “The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law,” it said.

    “Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich says this plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem. This brings no benefits to the Israeli people.

    “Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace.

    “The government of Israel still has an opportunity to stop the E1 plan going any further. We encourage them to urgently retract this plan.”

    The statement said “unilateral action” by the Israeli government undermined collective desire for security and prosperity in the Middle East.

    “The Israeli government must stop settlement construction in line with UNSC Resolution 2334 and remove their restrictions on the finances of the Palestinian Authority.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Nuclear-free Pacific advocates speak out in NZ human rights radio show

    Pacific Media Watch

    “Speak Up Kōrerotia” — a radio show centred on human rights issues — has featured a nuclear-free Pacific and other issues in this week’s show.

    Encouraging discussion on human rights issues in both Canterbury and New Zealand, Speak Up Kōrerotia offers a forum to provide a voice for affected communities.

    Engaging in conversations around human rights issues in the country, each show covers a different human rights issue with guests from or working with the communities.

    Analysing and asking questions of the realities of life allows Speak Up Kōrerotia to cover the issues that often go untouched.

    Discussing the hard-hitting topics, Speak Up Kōrerotia encourages listeners to reflect on the issues covered.

    Hosted by Dr Sally Carlton, the show brings key issues to the fore and provides space for guests to “Speak Up” and share their thoughts and experiences.

    The latest episode today highlights the July/August 2025 marking of two major anniversaries — 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior here in Aotearoa.

    What do these anniversaries mean in the context of 2025, with the ever-greater escalation of global tension and a new nuclear arms race occurring alongside the seeming impotence of the UN and other international bodies?


    Anti-nuclear advocacy in 2025           Video/audio podcast: Speak Up Kōrerotia

    Speak Up Kōrerotia
    Speak Up Kōrerotia . . . human rights at Plains FM Image: Screenshot

    Guests: Disarmament advocate Dr Kate Dewes, journalist and author Dr David Robie, critical nuclear studies academic Dr Karly Burch and Japanese gender literature professor Dr Susan Bouterey bring passion, a wealth of knowledge and decades of anti-nuclear advocacy to this discussion.

    Dr Robie’s new book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior was launched on the anniversary of the ship’s bombing. This revised edition has extensive new and updated material, images, and a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark.

    The Speak Up Kōrerotia panel in today's show, "Anti-Nuclear Advocacy in 2025"
    The Speak Up Kōrerotia panel in today’s show, “Anti-Nuclear Advocacy in 2025”, Dr Kate Dewes (from left), Sally Carlton, Dr David Robie, Dr Karly Burch and Susan Bouterey. Image: Screenshot

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ police chief acknowledges impact of criminal deportees on Pacific

    RNZ Pacific

    New Zealand’s police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country’s criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations.

    Commissioner Richard Chambers’ comments on RNZ Pacific Waves come as the region’s police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi.

    The meeting, which is closed to media, began yesterday.

    Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces.

    Inspector Riki Whiu, of Northland police, leads, from right, Secretary General of Interpol Valdecy Urquiza, Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran and Northern Mariana Islands Police Commissioner Anthony Macaranas during the pōwhiri.
    Inspector Riki Whiu, of Northland police, leads (from right), Secretary-General of Interpol Valdecy Urquiza, Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran and Northern Mariana Islands Police Commissioner Anthony Macaranas during the pōwhiri. Image: RNZ/Peter de Graaf

    Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight.

    Commissioner Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade.

    Deportation policies
    However, the country’s own transnational crime advisory group also identified the country’s deportation policies as a “significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific”.

    In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018.

    The report from the Lowy Institute also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific.

    Te Waaka Popata-Henare, of the Treaty Grounds cultural group Te Pito Whenua, leads the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police to Te Whare Rūnanga for a formal welcome.
    Te Waaka Popata-Henare, of the Treaty Grounds cultural group Te Pito Whenua, leads the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police to Te Whare Rūnanga for a formal welcome. Image: RNZ/Peter de Graaf

    When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand’s criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly.

    “The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads,” Commissioner Chambers said.

    “I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America.

    “So that’s where our focus has been, and that’s what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support.”

    Pacific nation difficulties
    He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia’s deportation policy.

    In New Zealand, the country’s returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions.

    These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia’s immigration laws.

    New Zealand’s authorities have tracked how these deportees — who number in the hundreds — have contributed significantly to the country’s increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade.

    Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia’s 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced.

    “I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they’re offending, they’re re-offending.

    “I suspect it’s no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about.”

    This week’s conference was scheduled to finish tomorrow. Speakers due to appear included Interpol Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PSNA condemns NZ ‘distraction’ over sanctions needed against Israel

    Asia Pacific Report

    The advocacy and protest group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand’s “deliberate distraction” over sanctions against Israel and has vowed more protests against Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ “failed policy” on Gaza.

    After the huge turnout of thousands in Palestine solidarity rallies across more than 20 locations in New Zealand last weekend, PSNA has announced it is joining an International Day of Action on September 6.

    Rallies next weekend will have a focus on Israel’s targeted killing of journalists in Gaza.

    PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement there was “an incredible show of marches and rallies throughout Aotearoa New Zealand for sanctions against Israel during the past weekend.”.

    “But with [Foreign Minister] Peters obstinately running the Foreign Ministry, the government will ignore all expressions of public support for Palestinian rights.

    “We’ll be back with even more people on the streets on the 6th.”

    “An opinion poll released by PSNA last week showed that of people who gave an opinion, 60 percent supported sanctions against Israel.”

    Shocking images
    Minto said that number would have risen significantly in the past few weeks as people were seeing the shocking images of Israel’s widespread use of starvation as a weapon of war, especially against the children of Gaza.

    “Around the world, governments are starting to respond to their people demanding sanctions on Israel to end the genocide.

    A family rugged up against the rain and cold expressing their disappointment with New Zealand's "weak" policy over the Gaza genocide
    A family rugged up against the rain and cold expressing their disappointment with New Zealand’s “weak” policy over the Gaza genocide last weekend. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    “Yet, Winston Peters is most reluctant to even criticise Israel, let alone take any action.”

    Minto said actions were vital otherwise Israel took no notice.

    “We’ve seen Israel’s arrogant impunity in increasingly violent action and showing off its military capacity and intentions,” he said.

    “Not a peep from our ministers over anything.

    “Just on the Occupied West Bank, there are settlers freely shooting and lynching Palestinians.

    New illegal settlement plans
    “Israel’s Parliament has just voted to annex the West Bank, as plans are also announced for [an illegal] new settlement strategically designed to sever it irreparably into two parts.

    “In Gaza, Israeli troops are reinvading Gaza City to ethnically cleanse a million people to the south and Israeli aircraft are still terror bombing a famine-devastated community.”

    Minto said Netanyahu had started talking about a Greater Israel again.

    “That would mean an invasion of all of its neighbours and the extinction of at least Lebanon and Jordan, which in Israeli government eyes have no right to exist.”

    The New Zealand government thought that it was “responding appropriately” by going through a process of considering recognition of a Palestinian state.

    “That can only be seen as a deliberate distraction from a focus on sanctions,” Minto said.

    “Back in 1947, New Zealand voted in the UN for a Palestinian state in part of Palestine.

    “Recognition is token now, and it was token then, because the world stood aside and let Israel conquer all of Palestine, expel most of its people and impose an apartheid regime on those who managed to stay.”

    Minto said the global movement in support of Palestinian rights would not be distracted.

    Comprehensive sanctions were the only way to force an end to Israel’s genocide.

    Australia slams Israeli PM
    Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that Australia has hit back at Netanyahu after the Israeli leader branded the country’s prime minister “weak”, with an Australian minister accusing the Israeli leader of conflating strength with killing people.

    In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said that strength was not measured “by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”.

    Burke’s comments came after Netanyahu on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on social media, claiming he would be remembered by history as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.

    Speaking on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast programme, Burke characterised Netanyahu’s broadside as part of Israel’s “lashing out” at countries that have moved to recognise a Palestinian state.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • NZ is trailing its allies over Palestinian statehood – but there’s still time to show leadership

    ANALYSIS: By Treasa Dunworth, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

    It’s now more than a week since Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced his government had begun to formally consider New Zealand’s position on the recognition of a Palestinian state.

    That leaves two weeks until the UN General Assembly convenes on September 9, where it is expected several key allies will change position and recognise Palestinian statehood.

    Already in a minority of UN member states which don’t recognise a Palestinian state, New Zealand risks becoming more of an outlier if and when Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom make good on their recent pledges.

    Luxon has said the decision is “complex”, but opposition parties certainly don’t see it that way. Labour leader Chris Hipkins says it’s “the right thing to do”, and Greens co-leader Chloë Swarbrick has called on government MPs to “grow a spine” (for which she was controversially ejected from the debating chamber).

    Former Labour prime minister Helen Clark has also criticised the government for trailing behind its allies, and for appearing to put trade relations with the United States ahead of taking a moral stand over Israel’s actions in Gaza.

    Certainly, those critics — including the many around the country who marched last weekend — are correct in implying New Zealand has missed several opportunities to show independent leadership on the issue.

    The distraction factor
    While it has been open to New Zealand to recognise it as a state since Palestine declared its independence in 1988, there was an opportunity available in May last year when the Irish, Spanish and Norwegian governments took the step.

    That month, New Zealand also joined 142 other states calling on the Security Council to admit Palestine as a full member of the UN. But in a subsequent statement, New Zealand said its vote should not be implied as recognising Palestinian statehood, a position I called “a kind of muddled, awkward fence-sitting”.

    It is still not too late, however, for New Zealand to take a lead. In particular, the government could make a more straightforward statement on Palestinian statehood than its close allies.

    The statements from Australia, Canada and the UK are filled with caveats, conditions and contingencies. None are straightforward expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian right of self-determination under international law.

    As such, they present political and legal problems New Zealand could avoid.

    Politically, this late wave of recognition by other countries risks becoming a distraction from the immediate starvation crisis in Gaza. As the independent Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese have noted, these considered and careful diplomatic responses distract from the brutal truth on the ground.

    This was also Chloë Swarbrick’s point during the snap debate in Parliament last week. Her private members bill, she noted, offers a more concrete alternative, by imposing sanctions and a trade embargo on Israel. (At present, it seems unlikely the government would support this.)

    Beyond traditional allies
    Legally, the proposed recognitions of statehood are far from ideal because they place conditions on that recognition, including how a Palestinian state should be governed.

    The UK has made recognition conditional on Israel not agreeing to a ceasefire and continuing to block humanitarian aid into Gaza. That is extremely problematic, given recognition could presumably be withdrawn if Israel agreed to those demands.

    Such statements are not exercises in genuine solidarity with Palestinian self-determination, which is defined in UN Resolution 1514 (1960) as the right of peoples “to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”.

    Having taken more time to consider its position, New Zealand could now articulate a more genuine statement of recognition that fulfils the legal obligation to respect and promote self-determination under international law.

    A starting point would be to look beyond the small group of “traditional allies” to countries such as Ireland that have already formally recognised the State of Palestine. Importantly, Ireland acknowledged Palestinian “peaceful self-determination” (along with Israel’s), but did not express any other conditions or caveats.

    New Zealand could also show leadership by joining with that wider group of allies to shape the coming General Assembly debate. The aim would be to shift the language from conditional recognition of Palestine toward a politically and legally more tenable position.

    That would also sit comfortably with the country’s track record in other areas of international diplomacy — most notably the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, where New Zealand has also taken a different approach to its traditional allies.The Conversation

    Dr Treasa Dunworth is professor of law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French Overseas Minister in New Caledonia in bid to ‘save’ Bougival deal

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls is once again in New Caledonia for a four-day visit aimed at maintaining dialogue, despite a strong rejection from a significant part of the pro-independence camp.

    He touched down at the Nouméa-La Tontouta Airport last night on his fourth trip to New Caledonia since he took office in late 2024.

    For the past eight months, he has made significant headway by managing to get all political parties to sit together again around the same table and discuss an inclusive, consensual way forward for the French Pacific territory, where deadly riots have erupted in May 2024, causing 14 deaths and more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.8 billion) in material damage.

    On July 12, during a meeting in Bougival (west of Paris), some 19 delegates from parties across the political spectrum signed a 13-page document, the Bougival Accord, sketching what is supposed to pave the way for New Caledonia’s political future.

    The document, labelled a “project” and described as “historic”, envisages the creation of a “State” of New Caledonia, a dual New Caledonia-French citizenship and the transfer of key powers such as foreign affairs from France to New Caledonia.

    The document also envisions a wide range of political reforms, more powers for each of the three provinces and enlarging the controversial list of eligible citizens allowed to vote at the crucial local provincial elections.

    When they signed the text in mid-July, all parties (represented by 18 politicians) at the time pledged to go along the new lines and defend the contents, based on the notion of a “bet on trust”.

    But since the deal was signed at the 11th hour in Bougival, after a solid 10 days of tense negotiations, one of the main components of the pro-independence camp, the FLNKS, has pronounced a “block rejection” of the deal.

    FLNKS said their delegates and negotiators (five politicians), even though they had signed the document, had no mandate to do so because it was incompatible with the pro-independence movement’s aims and struggle.

    Signatures on the last page of New Caledonia's new agreement
    Signatures on the last page of New Caledonia’s new agreement. Image: Philippe Dunoyer/RNZ Pacific

    FLNKS rejection of Bougival
    The FLNKS and its majority component, Union Calédonienne, said that from now on, while maintaining dialogue with France, they would refuse to talk further about the Bougival text or any related subject.

    They also claim they are the only pro-independence legitimate representative of the indigenous Kanak people.

    They maintain they will only accept their own timetable of negotiation, with France only (no longer including the pro-France parties) in “bilateral” mode to conclude before 24 September 2025.

    French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls
    French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls . . . not giving up on the Bougival project and his door remains open. Image: Outre-mer la Première

    Later on, the negotiations for a final independence should conclude before the next French Presidential elections (April-May 2027) with the transfer of all remaining powers back to New Caledonia.

    The FLNKS also demands that any further talks with France should take place in New Caledonia and under the supervision of its President.

    It warns against any move to try and force the implementation of the Bougival text, including planned reforms of the conditions of voter eligibility for local elections (since 2007, the local “special” electoral roll has been restricted to people living in New Caledonia before 1998).

    During his four-day visit this week (20-24 August), Valls said he would focus on pursuing talks, sometimes in bilateral mode with FLNKS.

    The minister, reacting to FLNKS’s move to reject the Accord, said several times since that he did not intend to give up and that his door remained open.

    ‘Explain and convince’
    He would also meet “as many New Caledonians as possible” to “explain and convince”.

    Apart from party officials, Valls also plans to meet New Caledonia’s “Customary (chiefly) Senate”, the mayors of New Caledonia, the presidents of New Caledonia’s three provinces and representatives of the economic and civil society.

    The May-July 2024 riots have strongly impacted on New Caledonia’s standard of living, with thousands of jobless people because of the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

    Health sector in crisis
    Valls also intends to devote a large part of his visit to meetings with public and private health workers, who also remain significantly affected by an acute shortage of staff, both in the capital Nouméa and rural areas.

    Tomorrow, Valls plans to implement one of the later stages of the Bougival signing — the inaugural session of a “drafting committee”, aimed at agreeing on how necessary documents for the implementation of the Bougival commitments should be formulated.

    These include working on writing a “fundamental law” for New Caledonia (a de facto constitution) and constitutional documents to make necessary amendments to the French Constitution.

    Elections again postponed to June 2026
    Steps to defer once again the provincial elections from November 2025 to May-June 2026 were also recently taken in Paris, at the Senate, Valls said earlier this week.

    A Bill has been tabled for debates in the Senate on 23 September 2025. In keeping with the Bougival commitments and timeline, it proposes a new deadline for provincial elections: no later than 28 June 2026.

    But FLNKS now demands that those elections be maintained for this year.

    On a tightrope again
    This week’s visit is perceived as particularly sensitive: as Valls’s trip is regarded as focusing on saving his Bougival deal, he is also walking on a tightrope.

    On one side, he wants to maintain contact and an “open-door” policy with the hard-line group of the FLNKS, even though they have now denounced his Bougival deal.

    On the other side, he has to pursue talks with all the other parties who have, since July 12, kept their word and upheld the document.

    If Valls was perceived to concede more ground to the FLNKS, following its recent claims and rejections, parts of the pro-Bougival leaders who have signed and kept their word and commitment could well, in turn, denounce some kind of betrayal, thus jeopardising the precarious equilibrium.

    The “pro-Bougival” signatories held numerous public meetings with their respective militant bases to explain the agreement and the “Bougival spirit”, as well as the reasons for why they had signed.

    This not only includes pro-France parties who oppose independence, but also two moderate pro-independence parties, the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie), formed into a “UNI” platform (Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance), who have, since August 2024, distanced themselves from the FLNKS.

    At the same time, FLNKS took into its fold a whole new group of smaller parties, unions and pressure groups (including the Union Calédonienne-created CCAT –a  field action coordination group dedicated to organising political campaigns on the ground) and has since taken a more radical turn.

    Simultaneously, Christian Téin, head of CCAT, was also elected FLNKS president in absentia, while serving a pre-trial jail term in mainland France.

    His pre-trial judicial control conditions were loosened in June 2025 by a panel of three judges, but he is still not allowed to return to New Caledonia.

    One of the moderate UNI leaders, Jean-Pierre Djaïwé (PALIKA) told his supporters and local media last week that he believed through the Bougival way, it would remain possible for New Caledonia to eventually achieve full sovereignty, but not immediately.

    Ruffenach: No intention to ‘undo’ Bougival
    Several pro-France components have also reacted to the FLNKS rejection by saying they did not intend to “undo” the Bougival text, simply because it was the result of months of negotiations and concessions to reach a balance between opposing aspirations from the pro-independence and pro-France camps.

    “Let’s be reasonable. Let’s get real. Let’s come back to reality. Has this country ever built itself without compromise?,” pro-France Le Rassemblement-LR party leader Virginie Ruffenach told Radio Rythme Bleu yesterday.

    “We have made this effort at Bougival, to find a middle way which is installing concord between those two aspirations. We have made steps, the pro-independence have made steps. And this is what allowed this agreement to be struck with its signatures”.

    She said the FLNKS, in its “new” version, was “held hostage by . . .  radicalism”.

    “Violence will not take the future of New Caledonia and we will not give into this violence”.

    She said all parties should now take their responsibilities and live up to their commitment, instead of applying an “empty chair” policy.

    No credible alternative: Valls
    Earlier this week, Valls repeated that he did not wish to “force” the agreement but that, in his view, “there is no credible alternative. The Bougival agreement is an extraordinary and historic opportunity”.

    “I will not fall into the trap of words that hurt and lead to confrontation. I won’t give in to threats of violence or blockades,” he wrote on social networks.

    Last night, as Valls was already on his way to the Pacific, FLNKS political bureau and its president, Christian Téin, criticised the “rapport de force” seemingly established by France.

    He also deplored that, in the view of numerous reactions following the FLNKS rejection of the Bougival text, his political group was now being “stigmatised”.

    Ahead of the French minister’s visit, the FLNKS has launched a “peaceful” campaign revolving around the slogan “No to Bougival”.

    The FLNKS is scheduled to meet Valls today.

    The inaugural session of the “drafting committee” is supposed to take place the following day on Thursday.

    He is scheduled to leave New Caledonia on Saturday.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Saige England: Why I have spent a decade proudly standing with Palestinians and I will never stop

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    I unequivocally support Irish author Sally Rooney with all my heart and soul. The author risks imprisonment for donating funds from her books and the TV series based on Normal People to a Palestinian group.

    Once again the United Kingdom tells Palestinians who they should support. Go figure.
    In her opinion piece in The Irish Times last Saturday she said that:

    “Activists who disrupt the flow of weapons to a genocidal regime may violate petty criminal statutes, but they uphold a far greater law and a more profound human imperative: to protect a people and culture from annihilation.”

    Whenever the people resist or rebel they are deemed terrorists. That has been the case for indigenous people around the world from indigenous Americans to Indians in India to Aborigine and Māori, the Irish and the Scots, and the Welsh.

    I went from being a “born-again” starry-eyed kibbutznik who believed in Zionism to a journalist who researched the facts and the hidden truths.

    Those facts are revolting. Settler colonialism is revolting. Stealing homes is theft.

    I kept in touch with some of my US-based Zionist kibbutznik mates. When I asked them to stop calling Palestinians animals, when I asked them not to say they had tails, when I asked them to stop the de-humanisation — the same de-humanisation that happened during the Nazi regime, they dumped me.

    Zionism based on a myth
    Jews who support genocide are antisemitic. They are also selfish and greedy. Zionists are the bully kids at school who take other kids toys and don’t want to share. They don’t play fair.

    The notion of Zionism is based on a myth of the superiority of one group over another. It is religious nutterism and it is racism.

    Empire is greed. Capitalism is greed. Settler colonialism involves extermination for those who resist giving up their land. Would you or I accept someone taking our homes, forcing us to leave our uneaten dinner on the table? Would you or I accept our kids being stolen, put in jail, raped, tortured.

    Irish author Sally Rooney on why she supports Palestine
    Irish author Sally Rooney on why she supports Palestine Action and rejects the UK law banning this, and she argues that nation states have a duty not only to punish but also to prevent the commission of this “incomparably horrifying crime of genocide”. Image: Irish Times screenshot APR

    The country was weird when I visited in 1982. It had just invaded Lebanon. Later that year it committed a genocide.

    The Sabra and Shatila massacre was a mass murder of up to 3500 Palestinian refugees by Israel’s proxy militia, the Phalange, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The horrific slaughter prompted outrage and condemnation around the world, with the UN General Assembly condemning it as “an act of genocide”.

    I had been primed for sunshine and olives, but the country gave me a chill. The toymaker I worked with was a socialist and he told me I should feel sorry for the Palestinians.

    It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets. But you need to defend yourself when you steal.

    Paranoia from guilt
    Paranoia is a consequence of a persecutor who fails to recognise their guilt. It happens when you steal. The paranoia happens when you close doors. When you don’t welcome the other — whose home you stole.

    In 2014, soldiers of the IDF — a mercenary macho army — were charged with raping their own colleagues. Now footage of the rape of Palestinian men are celebrated on national television in Israel in front of live audiences. Any decent person would be disgusted by this.

    The army under this Zionist madness has committed — and continues to commit — the crimes it lied about Palestinians committing. And yes, the big fat liar has even admitted its own lies. The bully in the playground really doesn’t care now, it does not have to persuade the world it is right, because it is supported, it has the power.

    This isn’t the warped Wild West where puritans invented the scalping of women and children — the sins of colonisers are many — this is happening now. We can stand for the might of racism or we can stand against racist policies and regimes. We can stand against apartheid and genocide.

    Indigenous people must have the right to live in their homeland. Casting them onto designated land then invading that land is wrong.

    When Israelis are kidnapped they are called hostages. When Palestinians are kidnapped they are called prisoners. It’s racist. It’s cruel. It’s revolting that anyone would support this travesty.

    Far far more Palestinians were killed in the year leading up to October 7, 2023, than Israelis killed that day (and we know now that some of those Israelis were killed by their own army, Israel has admitted it lied over and again about the murder of babies and rapes).

    Ōtautahi author and journalist Saige England
    Ōtautahi author and journalist Saige England . . . “It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets.” Image: Saige England

    Mercenary macho army
    So who does murder and rape? The IDF. The proud mercenary macho army.

    Once upon a time, a Palestinian kid who threw a stone got a bullet between the eyes. Now they get a bullet for carrying water, for going back to the homeground that has been bombed to smithereens. Snipers enjoy taking them down.

    Drones operated by human beings who have no conscience follow children, follow journalists, follow nurses, follow someone in a wheelchair, and blow them to dust.

    This is a game for the IDF. I’m sure some feel bad about it but they have to go along with it because they lose privileges if they do not. This sick army run by a sick state includes soldiers who hold dual US and Israeli citizenship.

    Earlier this year I met a couple of IDF soldiers on holidays from genocide, breezily ordering their lattes in a local cafe. I tried to engage with them, to garner some sense of compassion but they used “them” and “they” to talk about Palestinians.

    They lumped all Palestinians into a de-humanised mass worth killing. They blamed indigenous people who lived under a regime of apartheid and who are now being exterminated, for the genocide.

    The woman was even worse than the man. She loathed me the minute she saw my badge supporting the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aoteara. Hate spat from her eyes.

    Madness.

    De-brainwashing
    I saw that the only prospect for them to change might be a de-brainwashing programme. Show them the real facts they were never given, show them real Palestinians instead of figments of their imagination.

    It occurred to me that it really was very tempting to take them home and offer them a different narrative. I asked them if they would listen, and they said no. If I had forced them to come with me I would have been, you know, a hostage-taker.

    Israel is evidence that the victim can become the persecutor when they scapegoat indigenous people as the villain, when they hound them for crime of a holocaust they did not commit.

    And I get it, a little. My Irish and French Huguenot ancestors were persecuted. I have to face the sad horrid fact that those persecuted people took other people’s land in New Zealand. The victims became the persecutor.

    Oh they can say they did not know but they did know. They just did not look too hard at the dispossession of indigenous people.

    I wrote my book The Seasonwife at the ripe young age of 63 to reveal some of the suppressed truths about colonisation and about the greed of Empire — a system where the rich exploit the poor to help themselves. I will continue to write novels about suppressed truths.

    And I call down my Jewish ancestors who hid their Jewishness to avoid persecution. I have experienced antisemitism.

    Experienced cancelling
    But I have experienced cancelling, not by my publisher I hasten to add, but I know agencies and publishers in my country who tell authors to shut up about this genocide, who call those who speak up anti-semitic.

    I have been cancelled by Zionist authors. I don’t have a publisher like that but I know those who do, I know agencies who pressure authors to be silent.

    I call on other authors to follow Rooney’s example and for pity’s sake stop referencing Hamas. Learn the truth.

    Benjamin Netanyahu refused to deal with any other Palestinian representative. Palestinians have the right to choose their own representatives but they were denied that right.

    What is a terrorist army? The IDF which has created killing field after killing field. Not just this genocide, but the genocide in Lebanon in 1982.

    I have been protesting against the massacre of Palestinians since 2014 and I wish I had been more vocal earlier. I wish I had left the country when the Phalangists were killed. I did go back and report from the West Bank but I feel now, that I did not do enough. I was pressured — as Western writers are — to support the wrongdoer, the persecutor, not the victim.

    I will never do that again.

    Change with learning
    I do believe that with learning we can change, we can work towards a different, fairer system — a system based on fairness not exploitation.

    I stand alongside indigenous people everywhere.

    So I say again, that I support Sally Rooney and any author who has the guts to stand up to the pressure of oppressive regimes that deny the rights of people to resist oppression.

    I have spent a decade proudly standing with Palestinians and I will never stop. I believe they will be granted the right to return to their land. It is not anyone else’s right to grant that, really, the right of return for those who were forced out, and their descendants, is long overdue.

    And their forced exile is recent. Biblical myths don’t stack up. Far too often they are stacked to make other people fall down.

    Perhaps if we had all stood up more than 100,000 Palestinians would still be alive, a third of those children, would still be running around, their voices like bells instead of death calls.

    I support Palestinians with all my heart and soul.

    Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • When journalists like Anas al-Sharif are killed we lose access to truth in Gaza

    Journalists like Anas al-Sharif who report the truth in Gaza to the world and are targeted by Israel deserve protection, not just sympathy.

    COMMENTARY: By Sara Qudah

    During the past 22 months in Gaza, the pattern has become unbearable yet tragically predictable: A journalist reports about civilians; killed or starved, shares footage of a hospital corridor, shelters bombed out, schools and homes destroyed, and then they are silenced.

    Killed.

    At the Committee to Protect Journalists we documented that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists, with an unprecedented number of those killed by Israel reporting from Gaza while covering Israel’s military operations.

    That trend did not end; it continued instead in 2025, making this war by far the deadliest for the press in history.

    When a journalist is killed in a besieged war city, the loss is no longer personal. It is institutional, it is the loss of eyes and ears on the ground: a loss of verification, context, and witness.

    Journalists are the ones who turn statistics into stories. They give names to numbers and faces to headlines. They make distant realities real for the rest of the world, and provide windows into the truth and doors into other worlds.

    That is why the killing of Anas al-Sharif last week reverberates so loudly, not just as a tragic loss of one life, but as a silencing of many stories that will now never be told.

    Not just reporting
    Anas al-Sharif was not just reporting from Gaza, he was filling a vital void. When international journalists couldn’t access the Strip, his work for Al Jazeera helped the world understand what was happening.

    On August 10, 2025, an airstrike hit a tent near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where journalists had gathered. Al-Sharif and several of his colleagues were killed.

    The strike — its method, its targets, and its aftermath – wasn’t isolated. It fits a pattern CPJ and other press freedom organisations have tracked for months: in Gaza, journalists are facing not just the incidental risks of war, but repeated, targeted threats.

    And so far, there has been no accountability.

    The Israeli military framed its action differently: officials alleged that al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas and that the attack was aimed at a legitimate threat. But so far, the evidence presented publicly failed to meet the test of independent witnesses; no public evidence has met the basic standard of independent verification.

    UN experts and press freedom groups have called for transparent investigations, warning of the danger in labelling journalists as combatants without clear, verifiable proof.

    In the turmoil of war, there’s a dangerous tendency to accept official narratives too quickly, too uncritically. That’s exactly how truth gets lost.

    Immediate chilling effect
    The repercussions of silencing reporters in a besieged territory are far-reaching. There is the immediate chilling effect: journalists who stay risk death; those who leave — if they even can — leave behind untold stories.

    Second, when local journalists are killed, international media have no choice but to rely increasingly on official statements or third-party briefings for coverage, many with obvious biases and blind spots.

    And third, the families of victims and the communities they represented are denied both justice and memory.

    Al-Sharif’s camera recorded funerals and destroyed homes, bore witness to lives cut short. His death leaves those images without a voice, pointing now only into silence.

    We also need to name the power dynamics at play. When an enormously powerful state with overwhelming military capability acts inside a densely populated area, the vast majority of casualties will be civilians — those who cannot leave — and local reporters, who cannot shelter.

    This is not a neutral law of physics; it is the to-be-anticipated result of how this war waged in a space where journalists will not be able to go into shelter.

    We have repeatedly documented that journalists killed in this war are Palestinian — not international correspondents. The most vulnerable witnesses, those most essential to documenting it, are also the most vulnerable to being killed.

    So what should the international community and the world leaders do beyond offering condolences?

    Demand independent investigation
    For starters, they must demand an immediate, independent investigation. Not just routine military reviews, but real accountability — gathering evidence, preserving witness testimony, and treating each death with the seriousness it deserves.

    Accountability cannot be a diplomatic nicety; it must be a forensic process with witnesses and evidence.

    Additionally, journalists must be protected as civilians. That’s not optional. Under international law, reporters who aren’t taking part in the fighting are civilians — period.

    That is an obligation not a choice. And when safety isn’t possible, we must get them out. Evacuate them. Save their lives. And in doing so, allow others in — international reporters who can continue telling the story.

    We are past the time for neutrality. The use of language like “conflict”, “collateral damage”, or “civilian casualties” cannot be used to deflect responsibility, especially when the victims are people whose only “crime” was documenting human suffering.

    When the world loses journalists like Anas al-Sharif, it loses more than just one voice. We lose a crucial balance of power and access to truth; it fails to maintain the ability to understand what’s happening on the ground. And future generations lose the memory — the record — of what took place here.

    Stand up for facts
    The international press community, human rights organisations, and diplomatic actors need to stand up. Not just for investigations, but for facts. Families in Gaza deserve more than empty statements. They deserve the truth about who was killed, and why. So does every person reading this from afar.

    And the journalists still risking everything to report from inside Gaza deserve more than sympathy. They deserve protection.

    The killing of journalists — like those from Al Jazeera — isn’t just devastating on a human level. It’s a direct attack on journalism itself. When a state can murder reporters without consequence, it sends a message to the entire world: telling the truth might cost you your life.

    I write this as someone who believes that journalism is, above all, a moral act. It’s about bearing witness. It’s about insisting that lives under siege are still lives that matter, still worth seeing.

    Silencing a journalist doesn’t just stop a story — it erases a lifetime of effort to bring others into view.

    The murder of al-Sharif isn’t just another tragedy. It’s an assault on truth itself, in a place where truth is desperately needed. If we let this keep happening, we’re not just losing lives — we’re losing the last honest witnesses in a world ruled by force.

    And that’s something we can’t afford to give up.

    Sara Qudah is the regional director for Middle East and North Africa of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Sara on LinkedIn: Sara Qudah

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.