The University of the South Pacific (USP) is at the heart of a global legal victory with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivering a historic opinion last week affirming that states have binding legal obligations to protect the environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.
The case, hailed as a triumph for climate justice, was driven by a student-led movement that began within USP’s own regional classrooms.
In 2021, the government of Vanuatu took a bold step by announcing its intention to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ on climate change. But what many may not have realised is that the inspiration behind this unprecedented move came from a group of determined young Pacific Islanders — students from USP who formed the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).
According to the United Nations background information, these USP students led the charge, campaigning for years to bring the voices of vulnerable island nations to the highest court in the world.
Their call for accountability resonated across the globe, eventually leading to the adoption of a UN resolution in March 2023 that asked the ICJ two critical legal questions:
What obligations do states have under international law to protect the environment?
What are the legal consequences when they fail?
Students from the University of the South Pacific who formed the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC). Image: Wansolwara News
The result A sweeping opinion from the ICJ affirming that climate change treaties place binding duties on countries to prevent environmental harm.
As the ICJ President, Judge Iwasawa Yuji, stated in the official delivery the court was: “Unanimously of the opinion that the climate change treaties set forth binding obligations for States parties to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”
USP alumni lead the celebration USP alumna Cynthia Houniuhi, president of the PISFCC, shared her pride in a statement to USP’s official news that this landmark opinion must guide not only courtrooms but also global climate negotiations and policy decisions and it’s a call to action.
“The law is on our side. I’m proud to be on the right side of history.”
Her words reflect the essence of USP’s regional identity, a university built not just to educate, but to empower Pacific Islanders to lead solutions to the region’s most pressing challenges.
Why is the ICJ’s climate ruling such a big deal? Video: Almost
Students in action, backed by global leaders UN Secretary-General Antόnio Guterres, in a video message released by the UN, gave credit where it was due.
“This is a victory for our planet, for climate change and for the power of young people to make a difference. Young Pacific Islanders initiated this call for humanity to the world, and the world must respond.”
Vishal Prasad, director of PISFCC, in a video reel of the SPC (Secretariat of the Pacific Community), also credited youth activism rooted in the Pacific education system as six years ago young people from the Pacific decided to take climate change to the highest court and today the ICJ has responded.
“The ICJ has made it clear, it cemented the consensus on the science of climate change and formed the heart of all the arguments that many Pacific Island States made.”
USP’s influence is evident in the regional unity that drove this case forward showing that youth educated in the Pacific are capable of reshaping global narratives.
Residents wade through flooding caused by high ocean tides in low-lying parts of Majuro Atoll, the capital of the Marshall Islands. In 2011, the Marshall Islands warned that the clock was ticking on climate change and the world needed to act urgently to stop low-lying Pacific nations disappearing beneath the waves. Image: PHYS ORG/Wansolwara
A win for the Pacific From coastal erosion and rising sea levels to the legacy of nuclear testing, the Pacific lives with the frontline effects of climate change daily.
Coral Pasisi, SPC Director of Climate Change & Sustainability, highlighted in a video message, the long-term importance of the ruling:
“Climate change is already impacting them (Pacific people) and every increment that happens is creating more and more harm, not just for the generations now but those into the future. I think this marks a real moment for our kids.”
Additionally, as Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, noted to SPC, science was the cornerstone of the court’s reasoning.
“The opinion really used that science as the basis for its definitions of accountability, responsibility, and duty.”
Among the proud USP student voices is Siosiua Veikune, who told Tonga’s national broadcaster that this is not only a win for the students but for the Pacific islands also.
What now? With 91 written statements and 97 countries participating in oral proceedings, this was the largest case ever seen by the ICJ and it all began with a movement sparked at USP.
Now, the challenge moves from the courtroom to the global stage and will see how nations implement this legal opinion.
Though advisory, the ICJ ruling carries immense moral and legal weight. It will likely shape global climate negotiations, strengthen lawsuits against polluting states, and empower developing nations especially vulnerable Pacific Islands to demand justice on the international stage.
For the students who dreamed it into motion, it’s only the beginning.
“Now, we have to make sure this ruling leads to real action — in parliaments, at climate summits, and in every space where our future is at stake,” said Veikune.
Vahefonua Tupola is a second-year student journalist at University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus. Republshed from Wansolwara News, the USP student journalism newspaper and website in partnership with Asia Pacific Report.
In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that the rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threatened public health and welfare. This “endangerment finding,” as it’s known in legal jargon, may have sounded self-evident to those who had been following climate science for decades, but its consequences for U.S. policy were tremendous: It allowed the EPA to issue rules limiting emissions from U.S. vehicles, power plants, and other industrial sources. While those rules have not always survived court challenges and changing presidential administrations, the regulatory authority underpinning them has proven remarkably stable.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s EPA took a major step toward changing that. At a truck dealership in Indianapolis, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a formal proposal to repeal the endangerment finding, which has been in the works since the beginning of Trump’s second presidency. At the same time, Zeldin announced a plan to repeal all federal greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles. “If finalized, today’s announcement would amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,” he said at the press conference.
Zeldin accused his predecessors at the EPA of making “many, many, many mental leaps” in the 2009 declaration, and he argued that the “real threat” to people’s livelihoods is not carbon dioxide but instead the regulations themselves, which he claimed lead to higher prices and restrict people’s choices.
If the EPA succeeds in reversing the endangerment finding, it would “eviscerate the biggest regulatory tool the federal government has” to keep climate change in check, said Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Republicans in Congress have already repealed much of former President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, which aimed to put the U.S. within reach of its Paris Agreement targets primarily by funneling money to renewable energy sources. Rescinding the endangerment finding targets the other main tool the U.S. government can use to address climate change: the executive branch’s power to limit emissions through regulatory action. In other words, Republicans have already eliminated many of the federal government’s proverbial climate carrots — now they’re going after the sticks.
“We will not have a serious national climate policy if this goes through,” said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor of climate policy and environmental law at Vermont Law School.
But that’s a big “if.” Experts say that the EPA’s plan is bound to be embroiled in years of lawsuits, perhaps one day making its way to the Supreme Court, which blessed the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases in 2007 and declined to hear a challenge to the endangerment finding as recently as December 2023. And even if the EPA does manage to overturn the endangerment finding after all court challenges have been exhausted, it would result in sweeping consequences — including some that the administration’s allies in the oil industry may not like. Indeed, the risk is serious enough that some fossil fuel industry groups have urged the Trump administration not to repeal the finding.
The tussle over the endangerment finding stems from differing interpretations of the Clean Air Act. When Congress expanded the law in 1970, it tasked the EPA with regulating air pollutants that threaten public health, but it kept the definition of “pollutant” broad. “They had the foresight to understand that they could not foresee every potential air pollutant that would endanger public health and welfare in the many decades to come,” said Zealan Hoover, who was a senior adviser to the EPA under Biden. That gave the EPA some leeway to determine exactly what it should be regulating — a question that presidents have approached very differently, with Democrats typically trying to expand the agency’s power and Republicans trying to limit it. With its 2009 endangerment finding, the Obama administration added carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to the list.
Now that Zeldin has announced a plan to strike down the finding, the EPA will open a 45-day period for the public to weigh in on the proposal. The agency is supposed to take that feedback into account before moving to finalize the rule. At that point, states and environmental groups may sue the EPA in what’s expected to be a yearslong court battle.
“The lawyering that’s going to go on is going to make a lot of people rich,” Parenteau said. In the meantime, Zeldin would likely work to undo existing regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, unless the courts were convinced to pause the implementation of the new rule.
Any lawsuit would probably end up in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases concerning federal policymaking. Law experts say the EPA’s argument may not fare well with those judges, as the circuit has upheld the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act in the past. On top of that, when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, Democrats amended the Clean Air Act to explicitly declare carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases as air pollutants, bolstering the foundation for regulating them. Republicans did not repeal that language when they gutted much of the rest of the Biden-era law, and challengers are likely to invoke those amendments in court, Carlson said.
But that wouldn’t necessarily be the end of it, because such a case might go all the way to the Supreme Court. The court’s conservative majority could then choose to undermine Massachusetts v. EPA, the 2007 decision that gave the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and led to the endangerment finding. “That may be the ultimate aim here,” Carlson said, “to get the Supreme Court to revisit Massachusetts v. EPA to make it basically impossible to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”
Undoing the finding wouldn’t just dismantle the foundation of U.S. climate regulation — it might also weaken oil companies’ best legal defense in the flood of climate lawsuits brought against them by cities and states. For years, oil companies have relied on a different Supreme Court ruling to argue that federal law shields them from state lawsuits over climate change. In the 2011 ruling American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court found that because the EPA was already regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, states couldn’t separately sue polluters under federal “nuisance” law — a type of legal claim used when someone’s actions interfere with public rights, such as the right to a healthy environment.
The court’s reasoning was that Congress had delegated the task of regulating emissions to the EPA, leaving no room for federal courts to step in on making climate policy. But if the endangerment finding is revoked, and the EPA no longer regulates those emissions, that argument could fall apart, leaving fossil fuel companies vulnerable in courts across the country.
“There is great concern that reversing the finding would open the door to a lot more nuisance lawsuits against all types of energy companies,” Jeff Holmstead, a partner with energy law firm Bracewell, told E&E News earlier this year. The oil industry may then pursue a backup plan: Companies could ask Congress, which is currently controlled by a narrow Republican majority, to grant them legal protection from climate lawsuits, according to Parenteau.
Undoing the endangerment finding could leave fossil fuel companies navigating a patchwork of state laws instead of a single cohesive federal policy. If greenhouse gas emissions are no longer regulated under the Clean Air Act, states would presumably be free to make their own rules, Carlson added. Among other consequences, that could strengthen California’s case against the Trump administration over its right to place stricter-than-federal standards on vehicle emissions. “There’s potential for a lot of chaos,” she said.
It’s possible that a more liberal presidential administration could one day reinstate the endangerment finding, even if Zeldin manages to revoke it. But it would be a while before that could translate to any meaningful action on climate change, according to Hoover.
“Unfortunately, for anyone who wants to see government solve a big problem, there’s very little you can achieve through regulations in four years,” he said.
Over the last six months, Americans have been inundated with a near-constant stream of announcements from the federal government — programs shuttered, funding cut, jobs eliminated, and regulations gutted. President Donald Trump and his administration are executing a systematic dismantling of the environmental, economic, and scientific systems that underpin our society. The onslaught can feel overwhelming, opaque, or sometimes even distant, but these policies will have real effects on Americans’ daily lives.
In this new guide, Grist examines the impact these changes could have, and are already having, on the things you do every day. Flipping on your lights. Turning on your faucet. Paying household bills. Visiting a park. Checking the weather forecast. Feeding your family.
The decisions have left communities less safe from pollution, more vulnerable to climate disasters, and facing increasingly expensive energy bills, among other changes. Read on to see how.
Pulling back from renewable energy could make your electricity bills go up.
When Trump began his second term, it was with a vow to “unleash American energy.” But over the last six months, it’s become clear that this call to arms was meant strictly for fossil fuels, not the country’s booming renewable energy industry. Trump has issued a series of executive orders to revive coal production, and he has opened up millions of acres of public land to oil and gas drilling and issued a moratorium on offshore wind leases.
This commitment was deepened with the Republican-led One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law on July 4. It bolsters investment in fossil fuels while sunsetting Biden-era credits for electric vehicles, energy efficiency, and wind, solar, and green hydrogen. Climate and clean energy advocates described the bill as “historically ruinous” for renewables and a massive handout to the oil and gas industry. The problem: Power demand is rising sharply, and recent growth in renewable energy has been reliably and affordably meeting that demand.
All of this could soon impact Americans’ electricity bills: According to one analysis by the nonpartisan think tank Energy Innovation, by 2035 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could spike wholesale electricity prices 74 percent by stifling renewable energy at a time when new capacity is needed, and raise consumer rates by 9 percent to 18 percent, or $170 annually.
Regulatory delays will continue to allow PFAS to contaminate drinking water.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a class of manmade chemicals used to make everything from firefighting foam to nonstick cookware. Better known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily, the compounds have become ubiquitous in our lakes, soil, and even our own bodies. Roughly half the U.S. population consumes water tainted with PFAS.
After years of mounting contamination and public outcry, the Environmental Protection Agency finally took steps to regulate the chemicals last year, establishing maximum levels for six PFAS types in drinking water. But in May, the Trump administration said it would rescind the existing rules and issue new ones for four of the chemicals, and delayed implementation of two others until 2031.
Exposure to PFAS has been linked to decreased fertility, developmental delays in children, and reduced immune function.
Funding and staff cuts are making it harder to track climate change and weather.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, provides critical scientific research on the Earth’s environment to U.S. communities and lawmakers. It houses the National Weather Service, which generates the data that makes weather forecasts possible, as well as the National Hurricane Center, which tracks tropical storms.
In the first few months of Trump’s second term, his administration fired hundreds of NOAA employees, with plans to cut the agency’s workforce by a further 17 percent next year. NOAA has also taken steps to discontinue the collection of essential satellite data that forecasters use to track hurricanes once they form.
Combined, these cuts could threaten lives: In June, John Morales, a longtime meteorologist in Miami, warned his viewers that “the quality of forecasts is becoming degraded” and that meteorologists may be “flying blind” with hurricane tracking this year due to the Trump administration’s “cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science.”
Disbanding energy-efficiency programs could increase your utility bills.
If you’re browsing for a new household appliance, like a dishwasher or washing machine, you might notice that some of them come equipped with a blue “Energy Star” label. The mark signifies that a machine meets a certain energy-efficiency standard, set by the federal government, and it allows consumers to choose appliances that can help keep utility bills low. Earlier this year, the EPA announced internally that it was planning to shut down the popular, voluntary program — though building and consumer advocates are now trying to save it. If Energy Star is indeed over, it would mark the end of a program that saves American consumers some $40 billion annually in energy costs, or about $350 for every taxpayer dollar that goes into the program.
Tariffs are disrupting supply chains and raising household costs.
Trump dubbed April 2 “Liberation Day” and imposed tariffs as high as 50 percent on nearly every country in the world, as well as several key commodities. Although he swiftly paused them for 90 days, the threat of reinstatement looms and some tariffs — on China, Canada, and aluminum — have already gone into effect, with higher prices on consumer goods like clothes, toys, and furniture.
Companies generally pass the cost of tariffs on to their customers (even if Trump tells them not to). If Trump’s full, proposed tariffs ever do take effect, economists anticipate increased prices on everything from cars to electricity to building materials, the latter of which could also make natural disaster recovery and home insurance more expensive.
Fuel-efficiency rollbacks could cost you more at the pump and worsen air quality.
Gas-powered cars have become more fuel efficient and less polluting over the years largely due to federal regulations. After the 2008 financial crash, the Obama administration used the bailout of the auto industry as leverage to impose stricter fuel-efficiency requirements, ensuring cars drive farther on less gas, thereby saving consumers money at the pump and reducing air pollution. The Biden administration later strengthened those rules, requiring that automakers sell passenger cars averaging 65 miles per gallon by 2031 — a one-third increase from 2024 standards. The threshold, which applies across an automaker’s product lines, was designed to gradually shift the industry toward electric vehicles, which do not release exhaust fumes or other tailpipe pollutants.
In June, the Trump administration began the process of formally rescinding those rules. According to an estimate last year from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Biden-era rule would have saved $23 billion in fuel costs while also reducing emissions and pollution.
Loss of tax credits and cuts to federal program will make it harder to buy and drive an electric vehicle.
Under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, federal tax credits for the purchase or lease of an EV — of up to $7,500 for new cars and $4,000 for used — would run through 2032. But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act repealed those measures and cut the runway to only a few months. The erasure will likely make electric vehicles more expensive, which would put the technology further out of reach for many low- to moderate-income Americans.
For those who still can buy an EV, finding a place to plug in could be difficult. In February, the Federal Highway Administration said it was suspending the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program, which would have directed some $3 billion to states to expand the nation’s charging network. In June, a judge blocked that move and ordered the administration to unfreeze funds, but the court battle isn’t over.
A funding freeze is pausing certain train, bus, and bike lane projects.
For those who don’t exclusively rely on cars to get around, Trump’s second term has been none too kind on the buses, railways, and bike lanes that make up the country’s public transit system. Trump has relentlessly attacked New York City’s congestion pricing, designed to reduce traffic and raise funds for public transit, and threatened to cut public transit funding to major cities like New York and Chicago.
In March, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy froze funds and ordered an investigation into any departmental grants that involve “equity analysis, green infrastructure, bicycle infrastructure, [and] EV and/or EV-charging infrastructure.” The directive also instructed employees to flag projects “that purposefully improve the condition for EJ [environmental justice] communities or actively reduce GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions.” The decision reverses Biden-era efforts to reduce the climate footprint of the transportation sector, which is America’s largest contributor to global warming, emitting over 1.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases per year.
The Trump administration’s whiplash approach to a wide swath of exorbitant tariffs on other countries has sowed confusion among consumers, manufacturers, and agricultural growers.
Although Mexico and the U.S. briefly appeared to reach an agreement, Trump is now threatening a 30 percent tariff on all Mexican imports, and a 17 percent rate on Mexican tomato imports has already gone into effect. Other tariffs could drive costs up even higher: Trump’s 50 percent steel and aluminum imports could hike up the price of canned foods, for example. And country-specific tariffs could increase the prices of imported goods like coffee and chocolate.
Local food systems and national food safety nets have been decimated by recent federal cuts. In March, after freezing nearly two dozen streams of funding, the Department of Agriculture cancelled future rounds of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. The two initiatives were slated to dole out roughly a billion dollars to states, tribes, and territories to reduce food insecurity. As a result, the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program’s deliveries to food banks and soup kitchens have been reduced or cancelled entirely; kids in schools and lower-income families have less access to affordable meals; and agricultural producers across the country have been forced to lay off employees, delay projects, or shut down entirely.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made unprecedented cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, a federal program that helps nearly 42 million Americans afford groceries. The cuts are further poised to increase food insecurity across the country at a time when persistently high food costs, fueled in part by worsening climate disasters, are among most Americans’ biggest economic concerns.
The U.S. food supply is one of the safest in the world, but experts say these cuts threaten to disrupt that system and undercut its ability to keep consumers safe in the long term.
Funding cuts are leaving small farmers in the lurch, threatening locally sourced food supplies.
Federal agricultural policy has centered on two major priorities during the early months of the second Trump administration: First is the slashing of federal food and agriculture funding, which has left small producers struggling to stay afloat. Second is giving farmers who grow traditional commodities such as corn, cotton, and soybeans multibillion-dollar bailouts. This strategy first became clear when the USDA began freezing and cutting billions of dollars to programs that supported the purchasing of goods from small and midsize farms. Then, the agency expedited disaster subsidies — funds meant to help agricultural producers recover from extreme weather — for commodity farmers. The decision funneled economic aid away from small producers into the pockets of industrial-scale operations.
With the strain of an agricultural recession looming over regions like the Midwest, experts see these moves by the administration ultimately leading to the loss of many more small American farms, which would disrupt local economies and limit access to fresh food.
Regulatory rollbacks could make air quality worse.
From rally stages to debate podiums, Trump repeatedly promised to deliver “clean air and clean water” if elected to a second term. He broke that promise almost from Day 1. Trump’s EPA is carrying out a massive deregulatory agenda, much of it focused on rolling back protections for the air we breathe. It rescinded billions of dollars in funding for a range of air quality initiatives, including clean energy projects and monitoring efforts in low-income and minority communities, though a judge ultimately ruled the latter unlawful. At the same time, the administration has also dramatically reduced the number of cases it brings against polluters. It even set up an email inbox soliciting requests from companies seeking exemptions from a range of clean air rules.
The agency has also taken steps to roll back limits on carbon dioxide and mercury emissions from power plants and methane emissions from oil and gas fields, which drive climate change and threaten human health. And in July, it repealed the “endangerment finding” — the landmark legal determination that classifies greenhouse gases as air pollutants and gives the EPA authority to regulate them.
Cancelled grant programs are making communities less resilient to natural disasters.
This spring, the Trump administration cancelled the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, program — an initiative that sends billions of dollars to communities, municipalities, and states proactively so that they can prepare for natural disasters before they hit. The program funds projects like burying power lines, building culverts, and upgrading power stations to make them more resilient to extreme weather.
Trump canceled $750 million in new resilience funding and clawed back nearly $900 million in grant funding provided to BRIC by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, money that was already approved but not yet disbursed. The abrupt move ultimately led to the disruption of $3.6 billion in planned resilience spending across the U.S. — the kinds of projects that help protect people from flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, and more at a time when climate change is increasing their severity and frequency. Under Trump, FEMA also cancelled $600 million in flood-mitigation assistance funding to communities this year.
A defunding campaign is threatening our shared spaces.
The future of public lands, parks, and forests in the U.S. is in the midst of a dramatic reshaping by Republicans, risking permanent changes to the environment and how we experience the outdoors. The Trump administration has fired a thousand National Park Service workers, hindering conservation efforts and leaving parks unable to accommodate the millions of visitors they typically welcome each summer. The administration also stripped protections for nearly 60 million acres of national forest and identified millions of acres eligible for potential oil and gas development. And a growing movement among Republican lawmakers and the administration would sell off millions of acres of public lands for housing and energy development — a policy opposed by 74 percent of Americans.
In June, the Department of Justice granted the president the authority to revoke national monument designations, a status that marks land as permanently protected. The move threatens sites such as Bears Ears in Utah and the Sáttítla Highlands in California — two monuments that Trump has singled out in particular — which are significant to tribes and illustrate the complex history of U.S. public lands as stolen land.
New definitions are weakening species protections.
For decades, the Endangered Species Act recognized that in order to protect animals, it was vital to save the habitats they live in. The policy has led to the rebound of iconic species like the bald eagle, grizzly bears, grey wolves, and panthers, and it has protected millions of acres from development. But in April, the Trump administration proposed a new definition of the word “harm” that scientists, legal experts, and conservationists warn will hamstring the act’s effectiveness.
Instead of the Endangered Species Act regulating activities that indirectly impact endangered or threatened species, like drilling in the spawning grounds of Atlantic sturgeon or logging forests that are home to a rare owl, the law will now only consider direct, intentional harm to the animal itself — killing, hurting, or capturing it. The rule change comes at a time when climate change and land use decisions increasingly threaten ecosystems and the animals that rely on them.
An attack on science is hindering research on public health.
The federal government has hemorrhaged more than 50,000 employees since Trump was reelected in January, including many who play crucial roles in keeping American waters and air safe from pollutants and disease-causing organisms. A quarter of the staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alone were fired, leaving gaping holes across an agency tasked with keeping tabs on the movement of pathogens across the nation. The EPA is in the midst of a defunding and deregulation campaign, including the elimination of its research division, all of which limits its ability to oversee polluters. And the National Institutes of Health is rebranding its research on the intersection of climate change and public health, now focusing solely on extreme weather and excluding any mental health work.
New Caledonia’s population has shrunk to 264,596 over the past six years, the latest census, conducted in April and May 2025, has revealed.
This compares to the previous census, conducted in 2019, which recorded a population of 271,400 in the French Pacific territory.
To explain the population drop of almost seven thousand (6811), Jean Philippe Grouthier, Census Chef de Mission at the French national statistical institute INSEE, said that even though the population natural balance (the difference between births and deaths during the period) was more than 11,000, the net migration balance showed a deficit of 18,000.
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In terms of permanent departures and arrivals, earlier informal studies (based on the international Nouméa-La Tontouta airport traffic figures) already hinted at a sharp increase in residents leaving New Caledonia for good, after the destructive and deadly riots that erupted in May 2014, causing 14 dead and over 2 billion euros (NZ$3.8 billion) in damages.
The census was originally scheduled to take place in 2024, but had to be postponed due to the civil unrest.
“New Caledonia is probably less attractive than it could have been in the 2000s and 2010s years,” Grouthier told local media yesterday.
However, he stressed that the downward trend was already there at the previous 2019 census.
‘Not entirely due to riots’
During the 2014-2019 period, a net balance of around then 1000 residents had already left New Caledonia.
“It’s not as if it was something that would be entirely due to the May 2024 riots,” he said.
At the provincial level, New Caledonia’s most populated region (194,978), the Southern Province, which makes up three quarters of the population, has registered the sharpest drop (about four percent).
Meanwhile, the other two provinces (North, Loyalty Islands) have slightly gained in population over the same period, respectively +2.1 (50,947) and +1.7 percent (18,671).
The preliminary figures released yesterday are now to be processed and analysed in detail, before public release, ISEE said.
The latest population statistics are regarded as essential in order to serve as the basis for further calculation for the three provinces’ share in public aid as well as planning for upgrades or building of public infrastructure.
The latest count will also be used to organise upcoming elections, starting with municipal elections (March 2026) and provincial elections later that year.
President Donald Trump appears poised to institute an abortion ban for hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs — escalating his war on reproductive health care by revoking veterans’ access to abortion.
The Office of Management and Budget concluded its review last week of a Veterans Affairs rule titled Reproductive Health Services, clearing the way to implement it at the VA.
Experts believe the rule is a reversal of a Biden-era policy of the same name which ended the agency’s ban on abortion counseling for veterans and allowed for VA providers to offer abortion services in limited circumstances, such as rape, incest, or endangerment of a pregnant person’s life or health. If the policy is overturned, hundreds of thousands of veterans in states with abortion bans could lose access to abortion care and counseling.
Sarah Baker, the digital director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the change appears to be “the first nationwide abortion ban that Trump is supporting and putting in place.”
The new rule has not yet been published, and until it is, experts can’t be certain what exactly is in it. The VA did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. But Rachel Fey, vice president of policy and strategic partnershipsatthe reproductive and sexual health advocacy organization Power to Decide, said that based on the Trump administration’s posture and explicit calls in Project 2025 to reverse the Biden policy, she expects one of two outcomes.
“We think either they would roll back the exceptions to an extremely narrow set that mimics the Hyde Amendment,” Fey said, referring to a law that bars federal funds from being used for abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or to save a person’s life. (The Hyde Amendment does not allow exceptions to preserve a person’s health in non-fatal circumstances, as the Biden rule does.)
Or, Fey said, another possibility is “just striking [the Biden rule] entirely and saying abortion is not allowed in any circumstances at the VA.”
The Biden administration implemented the Reproductive Health Services rule for the VA in 2024, two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Though the rule only allows VA hospitals to provide abortions in extreme circumstances, it was designed to provide basic protections in states that moved quickly to institute abortion bans.
“So that’s 345,000 women veterans that live in states that have banned or are likely to ban abortion,” said Jaclyn Dean, director of congressional relations, reproductive health, at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “For many of the women veterans living in any of those 12 states with total abortion bans, the VA is the only place that they can get abortion care. So you can expect those people to lose abortion care in cases of rape, incest, in the life and health of the pregnant person.”
In that climate, Fey stressed, even narrowing the exceptions could be devastating.
“What we’ve seen in states like Texas and Idaho is women coming close to death, suffering the loss of future fertility sometimes, suffering long-term disability because they were not given the standard clinical care they needed when they needed it,” Fey said. “That’s what we’re talking about when we get to a life exception versus a health exception.”
“As a physician, I trained at the VA, where a sign at the entrance read: ‘The price of freedom is visible here.’ Our veterans sacrificed everything for this country, and in return, we promised them the best care possible,” Dexter wrote in a statement to The Intercept. “For Trump to reinstate a complete ban on abortion care and counseling at the VA – even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life or health of the mother — is an utter betrayal of that promise.”
Veterans also face unique health risks related to pregnancy, said Baker with the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“Pregnancy is just riskier for veterans,” said Baker, “because of the different health risks that they face, higher rates of sexual assault, higher rates of PTSD … and the higher [rates of] other chronic conditions.”
And restricting or cutting off access to abortion would only compound the additional barriers to accessing quality health care that veterans already face, Fey noted.
“Serving in the U.S. military is often a way out of poverty for a lot of people in this country, and because of systemic racism, a disproportionate number of the people looking for that way out are Black and brown women when they serve in the military,” said Fey. “When we talk about reproductive health care in this country, the harms don’t fall equally.”
The Trump administration has been steadily chipping away at policies put in place by President Joe Biden to protect access to reproductive health care. In June, Trump rescinded guidance from the Biden administration that directed hospitals under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act to provide stabilizing treatment to patients in medical emergencies — including abortion care.
“It’s all part of this larger plan of extremists to ban abortion wherever they can and to interfere with people’s personal medical decisions,” said Dean. “They’re weaponizing control over veterans’ health care, instead of doing what’s actually best for our country’s veterans, which is giving them the health care that they need.”
As the world watches Gaza starve, Republicans in Congress quietly advanced a new ban on funding a United Nations agency that delivers food aid to Palestinians.
The GOP-dominated House Appropriations Committee last week voted to bar financial support for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, long the main hub of aid distribution in Gaza.
If passed by Congress, the ban would reinforce a financial blockade on UNRWA that began last year as Israel subjected the agency to an intense pressure campaign.
The latest move, however, comes amid an increasingly dire situation, as U.N. experts decried a full-fledged famine, and other Western countries are holding emergency meetings to address the crisis.
The timing of the latest proposed ban dismayed observers who have sought to increase the flow of aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
“It seems incredibly hypocritical to suddenly be shocked by these images when every humanitarian agency has said no one can replace UNRWA,” said Yara Asi, an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida’s School of Global Health Management and Informatics.
Congress first banned funding for UNRWA in March 2024 as Israel pushed allegations that the agency’s employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, attacks. Democratic President Joe Biden had already paused funding for the agency.
The House and Senate are working to replace that appropriations package with a new one for the next financial year. On July 23, the House Appropriations Committee passed a bill focusing on funding for national security and State Department programs.
The $46 billion bill would slash funding for many foreign aid programs and ban funding for UNRWA, while handing Israel $3.3 billion to buy more American arms.
Taking last year’s ban a step further, the House appropriations bill would prohibit funding for the United Nations secretariat, the organization’s parent agency, until it released an unredacted copy of an August 2024 investigation conducted by the U.N. into Israel’s claims that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attacks.
The U.N. investigation found that nine employees out of 13,000 in Gaza “may” have played a role in the attacks. UNRWA fired the nine staffers.
In a statement, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, the Florida Republican who chairs the national security and State Department subcommittee of the appropriations committee, hailed the anti-UNRWA measures as “examples of how this bill strengthens national security and supports an America First foreign policy.”
In the wake of the U.N. internal investigation, European countries have gradually restored funding for UNRWA, which operates in Gaza along with other U.N. agencies such as the World Food Programme.
On Sunday, 21 Democratic senators led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “immediately cease” funding for the GHF and return to “UN-led aid coordination mechanisms with enhanced oversight” — without mentioning UNRWA by name.
The growing scenes of starvation in Gaza have prompted even staunchly pro-Israel Democrats to call on Israel to allow more food aid into Gaza. Many of them, however, have avoided blaming Israel for the crisis.
Even Trump contravened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday by acknowledging that children are starving, while making a vague promise that the U.S. would set up “food centers.”
The link between the pressure campaign against UNRWA and the scenes playing out in Gaza now is clear, Asi said, even if Israeli and U.S. officials don’t want to admit it.
“Those lines have not really been connected, between defunding the largest humanitarian response agency in Gaza with obvious humanitarian disaster after. They were warned,” she said.
Rep. André Carson, D-Ind., introduced a bill in March to restore UNRWA funding that has drawn support from dozens of mostly progressive House members.
Supporters of restoring funding for UNRWA acknowledge that Carson’s bill is an extreme long shot in a Congress dominated by pro-Israel lawmakers but still say that it is an important symbolic move.
“It’s a tough road for UNRWA and U.S. funding for UNRWA for the foreseeable future, unfortunately. But we need to really draw a contrast: We had UNRWA distributing aid across 400 sites across the Gaza Strip before,” said Hassan El-Tayyab. the legislative director for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “We are heading towards a large-scale mass starvation in Gaza if something doesn’t happen.”
The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs published on 25 July 2025:
The Finnish OSCE Chairpersonship will organise a conference on 31 July 2025 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. The conference will pay tribute to the legacy of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki in 1975 and highlight the role of civil society in advancing OSCE’s principles and commitments. Helsinki+50 Fund will be launched as part of the Conference to support the OSCE’s operational capacity.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act signed in 1975, and its content is now more topical than ever before. The Final Act was a turning point for Europe’s security. As a result, 35 states – including those on the opposing sides of the Cold War – committed to following common principles that laid the foundation for the European security architecture…
The event at Finlandia Hall will be opened by Minister Valtonen, and High-Level Keynotes will be delivered by President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb, OSCE Secretary-General Feridun H. Sinirlioğlu and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy will speak at the conference via remote connection. UN Secretary-General António Guterres will send a video message.
“The Helsinki Principles are a reminder of what we can achieve through cooperation and trust – and what is at stake if we fail to defend them. Now, more than ever, these principles need their defenders,” Minister for Foreign Affairs Valtonen says.
The Helsinki+50 Fund will be launched as part of the Conference. The fund aims to enhance the channelling of voluntary funding to support work in line with the OSCE’s principles and commitments, and to strengthen the link between donors andthe OSCE.The fund will supplement OSCE’s budget, not replace it.
Josef Benedict and Rajavelu Karunanithi published a piece in the Diplomat of 18 July 2025 describing how from Hong Kong to India, governments are passing and weaponizing new laws to pursue and jail whoever speaks up for human rights.
Four years ago, on the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, plain clothes police arrested human rights lawyer and pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-tung outside her office in Hong Kong. Her alleged crime? Publishing two social media posts advertising a public vigil to remember the notorious crackdown in Tiananmen Square. At the time, Chow was the vice-chair of the now defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement of China, the main organizer of annual Tiananmen vigils…
Sadly, such repression is not unique to Hong Kong. Across Asia, authoritarian and democratic governments alike are passing and weaponizing new laws – in clear violation of international law and standards – to pursue and jail whoever speaks up for human rights. Today, on Nelson Mandela International Day, we call for the release of Chow Hang-tang, who is part of CIVICUS’ Stand As My Witness campaign, as well as other human rights defenders unjustly locked up in Asia around the world.
The CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks civic space conditions across the world, now rates Hong Kong’s civic space as “closed,” the worst possible ranking. Hundreds remain behind bars as police systematically use the new laws to arrest and prosecute people on trumped-up charges. Often, the process itself becomes the punishment as activists spend years in detention before they are even tried…
Meanwhile, Hong Kong authorities are trying to take their repression international, by offering bounties for activists-in-exile charged under the National Security Law and by arresting the father of a prominent U.S.-based activist, Anna Kwok.
..Hong Kong’s National Security Laws have become something of a model for other Asian governments looking to stifle dissent.
Look no further than India, often called the world’s largest democracy, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government resorts to similar laws to consolidate power and silence his critics. Dozens of activists have been jailed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a draconian anti-terror law. Under the UAPA’s provisions, activists remain in pre-trial detention for long periods and are denied bail, including human rights defender Khurram Parvez, who was arrested in November 2021. His trial has yet to start, four years on. [see also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/81468931-79AA-24FF-58F7-10351638AFE3]
Meanwhile, Cambodia’s Han Manet regime has used “incitement” laws as their weapon of choice to silence activists, journalists, and members of the opposition.
With legal repression spreading across Asia, the international community must do more to push back and stand with these brave activists. Foreign governments must not only speak out when activists are convicted, but step in much earlier when these human rights defenders are arrested. Diplomats should visit wrongly arrested activists in detention, monitor their trials, and engage with their families. Foreign governments must also use international platforms like the United Nations Human Rights Council and bilateral meetings to highlight their cases and call for their release.
Activists-in-exile also need support and assistance, especially when they face transnational repression. The recent G-7 Leaders’ Statement on Transnational Repression was a good start, but strong rhetoric must now turn into serious action. Failure to undertake such actions will see a further regression of democracy and repression of civic freedoms in Asia and elsewhere.
A 19-second clip showing a floating solar panel plant apparently from Gujarat is viral on social media. Several users on social media have praised the BJP government in Gujarat for setting up the same.
X user இந்துத்துவம் (@VVR_Krish) shared the above-mentioned clip on July 23 with a caption in Tamil which hailed the development under ‘Gujarat Model’ and praised the BJP government in the state.
This post has received around 3.5 Lakh views and has been retweeted more than 200 times. (Archive)
வளர்ச்சி நோக்கி குஜராத் மாடல்!!
குஜராத்தில் பாஜக அரசு ஏற்ப்படுத்தி இருக்கும் Floating Solar plant…!!
To verify the authenticity of this claim, we broke down the viral clip into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on some of them. This led us to an Instagram post from June 16, which featured the viral clip. This post was made by the page @shanghai_views, and the caption mentioned, “Solar panels meet the sea, rice paddies climb the mountains —China’s innovative farming & energy solutions are changing the game!”
This indicates that the viral clip showing the solar plant is actually footage from China.
We found another Instagram post made by the Chinese media outlet China Youth Daily on July 7, which also featured the same viral clip and the caption accompanying the video indicated that the clip was from China.
Further, while checking if any official Chinese sources had shared this video, we came across a Facebook post from Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dated July 3, 2025. She mentioned in the caption, “From city grids to coastal waters, China is tapping the sun to power a greener future”.
We also checked if there were any news reports about a floating solar power plant in Gujarat, and found a 2023 report by the Times of India about floating solar panels being installed on the Narmada Canal. We looked for the visuals of the plant and found a video on CNBC Bajar’s YouTube channel, posted in September 2024. The visuals are not in any way similar to those seen in the viral clip.
Below is a comparison where it can be clearly seen that while the floating solar power plant in Gujarat is over a canal, the one in China is clearly on a larger water body and is of much bigger scale.
The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji has sharply criticised the Fiji government’s stance over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, saying it “starkly contrasts” with the United Nations and international community’s condemnation as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace.
In a statement today, the NGO Coalition said that the way the government was responding to the genocide and war crimes in Gaza would set a precedent for how it would deal with crises and conflict in future.
It would be a marker for human rights responses both at home and the rest of the world.
“We are now seeing whether our country will be a force that works to uphold human rights and international law, or one that tramples on them whenever convenient,” the statement said.
“Fiji’s position on the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinians starkly contrasts with the values of justice, freedom, and international law that the Fijian people hold dear.
“The genocide and colonial occupation have been widely recognised by the international community, including the United Nations, as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace and the self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognise the state of Palestine — the first of G7 countries to do so — at the UN general Assembly in September.
142 countries recognise Palestine
At least 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state, including European Union members Norway, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia.
However, several powerful Western countries have refused to do so, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.
At the UN this week, Saudi Arabia and France opened a three-day conference with the goal of recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peaceful settlement to end the war in Gaza.
Last year, Fiji’s coalition government submitted a written statement in support of the Israeli genocidal occupation of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, noted the NGO coalition.
Last month, Fiji’s coalition government again voted against a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Also recently, the Fiji government approved the allocation of $1.12 million to establish an embassy “in the genocidal terror state of Israel as Fijians grapple with urgent issues, including poverty, violence against women and girls, deteriorating water and health infrastructure, drug use, high rates of HIV, poor educational outcomes, climate change, and unfair wages for workers”.
Met with ‘indifference’
The NGO coalition said that it had made repeated requests to the Fiji government to “do the bare minimum and enforce the basic tenets of international law on Israel”.
“We have been calling upon the Fiji government to uphold the principles of peace, justice, and human rights that our nation cherishes,” the statement said.
“We campaigned, we lobbied, we engaged, and we explained. We showed the evidence, pointed to the law, and asked our leaders to do the right thing.
“We’ve been met with nothing but indifference.”
Instead, said the NGO statement, Fiji leaders had met with Israeli government representatives and declared support for a country “committing the most heinous crimes” recognised in international law.
“Fijian leaders and the Fiji government should not be supporting Israel or setting up an embassy in Israel while Israel continues to bomb refugee tents, kill journalists and medics, and block the delivery of humanitarian aid to a population under relentless siege.
“No politician in Fiji can claim ignorance of what is happening.”
“Many more have been maimed, traumatised, and displaced. Starvation is being used by Israel as weapon to kill babies and children.
“Hospitals, churches, mosques,, refugee camps, schools, universities, residential neighbourhoods, water and food facilities have been destroyed.
“History will judge how we respond as Fijians to this moment.
“Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of always standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.”
Members of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights are Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Programme, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji.
Also, Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.
The NGO coalition said it stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.
“Silence is not an option,” it added.
Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network said it supported this NGO coalition statement.
Americans are mobilizing en masse against the Trump administration. First, there was “50 protests, 50 states, 1 day.” Then came “Hands Off” and “No Kings.” On July 17, the 50501 organizers behind these national days planned yet another slogan-driven day of action: “Good Trouble Lives On,” on the fifth anniversary of John Lewis’ passing. John Lewis was a legendary congressman who was famously arrested 45 times during the Civil Rights Movement for getting in “good trouble.”
If you attended any of these events – and especially if they were your first protest – I’m glad you attended. Defeating fascism will take all of us, and we need a diversity of tactics to protect our communities from Trump’s fascist agenda.
But what many participants showing up to 50501 events may not realize is that these events are not protests; they are parades – at best. Fascism won’t be defeated by parades every few weeks. We need good trouble, just as John Lewis intended. And 50501’s version of “good trouble” won’t cut it.
For the July 17 “Good Trouble Lives On” event in New York City, organizers instructed participants to wear white and bring flowers rather than protest signs. Organizers and marshals led a crowd of 3000 people – mostly older and white, which tends to be the main audience of 50501 – for a five-block loop around 26 Federal Plaza. This building houses both the field office for NYC Immigration and Customs Enforcement and immigration courts, where ICE agents have unlawfully arrested hundreds of immigrants during their routine appointments and hearings. After a short march, participants were ushered to surround the building in a U-shape (notably not blocking any entrances), and asked to sit for a 30-second moment of silence. This brief sit-down in the street was characterized as a mass participation in “good trouble.”
No one can deny 50501’s ability to turn people out en masse. The “No Kings” protest in New York City on June 15th drew an estimated 50,000 people; and when a coalition of migrant and climate justice groups invited 50501 to an April 19th march, 50501 brought out 20,000 people. These crowds have impressed and inspired many, from media editors to seasoned activists. I do believe in the importance of a diversity of tactics and believe large marches are part of that. Large marches are accessible to new and experienced activists, and can tangibly demonstrate the magnitude of discontent.
The general method isn’t the problem. The problem is that 50501 events have included strict self-policing. In Los Angeles, 50501 organizers called the police on a Black vendor in attendance, and in New York City, they have used caution tape to rope off crowds to certain lanes and pathways. If a march refuses to be disruptive, it’s a parade, not a protest.
50501 protest “peacekeeping” became deadly in Salt Lake City when a 50501 safety marshal shot at a local community member known for exercising his right to open-carry at protests and rallies. An innocent bystander was hit and killed.
One metric for how serious a movement is taken is by the severity of the police response to those events. Very few police have responded to the New York 50501 marches because it’s clear: the organizers will police themselves. 50501 events can barely be called protests for how little disruption they create. The New York Knicks playoff games have significantly more police presence than 50501 protests. During the “good trouble” event in New York, I never counted more than 20 officers on-scene for a few thousand attendees.
In the months prior to 50501’s “good trouble” protest last week, 26 Federal Plaza had been (and continues to be) a scene of violence and heartbreak for both immigrants pursuing documentation and activists trying to protect them. In an effort to meet Trump’s cruel quotas, ICE agents have abandoned the pretext of pursuing “criminals” and begun detaining dozens of people daily in the immigration courts, where they pursue residency and citizenship. Regardless of a judge’s ruling in the courtroom, masked and unidentified ICE agents have waited in the hallways to kidnap immigrants after their appointments – dragging them into stairwells and to the detention center on the 10th floor.
The detention conditions on the 10th floor are horrific: detainees have no beds to sleep on, survive on less than one meal per day, and endure 24/7 lights. Eventually, they are transferred to larger detention facilities out of state, where they struggle to make any contact with their lawyers or families.
Human rights defenders known as “courtwatchers” who visit the courts to provide support to these immigrants, such as escorting them in and out of the building, have been threatened with arrest and tasers. And outside the building, when community members have gathered to protest, the NYPD has responded violently by tackling perceived leaders to the ground, pepper-spraying activists, and firing smoke projectiles to disperse the crowds.
50501’s vigil-style event last week sharply departed from activists’ daily work to protect immigrants at 26 Federal Plaza. The plan capitalized on the media sensation of events inside and outside the courts over the last few months, as well as John Lewis’s legacy, to host a performative form of protest that had no real effect.
To call the non-disruptive event an ode to John Lewis is an affront to his name and everything he represents. I don’t believe John Lewis would stand up and walk away after 30 seconds. I know he would act peacefully, but he would not “act lawfully,” as the Good Trouble event page instructed. The whole point of good trouble is this: when you see something unjust, you don’t just speak up – you get in the way. The U.S. government has already watered down Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy to the bare bones of fighting racial segregation; we cannot allow John Lewis’ legacy to be watered down as well.
And that is exactly what 50501’s “Good Trouble Lives On” event did. 50501 led participants to believe that they were participating in good trouble and fighting fascism. In reality, they staged a performance of solidarity with immigrants kidnapped inside 26 Federal Plaza and left. Detained immigrants don’t need your flowers left on the road like a memorial; they need you to fight for their freedom.
We need a movement of movements, and we cannot afford to waste our energy on internal divisions about the best tactics to fight fascism. As a young organizer myself, I certainly don’t have all the answers about how to meet this moment. I believe we need every effort people are willing to give.
That can include the large marches 50501 is mobilizing. They are bringing people into the movement who might not have done so otherwise; and these marches are accessible in ways other forms of protest may not be.
But I hope the people attending 50501 marches will also explore the myriad of other ways to engage in community defense against ICE and the fascist Trump administration. My organizing home, Planet Over Profit, is hosting a series of direct action trainings. You can join a neighborhood defense group like NYC ICE Watch or start your own. You can volunteer for a variety of advocacy and defense tasks with the New York Immigration Coalition, or find another defense group in your area.
No organizer should attempt to limit activists and community members to certain kinds of protest. To do so deeply undermines the fight against fascism. If 50501 organizers are serious about their anti-Trump rhetoric, I hope they will do better than their performance on July 17.
Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.
Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.
It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.
The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.
Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague last week . . . a landmark non-binding rulings on the climate crisis. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ
“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”
What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.
“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”
And they won.
Vishal Prasad of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change group speaks to the media in front of the International Court of Justice following the conclusion last week of an advisory opinion on countries’ obligations to protect the climate. Image: Instagram/Pacific Climate Warriors
The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.
“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.
After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.
“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.
“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.
Vanuatu’s Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu talks to the media after the historic ICJ ruling in The Hague on Tuesday. Image: Arab News/VDP
A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.
It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.
It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.
Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.
Foormer Solomon Islands student at USP Belyndar Rikimani . . . It was seen as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.” Image: RNZ Pacific
Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.
Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.
On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.
“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”
The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.
So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.
“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.
“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?
Members of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change activist group. Image: RNZ Pacific/PISFCC
Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.
Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.
But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.
“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”
In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).
A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.
“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.
“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”
The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.
“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.
“A landmark ruling . . . International Court of Justice sides with survivors, not polluters.” Image: 350 Pacific
“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.
“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”
What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.
To rally support, they decided to start close to home.
Hope and disappointment The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.
Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.
But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.
“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”
Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Solomon Yeo (standing, second left) of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, with youth climate activists. Image: RNZ Pacific/PISFCC
That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.
“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.
“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”
By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.
“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.
“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”
Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.
International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?
To rally support, the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change decided to start close to home. Image: RNZ Pacific/PISFCC
They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.
In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.
“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”
He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.
“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.
“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”
Preparing the case If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.
But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.
“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.
On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.
“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.
“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”
They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.
Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.
“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.
“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”
By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.
More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.
“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”
They were off to The Hague.
A tense wait Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”
Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.
They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.
In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.
It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.
“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”
The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.
The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.
Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.
“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.
“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.
“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”
Student leader Vishal Prasad . . . “Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in.” Image: Instagram/Earth.org
Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.
“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”
He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.
When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.
“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.
“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”
Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.
“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.
“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Many of his supporters hoped the Prime Minister would restore the UK’s commitment to international law. Yet Labour’s record over the past year has been curiously mixed
The international human rights system – the rules, principles and practices intended to ensure that states do not abuse people – is under greater threat now than at any other point since 1945. Fortunately, we in the UK couldn’t wish for a better-qualified prime minister to face this challenge. Keir Starmer is a distinguished former human rights lawyer and prosecutor, with a 30-year career behind him, who expresses a deep personal commitment to defending ordinary people against injustice. He knows human rights law inside out – in fact, he literally wrote the book on its European incarnation – and has acted as a lawyer at more or less every level of the system. (Starmer is the only British prime minister, and probably the only world leader, to have argued a case under the genocide convention – against Serbia on behalf of Croatia in 2014 – at the international court of justice.) He is also an experienced administrator, through his time as director of public prosecutions (DPP), which means he knows how to operate the machinery of state better than most politicians do.
Unfortunately, there’s someone standing in Starmer’s way: a powerful man who critics say is helping to weaken the international human rights system. He fawns over authoritarian demagogues abroad and is seeking to diminish the protections the UK offers to some vulnerable minorities. He conflates peaceful, if disruptive, protest with deadly terrorism and calls for musicians whose views and language he dislikes to be dropped from festival bills. At times, he uses his public platform to criticise courts, whose independence is vital to maintaining the human rights system. At others, he uses legal sophistry to avoid openly stating and defending his own political position, including on matters of life and death. He is, even some of his admirers admit, a ruthless careerist prepared to jettison his stated principles when politically expedient. That person is also called Keir Starmer.
International trade expert Steven Okun has warned that the “era of uncertainty” in global trade set in motion by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies is likely to be prolonged as there is no certainty now of a US return to pre-Trump trade policy era
He has advised small economies like Fiji and Pacific countries to band together and try to negotiate a collective trade agreement with the US.
“We’re in a transitional phase and this transitional phase is going to take years,” Okun said in an interview with The Fiji Times during his visit to Fiji earlier this month.
“This isn’t months, this is going to be years and after Donald Trump is no longer president, the question is going to be who replaces him. And we just have no idea.
“If the replacement for Donald Trump is a Democrat, is that Democrat going to be more like Joe Biden — work with partners and allies — or is he going to be more progressive like Bernie Sanders, and he or she is going to have a different approach to trade.
“We don’t know which way the Democrats are going to go.
“We don’t know which way the Republicans are going to go. Either the successor is going to be somebody more of a traditional Republican, somebody like the Governor of Georgia or the Governor of New Hampshire who are both more establishment-type Republicans, or is the next president going to be Donald Trump Jr or JD Vance.
‘Upended’ system
“If it’s going to be one of those two, it’s going to be very similar presumably to what we have right now, which means we’re not going to get certainty any time soon.”
Okun, founder and chief executive officer of Singapore-based business advisory firm APAC Advisors and a former Clinton Administration official, said the United States under President Trump had upended the global multilateral trading system that the world had been operating on for the last 80 years.
The shifting dynamics in response to that had seen countries gravitating towards regional trading blocs, something that Pacific countries, including Fiji, should seriously consider, he said.
“We see from the US perspective the desire to have bilateral trade and we see other countries creating plurilateral systems or regional trading blocs . . . ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) would be one, CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) is such an agreement, RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) is another plurilateral system.
“That’s something that I think a country like Fiji should be looking at, same as a country in Southeast Asia — are there blocs that we can be part of and can the Pacific nations come together and collectively get a better agreement with the United States?”
The Fiji Cabinet revealed last week that negotiations were ongoing with the US for a potential US-Fiji Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART).
Okun, who came to Fiji at the invitation of the Fiji-USA Business Council, was also sceptical about the August 1 deadline set by President Trump in April for the activation of reciprocal tariffs against about 90 countries, which would mean Fijian exporters of goods into the US would pay 32 percent duty at the border.
For the past few years, governments across the world have paid close attention to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. There, it is said, we see the first glimpses of what warfare of the future will look like, not just in terms of weaponry, but also in terms of new technologies and tactics.
Most recently, the United States-Israeli attacks on Iran demonstrated not just new strategies of drone deployment and infiltration but also new vulnerabilities. During the 12-day conflict, Iran and vessels in the waters of the Gulf experienced repeated disruptions of GPS signal.
This clearly worried the Iranian authorities who, after the end of the war, began to look for alternatives.
“At times, disruptions are created on this [GPS] system by internal systems, and this very issue has pushed us toward alternative options like BeiDou,” Ehsan Chitsaz, deputy communications minister, told Iranian media in mid-July. He added that the government was developing a plan to switch transportation, agriculture and the internet from GPS to BeiDou.
Iran’s decision to explore adopting China’s navigation satellite system may appear at first glance to be merely a tactical manoeuvre. Yet, its implications are far more profound. This move is yet another indication of a major global realignment.
For decades, the West, and the US in particular, have dominated the world’s technological infrastructure from computer operating systems and the internet to telecommunications and satellite networks.
This has left much of the world dependent on an infrastructure it cannot match or challenge. This dependency can easily become vulnerability. Since 2013, whistleblowers and media investigations have revealed how various Western technologies and schemes have enabled illicit surveillance and data gathering on a global scale — something that has worried governments around the world.
Clear message
Iran’s possible shift to BeiDou sends a clear message to other nations grappling with the delicate balance between technological convenience and strategic self-defence: The era of blind, naive dependence on US-controlled infrastructure is rapidly coming to an end. Nations can no longer afford to have their military capabilities and vital digital sovereignty tied to the satellite grid of a superpower they cannot trust.
This sentiment is one of the driving forces behind the creation of national or regional satellite navigation systems, from Europe’s Galileo to Russia’s GLONASS, each vying for a share of the global positioning market and offering a perceived guarantee of sovereign control.
GPS was not the only vulnerability Iran encountered during the US-Israeli attacks. The Israeli army was able to assassinate a number of nuclear scientists and senior commanders in the Iranian security and military forces. The fact that Israel was able to obtain their exact locations raised fears that it was able to infiltrate telecommunications and trace people via their phones.
On June 17 as the conflict was still raging, the Iranian authorities urged the Iranian people to stop using the messaging app WhatsApp and delete it from their phones, saying it was gathering user information to send to Israel.
Whether this appeal was linked to the assassinations of the senior officials is unclear, but Iranian mistrust of the app run by US-based corporation Meta is not without merit.
Cybersecurity experts have long been sceptical about the security of the app. Recently, media reports have revealed that the artificial intelligence software Israel uses to target Palestinians in Gaza is reportedly fed data from social media.
Furthermore, shortly after the end of the attacks on Iran, the US House of Representatives moved to ban WhatsApp from official devices.
Western platforms not trusted
For Iran and other countries around the world, the implications are clear: Western platforms can no longer be trusted as mere conduits for communication; they are now seen as tools in a broader digital intelligence war.
Tehran has already been developing its own intranet system, the National Information Network, which gives more control over internet use to state authorities. Moving forward, Iran will likely expand this process and possibly try to emulate China’s Great Firewall.
By seeking to break with Western-dominated infrastructure, Tehran is definitively aligning itself with a growing sphere of influence that fundamentally challenges Western dominance. This partnership transcends simple transactional exchanges as China offers Iran tools essential for genuine digital and strategic independence.
The broader context for this is China’s colossal Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While often framed as an infrastructure and trade project, BRI has always been about much more than roads and ports. It is an ambitious blueprint for building an alternative global order.
Iran — strategically positioned and a key energy supplier — is becoming an increasingly important partner in this expansive vision.
What we are witnessing is the emergence of a new powerful tech bloc — one that inextricably unites digital infrastructure with a shared sense of political defiance. Countries weary of the West’s double standards, unilateral sanctions and overwhelming digital hegemony will increasingly find both comfort and significant leverage in Beijing’s expanding clout.
This accelerating shift heralds the dawn of a new “tech cold war”, a low-temperature confrontation in which nations will increasingly choose their critical infrastructure, from navigation and communications to data flows and financial payment systems, not primarily based on technological superiority or comprehensive global coverage but increasingly on political allegiance and perceived security.
As more and more countries follow suit, the Western technological advantage will begin to shrink in real time, resulting in redesigned international power dynamics.
Jasim Al-Azzawi is an analyst, news anchor, programme presenter and media instructor. He has presented a weekly show called Inside Iraq.
Last November, shortly after Donald Trump was reelected president, his son Donald Trump Jr. joined a venture capital firm with investments in several defense companies. Later that month, he was appointed the advisory board of Unusual Machines, a small, Florida-based drone company incorporated in Nevada.
Securities filings showed Trump Jr. owned 331,580 shares in the company, with only two top executives holding more.
After he joined the board, the stock doubled to about $10 a share.
It was a boon for Trump Jr., but not his last chance to make big money off drones — and his efforts to do so may get a big helping hand from dad.
President Donald Trump’s military procurement policies, defense budget, and recently passed government budget, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, includes $1.4 billion dollars for small drone production — where Unusual Machines has been making big investments.
“There is no modern or historical comparison for what Don Jr. and the President are doing.”
With his father’s administration footing the bill for massive domestic drone expansion, good government watchdogs fear Trump Jr. could benefit financially, creating a conflict of interest, or at least the appearance of one — without anyone even finding out. The president’s family is not subject to the same financial disclosures that federal officials must make about their financial and business interests.
“Don Jr. is not subject to any disclosures,” said Donald Sherman, executive vice president and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. “There’s just innumerable ways that this company with ties to Don Jr. can lobby the administration through him without having to report that information.” (Unusual Machines, the Trump Organization, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.)
Though many current and former elected officials have deep ties to the defense industry, Sherman said the Trumps’ positions were unique in their scale and brazenness.
“I want to make clear that this is a problem, and it’s a problem that impacts the whole of government,” Sherman said, “but there is no modern or historical comparison for what Don Jr. and the President are doing.”
U.S. Drone Manufacturing
Unusual Machines has been positioning itself to benefit from legislative and government policy changes.
The company is made up of two parts: Fat Shark, which makes goggles, controllers, and other drone components and accessories; and an e-commerce platform called Rotor Riot, which sells drone parts. According toa pitch deck for investors, Unusual Machines also plans to acquire an Australian drone motor manufacturer, Rotor Lab.
The acquisition of Rotor Lab, according to the presentation, is part of a wider plan to move the small-drone supply chain to American soil.
The company will produce its own drone motors at a planned 17,000 square foot facility in Orlando, Florida. That facility is, according to the pitch deck, part of an effort to “onshore” more drone manufacturing and avoid heavy tariffs on Chinese drone technology.
Moving more manufacturing to the U.S. will also help comply with new government national security regulations and Pentagon procurement policies.
Congress has just begun work on the 2026 defense budget, or National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA is set to prioritize government funding for bringing production of small drone components to the U.S., including at private manufacturing facilities. And a July 10 memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth states the Pentagon’s intention to invest significantly in American-made drones and drone components — like those Unusual Machines plans to manufacture starting in September, according to the investor presentation. (The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.)
Some of Unusual Machines’ moves are already in line with military drone applications. The company will make motors for first-person view drones, or FPVs — small drones of the kind already being trialed in military exercises — at the new Orlando facility.
Because the company is focusing on making and selling FPV drone components that comply with the NDAA, they’d also stand to benefit from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s billions in subsidies for military drone technology, including $1.4 billion “for the expansion of the small unmanned aerial system industrial base.”
Unusual Machines has a promising position in the market; since small drones are traditionally made for commercial use, larger defense contractors may have them in the catalog but haven’t focused as much on developing them.
“Competitive Advantage”
Unusual Machines says in its investor presentation that bringing manufacturing to the U.S. will give it a “strong competitive advantage.” Experts worry that having Trump Jr. on their side could do the same thing.
“There’s always these risks that he is going to have inside information or be able to access inside information from the U.S. government for a whole range of things,” Colby Goodman, an arms trade expert at Transparency International U.S., said. “Just from the procurement side, he could know about upcoming bids, and the content of what that is, and help them win contracts with the U.S. government.”
“When contractors don’t get the U.S. government contracts they want … they backfill with arm sales and deals with foreign entities.”
Even if Unusual Machines doesn’t win contracts with the government, that doesn’t mean it won’t make money, Julia Gledhill, a research analyst for the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center, said.
“What happens when contractors don’t get the U.S. government contracts they want is then they backfill with arm sales and deals with foreign entities,” Gledhill said. “There’s something to be said, potentially, about the idea that contractors are going to develop technologies or weapons with state support and make money by selling them elsewhere.”
Trump Jr.’s ties to the defense and drone industries go further than his role with Unusual Machines. He’s also a partner at 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm led by Republican megadonor Omeed Malik.
The company’s investments include plenty of defense firms like Anduril, AI-powered aerospace firm Hadrian, and Firehawk. Trump Jr.’s involvement in investment decisions isn’t clear, but he’s been positioned as a face of the company alongside Malik at events including the Qatar Economic Forum.
“Mr. Malik and Donald Trump Jr. have an established business relationship that dates back more than five years, which is why the firm was thrilled to welcome Don’s business expertise last year in the role of partner,” said a 1789 spokesperson, who touted the firm’s compliance and transparency records. “Don, as a private citizen who has never served in government, is permitted to continue to pursue his decades-long career in business.”
Trump Jr.’s potential benefit from his investments through 1789 would shake out differently from Unusual Machines. Partners in venture capital firms typically take a fee to manage investments in startups. Then, if those companies make a big return when they go public or are acquired by another firm, the venture capitalists can make money after they repay institutional investors. VCs also receive other benefits like a seat on the company’s board or equity in the company.
Start-ups backed by 1789 would be better positioned to be acquired or go public — as Anduril expects to do — with lucrative government contracts in hand.
The fact that Trump Jr. stands to benefit from his father’s presidency so much, on top of his family’s wealth, clearly present conflicting interests, said Sherman, the CREW expert — but it’s not illegal. Although there is legislation aimed at eliminating some types of conflicts of interest, there’s no comprehensive bill aimed at the adult children of high-ranking officials.
“The rules themselves aren’t designed, unfortunately, to force the adult children of government officials to report their financial entanglements,” Sherman said. “But Don Jr. and President Trump continue to make the case for why maybe they should.”
No New Zealanders were on board the Handala in the latest arrest and abductions of Freedom Flotilla crew on humanitarian siege-busting missions to Gaza. However, two Australians were and one talks to The New Arab just before the attack on Saturday.
INTERVIEW:By Sebastian Shehadi
The Handala, a 1968 Norwegian trawler repurposed by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), set sail for Gaza from southern Italy on July 20, carrying around 21 people and a cargo of food, medical kits, baby formula, water desalination units and more.
The ship is named after the iconic Palestinian cartoon figure, Handala, who symbolises Palestinian identity, resilience and the ongoing struggle against displacement and occupation.
Just hours before departure, the crew uncovered deliberate sabotage: a rope tightly bound around the propeller and a sulfuric acid swap mistaken for water, leading to chemical burns in two people.
Despite this alarming start, the mission continued, echoing the defiance of past flotilla efforts such as the interception of the Madleen in June and the Israeli drone strike on the Conscience in May.
However, contact with the vessel was reported lost on July 24, with coalition officials warning that communications have been jammed and drones have been seen near the ship, raising concerns about interception or further hostile action.
The mission resumed following the brief two-hour communications blackout. “Connection has now been re-established. ‘Handala’ is continuing its mission and is currently less than 349 nautical miles from Gaza,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) announced on Telegram on July 25.
Then on Saturday, the Israeli military attacked the ship and violently detained and “abducted” the entire crew and issued a statement saying they were “safe” and on their way to Israel.
‘Handala’ was illegally boarded by Israel military in international waters, around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.
Before interception the 21 crew made this statement: if attacked they will join the global hunger strike for Gaza.
— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) July 27, 2025
The New Arab spoke to one of Handala’s crew, Lebanese-Australian filmmaker, human rights activist and journalist Tan Safi, before the arrest to find out more about the mission and why she chose to be on board this mission:
The New Arab: How’s the mood on the ship at the moment? Tan Safi: The morale of everyone at the moment is high, as everyone is happy to be here. Of course, different emotions come up, and we talk them out, but as a collective, we’re all looking out for one another. Everyone is very caring and kind.
We are a group of 21 people from 10 different countries. We have a very proud grandmother, as well as MPs, nurses, a human rights lawyer, a comedian, an actor, human rights activists and more. We’re from many different walks of life, and we pose absolutely no threat to anyone.
We’re simply trying to challenge something illegal. Like previous Freedom Flotilla actions, we will be sailing through international waters into Palestinian territorial waters.
Australian Handala crew member Tan Safi . . . “Back in 2010, we sent a flotilla that was caught in a deadly raid. The Israelis came in a helicopter, boarded the ship and killed nine people instantaneously, while another person died from a coma years later.” Image: FFC
How are you preparing for the very real threat of Israeli violence? Back in 2010, we sent a flotilla that was caught in a deadly raid. The Israelis came in a helicopter, boarded the ship and killed nine people instantaneously, while another person died from a coma years later.
So we know very well that Israel poses a real threat.
More importantly, we’ve seen what they’re capable of over the last two years. The most horrific things imaginable. Israeli soldiers are committing endless crimes against Gazan children, and then going into the homes of the Palestinians they’ve murdered and taking selfies in women’s lingerie. We know what they’re capable of.
Any interception of our vessel would violate international maritime law. The ICJ [International Court of Justice] itself ordered Israel not to interfere with any delivery of international aid. Of course, we know that Israel gets to exist in this world by hopping over international law, without any accountability, without any real sanctions.
In terms of processing, what might happen to me? I’ve had to do it time and time again whenever I’ve joined FFC missions over the last two years. I’ve had to say goodbye to my friends and family, but also try to keep them reassured.
Sometimes I feel like I’m lying, to be honest. I tell them that “everything will be okay”. But it’s psychologically impossible to explain.
Are you worried that Handala is less protected than the last ship, Madleen, which had the global media attention (and protection) of having Greta Thunberg on board?
A Gaza Freedom Flotilla Instagram poster. Image: Instagram/@loremresists
No matter how many Instagram followers you have, your life is just as important as the next person’s. We have people on this boat who have Instagram. We have people who do.
The lives of all these people are as valuable as everyone else’s. I would just try to focus on the fact that we’re all human beings, just as every Palestinian in Gaza is. I’m more worried that Israel’s violence will expand until it’s too late, and people wish that they had done more. The time is now.
What is your message to global or Australian leaders? I’m Lebanese, but I grew up in so-called Australia, a country that has such a dark history. What our politicians forget is that so-called Australia was not theirs to begin with. Australia was, and will always be, Aboriginal land. They can try to hide their dark truths, just like Israel used to as well. But the truth will become exposed in time.
To this day, Aboriginal people are abused and discriminated against by the state. My message to Australia’s leadership is: how can you watch tens of thousands of men, women and children being slaughtered and still be enabling Israel’s siege and genocide?
The Australian embassy in Israel sent me a message urging me to “please reconsider your decision to join a humanitarian aid trip to Gaza”. If they’re so concerned about the two Australians on this boat, I would urge them to be more concerned with the millions of Palestinians who are suffering daily.
The Palestinian cartoon character Handala . . . reimagined with deliberate starvation by the Israeli military forces. Image: X/@RimaHas
Can you tell us more about daily life and organisation on the ship? We all put our hands up to volunteer for various tasks throughout the day. Some of us are more skilled in certain areas than others. For example, we have someone here from France who is a nurse, and they’re helping anyone who is feeling sick.
We have the proud grandmother, Vigdis from Norway, who loves to cook. And then someone will put their hand up to do the dishes. No one is too good to clean the toilets.
We’re all helping out to keep this ship organised. We also do shifts, helping out with the crew when needed. No one is sitting around. And if someone is, it’s because it’s really hot or the seas are rough.
What do you hope Handala will achieve, beyond potentially breaking the siege? I hope this action will encourage all forms of solidarity and, more importantly, inspire direct action. I know that protests and non-direct actions serve a purpose, but we have talked and talked and talked at length. I don’t know how people are finding the strength.
Sometimes when I’m asked to talk at events, I just don’t know what to say, because if you need me to explain this, maybe you will never understand.
But what we clearly need to do is disrupt the financial flow that enables and fuels this genocide. The BDS movement is huge. People used to look down on it and question its efficacy. But now we’re able to quantify that it’s actually affecting real, big business.
I’ve always been advocating for that and asking people to be aware of the companies they consume from, such as Unilever, Nestle and Coke. This is having a real impact on these companies that are profiteering from unethical practices to begin with, that extends far beyond the genocide in Gaza.
Direct action could also involve blockading shipments of weapons from ports and docks, as seen in Greece. It’s amazing to see more countries step up. However, we often see a lot of lip service as well. It takes everyday people to actually stand up and say: “I’m able-bodied. I’m sick to my stomach. I’m gonna listen to my instinct and explore other options”.
If protesting is not working, explore other options. If there is no direct action group, create one. All it takes is one person to begin.
Are there any final or other messages you’d like to convey? The Handala ship is the 37th boat from the FFC to travel to Gaza. There are thousands of people behind each of these journeys who make these voyages happen.
The FFC has existed for as many years as Israel’s siege on Gaza has. The FFC exists only because of Israel’s illegal siege.
We are people from around the world who are united in our shared consciousness and care for Palestine. We pose no threat. I’m looking at a bunch of toys and baby formula. We have as much food as we can carry, but our main goal is to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza because you need to fix a problem at the root of the cause.
Sebastian Shehadi is a freelance journalist and a contributing writer at the New Statesman. This article was first published by The New Arab. Follow Shehadi on X: @seblebanon
Muslims, and the global community, must rally around the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights: to exist, to return home, and to live free from occupation.
ANALYSIS:By Shadee ElMasry
In our world today, one would be hard-pressed to find a reputable, well-known scholar or group of scholars who support Israel. Of course, the keywords here are “well-known” and “reputable”, after a “misguided” delegation of European Imams travelled to Israel to placate the Israeli occupation and sponsor the genocide of the Palestinian people.
It is increasingly common to find these figures, Muslim apologists for Israel, who have breached the Islamic tenet of standing against injustice, laundering their authority to provide cover for Israel’s crimes against humanity against their brothers and sisters in Palestine and across the wider Arab world.
We live in a world of shameless opportunism, where the poisoned fruit of “normalising” relations with the Israeli occupation is weighed against moral conviction and our duty to stand with the afflicted Palestinians.
A few weeks ago, this tradeoff played out across our screens.
The delegation’s visit, which included 15 European Imams, was led by the controversial Hassen Chalghoumi (known for supporting Nicolas Sarkozy’s burqa ban) and involved meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who has been accused of inciting genocide.
Clearly, their consciences weren’t troubled by the catastrophic famine now gripping Gaza, a “hell on earth” where women and children are killed for scrambling to get flour, and men are killed without rhyme or reason.
I, like many companions across mosques and online feeds, was dumbfounded by the delegation’s complicity. This visit happened at a time when we as Muslims, and the global community, must rally around the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights: to exist, to return home, and to live free from occupation, especially as they face an existential threat.
Delegation swiftly denounced
The delegation was swiftly denounced. Al-Azhar University stressed that they “do not represent Islam and Muslims.” Worshippers walked out of UK mosques. A Dutch Imam was suspended.
But this isn’t just about them. We need to ask how this happened and ensure it does not repeat with us. As one scholar said, if an Imam sees the community fall into usury, then gives his Friday sermon on adultery, the Imam has betrayed his congregation.
The same is the case with Muslim apologists for Israel.
To understand their motives, we must examine three theological “traps” these figures use to justify their support for Israel, or at least the very least, their silence over Palestine. The first of which is the “Greater Good Trap”.
They claim that “speaking up against Israel will result in more harm than good”. But only the Prophet Muhammad’s silence constitutes tacit approval. Their reasoning doesn’t hold up.
A weak-willed person will always accept this reasoning because it allows them to have their proverbial cake and eat it: they gain spiritual cover for remaining silent. As we’ve seen, the scholar will say: “Yes, I can speak, but then our school will get shut down, or we’ll lose funding. For the sake of the greater good, I must remain silent.”
Israel, I’m sure, is delighted by this self-censorship. But we should also ask how it is that so many non-scholars, non-Muslims, and non-Arabs are speaking the truth about the Gaza genocide, while Islamic scholars remain silent.
It raises eyebrows, at the very least.
‘Pure theology’ trap
The second trap is the “Pure Theology” trap. Here, the scholar says: “Sound belief is the most important thing. How can we support the Palestinians when they resort to armed conflict? Their theology is flawed. I prioritise the truth, what’s wrong with that?”
But what they overlook is that falsehood has degrees. It is foolish to denounce one error while ignoring a greater one.
To attack a people’s doctrinal shortcomings while staying silent on their oppression is not principled; it is a failure to understand the fiqh of priorities.
This trap lies in misplacing truths: loudly condemning the religious mistakes of Israel’s victims while conveniently forgetting the far graver injustice of Israel itself and the violent context that brought it into being.
The final, and most sophisticated, trap that Muslim apologists for Israel use is metaphysical: they attempt to misdirect Muslims to a higher order of spiritual thought about the Divine will.
They ask what sounds like a noble question: “Why is Allah doing this to us? It must be because of our sins. Israel is merely a tool God is using to punish us or purify us.”
But the catch here is that the spiritual angle often (but not always) becomes a cover for pacifism. These figures that travelled to Israel, for instance, actively promote inaction. They showed no emotion, no voice, when witnessing the oppression of their own; only when it came to their sponsors did they find something to say.
Suffer in silence
The idea here is to suffer in silence, to clothe disengagement in the language of spiritual endurance.
In the end, this is precisely what Israel and its supporters want: to keep the spotlight off themselves. Any diversion, theological or otherwise, is welcome. As we know, the oppressor laughs at those who fixate on what is bad while ignoring what is worse. And that is the danger behind all three traps.
Yet despite these efforts, something far more powerful holds. The drive within the hearts and minds of Muslims to carry the burden of the Palestinian people, to speak their truth and fight for their freedom has not been extinguished.
It is sustained by faith, shared memory, and the belief that justice is not a slogan but a sacred duty. We ask Allah for continued guidance and protection, and the strength to continue this noble and just cause. Ameen.
Dr Shadee Elmasry has taught at several universities in the United States. Currently, he serves as scholar in residence at the New Brunswick Islamic Center in New Jersey. He is also the founder and head of Safina Society, an institution dedicated to the cause of traditional Islamic education in the West. This article was first published by The New Arab.
The Gaza Government Media Office has condemned “in the strongest terms” Israel’s storming of the Handala aid ship, calling it an act of “maritime piracy”, reports Al Jazeera.
“This blatant aggression represents a flagrant violation of international law and maritime navigation rules,” the office said in a statement.
“It reaffirms once again that the [illegal Israeli] occupation acts as a thuggish force outside the law, targeting every humanitarian initiative seeking to rescue more than 2.4 million besieged and starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
The office also called on the international community, including the United Nations and rights groups, “to take an urgent and firm stance against this aggression and to work to secure international protection for the convoys”.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed in a statement today that the Israeli navy had intercepted the Gaza-bound Handala, and it was now heading towards Israel.
“The Israeli navy has stopped the vessel Navarn from illegally entering the maritime zone of the coast of Gaza,” said the statement, using the aid ship’s original name.
“The vessel is safely making its way to the shores of Israel,” it added. “All passengers are safe.”
Freedom Flotilla slams ‘abductions’
A statement by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition accused Israel military of “abducting” the 21 crew members of the Handala, saying the ship had been “violently intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters about 40 nautical miles from Gaza.
“At 23:43 EEST Palestine time, the Occupation cut the cameras on board Handala and we have lost all communication with our ship.
“The unarmed boat was carrying life-saving supplies when it was boarded by Israeli forces, its passengers abducted, and its cargo seized.
“The interception occurred in international waters outside Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, in violation of international maritime law.”
The Handala carried a shipment of critical humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, including baby formula, diapers, food, and medicine, the statement said.
“All cargo was non-military, civilian, and intended for direct distribution to a population facing deliberate starvation and medical collapse under Israel’s illegal blockade.”
The Handala carried 21 civilians representing 12 countries, including parliamentarians, lawyers, journalists, labour organisers, environmentalists, and other human rights defenders.
Seized crew members, journalists
The seized crew includes:
United States: Christian Smalls — Amazon Labor Union founder; Huwaida Arraf — Human rights attorney (Palestine/US); Jacob Berger — Jewish-American activist; Bob Suberi — Jewish US war veteran; Braedon Peluso — sailor and direct action activist; Dr Frank Romano — International lawyer and actor (France/US).
France: Emma Fourreau — MEP and activist (France/Sweden); Gabrielle Cathala — Parliamentarian and former humanitarian worker; Justine Kempf — nurse, Médecins du Monde; Ange Sahuquet — engineer and human rights activist.
Italy: Antonio Mazzeo — teacher, peace researcher, journalist; Antonio “Tony” La Picirella — climate and social justice organiser.
Spain: Santiago González Vallejo — economist and activist; Sergio Toribio — engineer and environmentalist.
Australia: Robert Martin — human rights activist; Tania “Tan” Safi — Journalist and organiser of Lebanese descent.
United Kingdom/France: Chloé Fiona Ludden — former UN staff and scientist.
Tunisia: Hatem Aouini — Trade unionist and internationalist activist.
The two journalists on board:
Morocco: Mohamed El Bakkali — senior journalist with Al Jazeera (based in Paris).
Iraq/United States: Waad Al Musa — cameraman and field reporter with Al Jazeera.
The attack on Handala is the third violent act by Israeli forces against Freedom Flotilla missions this year alone, said the statement.
“It follows the drone bombing of the civilian aid ship Conscience in European waters in May, which injured four people and disabled the vessel, and the illegal seizure of the Madleen in June, where Israeli forces abducted 12 civilians, including a Member of the European Parliament.
“Shortly before their abduction, the Handala‘s crew affirmed that they would be hunger-striking if detained by Israeli forces and not accepting any food from the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
Israeli officials have ignored the International Court of Justice’s binding orders that require the facilitation of humanitarian access to Gaza.
The continued attacks on peaceful civilian missions represent a grave violation of international law, said the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
“Kia Ora Gaza is a longtime member of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and supports the current Handala civil mission to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza and end Israel’s campaign to wipe out the Palestinian population.
“All governments must urgently take strong effective action to stop the genocide and occupation and end all complicity with Israel. There are no Kiwis on the Handala which was intercepted under an enforced communications blackout today.”
Activists on board the Handala aid ship before leaving Italy’s Gallipoli Port on July 20, 2025. Image: Valeria Ferraro/Anadolu
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
One of the first women to hold an open seat in Bougainville, Theonila Roka Matbob, is confident she can win again.
Bougainville goes to the polls in the first week of September, and Roka Matbob aims to hold on to her Ioro seat in central Bougainville, where she is up against nine men.
The MP, who is also the Minister of Community Government, recently led the campaign that convinced multinational Rio Tinto to clean up the mess caused by the Panguna Mine.
RNZ Pacific asked her if she is enjoying running for a second election campaign.
THEONILA ROKA MATBOB: Very, very much, yes. I guess compared to 2020, it is because it was my first time. I had a lot of butterflies, I would say. But this time has been very different. So I am more relaxed, more focused, and also I am more aware of issues that I can actually concentrate on.
DON WISEMAN: And one of those issues you’ve been concentrating on is the aftermath of the Panguna Mine and the destruction and so on caused both environmentally and socially. And I guess that sort of work is going to continue for you?
TRM: Yes, so the work is continuing. I had three platforms when I was contesting in 2020: leadership, governance, institutional governance and the accountability on the issues, legacy issues of Panguna Mine. I thought that the third one was going to be very challenging, given that it involved international stakeholders.
But I would say that the one that I thought was going to be very challenging was actually the one that got a lot of traction, and it’s already in motion while I’m like back on the trail, defending my seat.
DW: In terms of the work that has been undertaken on an assessment of the environmental damage, the impact that the process had had, and the report that has come out, and the obligations that this now places on Rio Tinto?
TRM: The recommendations that were made by the report was on a lot of like imminent survey areas that is like on infrastructure that were built by the company back then in the operation days that is now tearing down.
And also a lot more than that, there was a call for more intrusive assessment to be done on health and bloodstreams as well for the people, but those other things and also now to into the remediation vehicle, what is it going to look like?
These are clear responsibilities that are at the overarching highest level of engagement through the what we call this process, the CP process. It has put the responsibility on Rio Tinto to now tell us, what does the remediation vehicle look like.
At the moment, Rio Tinto is looking into that to be able to engage expertise in communication with us, to see how the design for the remediation vehicle would look. It is from the report that the build-up is now coming up, and there is more tangible or visible presence on the ground as compared to the time we started.
DW: So that process in terms of the removal of the old buildings that’s actually got underway, has it?
TRM: That process is already underway, the demolition process is underway, and BCL [Bougainville Copper Limited] is the one that’s taking the lead. It has engaged our local expertise, who are actually working abroad, but they have hired them because under the process we have local content policy where we have to do shopping for experts from Bougainville, before we’ll look into experts from overseas.
Apart from that as well, one of the things that I have seen is there is an increased interest from both international and national and local partners as well in understanding the areas where the report, assessment report has pointed out.
There is quite a lot happening, as compared to the past years when, towards the end of our political phase in parliament, usually there is always silence and only campaigns go on. But for now, it has been different.
A lot of people are more engaged, even participating on the policy programmes and projects.
DW: Yes, your government wants to reopen the Panguna Mine and open it fairly soon. You must have misgivings about that?
TRM: I have been getting a lot of questions around that, and I have been telling them my personal stance has never changed.
But I can never come in between the government’s interest. What I have been doing recently as a way of responding and uniting people, both who are believers of reopening and those that do not believe in reopening, like myself.
We have created a platform by registering a business entity that can actually work in between people and the government, so that there is more or less a participatory approach.
The company that we have registered is the one that will be tasked to work more on the politics of economics around Panguna and all the other prospects that we have in other natural resources as well.
I would say that whichever way the government points us, I can now, with conviction, say that I am ready with my office and the workforce that I have right now, I can comfortably say that we can be able to accommodate for both opinions, pro and against.
DW: In your Ioro electorate seat it’s not the biggest lineup of candidates, but the thing about Bougainville politics is they can be fairly volatile. So how confident are you?
TRM: I am confident, despite the long line up that we have about nine people who are against me — nine men, interestingly, were against me. I would say that, given the grasp that I have and also building up from 2020, I can clearly say that I am very confident.
If I am not confident, then it will take the space of giving opportunity for other people and also on campaign strategies as well. I have learnt my way through in diversifying and understanding the different experiences that I have in the constituency as well.
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.
Reference: Chosen Trauma and Terrorism: The Jewish Victim Narrative
The purpose of this research paper was to investigate the justification of Jewish terrorism against the Palestinians, through the lens of chosen trauma. Through qualitative research, it was deduced that chosen trauma is the result of victimization and large-group identity. Hence, the psychological domain of collective victimhood and Sigmund Freud’s Group Psychology were employed to elaborate on this concept. It was deduced that the process and acceptance of victimization are dynamic and are a result of stages since it calls for the collective recognition of trauma by large groups. Large group identity becomes stronger upon attacks or threats from external groups, and attacks generate collective victimhood. The resulting concept is that; the perceived harm is stored in the collective memory of large groups, and they aspire to seek revenge. It was also presented that, shared tragedy is transmitted through generations by virtue of “depositing”. The psychological domain of transgenerational transmission of trauma argues that through depositing, the parties become free of the traumatic images and deal with their mental conflicts. The result is chosen trauma, whereby a collective sense of entitlement for the purpose of recovering from ancestral collective trauma is reflected. Along these lines, the Jewish Holocaust survivors passed down the trauma of concertation camps, torture, and sexual violence across generations. Present-day Jews aspire to avenge the Holocaust by maintaining domination over Jerusalem and current Israeli land. As a result, the Palestinian community which challenges the aspiration of Jews is a victim of state-sponsored terrorism.
In retaliation, Palestinians are victims of expulsions, killings, military occupation, forced detention, war crimes, and human rights violations. Despite being called out by various international organizations, Israel is able to justify its actions under the realm of chosen trauma. Hence, the notion of chosen trauma is employed to justify Jewish atrocities against the Palestinians.
But Freud testified that “my father allowed me to grow up in complete ignorance of everything that concerned Judaism.” Some scholars have made much of the fact that Jacob once gave his son a Bible with a Hebrew inscription, but when the adult Freud was given a book with a Hebrew message, he replied that he was entirely unable to read it. The belief that one’s children would be more burdened than fortified by Jewish knowledge was shared by many Jewish parents in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in Brooklyn and Tel Aviv no less than in Vienna.
As for religious faith, Freud of course had none, identifying on occasion with Jewish unbelievers like Heinrich Heine and Baruch Spinoza. A strict rationalist, he theorized in The Future of an Illusion (1927) that the origins of religion lay in “the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood,” which “aroused the need for protection—for protection through love—which was provided by the father.” God is the imaginary father adults call on to avoid confronting “the full extent of their helplessness and their insignificance in the machinery of the universe.” But “men cannot remain children forever,” Freud says, demanding that we emancipate ourselves from faith.
The Oxford Dictionary defines a “tragedy” as a play “concerning the downfall of the main character”. This main character is often referred to as the “tragic hero.” “Tragic heroes typically have heroic traits that earn them the sympathy of the audience, but also have flaws or make mistakes that ultimately lead to their own downfall.”
Literature is littered with tragic heroes — beginning with Lucifer of Judeo-Christian mythology, later Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Camus’ Clamence, and more recently Walter White of the TV series Breaking Bad. And so is real life: US President Richard Nixon, actor Bill Cosby, and cyclist Lance Armstrong. All people who gained support, success, fame, admiration, and power — only to lose it all because of the abuse of that power. Sometimes the tragic hero can be a nation.
The eyes of the world have watched the unfolding story of Israel over the past 75 years. What many saw as an inspirational tale in its early years has slowly turned into a tragedy — and the hero into a bully.
I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust in a mainly Jewish community in New York. There were also South Africans who’d fled apartheid, as well as Persian Jews who’d been forced out of Iran after the Shah fell. Fleeing oppression tends to create an open-minded, liberal community — one that I have been proud to be part of traditionally, if not religiously — or, conversely, it can create a community that dangerously closes ranks, which I find particularly telling today when looking at what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza.
These effing so-called Jewish and Liberal New Yorkers are Bonkers in Yonkers: above quote.
The Israeli government has pivoted to a new deflection: The famine in Gaza is not the result of Israel’s publicly announced March 2 blockade of all food entering Gaza, nor is it connected to the Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which replaced the UNRWA aid system Israel shut down with its own militarized version in late May. Instead, according to the new Israeli campaign, the blame lies with the United Nations. “Hundreds of aid trucks have entered Gaza with Israel’s approval, but the supplies are standing idle, undelivered,” the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared on X. “The reason? The UN refuses to distribute the aid.”
Clearly sensing a turning-point in world opinion, as the death toll from starvation mounts exponentially in Gaza, Israel brought dozens of sympathetic journalists to a crossing to wage a PR campaign on Thursday.
Comment on X: Bushra Shaikh — You haven’t let any International Journalists into Gaza freely since the aggression began. So IDF-controlled journalists in a 2-hour tour is not journalism. Try again, rabid liars.
Oh, more than rabid liars. Rabid misanthropes, and they turned the Vice President into this glorifying Dipshit Faux Man, and what and who are these journalists who won’t attack the Vice President and President Trump or his POTUS: Adolph “bibi” Mileikowsky.
Myriam François sits down with journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin to confront the media’s complicity in power — and the price of telling the truth. From abused children to erased journalists, this is a brutal exposé on how mainstream media narratives are shaped, sanitised, and sold. We break down how coverage of Gaza and Palestinian lives is distorted — and why “mistake” is the media’s favourite euphemism for mass murder.
Nah, Jewish folk don’t control the White Man’s House and Minyan, or Higher Education:
Hudson Whittaker was a Chicago blues musician who performed under the name Tampa Red. One of his finest compositions, entitled “Don’t Deal with the Devil,” opens with the following warning:
When you dealin’ with the devil Everything you do is wrong You’ll drive away your lover And keep all your things in pawn… Don’t deal with the devil, cuz it ain’t no way to win.
Zionist Jews are the Collective Devil:
Fucking Military Industrial Complex and so-called Business Chlamydia Capitalism Schools:
Stanford Graduate School of Business, long considered among the most elite MBA programs in the world, is facing a storm of internal criticism from students who say the academic experience has fallen far short of expectations. In a series of interviews with Poets&Quants, current MBA students voiced concerns about outdated course content, a disengaged faculty culture, and a broken curriculum structure that they say leaves them unprepared for post-MBA careers — and worse, dilutes the reputation and long-term value of a Stanford degree by producing scores of grads unprepared for the modern world of work.
“We’re coming to the best business school on Earth, and the professors can’t teach,” says a rising second-year MBA student and elected member of the school’s Student Association. “We’re not learning anything. The brand is strong, but there’s nothing here to help you build discernible skills.”
Albino head of the War Lord’s SNAKE:
“I firmly believe that the technology that we need to deliver Golden Dome exists today.”
Yep, there goes the neighborhood: A draft of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address shows changes made around a reference to the military industrial complex at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, the U.S., December 10, 2010.
The head of the Trump administration’s Golden Dome program says the technologies needed to create an ambitious space-based missile defense system are already in existence.
U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein, Vice Chief of Space Operations, was tapped by President Trump to lead the Golden Dome project on May 20 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 17. His role will be to oversee the development and procurement of technologies for Golden Dome, a planned missile defense system that can shoot down incoming hypersonic, cruise, and ballistic missiles from space.
This is devolution. Apartment Buildings Bombed.
“American-style democracy advocates that everyone has one vote, but ordinary voters simply cannot compete with the campaign investment paid by the big financial groups in the military-industrial complex,” said Zhang Tengjun, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies Asia Pacific.
Another powerful tool of the military-industrial complex is its ability to shape elite discussions on national security issues by funding foreign policy think tanks.
At least 14 of the 15 think tanks represented in House Armed Services Committee hearings from January 2020 to September 2022 accepted arms industry cash, according to “US government and defense contractor funding of America’s top 50 think tanks” report by Bee Freeman, a research fellow with expertise in lobbying and money in politics at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“Think tanks are supposed to shape government policies in an unbiased manner, free from the influence of big money that can distort in-house policy planning,” said Stephen Semler, cofounder of Security Policy Reform Institute, a grassroots-funded U.S. foreign policy think tank.
However, many of the most influential think tanks have been compromised by the same financial interests as Congress, including military contractors, Semler argued.
Weapons contractors are the main financial beneficiary.One-quarter to one-third of all Pentagon contracts in recent years have gone to just five major weapons contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Boeing, according to research from the Watson Institute at Brown University.
The direct military sales by U.S. companies rose nearly 50 percent in fiscal year 2022 from the previous year, data released by the U.S. State Department shows.
Deaths and injuries from such wars have reached the tens of millions. The number of estimated deaths from the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen is eerily similar to that from the wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia: 4.5 million.
The numbers are so large that they can become numbing. The Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama helps us remember to focus on:
one life
one life
one life
one life
one life
because each time
is the first time
that that life
has been taken.
As the MIC has fueled wars abroad, so it has fueled militarization domestically. Why, for example, have domestic police forces become so militarized? At least part of the answer: since 1990, Congress has allowed the Pentagon to transfer its “excess” weaponry and equipment (including tanks and drones) to local law enforcement agencies. These transfers conveniently allow the Pentagon and its contractors to ask Congress for replacement purchases, further fueling the MIC.
What’s missing? All the defunding and tax payer coffer smash and grabs: Education, roads, bridges, medical clinics, rural doctors, health care for all — single payer — public transportation, more parks, less clear cutting and mountaintop removal, mitigating all the destruction caused by US industries (microplastics, poisons, forever chemicals, disease, CAFOs, fenceline communities), arts, sciences, ecology and marine and estuary restoration, wildland fire fighting, ocean inundation, wet bulb temperature deaths and stress, and MORE MORE MORE.
What’s dragging down and/or missing in your community? Too many pigs/cops? ICE raids? Cost of housing or lack thereof?
The liberal establishment gave outsized attention to Colbert compared to the increasingly dire hunger in Gaza.
A perfect fucking target. Oh, Larry Silverstein is on the job, after his billions in bilking 9/11 and the Jewish and Israeli insurance scam:
Concept for postwar Gaza from the project “Great Trust” in which the Tony Blair Institute participated to develop a postwar Gaza plan that envisaged kick-starting the enclave’s economy with a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone.” It proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and attracting private investors to develop Gaza..
Yeah, business schools?
In her 60-page report, Albanese writes that her research “reveals how the forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech… while investors and private and public institutions profit freely.”
Her point was underscored by the Israeli arms firm Rafael, which issued a promotional video of its Spike FireFly drone that showed it locating, chasing and killing a Palestinian in what it called “urban warfare” in Gaza.
As the UN special rapporteur points out, quite aside from the issue of genocide in Gaza, western companies have been under a legal and moral obligation to sever ties with Israel’s system of occupation since last summer.
That was when the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel’s decades-old occupation was a criminal enterprise based on apartheid and forcible transfer—or what Albanese refers to as policies of “displacement and replacement.”
Instead, the corporate sector—and western governments—continue to deepen their involvement in Israel’s crimes.
It is not just arms manufacturers profiting from the genocidal levelling of Gaza and the occupations of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Big Tech, construction and materials firms, agribusiness, the tourism industry, the goods and services sector, and supply chains have also got in on the act.
And enabling it all is a finance sector—which includes banks, pension funds, universities, insurers and charities—keen to continue investing in this architecture of oppression.
One of my Substack followers mentioned how I didn’t have a rant against the Jews of Murdering Maiming Occupying Raping Starving Poisoning Thieving Israel that day. Shit dawg, there’s always room for more critiques of Jews.
The Washington Postreported that, in the wake of Albanese’s report, Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, called the UN “transparently antisemitic” in a chat on a staff forum.
Dirty languages of the white races:
Educator, musician, activist, and creator of First Voices Radio, Tiokasin Ghosthorse. Tiokasin is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota, and shares deep wisdom from the Lakota worldview, language, and traditions.
He explores ways for us to redefine our relationship with Mother Earth, moving away from a mindset of separation and domination towards one of interconnectedness, mutual becoming, and intuition. Tiokasin shares how we can be more in tune with Earth’s natural rhythm to become more present in the now and more connected to the future.
The Indigenous way of being involves an openness to seeing and feeling our ancestors—not just our human ancestors, but also the earth itself. Tiokasin stresses the need for us to de-center humans in order to reconnect with nature, and demonstrates how understanding the living Lakota language can affect a cultural mindset shift in that direction.
*****
[Jewish freighters on the Santa Fe Trail with hired Kiowa Indian scouts.]
David S. Koffman: The title The Jews’ Indian is a play on a Robert Berkhofer, Jr.’s book from 1978, The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present.
I read that book in grad school and I liked the way that it forced the reader to think about the subject and the object. This was a book that was not about Native Americans. It was looking at white people’s representations of Native Americans.
I took this on as a similar project, but thought it important to disaggregate the category of “white man” and look specifically at Jews, with the hopes that other people might also look at sub-aggregates of colonists. Because people, for the most part, have seldom taken on colonial-settler identities. They think of themselves as Portuguese immigrants, or as Catholics, or as Mormons, but not “settlers.”
My interest is in seeing colonial actors as people who had ordinary economic and political concerns, who are desperate in their own way. I think that this study forces us to reckon with some of the political and moral ambiguities of settler-indigenous relations. Jews in the 19th century, like many others who arrived in the frontier West seeking to eke out a living, were often fleeing hunger, political violence, and disenfranchisement. Though they arrived as more powerful than Native Americans, they were not official state actors—they were, in a certain sense, refugees. We tend to think of the agents of settler-colonialism as military or political elites who created the conditions for expansion. But many were just pawns in the larger process. Jewish-Indigenous encounters were complicated; it’s not really a matter of good guys and bad guys, even though there are beneficiaries and losers.
An activist on board the Handala, a Gaza Freedom Flotilla ship carrying aid to the besieged enclave in a bid to break Israel’s blockade, says the crew are preparing themselves for the possibility of Israeli forces storming the vessel.
Jacob Berger, an actor from the US, made the comments to Al Jazeera Arabic from on board the Handala, which set sail from Gallipoli, Italy last Sunday.
The ship is currently off the coast of Egypt in international waters on its route to Gaza.
The Handala is the latest ship sent by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) in its mission to break Israel’s Gaza blockade amid the devastating starvation regime imposed on the terrotory by Israeli forces.
The FFC’s previous mission ended when its ship, the Madleen, was intercepted by the Israeli military, who boarded the vessel and arrested the activists on board illegally in international waters on June 9.
The Handala’s live location tracker shows it is nearing the area where the Madleen was intercepted by Israel.
Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that 16 Israeli military drones had been spotted flying near the vessel overnight.
In a message via Instagram, another crew member, Thiago Avila, said that the Handala mission was about to cross the location — around 110 nautical miles — “where we were intercepted one month ago with the Madleen trying to break the siege of Gaza and create a humanitarian sea corridor that could stop famine”.
Avila added that Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had already warned that he intended to “commit another war crime tonight [by] kidnapping our participants and illegally stopping a humanitarian mission heading to Gaza despite the strict prohibition from the International Court of Justice on its provisional rulings.”
The Freedom Flotilla ship Handala . . . reports 16 drones – some in pairs – flying over the aid vessel as it nears Gaza. Image: @yenisafakenglish screenshot APR
When Israel’s parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of dropping any pretense that it wasn’t an apartheidstate, some of the Jewish state’s most ardent American defenders couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention.
“I haven’t been following it closely,” said Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who’s made defending Israel a key part of his political career.
The response was one of a mixed bag among both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill interviewed by The Intercept, but Fetterman’s tone was the most strident in its lack of regard.
Despite its most powerful ally and arms dealer’s stated preference for a two-state solution, Israel’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of a symbolic measure to annex the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.
The nonbinding resolution, which was advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and passed 71-13 in the Knesset, won’t legally change the reality in the West Bank — but it marks an escalation in the Israeli government’s efforts to annex the territory.
Four Democrats in the Senate and House who spoke to The Intercept condemned the Israeli government’s vote. Others said they hadn’t been following the issue. Fetterman was one of three senators who told The Intercept on Thursday they were unaware of the Knesset vote. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, declined to comment.
The resolution in the Knesset, or Parliament, called to apply “Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment and administration to all the areas of Jewish settlement of all kinds in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley” — which is how most Israelis refer to the West Bank.
Currently, 3 million Palestinians reside in the West Bank, alongside over 500,000 Israeli settlers, who’ve established settlements in the occupied territory in violation of international law.
No Denying Apartheid
Annexation of the West Bank would be at odds with the U.S. official policy goal for two states — one for Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and one state for Israel comprising its pre-1967 borders.
The two-state solution has won official backing from successive presidents dating back to the late 1990s — except for Donald Trump — to assuage concerns over Israel having permanent control over millions of Palestinians without full civil rights.
Though the conditions already exist — there is a growing consensus that Israel in an apartheid state — making this control officially permanent would make apartheid indisputable.
Both Democratic and Republican administrations have repeatedly undermined the possibility of a two-state solution by arming Israel as it continues to attack Palestinian people and seize their territory, which lawmakers in Congress have made excuses for.
As public sentiment turns against Israel, however, with voters increasingly opposing the Netanyahu government’s genocide in Gaza, some members of Congress have been more willing to criticize the Israeli regime.
Some Condemnations
Though President Joe Biden claimed to be interested in a two-state solution, his administration continued policies such as keeping the U.S. Embassy in occupied Jerusalem, which experts view as undermining the possibility of an independent Palestinian state that includes the West Bank.
In his second term, Trump escalated his efforts to thwart the possibility of a sovereign Palestinian state. On Thursday, State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott told reporters during a press briefing that the U.S. would not be attending a United Nations conference on a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. And Trump has repeatedly called for Palestinians in Gaza to be relocated and for the region to be turned into a luxury resort.
Fetterman’s response to the vote stood in stark contrast to the four other Democratic members of Congress.
“The Knesset’s vote to symbolically annex the West Bank is not just reckless — it’s a betrayal of the values that have long underpinned America’s support for Israel. I’ve visited the West Bank. I’ve spoken with people whose lives are shaped by fear and violence,” wrote Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., in a statement. “A negotiated two‑state solution is the only path to lasting peace and true security for both Israelis and Palestinians. This vote rejects that path.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., on the other hand, told The Intercept that now is the time for the U.S. to push back on Netanyahu’s government’s “racist, reactionary” policies.
“Israel is now run by right-wing extremists who are in Gaza starving children and shooting people lining up for food, and now in the West Bank, we’ve seen vigilantism,” said Sanders. “I think the time is now for the United States government to make clear that we are not going to continue to support these racist, reactionary policies of the Netanyahu government.”
Sen. Tim Kaine. D-Va., argued that this would harm peace talks and threaten long-term regional stability.
“It’s going to hurt Israel in the long run,” said Kaine. “You got a peace discussion that’s going on right now where Arab nations are saying we want to be peaceful partners with our neighbor, Israel. But this also means that we need to have a future for Palestine as was promised to Palestinians in the U.N. resolution in 1947, and we’re not willing to find this regional peace unless you agree to do that.”
Kaine argued that the Knesset vote further isolates Israel in the region.
“It looks like the Knesset is just shutting the door in the face of Arab partners who want to try to work together to promote regional stability,” he said. “There is a credible opportunity for Israel to be less isolated in the neighborhood, but a vote like this makes it harder, not easier.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., told The Intercept that the vote speaks to the broader “endgame” for the Netanyahu administration.
“For Netanyahu and his administration, annexation and control have always been the endgame,” said Ramirez, in a statement. “We must end the U.S.’s complicity in the Netanyahu Administration’s regime of terror. Congress must do its oversight job, demand an end to the blockade and pass Block the Bombs.”
The International Press Institute (IPI) has joined calls for urgent action to halt the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza as global news organisations warn that their journalists there are experiencing starvation.
Israel must immediately allow life-saving food aid to reach journalists and other civilians in Gaza, IPI said in a statement today.
“The international community must also put effective pressure on Israel to allow all journalists to enter and exit the territory and to document the ongoing catastrophe,”it said.
In an unprecedented joint statement this week, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, BBC News, and Reuters — four of the world’s leading news agencies — said their journalists on the ground “are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families”.
The news outlets added: “Journalists endure many deprivations and hardships in warzones. We are deeply alarmed that the threat of starvation is now one of them.”
Separately, Al Jazeera Media Network said in a statement that journalists on the ground “now find themselves fighting for their own survival” due to mass starvation.
Harrowing accounts
AFP and Al Jazeera journalists shared harrowing accounts of conditions on the ground.
One AFP photographer was quoted as saying, “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.”
Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondent said he was “drowning in hunger”.
In an interview with NPR, AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd said that the news agency had been working to evacuate its remaining contributors from Gaza, which requires Israeli permission.
The dramatic warnings come as more than 100 international humanitarian organisations said that mass starvation in Gaza was now threatening the lives of humanitarian aid workers themselves, while the civilian death toll continues to rise.
Gaza under siege — a journalist reports on daily survival Video: Al Jazeera
Meanwhile, Israel continues to refuse to allow international reporters into Gaza to report and cover the war and humanitarian situation independently, obstructing the free flow of news and limiting coverage of the humanitarian crisis.
The ongoing conflict has taken a devastating toll on journalists and media outlets in Gaza.
Highest media death toll
Since October 2023, at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza — Al Jazeera puts the figure as at least 230 — the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon, according to monitoring by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
This is the largest number of journalists to be killed in any armed conflict in this span of time.
Independent investigations such as those conducted by Forbidden Stories have found more than a dozen cases in which journalists were intentionally targeted and killed by the Israeli military — which constitutes a war crime under international law.
IPI has made repeated calls, in conjunction with its partners, urging the international community to take immediate measures to protect journalists and allow unimpeded access to the strip from international media.
Today, IPI has strongly and urgently reiterated these calls, as humanitarian conditions in Gaza rapidly deteriorate and as journalists and other civilians face man-made starvation.
The international community must use all diplomatic means at its disposal to pressure Israel to ensure the safe flow of food aid to journalists and other civilians, said IPI in a statement.
“The response by the international community in this critical moment could be the difference between life and death. There is no more time to lose,” IPI said.
Jamie Wiseman is a journalist of the Vienna-based International Press Institute.
(@VVR_Krish) shared the above-mentioned clip on July 23 with a caption in Tamil which hailed the development under ‘Gujarat Model’ and praised the BJP government in the state.
