Indonesia officially joined the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa — consortium last week marking a significant milestone in its foreign relations.
In a statement released a day later on January 7, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that this membership reflected Indonesia’s dedication to strengthening multilateral cooperation and its growing influence in global politics.
The ministry highlighted that joining BRICS aligned with Indonesia’s independent and proactive foreign policy, which seeks to maintain balanced relations with major powers while prioritising national interests.
This pivotal move showcases Jakarta’s efforts to enhance its international presence as an emerging power within a select group of global influencers.
Traditionally, Indonesia has embraced a non-aligned stance while bolstering its military and economic strength through collaborations with both Western and Eastern nations, including the United States, China, and Russia.
By joining BRICS, Indonesia clearly signals a shift from its non-aligned status, aligning itself with a coalition of emerging powers poised to challenge and redefine the existing global geopolitical landscape dominated by a Western neoliberal order led by the United States.
Indonesia joining boosts BRICS membership to 10 countres — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates — but there are also partnerships.
Supporters of a multipolar world, championed by China, Russia, and their allies, may view Indonesia’s entry into BRICS as a significant victory.
In contrast, advocates of the US-led unipolar world, often referred to as the “rules-based international order” are likely to see Indonesia’s decision as a regrettable shift that could trigger retaliatory actions from the United States.
The future will determine how Indonesia balances its relations with these two superpowers. However, there is considerable concern about the potential fallout for Indonesia from its long-standing US allies.
The future will determine how Indonesia balances its relations with these two superpowers, China and the US. However, there is considerable concern about the potential fallout for Indonesia from its long-standing US allies. Image: NHK TV News screenshot APR
The smaller Pacific Island nations, which Indonesia has been endeavouring to win over in a bid to thwart support for West Papuan independence, may also become entangled in the crosshairs of geostrategic rivalries, and their response to Indonesia’s membership in the BRICS alliance will prove critical for the fate of West Papua.
Critical questions The crucial questions facing the Pacific Islanders are perhaps related to their loyalties: are they aligning themselves with Beijing or Washington, and in what ways could their decisions influence the delicate balance of power in the ongoing competition between great powers, ultimately altering the Melanesian destiny of the Papuan people?
For the Papuans, Indonesia’s membership in BRICS or any other global or regional forums is irrelevant as long as the illegal occupation of their land continues driving them toward “extinction”.
For the Papuans, Indonesia’s membership in BRICS or any other global or regional forums is irrelevant as long as the illegal occupation of their land continues driving them toward “extinction”. Image: NHK News screenshot APR
The pressing question for Papuans is which force will ultimately dismantle Indonesia’s unlawful hold on their sovereignty.
Will Indonesia’s BRICS alliance open new paths for Papuan liberation fighters to re-engage with the West in ways not seen since the Cold War? Or does this membership indicate a deeper entrenchment of Papuans’ fate within China’s influence — making it almost impossible for any dream of Papuans’ independence?
While forecasting future with certainty is difficult on these questions, these critical critical questions need to be considered in this new complex geopolitical landscape, as the ultimate fate of West Papua is what is truly at stake here.
Strengthening Indonesia’s claims over West Papuan sovereignty Indonesia’s membership in BRICS may signify a great victory for those advocating for a multipolar world, challenging the hegemony of Western powers led by the United States.
This membership could augment Indonesia’s capacity to frame the West Papuan issue as an internal matter among BRICS members within the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs.
Such backing could provide Jakarta with a cushion of diplomatic protection against international censure, particularly from Western nations regarding its policies in West Papua.
The growing BRICS world . . . can Papuans and their global solidarity networks reinvent themselves while nurturing the fragile hope of restoring West Papua’s sovereignty? Map: Russia Pivots to Asia
However, it is also crucial to note that for more than six decades, despite the Western world priding itself on being a champion of freedom and human rights, no nation has been permitted to voice concern or hold Indonesia accountable for the atrocities committed against Indigenous Papuans.
The pressing question to consider is what or who silences the 193 member states of the UN from intervening to save the Papuans from potential eradication at the hands of Indonesia.
Is it the United States and its allies, or is it China, Russia, and their allies — or the United Nations itself?
Indonesia’s double standard and hypocrisy Indonesia’s support for Palestine bolsters its image as a defender of international law and human rights in global platforms like the UN and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
This commitment was notably highlighted at the BRICS Summit in October 2024, where Indonesia reaffirmed its dedication to Palestinian self-determination and called for global action to address the ongoing conflict in line with international law and UN resolutions, reflecting its constitutional duty to oppose colonialism.
Nonetheless, Indonesia’s self-image as a “saviour for the Palestinians” presents a rather ignoble facade being promoted in the international diplomatic arena, as the Indonesian government engages in precisely the same behaviours it condemns Israel over in Palestine.
Military engagement and regional diplomacy Moreover, Indonesia’s interaction with Pacific nations serves to perpetuate a façade of double standards — on one hand, it endeavours to portray itself as a burgeoning power and a champion of moral causes concerning security issues, human rights, climate change, and development; while on the other, it distracts the communities and nations of Oceania — particularly Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, which have long supported the West Papua independence movement — from holding Indonesia accountable for its transgressions against their fellow Pacific Islanders in West Papua.
On October 10, 2024, Brigadier-General Mohamad Nafis of the Indonesian Defence Ministry unveiled a strategic initiative intended to assert sovereignty claims over West Papua. This plan aims to foster stability across the Pacific through enhanced defence cooperation and safeguarding of territorial integrity.
The efforts to expand influence are characterised by joint military exercises, defence partnerships, and assistance programmes, all crafted to address common challenges such as terrorism, piracy, and natural disasters.
However, most critically, Indonesia’s engagement with Pacific Island nations aims to undermine the regional solidarity surrounding West Papua’s right to self-determination.
This involvement encapsulates infrastructure initiatives, defence training, and financial diplomacy, nurturing goodwill while aligning the interests of Pacific nations with Indonesia’s geopolitical aspirations.
Indonesia has formally joined the BRICS group, a bloc of emerging economies featuring Russia, China and others that is viewed as a counterweight to the West https://t.co/WArU5O2PfTpic.twitter.com/IQKmPOJqlS
Military occupation in West Papua As Indonesia strives to galvanise international support for its territorial integrity, the military presence in West Papua has intensified significantly, instilling widespread fear among local Papuan communities due to heightened deployments, surveillance, and restrictions.
Indonesian forces have been mobilised to secure economically strategic regions, including the Grasberg mine, which holds some of the world’s largest gold and copper reserves.
These operations have resulted in the displacement of Indigenous communities and substantial environmental degradation.
As of December 2024, approximately 83,295 individuals had been internally displaced in West Papua due to armed conflicts between Indonesian security forces and the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB).
Recent reports detail new instances of displacement in the Tambrauw and Pegunungan Bintang regencies following clashes between the TPNPB and security forces. Villagers have evacuated their homes in fear of further military incursions and confrontations, leaving many in psychological distress.
The significant increase in Indonesia’s military presence in West Papua has coincided with demographic shifts that jeopardise the survival of Indigenous Papuans.
Government transmigration policies and large-scale agricultural initiatives, such as the food estate project in Merauke, have marginalised Indigenous communities.
These programmes, aimed at ensuring national food security, result in land expropriation and cultural erosion, threatening traditional Papuan lifestyles and identities.
For more than 63 years, Indonesia has occupied West Papua, subjecting Indigenous communities to systemic marginalisation and brink of extinction. Traditional languages, oral histories, and cultural values face obliteration under Indonesia’s colonial occupation.
A glimmer of hope for West Papua Despite these formidable challenges, solidarity movements within the Pacific and global communities persist in their advocacy for West Papua’s self-determination.
These groups, united by a shared sense of humanity and justice, work tirelessly to maintain hope for West Papua’s liberation. Even so, Indonesia’s diplomatic engagement with Pacific nations, characterised by eloquent rhetoric and military alliances, represents a calculated endeavour to extinguish this fragile hope for Papuan liberation.
Indonesia’s membership in BRICS will either amplify this tiny hope of salvation within the grand vision of a new world re-engineered by Beijing’s BRICS and its allies or will it conceal West Papua’s independence dream on a path that is even harder and more impossible to achieve than the one they have been on for 60 years under the US-led unipolar world system.
Most significantly, it might present a new opportunity for Papuan liberation fighters to reengage with the new re-ordering global superpowers– a chance that has eluded them for more than 60 years.
From the 1920s to the 1960s, the tumult of the First and Second World Wars, coupled with the ensuing cries for decolonisation from nations subjugated by Western powers and Cold War tensions, forged the very existence of the nation known as “Indonesia.”
It seems that this turbulent world of uncertainty is upon us, reshaping a new global landscape replete with new alliances and adversaries, harbouring conflicting visions of a new world. Indonesia’s decision to join BRICS in 2025 is a clear testament to this.
The pressing question remains whether this membership will ultimately precipitate Indonesia’s disintegration as the US-led unipolar world intervenes in its domestic affairs or catalyse its growth and strength.
Regardless of the consequences, the fundamental existential question for the Papuans is whether they, along with their global solidarity networks, can reinvent themselves while nurturing the fragile hope of restoring West Papua’s sovereignty in a world rife with change and uncertainty?
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic and writer from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He lives in Australia and contributes articles to Asia Pacific Report.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! As we continue our discussion of President Jimmy Carter’s legacy, we look at his policies in the Middle East and North Africa, in particular, Israel and Palestine.
On Thursday during the state funeral in Washington, President Carter’s former adviser Stuart Eizenstat praised Carter’s work on facilitating the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978.
STUART EIZENSTAT: Jimmy Carter’s most lasting achievement, and the one I think he was most proud of, was to bring the first peace to the Middle East through the greatest act of personal diplomacy in American history, the Camp David Accords.
For 13 days and nights, he negotiated with Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, personally drafting more than 20 peace proposals and shuttling them between the Israeli and Egyptian delegations.
And he saved the agreement at the 11th hour — and it was the 11th hour — by appealing to Begin’s love of his grandchildren.
For the past 45 years, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty has never been violated and laid the foundation for the Abraham Accords.
AMY GOODMAN: The Abraham Accords are the bilateral normalisation agreements between Israel and, as well, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel and Bahrain, signed in 2020.
In 2006, years after he left office, Jimmy Carter wrote a book called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in which he compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to South Africa’s former racist regime.
It was striking for a former US president to use the words “Palestine,” let alone “apartheid,” in referring to the Occupied Territories. I went down to The Carter Center to speak with President Jimmy Carter about the controversy around his book and what he wanted the world to understand.
JIMMY CARTER: The word “apartheid” is exactly accurate. You know, this is an area that’s occupied by two powers. They are now completely separated.
The Palestinians can’t even ride on the same roads that the Israelis have created or built in Palestinian territory.
The Israelis never see a Palestinian, except the Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians never see an Israeli, except at a distance, except the Israeli soldiers.
So, within Palestinian territory, they are absolutely and totally separated, much worse than they were in South Africa, by the way. And the other thing is, the other definition of “apartheid” is, one side dominates the other.
And the Israelis completely dominate the life of the Palestinian people.
AMY GOODMAN: Why don’t Americans know what you have seen?
JIMMY CARTER: Americans don’t want to know and many Israelis don’t want to know what is going on inside Palestine.
It’s a terrible human rights persecution that far transcends what any outsider would imagine. And there are powerful political forces in America that prevent any objective analysis of the problem in the Holy Land.
I think it’s accurate to say that not a single member of Congress with whom I’m familiar would possibly speak out and call for Israel to withdraw to their legal boundaries, or to publicise the plight of the Palestinians or even to call publicly and repeatedly for good-faith peace talks.
There hasn’t been a day of peace talks now in more than seven years. So this is a taboo subject. And I would say that if any member of Congress did speak out as I’ve just described, they would probably not be back in the Congress the next term.
AMY GOODMAN: President Jimmy Carter. To see that whole interview we did at The Carter Center, you can go to democracynow.org.
For more on his legacy in the Middle East during his presidency and beyond, we’re joined in London by historian Seth Anziska, professor of Jewish-Muslim relations at University College London, author of Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo.
What should we understand about the legacy of President Carter, Professor Anziska?
Late former US President Jimmy Carter’s opposition to Israeli apartheid. Video: Democracy Now!
SETH ANZISKA: Well, thank you, Amy.
I think, primarily, the biggest lesson is that when he came into office, he was the first US president to talk about the idea of a Palestinian homeland, alongside his commitment to Israeli security. And that was an enormous change from what had come before and what’s come since.
And I think that the way we understand Carter’s legacy should very much be oriented around the very deep commitment he had to justice and a resolution of the Palestinian question, alongside his commitment to Israel, which derived very much from his Southern Baptist faith.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the whole trajectory. Talk about the Camp David Accords, for which he was hailed throughout the various funeral services this week and has been hailed in many places around the world.
SETH ANZISKA: Well, I think one of the biggest misunderstandings about the legacy of Camp David is that this is not at all what Carter had intended or had hoped for when he came into office. He actually had a much more comprehensive vision of peace in the Middle East, that included a resolution of the Palestinian component, but also peace with Syria, with Jordan.
And he came up with some of these ideas, developed them with Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state, and Zbigniew Brzeziński, his national security adviser. And in developing those ideas, which came out in 1977 in a very closely held memo that was not widely shared inside the administration, he actually talked about return of refugees, he talked about the status of Jerusalem, and he desired very much to think about the different components of the regional settlement as part of an overall vision.
This was in contrast to Henry Kissinger’s attitude of piecemeal diplomacy that had preceded him in the aftermath of the 1973 war. So we can understand Carter in this way very much as a departure and somebody who understood the value and the necessity of contending with these much broader regional dynamics.
Now, the reasons why this ended up with a far more limited, but very significant, bilateral peace treaty between Egypt and Israel had a lot to do both with the election of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1977, as well as the position of Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and also the role of the Palestinians and the PLO.
But what people don’t quite recall or understand is that Camp David and the agreement towards the peace treaty was in many ways a compromise or, in Brzeziński’s view, was a real departure from what had been the intention.
And that gap between what people had hoped for within the administration and what ended up emerging in 1979 with the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty also was tethered very much to the perpetuation of Palestinian statelessness. So, if we want to understand why and how Palestinians have been deprived of sovereignty or remain stateless to this day, we have to go back to think about the impact of Camp David itself.
AMY GOODMAN: Interesting that Sadat would be assassinated years later in Egypt when Carter was on the plane with Nixon and Ford. That’s when they say that cemented his relationship with Ford, while they hardly talked to Nixon at all.
But if you could also comment on President Carter and post-President Carter? I mean, the fact that he wrote this book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, using the word “Palestine,” using the word “apartheid,” to refer to the Occupied Territories — I remember chasing him down the hall at the Democratic convention when he was supposed to speak. This was the Obama Democratic convention. And it ended up he didn’t speak. And I chased him and Rosalynn, because . . .
SETH ANZISKA: Remember that in 1977, there was a very famous speech that he gave in Clinton, Massachusetts, talking about a Palestinian homeland. And that raised huge hackles, both in the American Jewish community among American Jewish leaders who were very uncomfortable and were already distrustful of a Southern Democrat and his views on Israel, but also Cold War conservatives, who were quite hawkish and felt that he was far too close to engaging with the Soviet Union.
And so, both of those constituencies were very, very opposed to his attitude and his approach on the Palestinian issue. And I think we can see echoes of that in how he then was treated after his presidency, when much of his activism and much of his engagement on the question of Palestine, to my view, derived from a sense of frustration and regret about what he was not able to achieve in the Camp David Accords.
And his commitment stemmed from the same values that he had been shaped by early on, a sense of viewing the Palestinian issue through the same lens as civil rights, in the same lens as what he experienced in the South, which is often, what his biographers have explained, where his views and approach towards the Palestinians came from, but also a particularly close relationship to biblical views around Israel and Zionism, that he was very much committed to Israeli security as a result.
And that was never something that he let go of, even if you look closely at his work in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Some of his views on Israel are actually quite closely aligned with positions that many in the Jewish community would feel comfortable with.
The fact that people criticised and attacked him for that, I think, speaks to the taboo of talking about what’s happening or what has happened, in the context of Israel and Palestine, in the same kind of language as disenfranchisement around race in apartheid South Africa.
And, of course, as Carter said in the interview you just ran that you had done with him when the book came out, the situation is far worse in actuality with what is happening vis-à-vis Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN:Seth Anziska, I want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of Jewish-Muslim relations at University College London, author of Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo, speaking to us from London.
Using the NFL as a case study, Jamie Klinger examines the troubling intersection of professional sports, human rights, and health. Despite reforms like concussion research and advanced safety gear, the NFL struggles to balance its pursuit of profit with player well-being. Klinger examines how the league’s failure to adequately protect players, both on and off the field, violates fundamental human rights under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and argues that the United States and NFL has a responsibility to enforce stronger protections for athletes.
On 12 September 2024, Miami Dolphins Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered a hit that began to dominate the conversation surrounding professional athletes’ health. The 26-year-old was hit headfirst during a tackle which resulted in his third concussion while playing for the National Football League (NFL). The NFL has stated they will not influence Tagovailoa’s potential retirement. NFL Chief Medical Officer Dr Allen Sills emphasised patient autonomy in this matter, saying: “Ultimately […] patients make decisions” regarding their careers.
The relationship between the NFL and the health of its players is complex. In 2016, the NFL and other NFL-associated American football leagues settled a class action lawsuit after players alleged that the NFL was aware of the sport’s health risks, particularly degenerative brain disease, and did not take adequate measures to inform or protect players. But players love the game –often to an extreme extent. When Buffalo Bills Safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and required CPR during a televised game, the first question he asked when he awoke in the hospital was if the Bills won. While the NFL and players alike claim health is of the highest priority, the behaviour of both suggests that is not the case. In 2023, NFL teams made $13 billion from merchandising, licensing, sponsorship, and league media and $3 billion from ticket revenue, with the most popular team earning the most. With this model, a significant portion of NFL profits rests with player and game popularity, which injuries disrupt. This push and pull between the health of the players and big, profitable wins defines the league-player relationship.
Such reforms, however, do not prevent players with concussions or other injuries from returning to gameplay despite health concerns, a widespread issue within professional sports. When asked why he didn’t retire after numerous severe concussions, Marc Savard, a former professional ice hockey player, explained hockey “was [his] entire identity.” To give up on a lifelong dream would be unthinkable, even when the future health prospects are bleak.
In a study of 202 brains of former football players, nearly 90 per cent suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a traumatic brain disease caused by repetitive hits to the head. Common symptoms of the disease range from headaches and short-term memory loss to aggressive tendencies, language difficulties, paranoia, and depression. CTE is not exclusive to football; players of any sport with regular head hits can and do develop the disease. As there are currently no scans or fluid tests that can identify the tau protein deposition that causes CTE in a living patient, the disease can only be definitively diagnosed post-mortem, creating challenges for treating suspected patients.
Those who suffer from degenerative brain disease following their athletic careers are not likely to receive leading care despite promises by the league. Since its launch in 2017, the NFL concussion settlement, which is meant to provide money for care to players suffering from dementia, has rejected 1,100 claims. Raising the settlement threshold definition of dementia, the inaccessibility of network-approved doctors, and long wait times for reports have made it difficult for players to get the money they need. Instead, “players are dying while waiting for their benefits,” only to be found to have severe CTE post-mortem.
Often, these issues are brushed aside as a hazard of the game. Players are educated on the risks, and many choose to return to gameplay despite health concerns; any injuries sustained are an occupational hazard. But leagues are not without responsibilities to their players. The inability to consistently provide adequate safety measures and remedies following grave injuries is a violation of players’ human rights, specifically under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
This may at first appear unrelated: how could professional athletes, who must be at the pinnacle of health to perform, have any relation to the rights of the disabled? It is undeniable that the rate of disability players experience after their careers is shocking and, as demonstrated, disability resources remain elusive. This is a violation of Article 10 of the Convention which affirms the “inherent right to life and […] its effective enjoyment by persons with disabilities on an equal basis to others.”
The NFL’s class action settlement malpractice also violates Article 25 of the Convention, which affirms: “the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination.” Under this article, the provision of local,disability-specific, high-quality health care is required. Opposingly, the current plan requires players to wait months and potentially travel hundreds of miles to receive a diagnosis that could be overruled by settlement review doctors, leaving them with no access to care. Moreover, Articles 26 (onhabitation and rehabilitation) and 30 (on participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport) are violated by the settlement’s insistence that players reach a debilitating level of disability before receiving aid. By not enforcing these practices with the settlement, the US government violated its obligations as a signatory to the Convention, which requires the US “to refrain in good faith from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the treaty.”
Another crucial document related to protecting the human rights of injured athletes is the revised International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport adopted by UNESCO in 2015. Its Article 9 affirms that safety and risk management are necessary provisions in sports play, with Article 9(2) emphasizing that healthy gameplay “require[s] that all stakeholders seek to rid physical education, physical activity and sport of practices that limit or harm participants.” The NFL does partially satisfy this requirement with its reforms, but limited use of the Guardian Cap demonstrates that efforts do not go far enough. Players have the autonomy to decide to play despite the risks, but the leagues must ensure that players wear the highest level of safety gear while doing so. That the US government has not enforced these protective practices is a human rights abuse. Although, the NFL is a private company, “a State may be responsible for the effects of the conduct of private parties, if it failed to take necessary measures to prevent those effects” according to the draft articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (2001). As the United States is a member of UNESCO, remedying these abuses is paramount.
NFL players will never be perfectly safe. There will always be a risk of injury during games and such risk is part of what makes games so exciting. Nothing, however, is exciting about asking players to risk the rest of their lives in service of a sport. Kyle Granson, a tight end for the IndianapolisColts, wears a Guardian Cap because: “no matter how dumb it looks, it doesn’t matter in the long term,” explaining that he would like: “to remember [his wedding] first dance 30 years from now […] [his] first kid’s steps […] be there at their first day of school.” Articles 7(b) and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights affirm the right to: “the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” via “safe and healthy working conditions.” When did athletes become the exception?
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Department of Sociology, LSE Human Rights, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.
DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.
AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.
This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.
Israel’s Defence Minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the UN-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel”.
On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the UN buffer zone.
In Ankara, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s Foreign Minister and the President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the US and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers “terrorist”.
For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who is based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.
Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —
SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.
Report from Damascus: Searching for loved ones in prisons and morgues. Video: Democracy Now!
SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.”
But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.
HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons.
But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.
SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone.
Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya [prison]. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before.
I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.
So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers.
And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.
What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found.
Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killings in the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.
AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —
SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —
AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.
YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport.
He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body is found.
SARAH EL DEEB: I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.
His heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the US — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.
One of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years.
People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. That is on top of all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.
So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a US citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya on Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.
REPORTER: Travis.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.
REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.
REPORTER: That’s right.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.
REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.
SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated.
He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.
His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —
SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?
SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.
I think the search, the US administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria in 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison.
But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons were chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.
U.N. Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing Syria and Occupying Demilitarized Zone https://t.co/iHNIkKKOrs
I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.
SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital.
They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They [Israeli military] entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.
But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.
And I think what her case kind of symbolises is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detentions, these raids.
Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved.
And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.
Next up, today is the 75th day of a hunger strike by Laila Soueif. She’s the mother of prominent British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah. She’s calling on British officials to pressure Egypt for the release of her son. We’ll speak to the Cairo University mathematics professor in London, where she’s been standing outside the Foreign Office. Back in 20 seconds.
Northern Marianas Governor Arnold Palacios and Senator Celina Babauta have travelled to Guam to attend a luncheon with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te.
Taiwan is officially known as the Republic of China (Taiwan). China claims Taiwan as its own territory, with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taiwan strongly disputes.
Palacios welcomed the opportunity to meet Lai and said this could pave the way for improved relations with the East Asian country.
“This meeting is an opportunity for the CNMI to foster relations with allies in the region.”
When asked if meeting the President would upset the People’s Republic of China, which considers Taiwan a rogue state and part of its territory, Palacios said: “As far as being in the crosshairs of China, we already are in many ways.”
Worldwide, a dozen countries maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taipei.
In January, Nauru cut ties with Taiwan and shifted its diplomatic allegiance to Beijing.
Reconnecting bonds
Babauta, meanwhile, said she was deeply humbled and honoured to be invited to have lunch with Lai and Chia-Ching Hsu, Lai’s Minister of the Overseas Community Affairs Council.
“I am looking forward to connecting and discussing opportunities to strengthen the bond between our two regions and explore how we can create new avenues for our mutual benefit and prosperity, particularly by leveraging our Jones Act waiver,” she said.
“We must turn our economy around. This is an opportunity I could not pass up on.”
Babauta said she asked Lai if she could also make a stopover to the CNMI, but his busy schedule precluded that.
“I am assured that he will plan a visit to the CNMI in the near future.”
The luncheon, which is part of Taiwan’s “Smart and Sustainable Development for a Prosperous Austronesian Region” program, will be held at the Grand Ballroom, Hyatt Regency Guam at noon Thursday and is expected to also have Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero and other island leaders.
Lai has previously visited Hawai’i as part of his US tour, one that has elicited the ire of the government of the People’s Republic of China.
Summit ends dramatically
Earlier this year, the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ summit ended dramatically when China demanded the conference communiqué be changed to eliminate a reference to Taiwan.
The document had made a reference to the Forum reaffirming its relations to Taiwan, which has been a development partner since 1992.
But the Chinese Ambassador to the Pacific Qian Bo was furious and the document was rewritten.
Reports say China’s Foreign Ministry has “strongly condemned” US support for Lai’s visit to the US, and had lodged a complaint with the United States.
It earlier also denounced a newly announced US weapons sale to Taiwan.
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.
On 27 November, 2024 Amelia Shindelar (managing director of the Human Rights Initiative at the University of Minnesota) published in Open Global Rights an assessment of the situation of n HRDs in the USA: From grief to activism: The dangers confronting human rights defenders in the United States
Human rights defenders who have lost loved ones to law enforcement violence face additional traumas and risks. These activists need safety and support for their mental and physical well-being.
…HRDs are at high risk of adverse health and safety outcomes. They face significant mental health challenges, particularly when the defenders are from a marginalized community and work on issues related to their identities and their communities. Through a series of interviews with HRDs involved in the anti-law enforcement violence movement, my research team learned about the particular risks faced by HRDs in the United States who have lost a loved one to law enforcement violence.
The most recognised risk to HRDs is the threat to their physical safety. This danger can take various forms, including direct violence and assault, ranging from beatings to torture and abduction at the hands of both state and non-state actors. Tragically, hundreds of HRDs are killed each year. Front Line Defenders reported over 300 killings in 2023 alone, and this figure likely underestimates the true toll.
The unique struggles of defenders who have lost loved ones to law enforcement violence
In the United States, HRDs who have lost family members or loved ones to law enforcement violence face an exceptional set of traumatizing experiences that go beyond the already significant challenges associated with the loss of a loved one to violence. We identified four common risk factors that contribute to this:
1. Dehumanization and criminalization by the media
Traditional media often relies on official statements from law enforcement, which emphasize perceived threats and reinforce that the officer is justified in their use of force. Victims of law enforcement violence are regularly portrayed as criminals in an effort to justify their deaths and shift the focus elsewhere.
Shortly after the death of her son in 2022, Monique Johnson shared with us her experience of how the media portrayed the situation, saying, “They always put their own narrative out there so that people think that he’s the bad guy.” Monique’s experience mirrors that of all the other activists that we interviewed. This negative portrayal can have severe consequences, including exacerbating grief, traumatization, and a loss of social support, as community members withdraw their assistance based on these representations.
2. Recurring exposure to law enforcement violence
Each new incident of violence reopens the wounds. With over 1,000 people killed by law enforcement in the United States each year, the reminders are frequent and painful. Cindy Sundberg, whose son Tekle was killed in 2022, vividly described her experience: “Each event and each killing is like you just open up the wound, and they take a knife and stir it up. And you are just oozing pain.”
In the cases that receive substantial media attention, there’s an added layer of daily trauma. Courteney Ross, George Floyd’s fiance, described this experience: “It never stops. I know loss and grief don’t stop, but when you are faced with literally a symbol of your loved one’s murder every single day, it’s exhausting. It’s just—it’s fearful; it’s anxiety ridden.”
This recurring exposure leads to chronic stress, keeping defenders in a state of heightened alertness that can have severe physical and mental health consequences and affect their ability to process their grief and trauma.
3. Surveillance and harassment by law enforcement
Many HRDs report surveillance or harassment by law enforcement following the death of their loved ones, ranging from increased police presence in their neighborhoods to overt acts of intimidation. Such experiences contribute to a pervasive sense of fear and insecurity.
Matilda Smith shared her experience of constant fear after the officer who killed her son moved into her apartment building: “I was afraid for my life, and my daughter was, and my son as well.” This anxiety led her to move to a different part of town, but the feeling of being watched persisted. The psychological impact of surveillance can be severe, leading to a constant state of alertness and paranoid thoughts and behaviors.
4. Negative consequences of activism
All of the affected individuals with whom we spoke turned to activism to find purpose and healing after the death of their loved ones. As demonstrated by the examples above, among others, activists face multifaceted risks. “I’ve known people in this work that have died of a broken heart,” said Jeralynn Brown-Blueford, co-founder of the Alan Blueford Foundation. Other interviewees also described the emotional, physical, financial, and social toll of their work.
Activism can involve difficult physical labor; carrying protest materials for long distances, building temporary blockades, setting up and taking down sound systems and event spaces, and distributing supplies and resources are just a few examples. Marilyn Hill, whose son was killed in 1997 and has since been active in the anti-law enforcement violence movement, talked about the physical toll the work takes: “I had to load and unload and pick up heavy things…I ended up with a hole in my stomach, and it got bigger and bigger. I ended up having the most excruciating surgery that left me in a nursing home for a month after the surgery.”
The intense focus on activism can strain family relationships. According to Colette Flanagan, founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, “People get confused; they don’t know what to do when you fight against the policeman. It has damaged our family. I basically lost my daughter. We’re estranged—we haven’t spoken in ten years.” Family estrangement can lead to a loss of crucial support systems, leaving defenders more vulnerable to burnout and emotional exhaustion.
Conclusion
Understanding the risks faced by HRDs in the United States is crucial not only for supporting individual defenders but also for ensuring the sustainability of human rights movements. As the rights community continues to grapple with issues of systemic injustice and human rights violations, we must recognize the human cost borne by those on the front lines of these battles and work towards creating safer, more supportive environments.
Her research focuses on the protection, security, and well-being of human rights defenders.
A media studies professor at Qatar’s Doha Institute for Graduate Studies has completed empirical studies examining Western media coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza — and his findings have been highly critical.
Professor Mohamad Elmasry found that Western media have failed to do much more than “parrot Israeli propaganda regarding al-Shifa Hospital [in Gaza City] and the war more generally”.
Western news outlets, such as BBC, CNN, Sky News, MSNBC, Fox News — and others that are frequent sources of news in New Zealand — “tended to rely overwhelmingly on Israeli and pro-Israeli sources,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Palestinian sources were mostly neglected as were pro-Palestinian sources.
“It’s not a conspiracy; it’s not as though journalists are showing up to work and saying, ‘we’re really going to make the Israelis look good today’.
“But there is a structural problem [in the media] today,” Dr Elmasry added.
“Western news organisations simply do not get Israel-Palestine right.”
US ‘scoffs’ at international law
In a separate interview yesterday, Dr Elmasry blamed the United States for ignoring international law to lead the world to “where we are” over the ongoing Gaza genocide with no end in sight.
“About 95 percent of Israel’s weapons come from the United States and Germany, so as long as those countries scoff at the idea of international law, we won’t get anywhere with the calls for an arms embargo against Israel,” Dr Elmasry said.
Professor Mohamad Elmasry on why there is a stalemate over Gaza genocide. Video: Al Jazeera
“There has been a suggestion that there might be a draft resolution put forward at the United Nations Security Council,” he added.
“There is no question in my mind that nearly all of the countries on the Security Council would support that resolution”.
All countries except for the US, Dr Elmasry added.
“There is also no question in my mind that the United States would veto it, so one of the reasons why we are where we are is because of the United States.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at Donald Trump’s return to the White House, we turn now to look at what it means for the world, from Israel’s war on Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During his victory speech, Trump vowed that he was going to “stop wars”.
But what will Trump’s foreign policy actually look like?
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Fatima Bhutto, award-winning author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways, New Kings of the World. She is co-editing a book along with Sonia Faleiro titled Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year. She writes a monthly column for Zeteo.
Start off by just responding to Trump’s runaway victory across the United States, Fatima.
Fatima Bhutto on the Kamala Harris “support for genocide”. Video: Democracy Now!
FATIMA BHUTTO: Well, Amy, I don’t think it’s an aberration that he won. I think it’s an aberration that he lost in 2020. And I think anyone looking at the American elections for the last year, even longer, could see very clearly that the Democrats were speaking to — I’m not sure who, to a hall of mirrors.
They ran an incredibly weak and actually macabre campaign, to see Kamala Harris describe her politics as one of joy as she promised the most lethal military in the world, talking about women’s rights in America, essentially focusing those rights on the right to termination, while the rest of the world has watched women slaughtered in Gaza for 13 months straight.
You know, it’s very curious to think that they thought a winning strategy was Beyoncé and that Taylor Swift was somehow a political winning strategy that was going to defeat — who? — Trump, who was speaking to people, who was speaking against wars. You know, whether we believe him or not, it was a marked difference from what Kamala Harris was saying and was not saying.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fatima, you wrote a piece for Zeteo earlier this year titled “Gaza Has Exposed the Shameful Hypocrisy of Western Feminism.” So, you just mentioned the irony of Kamala Harris as, you know, the second presidential candidate who is a woman, where so much of the campaign was about women, and the fact that — you know, of what’s been unfolding on women, against women and children in Gaza for the last year. If you could elaborate?
FATIMA BHUTTO: Yeah, we’ve seen, Nermeen, over the last year, you know, 70 percent of those slaughtered in Gaza by Israel and, let’s also be clear, by America, because it’s American bombs and American diplomatic cover that allows this slaughter to continue unabated — 70 percent of those victims are women and children.
We have watched children with their heads blown off. We have watched children with no surviving family members find themselves in hospital with limbs missing. Gaza has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. And we have seen newborns left to die as Israel switches off electricity and fuel of hospitals.
So, for Kamala Harris to come out and talk repeatedly about abortion, and I say this as someone who is pro-choice, who has always been pro-choice, was not just macabre, but it’s obscene. It’s an absolute betrayal of feminism, because feminism is about liberation. It’s not about termination.
And it’s about protecting women at their most vulnerable and at their most frightened. And there was no sign of that. You know, we also saw Kamala Harris bring out celebrities. I mean, the utter vacuousness of bringing out Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and others to talk about being a mother, while mothers are being widowed, are being orphaned in Gaza, it was not just tone deaf, it seemed to have a certain hostility, a certain contempt for the suffering that the rest of us have been watching.
I’d also like to add a point about toxic masculinity. There was so much toxicity in Kamala Harris’s campaign. You know, I watched her laugh with Oprah as she spoke about shooting someone who might enter her house with a gun, and giggling and saying her PR team may not like that, but she would kill them.
You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy, as we’ve seen very clearly from this election cycle.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Fatima Bhutto, if you look at what Trump represented, and certainly the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, Jewish progressives, young people, African-Americans certainly understood what Trump’s policy was when he was president.
And it’s rare, you know, a president comes back to serve again after a term away. It’s only happened once before in history.
But you have, for example, Trump moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. You have an illegal settlement named after Trump in the West Bank. The whole question of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies in Israel pushing for annexation of the West Bank, where Trump would stand on this.
And, of course, you have the Abraham Accords, which many Palestinians felt left them out completely. If you can talk about this? These were put forward by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, when the massive Gaza destruction was at its height, talked about Gaza as waterfront real estate.
FATIMA BHUTTO: Absolutely. There’s no question that Trump has been a malign force, not just when it concerns Palestinians, but, frankly, out in the world. But I would argue there’s not very much difference between what these two administrations or parties do. The difference is that Trump doesn’t have the gloss and the charisma of an Obama or — I mean, I can’t even say that Biden has charisma, but certainly the gloss.
Trump says it. They do it. The difference — I can’t really tell the difference anymore.
We saw the Biden administration send over 500 shipments of arms to Israel, betraying America’s own laws, the fact that they are not allowed to export weapons of war to a country committing gross violations of human rights. We saw Bill Clinton trotted out in Michigan to tell Muslims that, actually, they should stop killing Israelis and that Jews were there before them.
I mean, it was an utterly contemptuous speech. So, what is the difference exactly?
We saw Bernie Sanders, who was mentioned earlier, write an op-ed in The Guardian in the days before the election, warning people that if they were not to vote for Kamala Harris, if Donald Trump was to get in, think about the climate crisis. Well, we have watched Israel’s emissions in the first five months of their deadly attack on Gaza release more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations release in a year.
So, I don’t quite see that there’s a difference between what Democrats allow and what Trump brags about. I think it’s just a question of crudeness and decorum and politeness. One has it, and one doesn’t. In a sense, Trump is much clearer for the rest of the world, because he says what he’s going to do, and, you know, you take him at his word, whereas we have been gaslit and lied to by Antony Blinken on a daily basis now since October 7th.
Every time that AOC or Kamala Harris spoke about fighting desperately for a ceasefire, we saw more carnage, more massacres and Israel committing crimes with total impunity. You know, it wasn’t under Trump that Israel has killed more journalists than have ever been killed in any recorded conflict. It’s under Biden that Israel has killed more UN workers than have ever been killed in the UN’s history. So, I’m not sure there’s a difference.
And, you know, we’ll have to wait to see in the months ahead. But I don’t think anyone is bracing for an upturn. Certainly, people didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. I’m not sure they voted for Trump. We know that she lost 14 million votes from Biden’s win in 2020. And we know that those votes just didn’t come out for the Democrats. Some may have migrated to Trump. Some may have gone to third parties. But 14 million just didn’t go anywhere.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Fatima, if you could, you know, tell us what do you think the reasons are for that? I mean, the kind of — as you said, because it is really horrifying, what has unfolded in Gaza in the last 13 months. You’ve written about this. You now have an edited anthology that you’re editing, co-editing. You know, what do you think accounts for this, the sheer disregard for the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza?
FATIMA BHUTTO: It’s a total racism on the part not just of America, but I’m speaking of the West here. This has been betrayed over the last year, the fact that Ukraine is spoken about with an admiration, you know, Zelensky is spoken about with a sort of hero worship, Ukrainian resisters to Russia’s invasion are valorised.
You know, Nancy Pelosi wore a bracelet of bullets used by the Ukrainian resistance against Trump [sic]. But Palestinians are painted as terrorists, are dehumanised to such an extent. You know, we saw that dehumanisation from the mouths of Bill Clinton no less, from the mouths of Kamala Harris, who interrupted somebody speaking out against the genocide, and saying, “I am speaking.”
What is more toxically masculine than that?
We’ve also seen a concerted crackdown in universities across the United States on college students. I’m speaking also here of my own alma mater of Columbia University, of Barnard College, that called the NYPD, who fired live ammunition at the students. You know, this didn’t happen — this extreme response didn’t happen in protests against apartheid. It didn’t happen in protests against Vietnam in quite the same way.
And all I can think is, America and the West, who have been fighting Muslim countries for the last 25, 30 years, see that as acceptable to do so. Our deaths are acceptable to them, and genocide is not a red line.
And, you know, to go back to what what was mentioned earlier about the working class, that is absolutely ignored in America — and I would make the argument across the West, too — they have watched administration after, you know, president and congressmen give billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine, while they have no relief at home.
They have no relief from debt. They have no relief from student debt. They have no medical care, no coverage. They’re struggling to survive. And this is across the board. And after Ukraine, they saw billions go to Israel in the same way, while they get, frankly, nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: Fatima Bhutto, we want to thank you so much for being with us, award-winning author of a number of works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways and New Kings of the World, co-editing a book called Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year, writes a monthly column for Zeteo.
Coming up, we look at Trump’s vow to deport as many as 20 million immigrants and JD Vance saying, yes, US children born of immigrant parents could also be deported.
Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the “Axis of Genocide”. With increasing frequency I hear commentators on West Asia/Middle East news sites hold the collective West responsible for the genocide.
It’s a big come-down from the Global Labrador Puppy status New Zealand enjoyed recently.
Australia too has a record of being viewed as a country with soft-power influence, albeit while a stalwart deputy to the US in this part of the world. That is over.
Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi talks to Piers Morgan Uncensored. Video: Middle East Eye
Regrettably, Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to support US-Israel in the Red Sea (killing Yemeni people), failed to join the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel, shared intelligence with the Israelis, trained with their forces, provided R&R to soldiers fresh from the killing fields of Gaza while blocking Palestinian refugees, and extended valuable diplomatic support to Israel at the UN.
British planes overfly Gaza to provide data, a German freighter arrived in Alexandria this week laden with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of explosives to kill yet more Palestinian civilians.
Genocide is a collective effort of the Collective West.
Australia and New Zealand, along with the rest of the West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. What our governments do is at best “light condemnation” he says, but when it counts they will be silent.
‘They will allow extermination’
“They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination,” Marandi says.
Looking at our performance over the past seven decades and what is happening today, it is an assessment I would not argue against.
But why should we listen to someone from the Islamic Republic of Iran, you might ask. Who are they to preach at us?
I see things differently. In our dystopian, tightly-curated mainstream mediascape it is rare to hear an Iranian voice. We need to listen to more people, not fewer.
I’m definitely not a cheerleader for Iran or any state and I most certainly don’t agree with everything Professor Marandi says but he gives me richer insights than me just drowning in the endless propaganda of Tier One war criminals like Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Antony Blinken and their spokespeople.
Dr Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran, is a former member of Iran’s negotiating team that brokered the break-through JCPOA nuclear agreement (later reneged on by the Trump and Biden administrations).
He is no shrinking violet. He has that fierceness of someone who has been shot at multiple times. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Marandi was wounded four times, including twice with chemical weapons, key components of which were likely supplied by the US to their erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein.
Killed people he knew
Dr Marandi was in South Beirut a few weeks ago when the US-Israelis dropped dozens of bombs on residential buildings killing hundreds of civilians to get at the leader of Hezbollah (a textbook war crime that will never be prosecuted). It killed people he knew. To a BBC reporter who said, yes, but they were targeting Hezbollah, he replied:
“That’s like saying of 7/7 [the terror bombings in London]: ‘They bombed a British regime stronghold.’ How would that sound to people in the UK?”
Part of what people find discomforting about Dr Marandi is that he tears down the thin curtain that separates the centres of power from the major news outlets that repeat their talking points (“Israel has a legitimate right to self-defence” etc).
The more our leaders and media prattle on about Israel’s right to defend itself, the more we sound like the Germany that terrorised Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And the rest of the world has noticed.
As TS Eliot said: “Nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.”
Not a man to mince words when it comes to war crimes.
Masterful over pointing out racism
Dr Marandi has been masterful at pointing out the racism inherent in the Western worldview, the chauvinism that allows Western minds to treasure white lives but discount as worthless hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives taken in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
“There is no reason to expect that a declining and desperate empire will conduct itself in a civilised manner. Iran is prepared for the worst,” he says.
“In this great moral struggle, in the world that we live in today — meaning the holocaust in Gaza — who is defending the people of Gaza and who is supporting the holocaust? Iran with its small group of allies is alone against the West,” he told Nima Alkhorshid from Dialogue Works recently.
The Collective West shares collective responsibility.
Dr Marandi draws a sharp distinction between our governments and our populations. He is entirely right in pointing out that the younger people are, in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the more likely they are to oppose the genocide — as do growing numbers of young Jewish Americans who have rejected the Zionist project.
“All people within the whole of Palestine must be equal — Jews, Muslims and Christians. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Zionist regime to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza.”
I heard Mohammad Seyed Marandi extend an interesting invitation to us all in a recent interview. He said the “Axis of Resistance” should be thought of as open to all people who oppose the genocide in Gaza and who are opposed to continued Western militarism in West Asia.
I would never sign up to the policies of Iran, especially on issues like women’s rights, but I do find the invitation to a broad coalition clarifying: the Axis of Genocide versus The Axis of Resistance. Whose side are you on?
Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.
CSIRO’s United States subsidiary will be shuttered later this year, according to the national science agency’s latest corporate plan, as the extent of its massive enterprise services restructure continues to emerge. The 2024 corporate plan reveals that the office, registered in Delaware as an operating entity for commercialisation less than eight years ago, “will close…
Guess who finally decided to do their job! The Department of Justice dropped indictments on a sweeping Russian disinformation criminal ring, funding MAGA social media-stormtroops calling for the violent overthrow of our democracy to establish a Russian-style dictatorship and abandoning Ukraine to Russia, where it would be genocided. As Gaslit Nation has long warned: If it sounds like a Kremlin shill, it’s a Kremlin shill. Fortunately for the DOJ, Russian-backed MAGA traitors in Congress confessed to being unregistered foreign agents by deliberately blocking Ukraine aid for six months, giving Russia the advantage in a dangerous invasion threatening all of Europe. Follow the money! Lock the traitors up!
In this week’s bonus show, exclusive to subscribers at the Truth-teller level ($5/month) and higher on Patreon, Russian mafia expert Olga Lautman of the Kremlin File podcast joins Gaslit Nation to break down the sweeping charges by the Feds, exposing Russian active measures trying to steal the election for Trump like they did in 2016, with help from MAGA/Russia shills like Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Lauren Chen, and Lauren Southern, among others. Longtime Trump/Russia connector, Kremlin propagandist, and Senator Rand Paul advisor Dimitri Simes was also indicted, along with his Russian-born wife. We also discuss what’s next: Who else might have their home raided by the FBI? We’re looking at you, David Sacks!
To hear the full bonus show, get all episodes ad-free, invites to exclusive events, and support our independent journalism during these tough times, be sure to subscribe at the Truth-teller ($5/month) level or higher, or Democracy Defender ($10/month) to submit questions for our regular Q&As! Discounted annual subscriptions are available. Thank you for supporting the show—we couldn’t make Gaslit Nation without you!
Join us for a Gaslit Nation event!
Every Monday 4 PM ET: Join our weekly political salon every Monday at 4 PM ET via Zoom. Vent, ask questions, and build coalitions. Support us on Patreon at the Truth-teller level or higher to register!
September 10 at 9 PM ET: Debate watch party in the Victory Chat on Patreon for subscribers at the Truth-teller level and higher.
September 16 at 7:00 PM ET: In-person live taping with Andrea and Terrel Starr at the Ukrainian Institute of America in NYC. Celebrate the release of In the Shadow of Stalin, the graphic novel adaptation of Andrea’s film Mr. Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland. Gaslit Nation Patreon supporters get in free – so message us on Patreon to be added to the guest list. Everyone else can RSVP here: https://ukrainianinstitute.org/event/books-at-the-institute-chalupa/
September 17 at 12:00 PM ET: Virtual live taping with investigative journalist Stephanie Baker, author of Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia. Her book has been highly praised by Bill Browder, the advocate behind the Magnitsky Act to combat Russian corruption.
September 24 at 12:00 PM ET: Virtual live taping with David Pepper, author of Saving Democracy. Join us as David discusses his new art project based on Project 2025.
Subscribe today at Patreon.com/Gaslit for exclusive access to events, bonus content, and more! Enjoy annual discounts and support independent media as we push back against the rise of fascist oligarchy. Thank you for standing with us!
Inside Tenet Media, the pro-Trump ‘supergroup’ allegedly funded by Russia Even some of the right-wing stars hired by the group last year wondered why it existed. Now, a new federal indictment claims it was a propaganda front. https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/09/05/tenet-media-russia-rt-tim-pool/
Flora Garamvolgyi on Twitter: One of the US Company founders listed in the DOJ indictment is Lauren Chen, who recently visited Budapest, to speak at MCC Feszt. story for @RFERL https://x.com/floragaramvolgy/status/1831596824836358482
This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
Of the international intelligence information that comes to Australian agencies from the Five Eyes, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we have the colonisation of our intelligence agencies These agencies dominate the advice to ministers, writes John Menadue.
Michael Lester:Hello again listeners to Community Radio Northern Beaches Community Voices and also the Pearls and Irritations podcast. I’m Michael Lester.
Our guest today is the publisher and founder of the Pearls and Irritations Public Policy online journal, the celebrated John Menadue, with whom we’ll be so pleased to have a discussion today. John has a long and high profile experience in both the public service, for which he’s been awarded the Order of Australia and also in business.
As a public servant, he was secretary of a number of departments over the years, prime minister and cabinet under a couple of different prime ministers, immigration and ethnic affairs, special minister of state and the Department of Trade and also Ambassador to Japan.
And in his private sector career, he was a general manager at News Corp and the chief executive of Qantas. These are just among many of his considerable activities.
These days, as I say, he’s a publisher, public commentator, writer, and we’re absolutely delighted to welcome you here to Radio Northern Beaches and the P&I podcast, John.
John Menadue: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for the welcome and for what you’ve had to say about Pearls and Irritations. My wife says that she’s the Pearl and I’m the Irritation.
ML:You launched, I think, P&I, what, 2013 or 2011; anyway, you’ve been going a long while. And I noticed the other day you observed that you’d published some 20,000 items on Pearls and Irritations to do with public policy. That’s an amazing achievement itself as an independent media outlet in Australia, isn’t it?
JM: I’m quite pleased with it and so is Susie, my wife. We started 13 years ago and we did everything. I used to write all the stories and Susie handled the technical, admin, financial matters, but it’s grown dramatically since then. We now contract some of the work to people that can help us in editorial, in production and IT. It’s achieving quite a lot of influence among ministers, politicians, journalists and other opinion leaders in the community.
We’re looking now at what the future holds. I’m 89 and Susie, my wife, is not in good health. So we’re looking at new governance arrangements, a public company with outside directors so that we can continue Pearls and Irritations well into the future.
Pearls and Irritations publisher John Menadue . . . “I’m afraid some of [the mainstream media] are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.” Image: Independent AustralianML: So you made a real contribution through this and you’ve given the opportunity for so many expert, experienced, independent voices to commentate on public policy issues of great importance, not least vis-a-vis, might I say, mainstream media treatment of a lot of these issues.
This is one of your themes and motivations with Pearls and Irritations as a public policy journal, isn’t it? That our mainstream media perhaps don’t do the job they might do in covering significant issues of public policy?
JM: That’s our hope and intention, but I’m afraid some of them are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.
It’s quite a shame what mainstream media is serving up today, propaganda for the United States, so focused on America.Occasionally we get nonsense about the British royal family or some irrelevant feature like that.
But we’re very badly served. Our media shows very little interest in our own region. It is ignorant and prejudiced against China. It is not concerned about our relations with Indonesia, with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam.
It’s all focused on the United States.We’re seeing it on an enormous scale now with the US elections. Even the ABC has a Planet America programme.
It’s so much focused on America as if we’re an island parked off New York. We are being Americanised in so many areas and particularly in our media.
ML: What has led to this state of affairs in the way that mainstream media treats major public policy issues these days? It hasn’t always been like that or has it?
JM: We’ve been a country that’s been frightened of our region, the countries where we have to make our future. And we’ve turned first to the United Kingdom as a protector. That ended in tears in Singapore.
And now we turn to the United States to look after us in this dangerous world, rather than making our own way as an independent country in our own region. That fear of our region, racism, white Australia, yellow peril all feature in Australia and in our media.
But when we had good, strong leaders, for example, Malcolm Fraser on refugees, he gave leadership and our role in the region.
Gough Whitlam did it also. If we have strong leadership, we can break from our focus on the United States at the expense of our own region. In the end, we’ve got to decide that as we live in this region, we’ve got to prosper in this region.
Security in our region, not from our region. We can do it, but I’m afraid that we’ve been retreating from Asia dreadfully over the last two or three decades. I thought when we had a Labor government, things would be different, but they’re not.
We are still frightened of our own region and embracing at every opportunity, the United States.
ML: Another theme of the many years of publishing Pearls and Irritations is that you are concerned to rebuild some degree of public confidence and trust that has been lost in the political system and that you seek to provide a platform for good policy discussion with the emphasis being on public policy. How has the public policy process been undermined or become so narrow minded if that’s one way of describing it?
JM: Contracting out work to private contractors, the big four accounting firms, getting advice, and not trusting the public service has meant that the quality of our public service has declined considerably. That has to be rebuilt so we get better policy development.
Ministers have been responsible, particularly Scott Morrison, for downgrading the public service and believing somehow or other that better advice can be obtained in the private sector.
Another factor has been the enormous growth in the power of lobbyists for corporate Australia and for foreign companies as well. Ministers have become beholden to pressure from powerful lobby groups.
One particular example, with which I’m quite familiar is in the health field. We are never likely to have real improvements in Medicare, for example, unless the government is prepared to take on the power of lobbyists — the providers, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies in Australia.
But it’s not just in health where lobbyists are causing so much damage. The power of lobbyists has discredited the role of governments that are seduced by powerful interests rather than serving the community.
The media have just entrenched this problem. Governments are criticised at every opportunity. Australia can be served by the media taking a more positive view about the importance of good policy development and not getting sidetracked all the time about some trivial personal political issue.
The media publish the handouts of the lobbyists, whether it’s the health industry or whether it’s in the fossil fuel industries. These are the main factors that have contributed to the lack of confidence and the lack of trust in good government in Australia.
ML: A particular editorial focus that’s evident in Pearls and Irritations is promoting, I think in your words, a peaceful dialogue and engagement with China. Why is this required and why do you put it forward as a particularly important part of what you see as the mission of your Pearls and Irritations public policy journal?
JM; China, is our largest market and will continue to be so. There is a very jaundiced view, particularly from the United States, which we then copy, that China is a great threat. It’s not a threat to Australia and it’s not a threat to the United States homeland.
But it is to a degree a threat, a competitive threat to the United States in economy and trade. America didn’t worry about China when it was poor, but now that it’s strong militarily, economically and in technology, America is very concerned and feels that its future, its own leadership, its hegemony in the world is being contested.
Unfortunately, Australia has allowed itself to be drawn into the American contest with China. It’s one provocation after another. If it’s not within China itself, it’s on Taiwan, human rights in Hong Kong. Every opportunity is found by the United States to provoke China, if possible, and lead it into war.
I think, frankly, China will be more careful than that.
China’s problem is that it’s successful. And that’s what America cannot accept. By comparison, China does not make the military threat to other countries that the United States presents.
America is the most violent, aggressive country in the world. The greatest threat to peace in the world is the United States and we’re seeing that particularly now expressed in Israel and in Gaza.
But there’s a history. America’s almost always at war and has been since its independence in 1776. By contrast, China doesn’t have that sort of record and history. It is certainly concerned about security on its borders, and it has borders with 14 countries.
But it doesn’t project its power like the US. It doesn’t bomb other countries like the United States. It doesn’t have military bases surrounding the United States.
The United States has about 800 bases around the world. It’s not surprising that China feels threatened by what the United States is doing. And until the United States comes to a sensible, realistic view about China and deals with it politically, I think they’re going to make continual problems for us.
We have this dichotomy that China is our major trading partner but it’s seen by many as a strategic threat. I think that is a mistake.
ML: But what about your views about the public policy process underlying Australia’s policy in reaching the positions that we’re taking vis-a-vis China?
JM: There are several reasons for it, but I think the major one is that Australian governments, the previous government and now this one, takes the advice of intelligence agencies rather than the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Our intelligence agencies are part of Five Eyes. Of the international intelligence which comes to Australian agencies, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we’ve had the colonisation of our intelligence agencies and they’re the ones that the Australian government listens to.
Very senior people in those agencies have direct access to the Prime Minister. He listens to them rather than to Penny Wong or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. On most public issues involving China, the Department of Foreign Affairs has become a wallflower.
It’s a great tragedy because so much of our future in the region depends on good diplomacy with China, with the ASEAN, with the countries of our region.
Those intelligence agencies in Australia, together with American funded, military funded organisations such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have the ear of governments. They’ve also got the ear of the media.
Stories are leaked to the media all the time from those agencies in order to heighten our fear of the region. The Americanisation of Australia is widespread. But our intelligence agencies have been Americanised as well, and they’re leading us down a very dangerous path.
ML: I’m speaking with our guest today on Reno Northern Beaches Community Voices and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast with the publisher of Pearls and Irritations Public Policy Journal, John Menadue, distinguished Australian public servant and businessman.
John, again, it’s one thing to talk about that, but governments, when they change, and we’ve had a change of government recently, very often, as I’m sure you know from personal experience, have the opportunity and do indeed change their advisors and adopt different policies, and one might have expected this to happen.
Why didn’t we see a change of the guard like we saw a change of government?
JM: I think this government is timid on almost everything. It was timid from day one on administrative arrangements, departmental arrangements, heads of departments.
For example, there was no change made to dismantle the Department of Home Affairs with Michael Pezzullo. That should have happened on day one, but it didn’t happen.
Concerns we’ve had in migration, the role of foreign affairs and intelligence with all those intelligence agencies gathered together in one department has been very bad for Australia.
Very few changes were made in the leadership of our intelligence agencies, the Office of National Assessments, in ASIO. The same advice has been continued. In almost every area you can look at, the government has been timid, unprepared to take on vested interests, lobbyists, and change departments to make them more attuned to what the government wants to do.
But the government doesn’t want to upset anyone. And as a result, we’re having a continuation of badly informed ministers and departments that have really not been effectively changed to meet the requirements and needs of, what I thought was a reforming government.
ML: In that context, AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal might be perhaps a case in point of the broader issues and points you’re making. How would you characterise the nature of the public policy process and decision behind AUKUS? How were the decisions made and in what manner?
JM: By political appointees and confidants of Morrison. There’s been no public discussion. There’s been no public statement by Morrison or by Albanese about AUKUS — its history, why we’re doing it.
It’s been left to briefings of journalists and others. I think it’s disgraceful what’s happened in that area. It’s time the Australian government spelled out to us what it all means, but it’s not going to do it. Because I believe the case is so threadbare that it’s not game to put it to the public test.
And so we’re continuing in this ludicrous arrangement, this fiscal calamity, which Morrison inflicted on the Albanese government which it hasn’t been game to contest.
My own view is that frankly, AUKUS will never happen. It is so absurd — the delay, the cost, the failure of submarine construction or the delays in the United States, the problems of the submarine construction and maintenance in the United Kingdom.
For all those sorts of reasons, I don’t think it’ll really happen. Unfortunately, we’re going to waste a lot of money and a lot of time. I don’t think the Department of Defence could run any major project, certainly not a project like this.
Defence has been unsuccessful in the frigate and numerous other programmes. Our Department of Defence really is not up to the job and that among other reasons gives me reason to believe, and hope frankly, that AUKUS will collapse under its own stupidity.
But what I think is of more concern is the real estate, which we are freely leasing to the Americans. We had it first with the Marines in Darwin. We have it also coming now with US B-52 aircraft based out of Tindal in the Northern Territory and the submarine base in Perth, Western Australia.
These bases are being made available to the United States with very little control by Australia. The government carries on with nonsense about how our sovereignty will be protected.
In fact, it won’t be protected. If there’s any difficulties, for example, over a war with China over Taiwan, and the Americans are involved, there is no way Americans will consult with us about whether they can use nuclear armed vessels out of Tindal, for example.
The Americans will insist that Pine Gap continues to operate. So we are locked in through ceding so much of our real estate and the sovereignty that goes with it.
Penny Wong has been asked about American aircraft out of Tindal, carrying nuclear weapons and she says to us, sorry but the Americans won’t confirm or deny what they do.
Good heavens, this is our territory. This is our sovereignty. And we won’t even ask the Americans operating out of Tindal, whether they’re carrying nuclear weapons.
Back in the days of Malcolm Fraser, he made a statement to the Parliament insisting that no vessels or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian government.
And now Penny Wong says, we won’t ask. You can do what you like. We know the US won’t confirm or deny.
When it came to the Solomon Islands, a treaty that the Solomons negotiated with China on strategic and defence matters, Penny Wong was very upset about this secret agreement. There should be transparency, she warned.
But that’s small fry, compared with the fact that the Australian government will allow United States aircraft to operate out of Tindal without the Australian government knowing whether they are carrying nuclear weapons. I think that’s outrageous.
ML: Notwithstanding many of the very technical and economic and other discussions around the nuclear submarine’s acquisition, it does seem that politically, at least, and not least from the media presentation of our policy position that we’re very clearly signing up with our US allies against contingency attacks on Taiwan that we would be committed to take a part in and we’re also moving very closely, to well the phrase is interoperability, with the US forces and equipment but also personnel too.
You mentioned earlier, intelligence personnel and I believe there’s a lot of US personnel in the Department of Defence too?
JM: That’s right. It’s just another example of Americanisation which is reflected in our intelligence agencies, Department of Defence, interchangeability of our military forces, the fusion of our military or particularly our Navy with the United States. It’s all becoming one fused enterprise with the United States.
And in any difficulties, we would not be able, as far as I can see, to disengage from what the United States is doing. And we would be particularly vulnerable because of the AUKUS submarines. That’s if they ever come to anything. Because the AUKUS submarines, we are told, would operate off the Chinese coast to attack Chinese submarines or somehow provide intelligence for the Americans and for us.
These submarines will not be nuclear armed, which means that in the event of a conflict, we would have no bargaining or no counter to China. We’d be the weak link in the alliance with the United States.
China will not be prepared to strike the mainland United States for fear of massive retaliation. We are the weak link with Pine Gap and other real estate that I mentioned. We would be making ourselves much more vulnerable by this association with the United States.
Those AUKUS submarines will provide no deterrence for us, but make us more vulnerable if a conflict arises in which we are effectively part of the US military operation.
ML: How would you characterise the mainstream media’s presentation and treatment of these issues?
JM: The mainstream media is very largely a mouthpiece for Washington propaganda. And that American propaganda is pushed out through the legacy media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the news agencies, Fox News which in turn are influenced by the military/ business complex which Eisenhower warned us about years ago.
The power of those groups with the CIA and the influence that they have, means that they overwhelm our media. That’s reflected particularly in The Australian and News Corporation publications.
I don’t know how some of those journalists can hold their heads. They’ve been on the drip feed of America for so long. They cannot see a world that is not dominated and led by the United States.
I’m hoping that over time, Pearls and Irritations and other independent media will grow and provide a more balanced view about Australia’s role in our region and in our own development.
We need to keep good relations with the United States. They’re an important player, but I think that we are unnecessarily risking our future by throwing our lot almost entirely in with the United States.
Minister for Defence, Richard Marles is leading the Americanisation of our military. I think Penny Wong is to some extent trying to pull him back. But unfortunately so much of the leadership of Australia in defence, in the media, is part and parcel of the mistaken United States view of the world.
ML: What sort of voices are we not hearing in the media or in Australia on this question?
JM: It’s not going to change, Michael. I can’t see it changing with Lachlan Murdoch in charge. I think it’s getting worse, if possible, within News Corporation. It’s a very, very difficult and desperate situation where we’re being served so poorly.
ML: Is there a strong independent media and potential for voices through independent media in Australia?
JM: No, we haven’t got one. The best hope at the side, of course, is the ABC and SBS public broadcasters, but they’ve been seduced as well by all things American.
We’ve seen that particularly in recent months over the conflict in Gaza. The ABC and SBS heavily favour Israel. It is shameful.
They’re still the best hope of the side, but they need more money. They’re getting a little bit more from the government, but I think they are sadly lacking in leadership and proper understanding of what the role of a public broadcaster should be.
I don’t think there’s a quick answer to any of this. And I hope that we can extricate ourselves without too much damage in the future. Our media has a great responsibility and must be held responsible for the damage that it is causing in Australia.
ML: Well, look, thank you very much, John Menadue, for joining us on Radio Northern Beaches and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast. John Menadue, publisher, founder, editor-in-chief of, for the last 13 years, the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations. We’ve been discussing the role of the mainstream media, independent media, in the public policy processes too in Australia, and particularly in the context of international relations and in this case our relationships with the US and China.
Thank you so much John for taking the time and for sharing your thoughts with us here today. Thanks for joining us John.
JM: Thank you. Let’s hope for better days.
John Menadue, founder and publisher of Pearls and Irritations public policy journal has had a senior professional career in the media, public service and airlines. In 1985, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for public service. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide in recognition of his significant and lifelong contribution to Australian society. This transcript of the Pearls and Irritations podcast on 10 August 2024 is republished with permission.
Of the international intelligence information that comes to Australian agencies from the Five Eyes, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we have the colonisation of our intelligence agencies These agencies dominate the advice to ministers, writes John Menadue.
Michael Lester:Hello again listeners to Community Radio Northern Beaches Community Voices and also the Pearls and Irritations podcast. I’m Michael Lester.
Our guest today is the publisher and founder of the Pearls and Irritations Public Policy online journal, the celebrated John Menadue, with whom we’ll be so pleased to have a discussion today. John has a long and high profile experience in both the public service, for which he’s been awarded the Order of Australia and also in business.
As a public servant, he was secretary of a number of departments over the years, prime minister and cabinet under a couple of different prime ministers, immigration and ethnic affairs, special minister of state and the Department of Trade and also Ambassador to Japan.
And in his private sector career, he was a general manager at News Corp and the chief executive of Qantas. These are just among many of his considerable activities.
These days, as I say, he’s a publisher, public commentator, writer, and we’re absolutely delighted to welcome you here to Radio Northern Beaches and the P&I podcast, John.
John Menadue: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for the welcome and for what you’ve had to say about Pearls and Irritations. My wife says that she’s the Pearl and I’m the Irritation.
ML:You launched, I think, P&I, what, 2013 or 2011; anyway, you’ve been going a long while. And I noticed the other day you observed that you’d published some 20,000 items on Pearls and Irritations to do with public policy. That’s an amazing achievement itself as an independent media outlet in Australia, isn’t it?
JM: I’m quite pleased with it and so is Susie, my wife. We started 13 years ago and we did everything. I used to write all the stories and Susie handled the technical, admin, financial matters, but it’s grown dramatically since then. We now contract some of the work to people that can help us in editorial, in production and IT. It’s achieving quite a lot of influence among ministers, politicians, journalists and other opinion leaders in the community.
We’re looking now at what the future holds. I’m 89 and Susie, my wife, is not in good health. So we’re looking at new governance arrangements, a public company with outside directors so that we can continue Pearls and Irritations well into the future.
Pearls and Irritations publisher John Menadue . . . “I’m afraid some of [the mainstream media] are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.” Image: Independent AustralianML: So you made a real contribution through this and you’ve given the opportunity for so many expert, experienced, independent voices to commentate on public policy issues of great importance, not least vis-a-vis, might I say, mainstream media treatment of a lot of these issues.
This is one of your themes and motivations with Pearls and Irritations as a public policy journal, isn’t it? That our mainstream media perhaps don’t do the job they might do in covering significant issues of public policy?
JM: That’s our hope and intention, but I’m afraid some of them are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.
It’s quite a shame what mainstream media is serving up today, propaganda for the United States, so focused on America.Occasionally we get nonsense about the British royal family or some irrelevant feature like that.
But we’re very badly served. Our media shows very little interest in our own region. It is ignorant and prejudiced against China. It is not concerned about our relations with Indonesia, with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam.
It’s all focused on the United States.We’re seeing it on an enormous scale now with the US elections. Even the ABC has a Planet America programme.
It’s so much focused on America as if we’re an island parked off New York. We are being Americanised in so many areas and particularly in our media.
ML: What has led to this state of affairs in the way that mainstream media treats major public policy issues these days? It hasn’t always been like that or has it?
JM: We’ve been a country that’s been frightened of our region, the countries where we have to make our future. And we’ve turned first to the United Kingdom as a protector. That ended in tears in Singapore.
And now we turn to the United States to look after us in this dangerous world, rather than making our own way as an independent country in our own region. That fear of our region, racism, white Australia, yellow peril all feature in Australia and in our media.
But when we had good, strong leaders, for example, Malcolm Fraser on refugees, he gave leadership and our role in the region.
Gough Whitlam did it also. If we have strong leadership, we can break from our focus on the United States at the expense of our own region. In the end, we’ve got to decide that as we live in this region, we’ve got to prosper in this region.
Security in our region, not from our region. We can do it, but I’m afraid that we’ve been retreating from Asia dreadfully over the last two or three decades. I thought when we had a Labor government, things would be different, but they’re not.
We are still frightened of our own region and embracing at every opportunity, the United States.
ML: Another theme of the many years of publishing Pearls and Irritations is that you are concerned to rebuild some degree of public confidence and trust that has been lost in the political system and that you seek to provide a platform for good policy discussion with the emphasis being on public policy. How has the public policy process been undermined or become so narrow minded if that’s one way of describing it?
JM: Contracting out work to private contractors, the big four accounting firms, getting advice, and not trusting the public service has meant that the quality of our public service has declined considerably. That has to be rebuilt so we get better policy development.
Ministers have been responsible, particularly Scott Morrison, for downgrading the public service and believing somehow or other that better advice can be obtained in the private sector.
Another factor has been the enormous growth in the power of lobbyists for corporate Australia and for foreign companies as well. Ministers have become beholden to pressure from powerful lobby groups.
One particular example, with which I’m quite familiar is in the health field. We are never likely to have real improvements in Medicare, for example, unless the government is prepared to take on the power of lobbyists — the providers, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies in Australia.
But it’s not just in health where lobbyists are causing so much damage. The power of lobbyists has discredited the role of governments that are seduced by powerful interests rather than serving the community.
The media have just entrenched this problem. Governments are criticised at every opportunity. Australia can be served by the media taking a more positive view about the importance of good policy development and not getting sidetracked all the time about some trivial personal political issue.
The media publish the handouts of the lobbyists, whether it’s the health industry or whether it’s in the fossil fuel industries. These are the main factors that have contributed to the lack of confidence and the lack of trust in good government in Australia.
ML: A particular editorial focus that’s evident in Pearls and Irritations is promoting, I think in your words, a peaceful dialogue and engagement with China. Why is this required and why do you put it forward as a particularly important part of what you see as the mission of your Pearls and Irritations public policy journal?
JM; China, is our largest market and will continue to be so. There is a very jaundiced view, particularly from the United States, which we then copy, that China is a great threat. It’s not a threat to Australia and it’s not a threat to the United States homeland.
But it is to a degree a threat, a competitive threat to the United States in economy and trade. America didn’t worry about China when it was poor, but now that it’s strong militarily, economically and in technology, America is very concerned and feels that its future, its own leadership, its hegemony in the world is being contested.
Unfortunately, Australia has allowed itself to be drawn into the American contest with China. It’s one provocation after another. If it’s not within China itself, it’s on Taiwan, human rights in Hong Kong. Every opportunity is found by the United States to provoke China, if possible, and lead it into war.
I think, frankly, China will be more careful than that.
China’s problem is that it’s successful. And that’s what America cannot accept. By comparison, China does not make the military threat to other countries that the United States presents.
America is the most violent, aggressive country in the world. The greatest threat to peace in the world is the United States and we’re seeing that particularly now expressed in Israel and in Gaza.
But there’s a history. America’s almost always at war and has been since its independence in 1776. By contrast, China doesn’t have that sort of record and history. It is certainly concerned about security on its borders, and it has borders with 14 countries.
But it doesn’t project its power like the US. It doesn’t bomb other countries like the United States. It doesn’t have military bases surrounding the United States.
The United States has about 800 bases around the world. It’s not surprising that China feels threatened by what the United States is doing. And until the United States comes to a sensible, realistic view about China and deals with it politically, I think they’re going to make continual problems for us.
We have this dichotomy that China is our major trading partner but it’s seen by many as a strategic threat. I think that is a mistake.
ML: But what about your views about the public policy process underlying Australia’s policy in reaching the positions that we’re taking vis-a-vis China?
JM: There are several reasons for it, but I think the major one is that Australian governments, the previous government and now this one, takes the advice of intelligence agencies rather than the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Our intelligence agencies are part of Five Eyes. Of the international intelligence which comes to Australian agencies, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we’ve had the colonisation of our intelligence agencies and they’re the ones that the Australian government listens to.
Very senior people in those agencies have direct access to the Prime Minister. He listens to them rather than to Penny Wong or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. On most public issues involving China, the Department of Foreign Affairs has become a wallflower.
It’s a great tragedy because so much of our future in the region depends on good diplomacy with China, with the ASEAN, with the countries of our region.
Those intelligence agencies in Australia, together with American funded, military funded organisations such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have the ear of governments. They’ve also got the ear of the media.
Stories are leaked to the media all the time from those agencies in order to heighten our fear of the region. The Americanisation of Australia is widespread. But our intelligence agencies have been Americanised as well, and they’re leading us down a very dangerous path.
ML: I’m speaking with our guest today on Reno Northern Beaches Community Voices and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast with the publisher of Pearls and Irritations Public Policy Journal, John Menadue, distinguished Australian public servant and businessman.
John, again, it’s one thing to talk about that, but governments, when they change, and we’ve had a change of government recently, very often, as I’m sure you know from personal experience, have the opportunity and do indeed change their advisors and adopt different policies, and one might have expected this to happen.
Why didn’t we see a change of the guard like we saw a change of government?
JM: I think this government is timid on almost everything. It was timid from day one on administrative arrangements, departmental arrangements, heads of departments.
For example, there was no change made to dismantle the Department of Home Affairs with Michael Pezzullo. That should have happened on day one, but it didn’t happen.
Concerns we’ve had in migration, the role of foreign affairs and intelligence with all those intelligence agencies gathered together in one department has been very bad for Australia.
Very few changes were made in the leadership of our intelligence agencies, the Office of National Assessments, in ASIO. The same advice has been continued. In almost every area you can look at, the government has been timid, unprepared to take on vested interests, lobbyists, and change departments to make them more attuned to what the government wants to do.
But the government doesn’t want to upset anyone. And as a result, we’re having a continuation of badly informed ministers and departments that have really not been effectively changed to meet the requirements and needs of, what I thought was a reforming government.
ML: In that context, AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal might be perhaps a case in point of the broader issues and points you’re making. How would you characterise the nature of the public policy process and decision behind AUKUS? How were the decisions made and in what manner?
JM: By political appointees and confidants of Morrison. There’s been no public discussion. There’s been no public statement by Morrison or by Albanese about AUKUS — its history, why we’re doing it.
It’s been left to briefings of journalists and others. I think it’s disgraceful what’s happened in that area. It’s time the Australian government spelled out to us what it all means, but it’s not going to do it. Because I believe the case is so threadbare that it’s not game to put it to the public test.
And so we’re continuing in this ludicrous arrangement, this fiscal calamity, which Morrison inflicted on the Albanese government which it hasn’t been game to contest.
My own view is that frankly, AUKUS will never happen. It is so absurd — the delay, the cost, the failure of submarine construction or the delays in the United States, the problems of the submarine construction and maintenance in the United Kingdom.
For all those sorts of reasons, I don’t think it’ll really happen. Unfortunately, we’re going to waste a lot of money and a lot of time. I don’t think the Department of Defence could run any major project, certainly not a project like this.
Defence has been unsuccessful in the frigate and numerous other programmes. Our Department of Defence really is not up to the job and that among other reasons gives me reason to believe, and hope frankly, that AUKUS will collapse under its own stupidity.
But what I think is of more concern is the real estate, which we are freely leasing to the Americans. We had it first with the Marines in Darwin. We have it also coming now with US B-52 aircraft based out of Tindal in the Northern Territory and the submarine base in Perth, Western Australia.
These bases are being made available to the United States with very little control by Australia. The government carries on with nonsense about how our sovereignty will be protected.
In fact, it won’t be protected. If there’s any difficulties, for example, over a war with China over Taiwan, and the Americans are involved, there is no way Americans will consult with us about whether they can use nuclear armed vessels out of Tindal, for example.
The Americans will insist that Pine Gap continues to operate. So we are locked in through ceding so much of our real estate and the sovereignty that goes with it.
Penny Wong has been asked about American aircraft out of Tindal, carrying nuclear weapons and she says to us, sorry but the Americans won’t confirm or deny what they do.
Good heavens, this is our territory. This is our sovereignty. And we won’t even ask the Americans operating out of Tindal, whether they’re carrying nuclear weapons.
Back in the days of Malcolm Fraser, he made a statement to the Parliament insisting that no vessels or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian government.
And now Penny Wong says, we won’t ask. You can do what you like. We know the US won’t confirm or deny.
When it came to the Solomon Islands, a treaty that the Solomons negotiated with China on strategic and defence matters, Penny Wong was very upset about this secret agreement. There should be transparency, she warned.
But that’s small fry, compared with the fact that the Australian government will allow United States aircraft to operate out of Tindal without the Australian government knowing whether they are carrying nuclear weapons. I think that’s outrageous.
ML: Notwithstanding many of the very technical and economic and other discussions around the nuclear submarine’s acquisition, it does seem that politically, at least, and not least from the media presentation of our policy position that we’re very clearly signing up with our US allies against contingency attacks on Taiwan that we would be committed to take a part in and we’re also moving very closely, to well the phrase is interoperability, with the US forces and equipment but also personnel too.
You mentioned earlier, intelligence personnel and I believe there’s a lot of US personnel in the Department of Defence too?
JM: That’s right. It’s just another example of Americanisation which is reflected in our intelligence agencies, Department of Defence, interchangeability of our military forces, the fusion of our military or particularly our Navy with the United States. It’s all becoming one fused enterprise with the United States.
And in any difficulties, we would not be able, as far as I can see, to disengage from what the United States is doing. And we would be particularly vulnerable because of the AUKUS submarines. That’s if they ever come to anything. Because the AUKUS submarines, we are told, would operate off the Chinese coast to attack Chinese submarines or somehow provide intelligence for the Americans and for us.
These submarines will not be nuclear armed, which means that in the event of a conflict, we would have no bargaining or no counter to China. We’d be the weak link in the alliance with the United States.
China will not be prepared to strike the mainland United States for fear of massive retaliation. We are the weak link with Pine Gap and other real estate that I mentioned. We would be making ourselves much more vulnerable by this association with the United States.
Those AUKUS submarines will provide no deterrence for us, but make us more vulnerable if a conflict arises in which we are effectively part of the US military operation.
ML: How would you characterise the mainstream media’s presentation and treatment of these issues?
JM: The mainstream media is very largely a mouthpiece for Washington propaganda. And that American propaganda is pushed out through the legacy media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the news agencies, Fox News which in turn are influenced by the military/ business complex which Eisenhower warned us about years ago.
The power of those groups with the CIA and the influence that they have, means that they overwhelm our media. That’s reflected particularly in The Australian and News Corporation publications.
I don’t know how some of those journalists can hold their heads. They’ve been on the drip feed of America for so long. They cannot see a world that is not dominated and led by the United States.
I’m hoping that over time, Pearls and Irritations and other independent media will grow and provide a more balanced view about Australia’s role in our region and in our own development.
We need to keep good relations with the United States. They’re an important player, but I think that we are unnecessarily risking our future by throwing our lot almost entirely in with the United States.
Minister for Defence, Richard Marles is leading the Americanisation of our military. I think Penny Wong is to some extent trying to pull him back. But unfortunately so much of the leadership of Australia in defence, in the media, is part and parcel of the mistaken United States view of the world.
ML: What sort of voices are we not hearing in the media or in Australia on this question?
JM: It’s not going to change, Michael. I can’t see it changing with Lachlan Murdoch in charge. I think it’s getting worse, if possible, within News Corporation. It’s a very, very difficult and desperate situation where we’re being served so poorly.
ML: Is there a strong independent media and potential for voices through independent media in Australia?
JM: No, we haven’t got one. The best hope at the side, of course, is the ABC and SBS public broadcasters, but they’ve been seduced as well by all things American.
We’ve seen that particularly in recent months over the conflict in Gaza. The ABC and SBS heavily favour Israel. It is shameful.
They’re still the best hope of the side, but they need more money. They’re getting a little bit more from the government, but I think they are sadly lacking in leadership and proper understanding of what the role of a public broadcaster should be.
I don’t think there’s a quick answer to any of this. And I hope that we can extricate ourselves without too much damage in the future. Our media has a great responsibility and must be held responsible for the damage that it is causing in Australia.
ML: Well, look, thank you very much, John Menadue, for joining us on Radio Northern Beaches and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast. John Menadue, publisher, founder, editor-in-chief of, for the last 13 years, the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations. We’ve been discussing the role of the mainstream media, independent media, in the public policy processes too in Australia, and particularly in the context of international relations and in this case our relationships with the US and China.
Thank you so much John for taking the time and for sharing your thoughts with us here today. Thanks for joining us John.
JM: Thank you. Let’s hope for better days.
John Menadue, founder and publisher of Pearls and Irritations public policy journal has had a senior professional career in the media, public service and airlines. In 1985, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for public service. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide in recognition of his significant and lifelong contribution to Australian society. This transcript of the Pearls and Irritations podcast on 10 August 2024 is republished with permission.
“I have to say there is widespread support for the membership of Guam and American Samoa, and so that is the recommendation in principle coming from foreign ministers that will be tabled with leaders,” he said.
However, Griffith Asia Institute’s Pacific Hub project lead Dr Tess Newton Cain said the move had a geopolitical aspect.
Forum foreign ministers gathered at the PIF Secretariat for its meeting on Friday. Image: Pacific Islands Forum
“When it comes to the Pacific Islands Forum, the US has struggled with the fact that it sits at the same table as China — they are both dialogue partners,” she said.
“It is like when you invite people to a wedding — the US does not like the table it is on.
US seeking ‘better table’
“It wants to be on a better table and being able to have two of its territories, American Samoa and Guam, get that associate membership — if that happens — does seem to indicate this is how they get a little bit of an edge on China.”
She expects the application to be accepted at the Leaders’ Meeting in Tonga at the end of the month.
Tokelau and Wallis and Futuna are currently the associate members of the Forum. American Samoa and Guam are currently forum observers; being upgraded to associate members will give them better participation in the regional institution.
Guam’s Governor Lou Leon Guerrero told RNZ Pacific last week the territory would ultimately want to be full voting members.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had previously said the territories’ political status meant they could not be full members but he supported the application for associate membership.
French territories New Caledonia and French Polynesia became full members in 2016.
Newton Cain believes full membership for the two US territories would be a push.
French territories ‘justified’
But she said for the French territories it was “kind of justified” — New Caledonia was on the path to independence, while French Polynesia was re-inscribed to the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories (C-24 list).
“If Guam and American Samoa are not interested, or there is no kind of indication that they are moving towards being sovereign or even in a compact, like Marshall Islands and Palau and FSM, then that would be a big ask.”
Newton Cain thinks full membership would mean some member states would have concerns because it means Washington is getting closer to the decision making.
“There is also regional concern surrounding Guam’s military build-up. If the territory wanted to progress to full membership it may not be able to comply with the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Treaty,” Newton Cain said.
Architecture reform Brown said the Forum was undergoing a review of its architecture, including criteria for associate member status and observer status, which would likely see changes to associate membership applications.
“So, while [Guam and American Samoa] applications will be considered by leaders, and in this case, it looks favourably to be elevated to associate membership — the review of the regional architecture, as it pertains to associate membership, may see some changes,” he said.
Newton Cain said it was not clear what Brown meant.
“It would be a very bad look diplomatically if they were to allow them to become associate members and then in a couple of years say, ‘oh we have changed the rules now and you no longer qualify’.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania was captured by several photographers who were standing at the stage before the shooting commenced.
The most widely circulated photograph of this event was taken by Evan Vucci, a Pulitzer Prize winning war photographer known for his coverage of protests following George Floyd’s murder.
A number of World Press Photograph awards have been given to photographers who have covered an assassination.
In this vein, Vucci’s image can also be regarded as already iconic, a photograph that perhaps too will win awards for its content, use of colour and framing — and will become an important piece of how we remember this moment in history.
Social media analysis of the image Viewers of Vucci’s photograph have taken to social media to break down the composition of the image, including how iconic motifs such as the American flag and Trump’s raised fist are brought together in the frame according to laws of photographic composition, such as the rule of thirds.
Such elements are believed to contribute to the photograph’s potency.
To understand exactly what it is that makes this such a powerful image, there are several elements we can parse.
Compositional acuity In this photograph, Vucci is looking up with his camera. He makes Trump appear elevated as the central figure surrounded by suited Secret Service agents who shield his body. The agents form a triangular composition that places Trump at the vertex, slightly to the left of a raised American flag in the sky.
On the immediate right of Trump, an agent looks directly at Vucci’s lens with eyes concealed by dark glasses. The agent draws us into the image, he looks back at us, he sees the photographer and therefore, he seems to see us: he mirrors our gaze at the photograph.
This figure is central, he leads our gaze to Trump’s raised fist.
Another point of note is that there are strong colour elements in this image that deceptively serve to pull it together as a photograph.
Set against a blue sky, everything else in the image is red, white and navy blue. The trickles of blood falling down Trump’s face are echoed in the red stripes of the American flag which aligns with the republican red of the podium in the lower left quadrant of the image.
We might not see these elements initially, but they demonstrate how certain photographic conventions contribute to Vucci’s own ways of seeing and composing that align with photojournalism as a discipline.
A photographic way of seeing In interviews, Vucci has referred to the importance of retaining a sense of photographic composure in being able to attain “the shot”, of being sure to cover the situation from numerous angles, including capturing the scene with the right composition and light.
For Vucci, all of this was about “doing the job” of the photographer.
Vucci’s statements are consistent with what most photographers would regard as a photographic way of seeing. This means being attuned to the way composition, light, timing and subject matter come together in the frame in perfect unity when photographing: it means getting the “right” shot.
For Susan Sontag, this photographic way of seeing also corresponded to the relationship between shooting and photographing, a relationship she saw as analogous.
Photography and guns are arguably weapons, with photography and photographic ways of seeing and representing the world able to be weaponised to change public perception.
Writing history with photographs As a photographic way of seeing, there are familiar resonances in Vucci’s photograph to other iconic images of American history.
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Taken by Joe Rosenthal, it won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography and has come to be regarded in the United States as one of the most recognizable images of World War II. https://t.co/Nv5HjF6XMqpic.twitter.com/AGxmQqonM6
Take for instance, the photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal, The Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima (1945) during the Pacific War. In the photograph, four marines are clustered together to raise and plant the American flag, their bodies form a pyramid structure in the lower central half of the frame.
This photograph is also represented as a war monument in Virginia for marines who have served America.
The visual echoes between the Rosenthal and Vucci images are strong. They also demonstrate how photographic ways of seeing stretch beyond the compositional. It leads to another photographic way of seeing, which means viewing the world and the events that take place in it as photographs, or constructing history as though it were a photograph.
Fictions and post-truth The inherent paradox within “photographic seeing” is that no single person can be in all places at once, nor predict what is going to happen before reality can be transcribed as a photograph.
In Vucci’s photograph, we are given the illusion that this photograph captures “the moment” or “a shot”. Yet it doesn’t capture the moment of the shooting, but its immediate aftermath. The photograph captures Trump’s media acuity and swift, responsive performance to the attempted assassination, standing to rise with his fist in the air.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, then an army of journalists has assembled in Fiji’s capital to discuss the state and future of the industry in the region.
The three-day Pacific Media Conference 2024 on July 4-6 is organised and hosted by the University of the South Pacific, in collaboration with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), with more than 50 speakers from 11 countries.
A keynote speaker and veteran journalist Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, says the conference is crucial.
“It’s quite a trailblazer in many respects, because this is probably the first conference of its kind where it’s blended industry journalists all around the region, plus media academics that have been analysing and critiquing the media and so on.
“So to have this joining forces like this . . . it’s really quite a momentous conference.”
Dr Robie is a distinguished author, journalist and media educator and was recognised last month as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for his contribution to journalism and education in New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region for more than 50 years.
Speaking to William Terite on Radio 531pi’s Pacific Mornings, Dr Robie said the conference was a way to bolster solidarity to others in the industry and address common challenges.
“In many Pacific countries a lot of their fledgling institutions, and essentially, politicians, have no understanding of media generally, and have a tendency to crack down on media when they have half a chance.
“So it’s partly to get a much better image of journalism and how important journalism is in democracy and development in many countries in the Pacific.”
Journalists at the Pacific Media Conference 2024 in Suva. Image: PMN News/Justin Latif
Turning the page for media The conference theme is “Navigating challenges and shaping futures in Pacific media research and practice”.
In April last year, Fiji revoked media laws that restricted media content. PMN chief-of-news Justin Latif is attending the conference, and said Fijian media were in celebration-mode, saying “democracy has returned to Fiji”.
“They talked about how such a conference had happened under previous regimes, basically the police and army would have had a presence there and would have been just noting names and checking up that nothing was said that was anti-government.”
Latif said regional journalists showed a deep sense of purpose and drive.
“People do see their roles as a calling, and so often are willing to take less pay and harder conditions,” he said.
“They see their job as building their nation and being part of helping strengthen the country, and so it’s probably quite different if you were to get a group of journalists together in New Zealand, they probably wouldn’t have quite the same sense of that kind of fervour for the role in terms of what it can mean for the country.”
The Pacific Journalism Review, a journal examining media issues and communication in the region, celebrated its 30-year anniversary. It has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and is regularly cited by scholars.
Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie (left) with Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review at the 2024 Pacific Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Global tussle for Pacific attention The United States is one of the main funders of the conference, and there are representatives from some Asia-Pacific countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan.
Latif said China’s involvement in Pacific media was openly questioned by the US deputy chief of mission, John Gregory.
“He gave a very detailed breakdown of all the ways that China are influencing elections: using Facebook to spread misinformation to try and basically encourage the three Pacific nations who still support or maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, how they’re trying to influence those nations to have a regime change, and it was quite shocking information about the lengths that China is going to, or that the State Department believed China is going to.”
The United States in putting investment into journalism in the Pacific, said Latif, sending 13 journalists from Fiji to the US for exchanges.
“There is a clear US agenda here about wanting the media to be strengthened and to be supported so that they can have a strong foothold in the Pacific, because the influence of China is definitely being felt.”
A bold, future vision for Pacific media Dr Robie has described the current state of news media in the Pacific as “precarious”, and warned some nations can be susceptible to “geopolitics and the influences of other countries”.
“We’ve got China trying to encourage media organisations to be very much under an authoritarian wing, taking journalists across to China . . . but now we’re getting a lot more competition from Australia and the US and so on, upping the game, putting more money into training, influencing, whereas for many years they didn’t care too much about the media in the region.
“Journalists very often feel like they’re the meat in the sandwich in the competition between many countries, and it’s not good for the region generally.”
Dr Robie has worked across the Pacific, including five years as head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea, and then as the coordinator of the journalism programme at USP.
He encouraged Pacific media to continue upholding democratic values while holding leaders to account.
“Most media organisations in the Pacific are quite small and vulnerable in the sense that they’ve got small teams, limited resources, and it’s always a struggle, to be honest, and things are probably the toughest they’ve been for a while.
“Pacific countries and media need to stand up tall and strong themselves, be very clear about what they want and to stand up for it, and not be overshadowed by the influence of major countries.”
Good slogans have people nodding their heads in agreement because they recognise an underlying truth in the words.
I have a worn-out t-shirt which carries the slogan, “The first casualty of war is truth — the rest are mostly civilians”.
If you find yourself nodding in agreement it’s possibly because you have found it deeply shocking to find this slogan validated repeatedly in almost eight months of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The mainstream news sources which bring us the “truth” are strongly Eurocentric. Virtually all the reporting in our mainstream media comes via three American or European news agencies — AP, Reuters and the BBC — or from major US or UK based newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Washington Post or The New York Times.
This reporting centres on Israeli narratives, Israeli reasoning, Israeli explanations and Israeli justifications for what they are doing to Palestinians. Israeli spokespeople are front and centre and quoted extensively and directly.
Palestinian voices, when they are covered, are usually at the margins. On television in particular Palestinians are most often portrayed as the incoherent victims of overwhelming grief.
In the mainstream media Israel’s perverted lies dominate.
Riddled with examples The last seven months is riddled with examples. Just two days after the October 7 attack on Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters were accused of chanting “Gas the Jews” outside the Sydney Opera House.
The story was carried around the world through mainstream media as a nasty anti-semitic slur on Palestinians and their supporters. Four months later, after an intensive investigation New South Wales police concluded it never happened. The words were never chanted.
However the Radio New Zealand website today still carries a Reuters report saying “A rally outside the Sydney Opera House two days after the Hamas attack had ignited heated debate after a small group were filmed chanting “Gas the Jews”.
Even if RNZ did the right thing and removed the report now the old adage is true: “A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on”. Four months later and the police report is not news but the damage has been done as the pro-Israel lobby intended.
The same tactic has been used at protests on US university campuses. A couple of weeks ago at Northeastern University a pro-Israel counter protester was caught on video shouting “Kill the Jews” in an apparent attempt to provoke police into breaking up the pro-Palestine protest.
The university ordered the protest to be closed down saying “the action was taken after some protesters resorted to virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews’”. The nastiest of lies told for the nastiest of reasons — protecting a state committing genocide.
Similarly, unverified claims of “beheaded babies” raced around the world after the October 7 attack on Israel and were even repeated by US President Joe Biden. They were false.
No baby beheaded
Even the Israeli military confirmed no baby was beheaded and yet despite this bare-faced disinformation the Israeli ambassador to New Zealand was able to repeat the lie, along with several others, in a recent TVNZ interview on Q&A without being challenged.
War propaganda such as this is deliberate and designed to ramp up anger and soften us up to accept war and the most savage brutality and blatant war crimes against the Palestinian people.
Recall for a moment the lurid claims from 1990 that Iraqi soldiers had removed babies from incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and left them to die on the floor. It was false but helped the US convince the public that war against Iraq was justified.
Twelve years later the US and UK were peddling false claims about Iraq having “weapons of mass destruction” to successfully pressure other countries to join their war on Iraq.
Perhaps the most cynical misinformation to come out of the war on Gaza so far appeared in the hours following the finding of the International Court of Justice that South Africa had presented a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide.
Israel smartly released a short report claiming 12 employees of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) had taken part in the October 7 attack on Gaza. The distraction was spectacularly successful.
Western media fell over themselves to highlight the report and bury the ICJ findings with most Western countries, New Zealand included, stopping or suspending funding for the UN agency.
Independent probe
eedless to say an independent investigation out a couple of weeks ago shows Israel has failed to support its claims about UNRWA staff involved in the October 7 attacks. It doesn’t need forensic analysis to tell us Israel released this fact-free report to divert attention from their war crimes which have now killed over 36,000 Palestinians — the majority being women and children.
The problem goes deeper than manufactured stories. For many Western journalists the problem starts not with what they see and hear but with what their news editors allow them to say.
A leaked memo to New York Times journalists covering the war tells them they are to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to avoid using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land.
They have even been instructed not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” or the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza settled by Palestinian refugees driven off their land by Israeli armed militias in the Nakba of 1947–49.
These reporting restrictions are a blatant denial of Palestinian history and cut across accurate descriptions under international law which recognises Palestinians as refugees and the occupied Palestinian territories as precisely what they are — under military occupation by Israel.
People reading articles on Gaza from The New York Times have no idea the story has been “shaped” for us with a pro-Israel bias.
These restrictions on journalists also typically cover how Palestinians are portrayed in Western media. Every Palestinian teenager who throws a stone at Israeli soldiers is called a “militant” or worse and Palestinians who take up arms to fight the Israeli occupation of their land, as is their right under international law, are described as “terrorists” when they should be described as resistance fighters.
The heavy pro-Israel bias in Western media reporting is an important reason Israel’s military occupation of Palestine, and the ongoing violence which results from it, has continued for so long.
The answer to all of this is people power — join the weekly global protests in your centre against Israel’s settler colonial project with its apartheid policies against Palestinians.
And give the mainstream media a wide berth on this issue.
John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
A National Union of Workers (NUW) official is hopeful Fiji Water employees who have been on strike for almost a week will return to work shortly.
Last Tuesday, a group of workers for Fiji Water went on strike over pay disputes at the multi-million dollar US-owned company’s water bottling plant in Yaqara and the Naikabula depot in Lautoka.
NUW’s industrial relations officer Mererai Vatege said the parties were currently working on a resolution.
“There have been some developments, the parties are currently talking,” Vatege said.
“We’re very hopeful and positive that this will be resolved soon.”
Vatege said the NUW met with Ministry of Labour officials on Thursday and are now awaiting a response from Fiji Water.
However, she was unable to give a date when she expected the matters to be resolved by.
Talks broke down last month
The employees have continued their strike, holding signs with messages calling for pay increases and working conditions.
Talks broke down between Fiji Water and workers on April 8.
The workers claim the company has failed pay owed overtime and have not made income adjustments to inflation, along with other pay related issues.
Fiji Water employees strike. Viudeo: RNZ Pacific Waves
RNZ Pacific have requested comment from Fiji Water but have not had a response.
However, in a statement last Wednesday, a company spokesperson told Fijian media it was regrettable workers had engaged in a strike.
“The decision to strike is also unlawful because these issues have been submitted to the Ministry of Employment, which has not yet decided on the dispute,” the spokesperson said.
“Fiji Water takes great pride in being one of the best employers in Fiji and operating one of the most advanced and safest plants in the world.”
Some of ‘highest benefits’
The spokesperson said the company provided some of the highest and best benefits in Fiji, including a 13.5 percent wage increase in 2022.
They said recent offers to the union equal an additional 17 percent pay increase for hourly-paid workers and a new roster pattern that would give workers 17 more days off each year.
“Instead, the union has elected to engage in a strike that harms workers who will not receive wages while on strike,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the company would remain committed to resolving the contested issues with the union.
Vatege said employees wanted to return to work but were united in strike action.
She said they would only return once an agreement was signed between the union and the employer.
Fiji Water’s signpost to its Yaqara valley production base in Fiji. Image: RNZ/Sally Round
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
On 2 May 2023 Angelica Dino in the Canadian Lawyer summarizes the latest annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released by the U.S. Department of State on the 75th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
The Human Rights Report evaluated the status of internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights in nearly 200 countries and territories, leveraging insights from various sources, including government agencies, NGOs, and media. According to the State Department, this documentation serves as a critical tool in connecting U.S. diplomatic and foreign aid efforts to the foundational American values of human rights protection and promotion.
The release coincides with the third Summit for Democracy, led this year by the Republic of Korea. The summit emphasizes a collective international effort to strengthen democratic governance and address human rights abuses. Its goals include expanding media freedom, enhancing women’s rights, combating corruption, and ensuring that technology supports democratic processes rather than acting as a tool of repression.
This year’s report detailed significant human rights violations across several countries, with stark abuses noted in Russia’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Russian military actions have been characterized by violent assaults on civilians, with extensive documentation of crimes potentially amounting to crimes against humanity. The report also highlighted the forced transfer and assimilation of Ukrainian children into Russian territories, marking a severe violation of international law.
In Iran, the regime’s crackdown on dissent extended beyond its borders, posing grave risks to its citizens both domestically and internationally. Similarly, the report condemned the Taliban’s discriminatory actions against women and girls in Afghanistan, which starkly undermined their societal roles and freedoms.
Conversely, the report identified positive strides in several nations. Notably, Kenya has upheld freedom of expression for LGBTQI+ individuals, and Estonia and Slovenia have recognized marriage equality. Additionally, labour reforms in Mexico have empowered workers to improve conditions and assert their rights more effectively.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken emphasized the report’s role and expressed hope that the findings will support and inspire human rights defenders globally. “I hope that the honest and public assessments of human rights abuses, as well as the reports of progress, reflected in these pages give strength to these brave individuals across the globe who often put their lives at risk to improve conditions in their own countries, and, ultimately, make the world a freer, safer place for us all,” Blinken said.
New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic.
In an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today, Peters criticised the former Australian senator Bob Carr’s views on the security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
RNZ has removed the comments from the interview online after Carr, who was Australia’s foreign minister from 2012 to 2013, told RNZ he considered the remarks to be “entirely defamatory” and would commence legal action.
A spokesperson for Peters told RNZ the minister would respond if he received formal notification of any such action. The Prime Minister’s Office has been contacted for comment.
Speaking to media in Auckland, opposition Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Peters’ allegations were “totally unacceptable” and “well outside his brief”.
“He’s embarrassed the country. He’s created legal risk to the New Zealand government.”
Hipkins said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon must show some leadership and stand Peters down from the role immediately.
‘Abused his office’
“Winston Peters has abused his office as minister of foreign affairs, and this now becomes a problem for the prime minister,” he said.
“Winston Peters cannot execute his duties as foreign affairs minister while he has this hanging over him.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins on AUKUS and the legal threat. Video: RNZ
Hipkins told reporters he was pleased with the “overall thrust” of Peters’ speech compared to recent comments he made while visiting the US.
“I welcome him stepping back a little bit from his previous ‘rush-headlong-into-signing-up-for-AUKUS’,” Hipkins said. “That is a good thing.”
Hipkins said the government needed to be very clear with New Zealanders about what AUKUS Pillar 2 involved.
Luxon praises Peters
Speaking to media in Auckland on Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, when asked about Peters’ comments, said as an experienced politician Carr should understand the “rough and tumble of politics”.
Luxon said he would not make the comments Peters made, and had not spoken to him about them.
Peters was doing an “exceptionally good job” as foreign minister and his comments posed no diplomatic risk, Luxon said.
Last month, Carr travelled to New Zealand to take part in a panel discussion on AUKUS, after Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker organised a debate at Parliament.
@radionz has edited the tape of NZ Foreign Minister interview this morning to remove shocking and unwarranted comments made about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr: https://t.co/6f1i1M4RSW
Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark was also on the panel, and has been highly critical of AUKUS and what she believes is the coalition government moving closer to traditional allies, in particular the United States.
Clark told Morning Report today she had contacted Carr after she heard Peters’ comments, which she also described as defamatory.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
UN human rights officials are expressing alarm over the recent wave of violent repression by university administrators against the student protests for Palestinian liberation that have swept the U.S., raising concerns that protesters’ rights to free speech and assembly are being violated.
A statement on Tuesday said that UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the UN’s top human rights officer, is “troubled” over a “series of heavy-handed steps taken to disperse and dismantle protests” across U.S. college campuses.
“Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society — particularly when there is sharp disagreement on major issues, as there are in relation to the conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel,” said Türk. “I am concerned that some of the law enforcement actions across a series of universities appear disproportionate in their impacts.”
Over the last two weeks, over 1,200 protesters have been arrested across dozens of campuses after university administrators enlisted police to crack down on encampments and other demonstrations set up by students calling for their schools to divest from Israel and supporting corporations, among other demands. At some universities, administrators even allowed law enforcement officers to aim sniper rifles at their students for their peaceful acts of protest.
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor said that universities’ crackdowns are an obvious violation of students’ rights.
The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence.
The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day 2024.
Praising the courage and determination of Papuans against the Japanese Imperial Forces in World War Two, Bomanak said: “There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea.
Bomanak’s open letter, addressed to Prime Minister Albanese and President Biden, declared:
“If you cannot stand by those who stood by you, then your idea of ‘loyalty’ and ‘remembrance’ being something special is a myth, a fairy tale.
“There is nothing special in treachery. Six decades of treachery following the Republic of Indonesia’s invasion and fraudulent annexation, always knowing that we were being massacred, tortured, and raped. Our resources, your intention all along.
“When the Japanese Imperial Forces came to our island, you chose our homes to be your defensive line. We fed and nursed you. We formed the Papuan Infantry Brigade. We became your Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.
“We even fought alongside you and shared the pain and suffering of hardship and loss.
“There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea. Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!
OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . his open letter condemns Australia and the US leadership for preventing decolonisation of West Papua. Image: OPM
“Your war became our war. Your graves, our graves. The photos [in the open letter] are from the Australian War Memorial. The part of the legend always ringing true — my people — Papuans! – with your WWII defence forces.
“My message is to you, not ANZAC veterans. We salute the ANZACs. Your unprincipled greed divided our island. Exploitation, no matter what the cost.
“West Papua is filled with Indonesia’s barbarity and the blood and guts of 500,000 Papuans — men, women, and children. Torture, slaughter, and rape of my people in our ancestral homes led by your betrayal.
“In 1969, to help prevent our decolonisation, you placed two of our leaders on Manus Island instead of allowing them to reach the United Nations in New York — an act of shameless appeasement as a criminal accomplice to a mass-murderer (Suharto) that would have made Hideki Tojo proud.
“RAAF Hercules transported 600 TNI [Indonesian military] to slaughter us on Biak Island in 1998. Australian and US subsidies, weapons and munitions to RI, provide logistics for slaughter and bombing of our highland villages. Still happening!
“You were silent about the 1998 roll of film depicting victims of the Biak Island massacre, and you destroyed this roll of film in March 2014 after the revelations from the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal were aired on the ABC’s 7:30 Report. (Grateful for the integrity of Edmund McWilliams, Political Counselor at the US Embassy in Jakarta, for his testimony.)
“Every single act and action of your betrayal contravenes Commonwealth and US Criminal Codes and violates the UN Charter, the Genocide Act, and the Torture Convention. The price of this cowardly servitude to assassins, rapists, torturers, and war criminals — from war criminal Suharto to war criminal Prabowo [current President of Indonesia] — complicity and collusion in genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and wave after wave of ethnic cleansing.
“Friends, we will not forget you? You threw us into the gutter! As Australian and American leaders, your remembrance day is a commemoration of a tradition of loyalty and sacrifice that you have failed to honour.”
The OPM chairman and commander Bomanak concluded his open letter with the independence slogan “Papua Merdeka!” — Papua freedom.
When former prime minister Helen Clark spoke out against New Zealand potentially compromising its independent foreign policy by joining pillar two of the AUKUS security pact, Foreign Minister Winston Peters responded bluntly:
On what could she have possibly based that statement? […] And I’m saying to people, including Helen Clark, please don’t mislead New Zealanders with your suspicions without any facts – let us find out what we’re talking about.
Pillar one of AUKUS involves the delivery of nuclear submarines to Australia, making New Zealand membership impossible under its nuclear-free policy.
But pillar two envisages the development of advanced military technology in areas such as artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles and cyber warfare. By some reckonings, New Zealand could benefit from joining at that level.
Peters denies the National-led coalition government has committed to joining pillar two. He says exploratory talks with AUKUS members are “to find out all the facts, all the aspects of what we’re talking about and then as a country to make a decision.”
But while the previous Labour government expressed a willingness to explore pillar two membership, the current government appears to view it as integral to its broader foreign policy objective of aligning New Zealand more closely with “traditional partners”.
Official enthusiasm During his visit to Washington earlier this month, Peters said New Zealand and the Biden administration had pledged “to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests” in a strategic environment “considerably more challenging now than even a decade ago”.
In particular, he and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed there were “powerful reasons” for New Zealand to engage practically with arrangements like AUKUS “as and when all parties deem it appropriate”.
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark warns a “profoundly undemocratic” shift in New Zealand’s foreign policy is taking place — warning the coalition Government off a geopolitical shift which Kiwis didn’t vote for. https://t.co/2E2aKOpf2w
Declassified documents reveal the official enthusiasm behind such statements and the tightly-curated public messaging it has produced.
A series of joint-agency briefings provided to the New Zealand government characterise AUKUS pillar two as a “non-nuclear” technology-sharing partnership that would elevate New Zealand’s longstanding cooperation with traditional partners and bring opportunities for the aerospace and tech sectors.
But any assessment of New Zealand’s strategic interests must be clear-eyed and not clouded by partial truths or wishful thinking.
Traditional allies . . . NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks in Washington on April 11. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation
Beyond great power rivalry First, the current government inherited strong bilateral relations with traditional security partners Australia, the US and UK, as well as a consistent and cooperative relationship with China.
Second, while the contemporary global security environment poses threats to New Zealand’s interests, these challenges extend beyond great power rivalry between the US and China.
The multilateral system, on which New Zealand relies, is paralysed by the weakening of institutions such as the UN Security Council, Russian expansionism in Ukraine and a growing array of problems which do not respect borders.
Those include climate change, pandemics and wealth inequality — problems that cannot be fixed unilaterally by great powers.
Third, it is evident New Zealand sometimes disagrees with its traditional partners over respect for international law.
In 2003, for example, New Zealand broke ranks with the US (and the UK and Australia) over the invasion of Iraq. More recently, it was the only member of the Five Eyes network to vote in the UN General Assembly for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza.
China’s man in Wellington has a warning for the NZ Govt that joining Pillar II of AUKUS won’t make the region safer, in an exclusive commentary for Newsroom. https://t.co/xgXNwbWRSv
Role of the US In a robust speech to the UN General Assembly on April 7, Peters said the world must halt the “utter catastrophe” in Gaza.
He said the use of the veto — which New Zealand had always opposed — prevented the Security Council from fulfilling its primary function of maintaining global peace and security.
However, the government has been unwilling to publicly admit a crucial point: it was a traditional ally — the US — whose Security Council veto and unconditional support of Israel have led to systematic and plausibly genocidal violations of international law in Gaza, and a strategic windfall for rival states China, Russia and Iran.
Rather than being a consistent voice for justice and de-escalation, the New Zealand government has joined the US in countering Houthi rebels, which have been targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
A done deal? The world has become a more complex and conflicted place for New Zealand. But it would be naive to believe the US has played no part in this and that salvation lies in aligning with AUKUS, which lacks a coherent strategy for addressing multifaceted challenges.
There are alternatives to pillar two of AUKUS more consistent with a principled, independent foreign policy, centred in the Pacific, and which deserve to be seriously considered.
On balance, New Zealand involvement in pillar two of AUKUS would represent a seismic shift in the country’s geopolitical stance. The current government seems bullish about this prospect, which has fuelled concerns membership may be almost a done deal.
If true, it would be the government facing questions about transparency.
Pacific nations and smaller states are being urged to unite to avoid being caught in the crossfire of a possible nuclear conflict between China and the US.
On the cusp of a new missile age in the Indo-Pacific, a nuclear policy specialist suggests countries at the centre of the brewing geopolitical storm must rely on diplomacy to hold the superpowers accountable.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Ankit Panda said it was crucial smaller states and Pacific nations concerned about potential nuclear conflict “engage in meaningful risk reduction, arms control and broader diplomacy to reduce the possibility of war.”
“States [which] are not formally aligned with the United States or China were more powerful united,” and this “may create greater incentives for China and the United States to engage in these talks,” the think tank’s nuclear policy program Stanton senior fellow said.
North Korea and the United States have been increasing their inventories of short- to intermediate-range missile systems, he said.
“The stakes are potentially nuclear conflict between two major superpowers with existential consequences for humanity at large.”
The US military’s newest long-range hypersonic missile system, called the ‘Dark Eagle’, could soon be deployed to Guam, he said.
“Asia and Pacific countries need to put this on the agenda in the way that many European states that were caught in the crossfire between the United States and the Soviet Union were willing to do during the Cold War,” Panda said.
In 2022, North Korea confirmed it had test-launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching Guam.
Guam is a US Pacific territory with a population of at least 170,000 people and home to US military bases.
Guam’s unique position
Panda said it could be argued that Guam’s unique position and military use by the US as a nuclear weapons base makes it even more of a target to North Korea.
He said North Korea will likely intensify its run of missile tests ahead of America’s presidential election in November.
“If [President] Biden is re-elected, they will continue to engage with China in good faith on arms control.
“But if [Donald] Trump gets elected then we can expect the opposite. We’ll see an increase in militarism and a race-to-arms conflict in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The leader of a New Zealand solidarity group of Palestinian self-determination supporters has accused the country’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters of making a “bluff and bluster” speech at the United Nations that was misleading about inaction at home.
National chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) said in a statement today the Peters speech at the UN General Assembly yesterday was “bluff and bluster . . . [and] a classic case of doing one thing at home and saying another for overseas audiences”.
He said the speech “fooled nobody” in New Zealand.
In his UNGA speech, Peters described Israel’s war on Gaza as an “utter catastrophe” and labelled the besieged enclave a “wasteland”.
He went on to say Israel could “not be under any misconceptions as to its legal obligations”.
Peters also condemned the use of the veto in the UN Security Council five times to block ceasefire resolutions, and Israel’s continued building of illegal settlements on Palestinian land, saying the “misguided notion” and forced displacement of Palestinians “imperil the two-state solution”.
Minto admitted that “these were strong words” but he added that they were “meaningless in the context of what the government has failed to do at home”.
The PSNA chair said Peters had not told his international audience that the New Zealand government had:
Refused to stop New Zealand military exports which support Israel’s war on Gaza;
Refused (and still refuses) to condemn Israel for any of its war crimes such as collective punishment, the mass slaughter of over 33,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — the targeting of aid workers and deliberate starvation of Gaza’s Palestinian population;
Refused (and still refuses) to call for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza;
Refused (and still refuses) to reinstate funding for UNRWA (let alone doubling its funding and bringing forward payments which the government has been urged to do);
Refused (and still refuses) to withdraw from the US war to target Yemen which is acting to oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians;
Refused (and still refuses) to support or join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice;
Refused (and still refuses) to shut down the Israeli Embassy; and
Refused (and still refuses) to grant humanitarian visas for Palestinians with family in New Zealand
“Winston Peters stands with the US/Israel on Gaza in every important respect but has tried to give a different impression to the United Nations,” Minto said.
“There was nothing in his speech which holds Israel to account for its war crimes — not even a single punctuation mark.
“It was a Janus-faced performance at the United Nations.”
UN considers Palestine membership bid
Meanwhile, Palestine’s ambassador at the United Nations, speaking earlier than Peters, was optimistic about the occupied territory’s bid for full membership at the UN. The bid has been referred to a Security Council committee.
“This is a historic moment again,” said Ambassador Riyad Mansour.
The committee is expected to make a decision about Palestine’s status later this month, said Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s UN ambassador.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it.
Security Council resolutions are legally binding, despite the Biden administration claiming that they are not.
But it is up to the Palestine solidarity movement to ensure the US government enforces it.
The resolution demands an immediate ceasefire that leads to a “lasting” and “sustainable” ceasefire, demands the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” and emphasises “expand[ing] the flow of humanitarian assistance.”
The resolution also contains several weaknesses, reflected in its intentionally vague, watered-down language, which obscures member states’ responsibilities to enforce the ceasefire.
Concerningly, the resolution only demands a ceasefire “for the month of Ramadan,” which ends in two weeks. US diplomats also lobbied for concessions until the last minute, leading to replacing the call for a“permanent ceasefire” with the much weaker “lasting ceasefire.”
The resolution demands the release of all hostages, but it fails to explicitly name the tens of thousands of Palestinians held illegally in Israeli detention and subject to systematic abuse, instead referring ambiguously to both parties complying with “their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain.”
Essential clause ‘buried’
And although the resolution does “reiterate its demand for the lifting of all barriers to provision of humanitarian aid at scale” — in a clear message to the Israeli government — this essential clause is buried at the end of a longer sentence that merely emphasises the need to expand the flow of humanitarian aid.
As JVP international advisor Phyllis Bennis puts it, “in UN diplo-speak… ‘emphasising’ something ain’t even close to ‘demanding’ that it happen.”
Nevertheless, the US’s decision to abstain on the vote has inflamed tensions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who immediately announced that he had cancelled a high-level Israeli delegation bound for Washington.
President Biden had explicitly requested the meeting to raise concerns about Israel’s potential ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are currently sheltering.
Biden has insisted on a plan to evacuate civilians, however impossible that may be, and has called the planned ground invasion a “red line.”
That a ceasefire resolution was finally achieved is in large part due to the massive pressure being exerted by the Palestine solidarity movement. It is a reminder that pressure works, and that now is not the time to let up.
That it took this long, however, shows us how far we have to go.
US vetoed four times
The US vetoed four previous UNSC ceasefire resolutions while the Israeli military slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children, even after the World Court found South Africa’s claim that Israel was committing genocide to be “plausible.”
Gaza is now a shell of its former self, its entire landscape rendered unrecognisable by the Israeli military’s months-long genocidal onslaught.
Over 32,000 Palestinians have been killed. Full-blown famine is imminent, and half of Gaza’s entire population — 1.1 million people — are facing starvation.
Yet the Biden administration remains intent on continuing to arm the Israeli military.
Immediately following the passage of the resolution, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield was already undermining it by claiming that UN Security Council resolutions are not legally binding.
This is patently false — and it tells us that the Biden administration is fully prepared to skirt any and all responsibility to enforce this resolution, which would necessitate cutting off the flow of US weapons to the Israeli military.
$3.8 billion for Israeli military
Last week, Biden signed off on a spending bill that would provide $3.8 billion in funding to the Israeli military.
The bill will also ban funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) through March 2025.
Meanwhile, the US military continues to conduct aid airdrops in Gaza — a public relations manoeuvre intended to diffuse pressure on the US government.
These aid drops will not prevent a famine, and they do not absolve the United States government of its complicity in this genocide. They are also dangerous, expensive, and inefficient.
After being elected to the presidency in a landslide vote in June 2016, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte visited China in October and declared that his country was “realigning” its foreign policy to move closer to China.
He was accompanied by 400 Filipino business executives and returned home with Chinese pledges of investments and loans worth $24 billion. One of those investments was to build a 1300km railway across the southern Mindanao Island with Chinese loans and technology.
People on this long-neglected island eagerly waited for the railway, as Mindanao had never had a rail network.
It would have given farmers an alternative way to transport their produce to markets and boosted tourism to the scenic mountainous island.
The first stage of the project — a 103 km railway linking Tagum City to Digos City through Davao City — was supposed to be constructed by the second quarter of 2022. But this never materialised, and when Duterte left office in June 2022, the negotiations over the project’s funding were still ongoing.
Building a railway across Mindanao has been a promise of successive presidents for almost 90 years, but no foreign donors have made the investments until the Chinese showed interest.
On 28 June 2017, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) approved the pesos 35.26-billion Mindanao Railway Project (MRP) Phase 1 Tagum-Davao-Digos Segment. Transport Undersecretary Rails Cesar Chavez said the construction would begin by the second quarter of 2018.
“During Duterte’s time, he was leaning towards China, but now Marcos is leaning towards the US,” noted Councillor Pilar Caneda Braga of the Davao City Council in an interview with IDN. “All projects (with China) that have not taken off until now are cancelled”.
While emphasising that the railway project is a national issue and not one the council should comment on, she did indicate that the railway was a welcome project for the city of over 1.6 million people.
“During Duterte’s time, there were problems with loans and borrowings. It (negotiations) fizzled out,” she said.
Reshaping foreign policy Duterte’s successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, is reshaping the country’s foreign policy and realigning the Philippines more closely with the US’s militaristic strategies in Asia. China has apparently lost interest in the project.
The stumbling block is believed to have been the 3 percent interest China wanted on the loan they will make available to build the railway.
In contrast, Japan announced this month that they would be lending $1 billion to the Philippines for the Metro Manila railway extension project at an interest rate of 0.1 per cent.
Department of Transport Under-Secretary Jeremy Regino said on February 24 that the Mindanao rail project had been terminated. However, he added that they had not terminated negotiations with China, which was still ongoing.
During a visit to Davao in February, President Marcos said that the Mindanao rail project has not been terminated.
He has ordered the Transport and Finance departments to look at a hybrid model that could be funded via private investments and ODA (overseas development assistance). He added that private investors could build the railway, while rolling stocks and engines could be financed via ODA or vice versa.
The mountain scenery close to Digos City where the railway would promote tourism. Image: IDN
It is believed that the US is also considering a funding model for the railways through its ODA mechanisms, perhaps in alliance with the Asian Development Bank, Japan, and possibly South Korea.
‘Debt trap’ narrative
This would give the US enormous propaganda clout over China and help spread its China “debt trap” narrative further.
The Dutertes are believed to be unhappy with Marcos’s strong tilt towards the US, which is antagonising China.
Sebastian Duterte, the former president’s son, is Davao City Council’s mayor. He has recently made some critical comments about President Marcos’s policies.
His elder sister is Sarah Duterte, the Vice-President of the Philippines, who garnered more votes than the president in the May 2022 elections.
In July 2023, Duterte visited China in a private capacity and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who called upon the former president to “play an important role” in promoting ties between their countries and resolving the territorial dispute in the South China Sea (which Manila refers to as the West Philippines Sea) amid Philippine’s growing military ties with the US.
Upon his return, Duterte met Marcos to brief him on the visit.
In January 2023, President Marcos made an official visit to China and, in a joint statement issued by the two neighbours said, Xi and Marcos had an “in-depth and candid exchange of views on the situation in the South China Sea, emphasised that maritime issues do not comprise the sum-total of relations between the two countries and agreed to appropriately manage differences through peaceful means”.
Naval skirmishes
However, throughout 2023, there have been skirmishes between Chinese and Filipino naval vessels and supply ships sailing to the Spratly Islands, which the Philippines considers as their territory.
Amid this, Marcos has made a strong tilt towards the US, with the Philippine media backing his stance, which is focused on developing stronger defence ties between the two countries.
But many countries across Asia are getting worried. In November 2023, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong cautioned Marcos when asked about rising tensions in the South China Sea during a regional forum in Singapore.
He is reported to have asked Marcos: “Are you sure you (Filipinos) want to get into a fight where you will be the battleground?”
Councillor Braga hinted at why the Filipinos welcomed Marcos’s stance when the same question was asked of her.
“Generally, Filipinos are more inclined towards the US because many of our relatives are in the US, and we have been under American rule for several years. So, we have a better relationship with the US”, she said.
“There have been some abuses in that relationship, but then America needs the Philippines vis-à-vis China. So, America is courting the Philippines using the EDCA. It is simple as that.”
Defence cooperation
EDCA is a defence cooperation agreement that allows the US to rotate troops into the Philippines for extended stays. Still, the US is not permitted to establish any permanent military bases.
The agreement was signed in April 2014, coinciding with US President Baraka Obama’s visit to Manila, where he promoted his “pivot to Asia” strategy.
Marcos recently agreed to allow US forces to access some six bases in northern Luzon, the closest point to Taiwan. China has threatened to mount pre-emptive strikes on these bases if provoked.
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Manila for the second time in two years. China’s Global Times described the visit as a move by Washington to create an AUKUS-like clique in Asia aimed at China in the South China Sea.
It said: “Blinken’s visit is seen by Chinese observers as partly to incite the Philippines to continue its provocations in the South China Sea and partly to pave the way for a summit of the US, Japan and the Philippines that is scheduled for April”.
Manila’s waltzing with Washington is raising eyebrows in Southeast Asia, which needs a peaceful environment to prosper.
During a visit to Australia to attend the ASEAN-Australia forum to mark 50 years of relations, Marcos made a passionate speech to the Australian Parliament seeking Canberra’s support — a staunch US ally — for his battle with China.
But, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, speaking during a joint press conference at the forum with the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, said: “While we remain … an important friend to the United States and Europe and here in Australia, they should not preclude us from being friendly to one of our important neighbours, precisely China.”
He added: “if they have problems with China, they should not impose it upon us. We do not have a problem with China”.
Kalinga Seneviratne is a correspondent for IDN is the flagship agency of the nonprofit International Press Syndicate. The article is published with permission.
