The Department of Justice and Legal Services in Bougainville is aiming to craft a government policy to deal with violence related to sorcery accusations.
The Post-Courier reports that a forum, which wrapped up on Wednesday, aimed to dissect the roots of sorcery/witchcraft beliefs and the severe violence stemming from accusations.
An initial forum was held in Arawa last month.
Central Bougainville’s Director of Justice and Legal Services, Dennis Kuiai, said the forums’ ultimate goal is crafting a government policy.
Further consultations are planned for South Bougainville next week and a regional forum in Arawa later this year.
“This policy will be deliberated and developed into law to address sorcery and [sorcery accusation-related violence] in Bougainville,” he said.
“We aim to provide an effective legal mechanism.”
Targeted 3 key areas He said the future law’s structure was to target three key areas: the violence linked to accusations, sorcery practices themselves, and addressing the phenomenon of “glass man”.
A glassman or glassmeri has the power to accuse women and men of witchcraft and sorcery.
Papua New Guinea outlawed the practice in 2022.
The forum culminated in the compilation and signing of a resolution on its closing day, witnessed by officials.
Those accused of sorcery are frequently beaten, tortured, and murdered, and anyone who manage to survive the attacks are banished from their communities.
Saved mother rejected In April, a mother-of-four was was reportedly rejected by her own family after she was saved by a social justice advocacy group.
In August last year, an advocate told people in Aotearoa – where she was raising awareness – that Papua New Guinea desperately needed stronger laws to protect innocents and deliver justice for victims of sorcery related violence.
In October 2023, Papua New Guinea MPs were told that gender-based and sorcery violence was widespread and much higher than reported.
In November 2020, two men in the Bana district were hacked to death by members of a rival clan, who claimed the men used sorcery against them.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The genocide is almost complete. When it is concluded it will have exposed the moral bankruptcy of Western civilisation, writes Chris Hedges.
ANALYSIS: By Chris Hedges
This is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide.
It will be over soon. Weeks. At most.
Two million people are camped out amongst the rubble or in the open air. Dozens are killed and wounded daily from Israeli shells, missiles, drones, bombs and bullets.
They lack clean water, medicine and food. They have reached a point of collapse. Sick. Injured. Terrified. Humiliated. Abandoned. Destitute. Starving. Hopeless.
In the last pages of this horror story, Israel is sadistically baiting starving Palestinians with promises of food, luring them to the narrow and congested nine-mile ribbon of land that borders Egypt. Israel and its cynically named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), allegedly funded by Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Mossad, is weaponising starvation.
It is enticing Palestinians to southern Gaza the way the Nazis enticed starving Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to board trains to the death camps. The goal is not to feed the Palestinians. No one seriously argues there is enough food or aid hubs. The goal is to cram Palestinians into heavily guarded compounds and deport them.
What comes next? I long ago stopped trying to predict the future. Fate has a way of surprising us. But there will be a final humanitarian explosion in Gaza’s human slaughterhouse. We see it with the surging crowds of Palestinians fighting to get a food parcel, which has resulted in Israeli and US private contractors shooting dead at least 130 and wounding over seven hundred others in the first eight days of aid distribution.
We see it with Benjamin Netanyahu’s armingISIS-linked gangs in Gaza that loot food supplies. Israel, which has eliminated hundreds of employees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), doctors, journalists, civil servants and police in targeted assassinations, has orchestrated the implosion of civil society.
I suspect Israel will facilitate a breach in the fence along the Egyptian border. Desperate Palestinians will stampede into the Egyptian Sinai. Maybe it will end some other way. But it will end soon. There is not much more Palestinians can take.
We — full participants in this genocide — will have achieved our demented goal of emptying Gaza and expanding Greater Israel. We will bring down the curtain on the live-streamed genocide. We will have mocked the ubiquitous university programmes of Holocaust studies, designed, it turns out, not to equip us to end genocides, but deify Israel as an eternal victim licensed to carry out mass slaughter.
The mantra of never again is a joke. The understanding that when we have the capacity to halt genocide and we do not, we are culpable, does not apply to us. Genocide is public policy. Endorsed and sustained by our two ruling parties.
There is nothing left to say. Maybe that is the point. To render us speechless. Who does not feel paralyzed? And maybe, that too, is the point. To paralyse us. Who is not traumatised? And maybe that too was planned. Nothing we do, it seems, can halt the killing. We feel defenceless. We feel helpless. Genocide as spectacle.
I have stopped looking at the images. The rows of little shrouded bodies. The decapitated men and women. Families burned alive in their tents. The children who have lost limbs or are paralyzed. The chalky death masks of those pulled from under the rubble. The wails of grief. The emaciated faces. I can’t.
This genocide will haunt us. It will echo down history with the force of a tsunami. It will divide us forever. There is no going back.
Palestinians under the rubble in 2023 after Israeli airstrike of homes in the Gaza Strip. Image: Ashraf Amra /United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East/ Wikimedia Commons /CC BY-SA 4.0
And how will we remember? By not remembering.
Once it is over, all those who supported it, all those who ignored it, all those who did nothing, will rewrite history, including their personal history. It was hard to find anyone who admitted to being a Nazi in post-war Germany, or a member of the Klu Klux Klan once segregation in the southern United States ended.
A nation of innocents. Victims even. It will be the same. We like to think we would have saved Anne Frank. The truth is different. The truth is, crippled by fear, nearly all of us will only save ourselves, even at the expense of others. But that is a truth that is hard to face. That is the real lesson of the Holocaust. Better it be erased.
“Should a drone vaporize some nameless soul on the other side of the planet, who among us wants to make a fuss? What if it turns out they were a terrorist?
“What if the default accusation proves true, and we by implication be labeled terrorist sympathisers, ostracised, yelled at? It is generally the case that people are most zealously motivated by the worst plausible thing that could happen to them.
“For some, the worst plausible thing might be the ending of their bloodline in a missile strike. Their entire lives turned to rubble and all of it preemptively justified in the name of fighting terrorists who are terrorists by default on account of having been killed. For others, the worst plausible thing is being yelled at.”
You cannot decimate a people, carry out saturation bombing over 20 months to obliterate their homes, villages and cities, massacre tens of thousands of innocent people, set up a siege to ensure mass starvation, drive them from land where they have lived for centuries and not expect blowback.
The genocide will end. The response to the reign of state terror will begin. If you think it won’t you know nothing about human nature or history. The killing of two Israeli diplomats in Washington and the attack against supporters of Israel at a protest in Boulder, Colorado, are only the start.
Chaim Engel, who took part in the uprising at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in Poland, described how, armed with a knife, he attacked a guard in the camp.
“It’s not a decision,” Engel explained years later. “You just react, instinctively you react to that, and I figured, ‘Let us to do, and go and do it.’ And I went.
“I went with the man in the office and we killed this German. With every jab, I said, ‘That is for my father, for my mother, for all these people, all the Jews you killed.’”
The Sobibor extermination camp gate in the spring of 1943. The pine branches, braided into the fence to make it difficult to see in from the outside. Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
Does anyone expect Palestinians to act differently? How are they to react when Europe and the United States, who hold themselves up as the vanguards of civilisation, backed a genocide that butchered their parents, their children, their communities, occupied their land and blasted their cities and homes into rubble? How can they not hate those who did this to them?
What message has this genocide imparted not only to Palestinians, but to all in the Global South?
It is unequivocal. You do not matter. Humanitarian law does not apply to you. We do not care about your suffering, the murder of your children. You are vermin. You are worthless. You deserve to be killed, starved and dispossessed. You should be erased from the face of the earth.
“To preserve the values of the civilised world, it is necessary to set fire to a library,” El Akkad writes:
“To blow up a mosque. To incinerate olive trees. To dress up in the lingerie of women who fled and then take pictures.
“To level universities. To loot jewelry, art, food. Banks. To arrest children for picking vegetables. To shoot children for throwing stones.
“To parade the captured in their underwear. To break a man’s teeth and shove a toilet brush in his mouth. To let combat dogs loose on a man with Down syndrome and then leave him to die. “Otherwise, the uncivilised world might win.”
There are people I have known for years who I will never speak to again. They know what is happening. Who does not know? They will not risk alienating their colleagues, being smeared as an antisemite, jeopardising their status, being reprimanded or losing their jobs.
They do not risk death, the way Palestinians do. They risk tarnishing the pathetic monuments of status and wealth they spent their lives constructing. Idols.
They bow down before these idols. They worship these idols. They are enslaved by them.
At the feet of these idols lie tens of thousands of murdered Palestinians.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.This article was first published in Scheerpost.
Greenpeace activists on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior disrupted an industrial longlining fishing operation in the South Pacific, seizing almost 20 km of fishing gear and freeing nine sharks — including an endangered mako — near Australia and New Zealand.
Crew retrieved the entire longline and more than 210 baited hooks from a European Union-flagged industrial fishing vessel, including an endangered longfin mako shark, eight near-threatened blue sharks and four swordfish.
The crew also documented the vessel catching endangered sharks during its longlining operation.
Latest fisheries data showed that almost 70 percent of EU vessels’ catch was blue shark in 2023 alone.
The operation came ahead of this week’s UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, where world leaders are discussing ocean protection and the Global Ocean Treaty.
On board the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Georgia Whitaker said: “These longliners are industrial killing machines. Greenpeace Australia Pacific took peaceful and direct action to disrupt this attack on marine life.
“We saved important species that would otherwise have been killed or left to die on hooks.
“The scale of industrial fishing — still legal on the high seas — is astronomical. These vessels claim to be targeting swordfish or tuna, but we witnessed shark after shark being hauled up by these industrial fleets, including three endangered sharks in just half an hour.
Rainbow Warrior crew disrupt longline fishing in the Pacific. Video: Greenpeace
“Greenpeace is calling on world leaders at the UN Ocean Conference to protect 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030 from this wanton destruction.”
Stingray caught as bycatch is hauled onboard the Lu Rong Yuan Lu 212 longliner vessel in the Tasman Sea.
The Rainbow Warrior is in the South Pacific ocean to expose longline fishing and call on governments to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and create a network of protected areas in the high seas.
A Greenpeace activist frees a blue shark caught on a longline in the Pacific . . . the blue shark is currently listed as “Near Threatened” globally by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). Image: Greenpeace Pacific
Greenpeace Aotearoa is calling on the New Zealand government to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and help create global ocean sanctuaries, including in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
New Zealand signed the agreement in 2023.
More than two-thirds of sharks worldwide are endangered, and a third of those are at risk of extinction from overfishing.
Over the last three weeks, the Rainbow Warrior has been documenting longlining vessels and practices off Australia’s east coast, including from Spain and China.
Emma Page is Greenpeace Aotearoa’s communications lead, oceans and fisheries. Republished with permission.
Well it looks like the US is on the precipice of war with Iran again.
US officials are telling the press that they anticipate a potential impending Israeli attack on Iran while the family members of US military personnel are being assisted with evacuation from bases in the region.
This comes as Tehran issues a warning that it will strike all US military bases within range of its missiles if it comes under attack. There are reportedly some 50,000 US troops in 10 bases which could come under fire should this occur.
The US is also evacuating its embassy in Iraq, and has authorised the departure of non-essential personnel from its embassies in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Asked by the press about the evacuations, President Trump said, “They are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens. We’ve given notice to move out.”
Trump is openly declaring a willingness to strike Iran if nuclear negotiations fall through, while saying he is now “much less confident” that any deal will be made.
Staring down the barrel of war with Iran. Video: Caitlin Johnstone
“If they don’t make a deal, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon; if they do make a deal they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon too,” the president said in an interview published on Wednesday, adding that “it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying.”
If the US backs an Israeli attack on Iran and then Iran retaliates by killing a bunch of US military personnel, we could be looking at a full-scale direct war between the US and Iran.
As I’ve said in this space many times before, this would be the absolute worst-case nightmare scenario for the Middle East, unleashing horrors that dwarf all the other terrible abuses currently happening in the region.
As Trump’s now-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in 2019 (back when she publicly opposed Trump’s warmongering), “What is important that the American people know is a war with Iran would make the war in Iraq look like a cakewalk.”
It’s so stupid that this keeps happening. This could all be avoided by the US simply ceasing to support the genocidal apartheid state of Israel no matter what it does.
The fact that Washington has continued to pour weapons into Israel despite all its warmongering and genocide since 2023 means the US supports everything that Israel has been doing.
If a war with Iran does occur, you will doubtless hear Western pundits and politicians trying to spin this as America getting “drawn into” another war in the Middle East, or Trump being tricked or manipulated into war.
But make no mistake: the US could have turned away from this path at any time, and still can.
If this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be because the US empire knowingly chose to open it.
Reports in Papua New Guinea say the governments of Bougainville and PNG have agreed to table the 2019 independence referendum results in Parliament.
While discussions are ongoing, some degree of consensus has been reached during the talks, being held at Burnham Military Camp, just outside of Christchurch in New Zealand’s South Island.
The talks are not open to the media.
The PNG government agreed to a Bougainville request for a moderator to be brought in to solve an impasse over the tabling of the region’s independence referendum. Image: 123rf/RNZ Pacific
A massive 97.7 percent of Bougainvillians voted for independence in 2019.
Former Bougainville president John Momis told delegates in Burnham to “take the bull by the horn” and confront the independence issue without further delay.
Both governments have agreed to present three highly pivotal documents to the PNG National Parliament.
Apart from the referendum results, there will be the moderator’s report, and the parliamentary bipartisan committee’s findings.
The commitment was formally conveyed by PNG’s Minister of Bougainville Affairs, Manaseh Makiba.
Only sovereignty acceptable Meanwhile, the ABG President, Ishmael Toroama, said Bougainville would not accept a governance model that did not grant sovereignty.
This comes amid talk of other options, such as self-government in free association.
To achieve membership of the United Nations sovereignty is needed.
Writing in the Post-Courier, journalist Gorethy Kenneth said the Bougainville national leaders, for the “first time have come out in aligning with the Bougainville team in New Zealand”.
She reported that Police Minister and Bougainville regional MP Peter Tsiamalili Jr said he was in a peculiar position but he represented the 97.7 percent who voted for independence and he would go with the wishes of his people.
The ICT Minister, and South Bougainville MP Timothy Masiu also said his one vote in Parliament would be for independence as far as his people were concerned.
The PNG government has spoken previously of fears that independence for Bougainville would encourage other provinces to seek autonomy.
Provinces, such as New Ireland, have made no secret of their dissatisfaction with Port Moresby and desire to control more of their own affairs.
But the Bougainville Minister of Independence Implementation, Ezekiel Massat, said Bougainville’s status was constitutionally “ring-fenced” and could not set a precedent for other provinces.
He said “under the Bougainville Peace Agreement, independence is a compulsory option”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Opposition parties say Aotearoa New Zealand’s government should be going much further, much faster in sanctioning Israel.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters overnight revealed New Zealand had joined Australia, Canada, the UK and Norway in imposing travel bans on Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Some of the partner countries went further, adding asset freezes and business restrictions on the far-right ministers.
Peters said the pair had used their leadership positions to actively undermine peace and security and remove prospects for a two-state solution.
Israel and the United States criticised the sanctions, with the US saying it undermined progress towards a ceasefire.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, attending Fieldays in Waikato, told reporters New Zealand still enjoyed a good relationship with the US administration, but would not be backing down.
“We have a view that this is the right course of action for us,” he said.
Behind the scenes job “We have differences in approach but the Americans are doing an excellent job of behind the scenes trying to get Israel and the Palestinians to the table to talk about a ceasefire.”
Asked if there could be further sanctions, Luxon said the government was “monitoring the situation all the time”.
Peters has been busy travelling in Europe and was unavailable to be interviewed. ACT — probably the most vocally pro-Israel party in Parliament — refused to comment on the situation.
The opposition parties also backed the move, but argued the government should have gone much further.
Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has since December been urging the coalition to back her bill imposing economic sanctions on Israel. With support from Labour and Te Pāti Māori it would need just six MPs to cross the floor to pass.
Calling the Israeli actions in Gaza “genocide”, she told RNZ the government’s sanctions fell far short of those imposed on Russia.
“This is symbolic, and it’s unfortunate that it’s taken so long to get to this point, nearly two years . . . the Minister of Foreign Affairs also invoked the similarities with Russia in his statement this morning, yet we have seen far less harsh sanctions applied to Israel.
“We’re well past the time for first steps.”
‘Cowardice’ by government The pushback from the US was “probably precisely part of the reason that our government has been so scared of doing the right thing”, she said, calling it “cowardice” on the government’s part.
“What else are you supposed to call it at the end of the day?,” she said, saying at a bare minimum the Israeli ambassador should be expelled, Palestinian statehood should be recognised, and a special category of visas for Palestinians should be introduced.
She rejected categorisation of her stance as anti-semitic, saying that made no sense.
“If we are critiquing a government of a certain country, that is not the same thing as critiquing the people of that country. I think it’s actually far more anti-semitic to conflate the actions of the Israeli government with the entire Jewish peoples.”
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer . . . “It’s not a war, it’s an annihilation”. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the sanctions were political hypocrisy.
“When it comes to war, human rights and the extent of violence and genocide that we’re seeing, Palestine is its own independent nation . . . why is this government sanctioning only two ministers? They should be sanctioning the whole of Israel,” she said.
“These two Israel far right ministers don’t act alone. They belong to an entire Israel government which has used its military might and everything it can possibly do to bombard, to murder and to commit genocide and occupy Gaza and the West Bank.”
Suspend diplomatic ties She also wanted all diplomatic ties with Israel suspended, along with sanctions against Israeli companies, military officials and additional support for the international courts — also saying the government should have done more.
“This government has been doing everything to do nothing . . . to appease allies that have dangerously overstepped unjustifiable marks, and they should not be silent.
“It’s not a war, it’s an annihilation, it’s an absolute annihilation of human beings . . . we’re way out there supporting those allies that are helping to weaponise Israel and the flattening and the continual cruel occupation of a nation, and it’s just nothing that I thought in my living days I’d be witnessing.”
She said the government should be pushing back against “a very polarised, very Trump attitude” to the conflict.
“Trumpism has arrived in Aotearoa . . . and we continue to go down that line, that is a really frightening part for this beautiful nation of ours.
“As a nation, we have a different set of values. We’re a Pacific-based country with a long history of going against the grain – the mainstream, easy grind. We’ve been a peaceful, loving nation that stood up against the big boys when it came to our anti nuclear stance and that’s our role in this, our role is not to follow blindly.”
Undermining two-state solution In a statement, Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare said the actions of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir had attempted to undermine the two-state solution and international law, and described the situation in Gaza as horrific.
“The travel bans echo the sanctions placed on Russian individuals and organisations that supported the illegal invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
He called for further action.
“Labour has been calling for stronger action from the government on Israel’s invasion of Gaza, including intervening in South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, creation of a special visa for family members of New Zealanders fleeing Gaza, and ending government procurement from companies operating illegally in the Occupied Territories.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Further reports of civilian casualties are coming out of West Papua, while clashes between Indonesia’s military and the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement continue.
One of the most recent military operations took place in the early morning of May 14 in Sugapa District, Intan Jaya in Central Papua.
Military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Iwan Dwi Prihartono said in a video statement translated into English that 18 members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) had been killed.
He claimed the military wanted to provide health services and education to residents in villages in Intan Jaya but they were confronted by the TPNPB.
Colonel Prihartono said the military confiscated an AK47, homemade weapons, ammunition, bows and arrows and the Morning Star flag — used as a symbol for West Papuan independence.
But, according to the TPNPB, only three of the group’s soldiers were killed with the rest being civilians.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) said civilians killed included a 75-year-old, two women and a child.
Both women in shallow graves Both the women were allegedly found on May 23 in shallow graves.
A spokesperson from the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington said all 18 people killed were part of the TPNPB, as declared by the military.
“The local regent of Intan Jaya has checked for the victims at their home and hospitals; therefore, he can confirm that the 18 victims were in fact all members of the armed criminal group,” they said.
“The difference in numbers of victim sometimes happens because the armed criminal group tried to downplay their casualties or to try to create confusion.”
The spokesperson said the military operation was carried out because local authorities “followed up upon complaints and reports from local communities that were terrified and terrorised by the armed criminal group”.
Jakarta-based Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono said it was part of the wider Operation Habema which started last year.
“It is a military operation to ‘eliminate’ the Free Papua guerilla fighters, not only in Intan Jaya, but in several agencies along the central highlands,” Harsono said.
‘Military informers’ He said it had been intensifying since the TPNPB killed 17 miners in April, which the armed group accused of being “military informers”.
RNZ Pacific has been sent photos of people who have been allegedly killed or injured in the May 14 assault, while others have been shared by ULMWP.
Harsono said despite the photos and videos it was hard to verify if civilians had been killed.
He said Indonesia claimed civilian casualties — including of the women who were allegedly buried in shallow graves — were a result of the TPNPB.
“The TPNPB says, ‘of course, it is a lie why should we kill an indigenous woman?’ Well, you know, it is difficult to verify which one is correct, because they’re fighting the battle [in a very remote area],” Harsono said.
“It’s difficult to cross-check whatever information coming from there, including the fact that it is difficult to get big videos or big photos from the area with the metadata.”
Harsono said Indonesia was now using drones to fight the TPNPB.
“This is something new; I think it will change the security situation, the battle situation in West Papua.
“So far the TPNPB has not used drones; they are still struggling. In fact, most of them are still using bows and arrows in the conflict with the Indonesian military.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
One of seven people transferred to mainland France almost a year ago, following the May 2024 riots in New Caledonia, has been allowed to return home, a French court has ruled.
Frédérique Muliava, a former Congress staffer, was part of a group of six who were charged in relation to the riots.
Under her new judicial requirements, set out by the judge in charge of the case, Muliava, once she returns to New Caledonia, is allowed to return to work, but must not make any contact with other individuals related to her case and not take part in any public demonstration.
Four days after their arrest in Nouméa in June 2024, Muliava and six others were transferred to mainland France aboard a chartered plane.
They were charged with criminal-related offences (including being a party or being accomplice to murder attempts and thefts involving the use of weapons) and have since been remanded in several prisons across France pending their trial.
In January 2025, the whole case was removed from the jurisdiction of New Caledonia-based judges and has since been transferred back to investigating judges in mainland France.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary reflected on her years in Fiji as a television journalist and media educator at a Fiji Centre function in Auckland celebrating Fourth Estate values and independence at the weekend.
It was a reunion with former journalism professor David Robie — they had worked together as a team at the University of the South Pacific amid media and political controversy leading up to the George Speight coup in May 2000.
Leary, a former British Council executive director and lawyer, was the guest speaker at a gathering of human rights activists, development advocates, academics and journalists hosted at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub, the umbrella base for the Fiji Centre, Auckland Rotuman Fellowship, Asia Pacific Media Network and other groups.
She said she was delighted to meet “special people in David’s life” and to be speaking to a diverse group sharing “similar values of courage, freedom of expression, truth and tino rangatiratanga”.
“I want to start this talanoa on Friday, 19 May 2000 — 13 years almost to the day of the first recognised military coup in Fiji in 1987 — when failed businessman George Speight tore off his balaclava to reveal his identity.
She pointed out that there had actually been another “coup” 100 years earlier by Ratu Cakobau.
“Speight had seized Parliament holding the elected government at gunpoint, including the politician mother, Lavinia Padarath, of one of my best friends — Anna Padarath.
Hostage-taking report “Within minutes, the news of the hostage-taking was flashed on Radio Fiji’s 10 am bulletin by a student journalist on secondment there — Tamani Nair. He was a student of David Robie’s.”
Nair had been dispatched to Parliament to find out what was happening and reported from a cassava patch.
“Fiji TV was trashed . . . and transmission pulled for 48 hours.
“The university shut down — including the student radio facilities, and journalism programme website — to avoid a similar fate, but the journalism school was able to keep broadcasting and publishing via a parallel website set up at the University of Technology Sydney.
“The pictures were harrowing, showing street protests turning violent and the barbaric behaviour of Speight’s henchmen towards dissenters.
“Thus began three months of heroic journalism by David’s student team — including through a period of martial law that began 10 days later and saw some of the most restrictive levels of censorship ever experienced in the South Pacific.”
Leary paid tribute to some of the “brave satire” produced by senior Fiji Times reporters filling the newspaper with “non-news” (such as about haircuts, drinking kava) as an act of defiance.
“My friend Anna Padarath returned from doing her masters in law in Australia on a scholarship to be closer to her Mum, whose hostage days within Parliament Grounds stretched into weeks and then months.
Whanau Community Centre and Hub co-founder Nik Naidu speaking at the Asia Pacific Media Network event at the weekend. Image: Khairiah A. Rahman/APMN
Invisible consequences “Anna would never return to her studies — one of the many invisible consequences of this profoundly destructive era in Fiji’s complex history.
“Happily, she did go on to carve an incredible career as a women’s rights advocate.”
“Meanwhile David’s so-called ‘barefoot student journalists’ — who snuck into Parliament the back way by bushtrack — were having their stories read and broadcast globally.
“And those too shaken to even put their hands to keyboards on Day 1 emerged as journalism leaders who would go on to win prizes for their coverage.”
Speight was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned in 2024.
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary speaking at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub. Image: Nik Naidu/APMN
Leary said that was just one chapter in the remarkable career of David Robie who had been an editor, news director, foreign news editor and freelance writer with a number of different agencies and news organisations — including Agence France-Presse, Rand Daily Mail, The Auckland Star, Insight Magazine, and New Outlook Magazine — “a family member to some, friend to many, mentor to most”.
Reflecting on working with Dr Robie at USP, which she joined as television lecturer from Fiji Television, she said:
“At the time, being a younger person, I thought he was a little bit crazy, because he was communicating with people all around the world when digital media was in its infancy in Fiji, always on email, always getting up on online platforms, and I didn’t appreciate the power of online media at the time.
“And it was incredible to watch.”
Ahead of his time She said he was an innovator and ahead of his time.
Dr Robie viewed journalism as a tool for empowerment, aiming to provide communities with the information they needed to make informed decisions.
“We all know that David has been a champion of social justice and for decolonisation, and for the values of an independent Fourth Estate.”
She said she appreciated the freedom to develop independent media as an educator, adding that one of her highlights was producing the groundbreaking 1999 documentary Maire about Maire Bopp Du Pont, who was a Tahitian student journalist at USP and advocate for the Pacific community living with HIV/AIDs.
She became a nuclear-free Pacific campaigner in Pape’ete and was also founding chief executive of the Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation (PIAF).
Leary presented Dr Robie with a “speaking stick” carved from an apricot tree branch by the husband of a Labour stalwart based in Cromwell — the event doubled as his 80th birthday.
In response, Dr Robie said the occasion was a “golden opportunity” to thank many people who had encouraged and supported him over many years.
Massive upheaval “We must have done something right,” he said about USP, “because in 2000, the year of George Speight’s coup, our students covered the massive upheaval which made headlines around the world when Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour-led coalition government was held at gunpoint for 56 days.
“The students courageously covered the coup with their website Pacific Journalism Online and their newspaper Wansolwara — “One Ocean”. They won six Ossie Awards – unprecedented for a single university — in Australia that year and a standing ovation.”
He said there was a video on YouTube of their exploits called Frontline Reporters and one of the students, Christine Gounder, wrote an article for a Commonwealth Press Union magazine entitled, “From trainees to professionals. And all it took was a coup”.
Dr Robie said this Fiji experience was still one of the most standout experiences he had had as a journalist and educator.
Along with similar coverage of the 1997 Sandline mercenary crisis by his students at the University of Papua New Guinea.
He made some comments about the 1985 Rainbow Warrior voyage to Rongelap in the Marshall islands and the subsequent bombing by French secret agents in Auckland.
But he added “you can read all about this adventure in my new book” being published in a few weeks.
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary (right) with Dr David Robie and his wife Del Abcede at the Fiji Centre function. Image: Camille Nakhid
Biggest 21st century crisis Dr Robie said the profession of journalism, truth telling and holding power to account, was vitally important to a healthy democracy.
Although media did not succeed in telling people what to think, it did play a vital role in what to think about. However, the media world was undergoing massive change and fragmentation.
“And public trust is declining in the face of fake news and disinformation,” he said
“I think we are at a crossroads in society, both locally and globally. Both journalism and democracy are under an unprecedented threat in my lifetime.
“When more than 230 journalists can be killed in 19 months in Gaza and there is barely a bleep from the global community, there is something savagely wrong.
“The Gazan journalists won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize collectively last year with the judges saying, “As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression.”
“The carnage and genocide in Gaza is deeply disturbing, especially the failure of the world to act decisively to stop it. The fact that Israel can kill with impunity at least 54,000 people, mostly women and children, destroy hospitals and starve people to death and crush a people’s right to live is deeply shocking.
“This is the biggest crisis of the 21st century. We see this relentless slaughter go on livestreamed day after day and yet our media and politicians behave as if this is just ‘normal’. It is shameful, horrendous. Have we lost our humanity?
“Gaza has been our test. And we have failed.”
Dr Robie praised the support of his wife, social justice activist Del Abcede, and family members.
Other speakers included Whānau Hub co-founder Nik Naidu, one of the anti-coup Coalition for Democracy in Fiji (CDF) stalwarts; the Heritage New Zealand’s Antony Phillips; and Multimedia Investments and Evening Report director Selwyn Manning.
Ponsonby’s post office is shutting shop next month despite push back from the local community.
A sign on the storefront, which is at the College Hill end of Ponsonby Road, said the closure would take place on 4 July but the post boxes would be “staying put”.
Ponsonby local and author John Harris said New Zealand Post’s decision to close the store was “ill-considered” and it should “try harder” to cater for the people who use the shop’s services.
“They’ve got to be mindful of the vital role that post shops like this one play in glueing the community together,” Harris said.
“If you go down to the post shop you’ll see it’s buzzing with activity; people popping in to post parcels or to get forms filled out and so forth . . . they’ve got to think about the effect on small communities and this is like gutting the Ponsonby community.”
Viv Rosenberg, a spokesperson for the Ponsonby Business Association, said the group is saddened by the decision to close the shop.
”Our local post office has been part of the fabric of our community in Three Lamps for several years and we regard the team there as part of our Ponsonby family. We are working alongside others to try and keep it open.”
NZ Post general manager consumer Sarah Sandoval said customer data and service patterns were analysed to determine where NZ Post services were best placed.
“The Ponsonby area is well serviced by existing postal outlets, and to remove duplications of services, we’ve decided to make this change.”
The Asia Pacific Report story about the impending Ponsonby post office shop closure published earlier this month. Image: Asia Pacific Report
She also said that there were nearby options available, including on Hardinge Street 1.4km away, and NZ Post Herne Bay, 1km away.
The NZ Post website said “store closures are given very careful consideration”.
“[Reasons for closure] can include a decline in customer numbers or services which significantly affect the economic viability of the store,” NZ Post said.
Harris emailed NZ Post CEO David Walsh expressing his disapproval of the decision to close the shop and requesting it be reconsidered.
He said a response by the NZ Post general manager consumer stated the closure followed a close look at customer data and that there were other stores serving the Ponsonby community, which was an unsustainable way for the business to operate.
“Herne Bay, Hardinge Street and Wellesley Street are either a challenging walk or you hop in the car and add to the grid,” Harris said.
“They’re only thinking about the sustainability of the New Zealand Post itself not the community.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The United States has denounced sanctions by Britain and allies — including New Zealand and Australia — against Israeli far-right ministers, saying they should focus instead on the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
New Zealand has banned two Israeli politicians from travelling to the country because of comments about the war in Gaza that Foreign Minister Winston Peters says “actively undermine peace and security”.
New Zealand joins Australia, Canada, the UK and Norway in imposing the sanctions on Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Peters said they were targeted towards two individuals, rather than the Israeli government.
“Our action today is not against the Israeli people, who suffered immeasurably on October 7 [2023] and who have continued to suffer through Hamas’ ongoing refusal to release all hostages.
“Nor is it designed to sanction the wider Israeli government.”
The two ministers were “using their leadership positions to actively undermine peace and security and remove prospects for a two-state solution”, Peters said.
‘Severely and deliberately undermined’ peace “Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have severely and deliberately undermined that by personally advocating for the annexation of Palestinian land and the expansion of illegal settlements, while inciting violence and forced displacement.”
The sanctions were consistent with New Zealand’s approach to other foreign policy issues, he said.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (left) and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich . . . sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the UK and Norway because they have “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These actions are not acceptable,” says British Foreign Minister David Lammy. Image: TRT screenshot APR
“New Zealand has also targeted travel bans on politicians and military leaders advocating violence or undermining democracy in other countries in the past, including Russia, Belarus and Myanmar.”
New Zealand had been a long-standing supporter of a two-state solution, Peters said, which the international community was also overwhelmingly in favour of.
“New Zealand’s consistent and historic position has been that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are a violation of international law. Settlements and associated violence undermine the prospects for a viable two-state solution,” he said.
“The crisis in Gaza has made returning to a meaningful political process all the more urgent. New Zealand will continue to advocate for an end to the current conflict and an urgent restart of the Middle East Peace Process.”
‘Outrageous’, says Israel Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the move was “outrageous” and the government would hold a special meeting early next week to decide how to respond to the “unacceptable decision”.
His comments were made while attending the inauguration of a new Israeli settlement on Palestinian land.
Peters is currently in Europe for the sixth Pacific-France Summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Nice.
US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters: “We find that extremely unhelpful. It will do nothing to get us closer to a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Britain, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and Australia “should focus on the real culprit, which is Hamas”, she said of the sanctions.
“We remain concerned about any step that would further isolate Israel from the international community.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
COMMENTARY:By Steven Cowan, editor of Against The Current
The New Zealand Foreign Minster’s decision to issue a travel ban against two Israeli far-right politicians is little more than a tokenistic gesture in opposing Israel’s actions.
It is an attempt to appease growing opposition to Israel’s war, but the fact that Israel has killed more than 54,000 innocent people in Gaza, a third under the age of 18, still leaves the New Zealand government unmoved.
Foreign Minister Peters gave the game away when he commented that the sanctions were targeted towards two individuals, rather than the Israeli government.
Issuing travel bans against two Israeli politicians, who are unlikely to visit New Zealand at any stage, is the easy option.
It appears to be doing something to protest against Israel’s actions when actually doing nothing. And it doesn’t contradict the interests of the United States in the Middle East.
Under the government of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, New Zealand has become a vassal state of American imperialism.
New Zealand has joined four other countries, the United States, Britain, Australia and Norway, in issuing a travel ban. But all four countries continue to supply Israel with arms.
Unions demand stronger action Last week, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions demanded that the New Zealand government take stronger action against Israel. In a letter to Winston Peters, CTU president Richard Wagstaff wrote:
“For too long, the international community has allowed the state of Israel to act with impunity. It is now very clearly engaged in genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
“All efforts must be made to put diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel to end this murderous campaign.”
THE CTU has called for a series of sanctions to be imposed on Israel. They include “a ban on all imports of goods made in whole or in part in Israel” and “a rapid review of Crown investments and immediately divest from any financial interests in Israeli companies”.
The CTU is also calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.
This article was first published on Steven Cowan’s website Against The Current. Republished with permission.
French Polynesia’s president has announced his administration will establish one of the world’s largest networks of highly protected marine areas (MPAs).
The highly protected areas will safeguard 220,000 sq km of remote waters near the Society Islands and 680,000 sq km near the Gambier Islands.
Speaking at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, President Moetai Brotherson pledged to protect nearly 23 percent of French Polynesia’s waters.
“In French Polynesia, the ocean is much more than a territory — it’s the source of life, culture, and identity,” he said.
“By strengthening the protection of Tainui Atea (the existing marine managed area that encompasses all French Polynesian waters) and laying the foundations for future marine protected areas . . . we are asserting our ecological sovereignty while creating biodiversity sanctuaries for our people and future generations.”
Once implemented, this would be one of the world’s single-largest designations of highly protected ocean space in history.
Access will be limited, and all forms of extraction, such as fishing and mining, will be banned.
Highly protected The government is also aiming to create a highly protected artisanal fishing zone that extends about 28 km from the Austral, Marquesas, and Gambier islands and 55.5 km around the Society Islands.
Fishing in that zone will be limited to traditional single pole-and-line catch from boats less than 12m long.
Together, the zones encompass an area about twice the size of continental France.
President Brotherson also promised to create additional artisanal fishing zones and two more large, highly protected MPAs within the next year near the Austral and Marquesas islands.
He also committed to bolster conservation measures within the rest of French Polynesia’s waters.
Donatien Tanret, who leads Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy’s work in French Polynesia, said local communities had made it clear that they wanted to see stronger protections that reflected both scientific guidance and their ancestral culture for future generations.
“These protections and commitments to future designations are a powerful example of how local leadership and traditional measures such as rāhui can address modern challenges.”
Samoa announces MPAs Before the conference, Samoa adopted a legally binding Marine Spatial Plan — a step to fully protect 30 percent and ensure sustainable management of 100 percent of its ocean.
The plan includes the establishment of nine new fully protected MPAs, covering 36,000 sq km of ocean.
Toeolesulsulu Cedric Schuster, Samoa’s Minister for Natural Resources and Environment, said Samoa was a large ocean state and its way of life was under increased threat from issues including climate change and overfishing.
“This Marine Spatial Plan marks a historic step towards ensuring that our ocean remains prosperous and healthy to support all future generations of Samoans — just as it did for us and our ancestors.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard has condemned Israel’s interception and detention of the 12 crew members aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s humanitarian aid yacht Madleen.
The crew detained include Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who has been designated by Amnesty International as an “Ambassador of Conscience”, reports Amnesty International in a statement.
She has since been reported to have been deported back to her country via France.
Madleen’s crew were trying to break Israel’s illegal blockade on the occupied Gaza Strip and take in desperately needed humanitarian supplies.
They were illegally detained by Israeli forces in international waters while en route.
In response, Secretary General Agnès Callamard said:
“By forcibly intercepting and blocking the Madleen which was carrying humanitarian aid and a crew of solidarity activists, Israel has once again flouted its legal obligations towards civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip and demonstrated its chilling contempt for legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice,” secretary-general Callamard said.
Operation ‘violates international law’ “The operation carried out in the middle of the night and in international waters violates international law and put the safety of those on the boat at risk.
“The crew were unarmed activists and human rights defenders on a humanitarian mission, they must be released immediately and unconditionally.
“They must also be protected from torture and other ill-treatment pending their release.
Callamard said that during its voyage over the past few days the Madleen’s mission emerged as a powerful symbol of solidarity with besieged, starved and suffering Palestinians amid persistent international inaction.
“However, this very mission is also an indictment of the international community’s failure to put an end to Israel’s inhumane blockade.
“Activists would not have needed to risk their lives had Israel’s allies translated their rhetoric into forceful action to allow aid into Gaza.”
Global calls for safe passage Israel’s interception of the Madleen despite global calls for it to be granted safe passage underscored the longstanding impunity Israel enjoyed which has emboldened it to continue to commit genocide in Gaza and to maintain a suffocating, illegal blockade on Gaza for 18 years, Callamard said.
“Until we see real concrete steps by states worldwide signalling an end to their blanket support for Israel, it will have carte blanche to continue inflicting relentless death and suffering on Palestinians.”
Amnesty International in New Zealand also called on Foreign Minister Winston Peters to stand up and call out the enforced starvation and genocide that Israel was imposing on Palestinians.
#Madleen, launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), was seeking to bring humanitarian aid in an attempt to breach Israel’s illegal blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip. It was carrying unarmed civilians on a humanitarian mission.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Te Pāti Māori has condemned the Israeli navy’s armed interception of the Madleen, a civilian aid vessel attempting to carry food, medical supplies, and international activists to Gaza, including Sweden’s climate activist Greta Thunberg.
In a statement after the Madleen’s communications were cut, the indigenous political party said it was not known if the crew were safe and unharmed.
However, Israel has begun deportations of the activists and has confiscated the yacht and its aid supplies for Gaza.
“This is the latest act in a horrific string of violence against civilians trying to access meagre aid,” said Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
“Since May 27, more than 130 civilians have murdered been while lining up for food at aid sites.
“This is not an arrest [of the Madleen crew], it as an abduction. We have grave concerns for the safety of the crew.
“Israel [has] proven time again they aren’t above committing violence against civilians.
“Blocking baby formula and prosthetics while a people are deliberately starved is not border patrol, it is genocide.”
Te Pāti Māori said it called on the New Zealand government to:
Demand safe release of all crew;
Demand safe passage of Aid to Gaza;
Name this blockade and starvation campaign for what it is — genocide; and
Many people have been closely following the journey this week of the Madleen, a small humanitarian yacht seeking to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza with a crew of 12 on board, including humanitarian activists and journalists.
This morning we woke to the harrowing, yet not unexpected, news that the vessel had been illegally hijacked by Israeli forces, who boarded and took the crew captive into Israeli territories, in contravention of international law.
Yet another on the long list of war crimes Israel has committed over the last 20 months of genocide, and decades of illegal occupation.
Communication with the crew was lost after the final moments of tense onboard footage as they donned lifejackets, threw phones and other sensitive data overboard, and raised their arms in preparation for whatever might come next.
Israel has a detailed history of attacking all previous freedom flotillas — including the 2010 mission aboard the Mavi Marmara in which 10 crew were killed and dozens more injured when Israeli forces hijacked the humanitarian vessel.
Another mission earlier this year was cut short when it was targeted by an airstrike in international waters, injuring crew.
The next updates were scenes filmed by Israeli forces which appear to show them calmly handing bread rolls and water to the detained crew, painting a picture which immediately recalled my own experience last year being unlawfully arrested in the southern West Bank.
Detained while documenting I was detained while documenting armed settler violence, taken illegally to a military base where myself and three other internationals were given a bathroom stop, bread and water.
While we ate, they filmed us, saying “You are unharmed, yes? We are looking after you well?”
We were then loaded into a police van where a Palestinian farmer sat blindfolded, in silence, with his hands zip-tied behind him.
Eleven of the 12 crew members on board the humanitarian yacht Madleen before being arrested by Israeli forces today. Image: FFC screenshot APR
Israel loves to put on a show of their “humane treatment” when internationals are present and cameras are rolling, but it’s a shallow and sinister facade for their abusive racism and cruelty towards Palestinians.
It appears their response to the Madleen’s crew over the next few days will be exactly that. Don’t buy into it; this is no more than deeply sinister propaganda to cover state-backed racism, supremacy, and cruelty.
Families in Gaza are still facing indiscriminate airstrikes, continuous displacement, forced starvation, and the phony Israel/US “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” which has led to more than 100 civilians being shot while desperately seeking food.
Thousands of trucks still wait at the border to Gaza, barred entry by Israeli forces, while Palestinians face severe malnutrition and a man-made famine.
The New Zealand government has still not placed a single sanction on the Israeli state.
Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
Israel’s military attack and boarding of the humanitarian boat Madleen attempting to deliver food and medical aid to the besieged people of Gaza has been condemned by New Zealand Palestinian advocacy groups as a “staggering act of state piracy”.
The vessel was in international waters, carrying aid workers, doctors, journalists, and supplies desperately needed by the 2 million population that Israel has systematically bombed, starved, and displaced.
“This was not a military confrontation. It was the assault of an unarmed civilian aid ship by a state acting with total impunity,” said the group Thyme4Action.
“This is piracy, it is state terror, and it is a genocidal act of war.
Half of the 12 crew and passengers on board are French citizens and the volunteer group includes French-Palestinian European parliamentarian Rima Hassan and Swedish climate crisis activist Greta Thunberg and two journalists.
They all made pre-recorded messages calling for international pressure on their governments against the Israeli state. The messages were posted on the Freedom Flotilla Coalition X page.
The group Thyme4Action said in a media release that a regime engaged in genocide would send sends drones and armed commandos to detain civilians in international waters.
Israel’s ‘total moral collapse’ “We are witnessing the total moral collapse of a state, supported for years by Western governments to act with utter impunity, violate our global legal system, morality and principles.
“No amount of spin or military propaganda can hide the cruelty of deliberately starving a population, targeting children, bombing hospitals and bakeries, and then violently stopping others from bringing aid.”
Thyme4Action said the attack on the Madleen was not a separate incident — “it is part of the same campaign to eliminate Palestinian life, hope, and survival. It is why the International Court of Justice has already ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide.”
“This is not complicated,” said the statement.
French journalist Yanis Mhandi on board the Madleen . . . “I’ve been detained by Israeli forces while doing my job as a journalist.” Image: FFC screenshot APR
“Israel has no legal authority in international waters. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Israel’s boarding of a civilian aid ship beyond its territorial waters is an act of piracy, unlawful kidnapping, forcible abduction and armed aggression.
Under international humanitarian law, deliberately blocking aid to a population facing starvation is a war crime.
Under the Genocide Convention, when a state intentionally denies food, water, and medicine to a population it is bombing and displacing, this constitutes part of a genocidal campaign.”
NZ silence condemned The advocacy group condemned the silence of the New Zealand government as being “no longer neutral”.
The moment that the Freedom Flotilla Coalition lost communications with the Madleen as Israeli forces attacked the vessel. Image: FFC
It demonstrated a shocking lack of respect for international law, for human rights, and for the safety of global humanitarian workers.
“It reflects a broader decay in foreign policy — where selective outrage and Israeli exceptionalism undermine the credibility of everything New Zealand claims to stand for.”
Thyme4Action called on the New Zealand government to:
• Publicly condemn Israel’s illegal assault on the Madleen and its passengers; • Demand the immediate release of all aid workers, journalists, and civilians abducted by Israeli forces; • Suspend all diplomatic, military, and trade cooperation with Israel until it complies with international law; and • Support international accountability mechanisms, including referring Israel’s crimes to the International Criminal Court and backing enforcement of the ICJ’s provisional measures on genocide.
“This has to stop. This is not just a crisis in Gaza,” said the statement.
‘Crisis of global morality’ “It is a crisis of global morality, of international law, and of our basic shared humanity.
“We stand with the people of Gaza. We stand with the brave souls aboard the Madleen, and we demand an end to this madness before the world forgets what it means to be human.
“We need a government that stands for all that is right, not all that is wrong.
“Aid is not terrorism. International waters are not Israel’s territory. And silence in the face of evil is complicity.”
Contact has been lost with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla humanitarian aid boat Madleen after Israeli commandos intercepted it in international waters.
The commandos demanded that everyone on board turn off their phones, and the boat lost contact with Al Jazeera Mubasher journalist Omar Faiad as well as its live feed, reports the AJ live tracker.
International Solidarity Movement co-founder Huwaida Arraf confirmed that they had also lost contact with the Madleen.
Arraf, whose ISM is supporting the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, later said from Sicily: “Just moments ago, communication seemed to be cut.”
“So, we have lost all contact with our colleagues on the Madleen.”
“Before that, we know that they had two drones hovering above them that dropped some kind of chemical on the vessel. We don’t know what that chemical was,” she said.
“Some people reported that their eyes were burning. Before that, they were also approached by vessels in a very threatening manner.”
So at least for the last hour the Madleen crew had been threatened by Israeli forces.
“The last we saw, were able to hear from them, they were surrounded . . . by Israeli naval commandos and it looked like the commandos were about to take over the vessel.”
The Freedom Flotilla earlier posted a message on social media saying “Red Alert: The Madleen is currently under assault in international waters.” It also said: “Israel navy ‘here right now, please sound the alarm’.”
“Red Alert: The Madleen is currently under assault in international waters.” Image: Gaza Freedom Forum Coalition
A video posted by Palestinian journalist Motaz Azaiza showed Brazilian activist Thiago Avila on board the Madleen wearing a life jacket.
“The IOF [Israel Occupation Forces] is here right now, please sound the alarm. We are being surrounded by their boats,” he said in the video.
“Yes this is an interception, a war crime is happening right now,” he said.
“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. It’s the result of government policy — knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated.”
This statement was made not by a foreign or liberal critic of Israel but by the former Prime Minister and former senior member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s own Likud party, Ehud Olmet.
Nightly, we witness live-streamed evidence of the truth of his statement — lethargic and gaunt children dying of malnutrition, a bereaved doctor and mother of 10 children, nine of them killed by an Israeli strike (and her husband, another doctor, died later), 15 emergency ambulance workers gunned down by the IDF as they tried to help others injured by bombs, despite their identity being clear.
Statistics reflect the scale of the horror imposed on Palestinians who are overwhelmingly civilians — 54,000 killed, 121,000 maimed and injured. Over 17,000 of these are children.
This can no longer be excused as regrettable collateral damage from targeted attacks on Hamas.
Israel simply doesn’t care about the impact of its military attacks on civilians and how many innocent people and children it is killing.
Its willingness to block all humanitarian aid- food, water, medical supplies, from Gaza demonstrates further its willingness to make mass punishment and starvation a means to achieve its ends. Both are war crimes.
Influenced by the right wing extremists in the Coalition cabinet, like Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s goal is no longer self defence or justifiable retaliation against Hamas terrorists.
Israel attacks Palestinians at US-backed aid hubs in Gaza, killing 36. Image: AJ screenshot APR
Making life unbearable The Israeli government policy is focused on making life unbearable for Palestinians and seeking to remove them from their homeland. In this, they are openly encouraged by President Trump who has publicly and repeatedly endorsed deporting the Palestinian population so that the Gaza could be made into a “Middle East Riviera”.
This is not the once progressive pioneer Israel, led by people who had faced the Nazi Holocaust and were fighting for the right to a place where they could determine their own future and be safe.
Sadly, a country of people who were themselves long victims of oppression is now guilty of oppressing and committing genocide against others.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters called Israel’s actions “ intolerable”. He said that we had “had enough and were running out of patience and hearing excuses”.
While speaking out might make us feel better, words are not enough. Israel’s attacks on the civilian population in Gaza are being increased, aid distribution which has restarted is grossly insufficient to stop hunger and human suffering and Palestinians are being herded into confined areas described as humanitarian zones but which are still subject to bombardment.
People living in tents in schools and hospitals are being slaughtered.
World must force Israel to stop Like Putin, Israel will not end its killing and oppression unless the world forces it to. The US has the power but will not do this.
The sanctions Trump has imposed are not on Israel’s leaders but on judges in the International Criminal Court (ICC) who dared to find Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu guilty of war crimes.
New Zealand’s foreign policy has traditionally involved working with like-minded countries, often small nations like us. Two of these, Ireland and Sweden, are seeking to impose sanctions on Israel.
Both are members of the European Union which makes up a third of Israel’s global trade. If the EU decides to act, sanctions imposed by it would have a big impact on Israel.
These sanctions should be both on trade and against individuals.
New Zealand has imposed sanctions on a small number of extremist Jewish settlers on the West Bank where there is evidence of them using violence against Palestinian villagers.
These sanctions should be extended to Israel’s political leadership and New Zealand could take a lead in doing this. We should not be influenced by concern that by taking a stand we might offend US president Donald Trump.
Show our preparedness to uphold values In the way that we have been proud of in the past, we should as a small but fiercely independent country show our preparedness to uphold our own values and act against gross abuse of human rights and flagrant disregard for international law.
We should be working with others through the United Nations General Assembly to maximise political pressure on Israel to stop the ongoing killing of innocent civilians.
Moral outrage at what Israel is doing has to be backed by taking action with others to force the Israeli government to end the killing, destruction, mass punishment and deliberate starvation of Palestinians including their children.
An American doctor working at a Gaza hospital reported that in the last five weeks he had worked on dozens of badly injured children but not a single combatant.
He noted that as well as being maimed and disfigured by bombing, many of the children were also suffering from malnutrition. Children were dying from wounds that they could recover from but there were not the supplies needed to treat them.
Protest is not enough. We need to act.
Phil Goff is Aotearoa New Zealand’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs. This article was first published by the Stuff website and is republished with the permission of the author.
It is difficult to understand what sits behind the New Zealand government’s unwillingness to sanction, or threaten to sanction, the Israeli government for its genocide against the Palestinian people.
The United Nations, human rights groups, legal experts and now genocide experts have all agreed it really is “genocide” which is being committed by the state of Israel against the civilian population of Gaza.
It is hard to argue with the conclusion genocide is happening, given the tragic images being portrayed across social and increasingly mainstream media.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has presented Israel’s assault on Gaza war as pitting “the sons of light” against “the sons of darkness”. And promised the victory of Judeo-Christian civilisation against barbarism.
A real encouragement to his military there should be no-holds barred in exercising indiscriminate destruction over the people of Gaza.
Given this background, one wonders what the nature of the advice being provided by New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the minister entails?
Does the ministry fail to see the destruction and brutal killing of a huge proportion of the civilian people of Gaza? And if they see it, are they saying as much to the minister?
Cloak of ‘diplomatic language’ Or is the advice so nuanced in the cloak of “diplomatic language” it effectively says nothing and is crafted in a way which gives the minister ultimate freedom to make his own political choices.
The advice of the officials becomes a reflection of what the minister is looking for — namely, a foreign policy approach that gives him enough freedom to support the Israeli government and at the same time be in step with its closest ally, the United States.
The problem is there is no transparency around the decision-making process, so it is impossible to tell how decisions are being made.
I placed an Official Information Act request with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 2024 seeking advice received by the minister on New Zealand’s obligations under the Genocide Convention.
The request was refused because while the advice did exist, it fell outside the timeline indicated by my request.
It was emphasised if I were to put in a further request for the advice, it was unlikely to be released.
They then advised releasing the information would be likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand and the international relations of the government of New Zealand, and withholding it was necessary to maintain legal professional privilege.
Public interest vital It is hard to imagine how the release of such information might prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or that the legal issues could override the public interest.
It could not be more important for New Zealanders to understand the basis for New Zealand’s foreign policy choices.
New Zealand is a contracting party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Under the convention, “genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they [the contracting parties] undertake to prevent and punish”.
Furthermore: The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide. (Article 5).
Accordingly, New Zealand must play an active part in its prevention and put in place effective penalties. Chlöe Swarbrick’s private member’s Bill to impose sanctions is one mechanism to do this.
In response to its two-month blockade of food, water and medical supplies to Gaza, and international pressure, Israel has agreed to allow a trickle of food to enter Gaza.
However, this is only a tiny fraction of what is needed to avert famine. Understandably, Israel’s response has been criticised by most of the international community, including New Zealand.
Carefully worded statement In a carefully worded statement, signed by a collective of European countries, together with New Zealand and Australia, it is requested that Israel allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza, an immediate return to ceasefire and a return of the hostages.
Radio New Zealand interviewed the Foreign Minister Winston Peters to better understand the New Zealand position.
Peters reiterated his previous statements, expressing Israel’s actions of withholding food as “intolerable” but when asked about putting in place concrete sanctions he stated any such action was a “long, long way off”, without explaining why.
New Zealand must be clear about its foreign policy position, not hide behind diplomatic and insincere rhetoric and exercise courage by sanctioning Israel as it has done with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
As a minimum, it must honour its responsibilities under the Convention on Genocide and, not least, to offer hope and support for the utterly powerless and vulnerable Palestinian people before it is too late.
John Hobbs is a doctoral candidate at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) at the University of Otago. This article was first published by the Otago Daily Times and is republished with the author’s permission.
More than 150 press freedom advocacy groups and international newsrooms have joined Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in issuing a public appeal demanding that Israel grant foreign journalists immediate, independent and unrestricted access to the Gaza Strip.
The organisations are also calling for the full protection of Palestinian journalists, nearly 200 — the Gaza Media Office says more than 230 — of whom have been killed by the Israeli military over the past 20 months.
For more than 20 months, Israeli authorities have barred foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, says RSF in a media release.
During the same period, the Israeli army killed nearly 200 Palestinian journalists in the blockaded territory, including at least 45 slain for their work.
Palestinian journalists who continue reporting — the only witnesses on the ground — are facing unbearable conditions, including forced displacement, famine, and constant threats to their lives.
This collective appeal, launched by RSF and CPJ, brings together prominent news outlets from every continent demanding the right to send correspondents into Gaza to report alongside Palestinian journalists.
“The media blockade imposed on Gaza, combined with the massacre of nearly 200 journalists by the Israeli army, is enabling the total destruction and erasure of the blockaded territory,” said RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin.
“Israeli authorities are banning foreign journalists from entering and ruthlessly asserting their control over information.
“This is a methodical attempt to silence the facts, suppress the truth, and isolate the Palestinian press and population.
Asia Pacific Report . . . one of the signatories to the Gaza plea. Image: APR
“We call on governments, international institutions and heads of state to end their complicit silence, enforce the immediate opening of Gaza to foreign media, and uphold a principle that is frequently trampled — under international humanitarian law, killing a journalist is a war crime.
“This principle has been violated far too often and must now be enforced.”
RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin speaking at the reception celebrating seven years of Taipei’s Asia Pacific office in October 2024. Image: Pacific Media Watch
The media blockade on Gaza persists despite repeated calls from RSF to guarantee foreign journalists independent access to the Strip, and legal actions such as the Foreign Press Association’s (FPA) petition to the Israeli Supreme Court.
Palestinian journalists, meanwhile, are trapped, displaced, starved, defamed and targeted due to their work.
Those who have survived this unprecedented massacre of journalists now find themselves without shelter, equipment, medical care or even food, according to a CPJ report. They face the risk of being killed at any moment.
To end the enduring impunity that allows these crimes to continue, RSF has repeatedly referred cases to the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging it to investigate alleged war crimes committed against journalists in Gaza by the Israeli army.
RSF also provides aid to Palestinian journalists on the ground — particularly in Gaza — through partnerships with local organisations such as ARIJ (Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism).
This partnership provides Palestinian journalists with psychological and professional support, ensuring the continued publication of high-quality reporting despite the blockade and the risks.
Through this cooperation, RSF reaffirms its commitment to defending independent, rigorous journalism — even under the most extreme conditions.
The community is up in arms over another local post office in Aotearoa New Zealand about to be closed down, this time in the iconic and historic Auckland inner city suburb of Ponsonby.
A local author and founder of Greenstone Pictures, John Harris, has led a pushback against plans to close the Ponsonby post office branch in Three Lamps next month with an undated open letter to the chief executive David Walsh.
Saying he was “surprised and dismayed” to see the “closing soon but staying put” sign in the Ponsonby NZ Post shop, Harris pointed out that the small office gave “great service to dozens of businesses” in the area, and hundreds of residents.
“It is misleading on your poster to claim that people will be able to obtain the same services at nearby post shops like that in Jervois Road,” Harris said.
“Will they be able to pay their bills and car registration there? Collect mail and parcels? Buy courier bags and send mail and parcels?
“And do you expect them to walk there? It is not helpful to say this closure ‘might mean a few minutes extra drive’.
This assumed that all clients were using a car, not elderly or young who were on foot.
Parking in busy streets “And people are expected to try and find parking on other busy streets — Jervois Road, Karangahape Road, Wellesley Street.”
Harris said: “The Ponsonby post shop is a vital part of the network that binds the community together.
“To close it is like removing part of the community’s nervous system: an ill-considered stab at the heart of a community which has always been vibrant, socially aware and productive.”
The NZ Post website proclaims that “we provide customers with the solutions and products to help them communicate and do business.”
However, said Harris, this planned closure for July 4 did not match those promises.
Harris also pointed out that NZ Post made a $16 million operating profit for the last six months of 2024.
The Ponsonby protest letter from a local community advocate to the NZ Post. Image: APR
“Congratulations. I’m pleased you are keeping NZ Post viable. But it shows there is a bit of ‘wriggle room’ to keep the Ponsonby store open.”
Digital services use In response to the call to reconsider the decision, a customer services officer replied on June 6 on behalf of chief executive Walsh, saying that the NZ Post Office needed to “ensure our physical locations are in the right places and operating efficiently” in an age where more people used digital services.
“In some areas, including Ponsonby, we’ve had more than one store serving the same neighbourhood. That’s not a sustainable way for us to operate, so we’ve had to make some changes.”
However, critics of the decision to close the Ponsonby store say the reasoning was “not credible”, stressing that all claimed alternative postal stores are several kilometres away.
Harris, a children’s author with a strong association with the local community stretching back to the 1970s and a former editor of West End News in Freemans Bay, acknowledged that the Ponsonby PO boxes lobby was being kept open, “but what about the ordinary rank-and-file residents and small business owners who value the other everyday services offered at the store?”
He said he had written to local MP, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick and the Ponsonby Business Association seeking their support.
One of the 12 activists on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid vessel Madleen has posted an update on their progress, saying the mission would not be deterred by Israel’s threats to block them.
In a video posted to X, Thiago Ávila said the crew, which includes high-profile Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, was not intimidated by a message they had received from Israel on Thursday, reports Al Jazeera.
He said Israeli authorities had said that the Madleen, which is carrying food and medical supplies, would be blocked from entering Gaza — and that if they attempted to deliver them, they would come under attack.
“It’s important that we understand that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and any other repressive regime throughout history, they actually fear the people, we do not fear them,” he said.
“We know that this is part of a global uprising much larger than this humble mission of 12 people on a small boat. It will not be through force that they will make a way to defeat us.”
With no other vessel able to respond, the Madleen diverted to the distressed vessel, where it found 30 to 40 people trapped in a rapidly deflating dinghy.
While the crew of the Madleen were attempting a rescue of their own, they were approached at speed by a unit of the Libyan Coast Guard, specifically one belonging to the Tareq Bin Zayed brigade, which Al Jazeera has previously reported upon.
On realising that the approaching vessel belonged to the Libyan Coast Guard, four dinghy passengers jumped into the water and swam to the Madleen, where they were rescued.
The remainder were taken on board the Libyan Coast Guard’s vessel and presumably returned to Libya.
It’s the 6th day of our journey onboard the Madleen to #breakthesiege of Gaza and create a people’s humanitarian sea corridor! The Freedom Flotilla Coalition will never stop due to the Zionists threats. We know we have billions of people along with the 12 of us on this boat! pic.twitter.com/FfIDDtVbX7
The word antisemitism has become so debased that depending on who is using it I might well take it as a sign that the accused is worth listening to.
When the World Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest, he responded by saying the court was being antisemitic. One of the court’s legal advisers was Theodor Meron, a former Israeli ambassador and legal adviser who spent a chunk of his childhood in a Nazi concentration camp.
Last month, Netanyahu declared the leaders of France, the UK and Canada of fuelling antisemitism.
Their “crime”? Threatening “concrete action” against Israel if it continues its “egregious” blockade of aid entering Gaza.
Egregious not genocidal. And the concrete action referred to wasn’t sanctions or a full arms embargo but stalling free trade talks.
The bitter irony is that with none of those countries having yet imposed a complete ban on arms exports to Israel they are all in a sense fuelling a genocide.
The Army-McCarthy hearings We’re coming up to the 71st anniversary of the Army-McCarthy hearings where an army lawyer, Joseph Welch, rebuked Senator Joseph McCarthy with the famous line: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
We’ll be waiting a long time for the wanted war criminal Netanyahu to show any decency, but could we be approaching a tipping point where the establishment finally calls off a witch hunt after realising no one is safe from false accusations.
The McCarthyite red scare, which began in the late 1940s, saw more than 2000 federal workers sacked, thousands of academics, teachers, and union members pressured or forced to resign due to anti-communist policies, and up to 500 Hollywood directors and actors blacklisted for being leftwing or refusing to name names.
Welch’s rebuke was triggered by none of that. It was McCarthy turning his metaphorical guns onto the military implying he would expose high ranking army personnel that saw the army lawyer return fire.
The conflating of criticism of Israel with antisemitism has been spectacularly successful in making any criticism of Israel a potentially career ending move. Three Ivy League presidents have been pushed out of their jobs for failing to crack down hard enough on students protesting the brutality of Israel’s ongoing genocide.
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose popularity had seen the party become the biggest political movement in Europe, was toppled in 2016 after bogus accusations of antisemitism.
In the purge of the Labour Party that followed Jews were five times more likely to be investigated for antisemitism than goys.
It’s the same story in Germany where Jews feature prominently among those cancelled for alleged antisemitism. Renowned professor of Jewish studies Peter Schäfe was forced to resign as the director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum after it retweeted a post critical of Germany’s anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolutions.
Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis — not a Jew — has been banned from Germany or even appearing via Zoom for this response, on 8 October 2023, to being asked if he condemned Hamas:
“I condemn every single atrocity, whomever is the perpetrator or the victim. What I do not condemn is armed resistance to an apartheid system designed as part of a slow-burning, but inexorable, ethnic cleansing programme. As a European, it is important to refrain from condemning either the Israelis or the Palestinians when it is us, Europeans, who have caused this never-ending tragedy: after practising rabid anti-Semitism for centuries, leading up to the uniquely vile Holocaust, we have been complicit for decades with the slow genocide of Palestinians, as if two wrongs make one right.”
That nuanced response, with its acknowledgement of the dreadful legacy of real antisemitism, has not only seen him banned from speaking — in person or virtually — but dropped by his German publisher.
Antisemitism is often referred to as the oldest hatred — with good reason — but the word itself is relatively recent.
A ‘scientific’ word for an old hatred Nineteenth century German journalist, Wilhelm Marr, popularised the term in a pamphlet the title of which translates as: The way to victory of Germanism over Judaism.
What distinguished antisemitism from the commonly used Judenhass — or Jewish hate — was the idea that it was a Jew’s race not their religion that was deserving of hate.
Antisemitism was a prejudice proud to speak its name. It was respectable in a way that religious intolerance wasn’t. Prominent professors and politicians happily declared themselves antisemites and adherents of “scientific racism”.
It was an old idea dressed up in new clothing. Fifteenth century Spain passed Limpieza de Sangre (cleanliness of blood) statutes to allow discrimination against Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity.
The Judeo-Christian civilisational conflict with Islam, often referred to by right-wing supporters of Israel, is a relatively new construct. When the Jews were expelled from Spain, the Ottomans sent ships to take them to new homes in Istanbul, Thessaloniki and Izmer.
Times change and while it was once possible — even common — to be a respectable antisemite and scientific racist but frowned upon to discriminate based on religious belief, now the reverse is true.
So-called new atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins declare all religions bad but Islam worse.
“Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester, one of our great mediaeval cathedrals. So much nicer than the aggressive sounding “Allahu Akhbar.” Or is that just my cultural upbringing?” Dawkins once tweeted.
The cultures of Europe have indeed cultivated racist ideas for centuries. And just as half a millennia ago conversion offered you no protection from the racism of the Spanish court, embracing Buddhism didn’t protect Columbia University student Moshen Mahdawi from being snatched from a naturalisation interview by balaclava-clad ICE agents.
His crime? Being Palestinian and telling his story.
It’s a topsy-turvy world where life-long anti-fascists like Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis are sanctioned on bogus claims of antisemitism while the likes of Elon Musk and Hungarian PM Victor Orban — both peddlers of old-style antisemitic conspiracies — are welcomed to Israel as friends and allies in a contrived battle of civilisations.
One thing that differentiates antisemitism from the Judeophobia, which has been a European disease since the early days of Christianity, is that it places Jews among the victims of the continent’s white supremacist legacy.
It’s perhaps no coincidence the Christopher Columbus set sail for the Americas in the same year, 1492, that Spain expelled its Jews and Muslims.
The settler colonisation of the Americas has been estimated by historian David Stannard to have resulted in the death of 100 million indigenous people — many from introduced diseases but tens of millions also died in genocides only recently making their way into history books.
Last month, when Netanyahu declared Israel’s attacks on Gaza “a war against human beasts” he was echoing the words of settler colonialists from Alaska to Aotearoa and the dehumanising language of the Nazis against the Jews.
So, back to that question about whether we’ve reached a tipping point where unfair accusations of antisemitism will be seen in a similar light to McCarthy’s red scare.
With Netanyahu accusing the leader of the Democrats party, Yair Golan, an IDF reserve major-general, of promoting a blood libel for speaking out against the starving of babies in Gaza, it’s hard not to draw parallels with the Army-McCarthy hearings.
It’s worth quoting the words that saw Israel’s PM accuse Golan of a blood libel — a reference to the lie that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish children in the baking of matzos, and a trigger for centuries of pogroms.
“A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population.”
The idea that an IDF general speaking out against the killing of babies is propagating racist hatred of Jews is surely a leap too far even for many fervent Zionists.
Another sign that the tide might be turning is Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, saying the US administration’s weaponisation of the IHRA definition is making academics and students (including Jews) less safe.
The self-described Zionist said the definition was being distorted and used to silence anti-Israel critics.
The IHRA working definition has been widely adopted internationally — including by institutions in New Zealand and Australia.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both criticised the definition claiming it has seen those documenting Israel’s human rights abuses being falsely accused of antisemitism.
It’s a tragedy that weaponised accusations of antisemitism aimed at protecting Israel from criticism are obscuring a rise in Judeophobic conspiracy theories and attacks on Jewish community centres and synagogues around the world.
And even more tragically that those accusations are blunting criticisms of Israel that could help bring the ongoing genocide in Gaza to an end.
A new report on the United States nuclear weapons testing legacy in the Marshall Islands highlights the lack of studies into important health concerns voiced by Marshallese for decades that make it impossible to have a clear understanding of the impacts of the 67 nuclear weapons tests.
The report was funded by Greenpeace Germany and is an outgrowth of the organisation’s flagship vessel, Rainbow Warrior III, visiting the Marshall Islands from March to April to recognise the 40th anniversary of the resettlement of the nuclear test-affected population of Rongelap Atoll.
Dr Mahkijani said that among the “many troubling aspects” of the legacy is that the United States had concluded, in 1948, after three tests, that the Marshall Islands was not “a suitable site for atomic experiments” because it did not meet the required meteorological criteria.
Dr Makhijani highlights the point that, despite early documentation in the immediate aftermath of the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test and numerous anecdotal reports from Marshallese women about miscarriages and still births, US government medical officials in charge of managing the nuclear test-related medical programme in the Marshall Islands never systematically studied birth anomalies.
Committed billions of dollars The US Deputy Secretary of State in the Biden-Harris administration, Kurt Cambell, said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damages and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands.
“I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands,” he told reporters at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Nuku’alofa last year.
“This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”
Among points outlined in the new report:
Gamma radiation levels at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, officially considered a “very low exposure” atoll, were tens of times, and up to 300 times, more than background in the immediate aftermaths of the thermonuclear tests in the Castle series at Bikini Atoll in 1954.
Thyroid doses in the so-called “low exposure atolls” averaged 270 milligray (mGy), 60 percent more than the 50,000 people of Pripyat near Chernobyl who were evacuated (170 mGy) after the 1986 accident there, and roughly double the average thyroid exposures in the most exposed counties in the United States due to testing at the Nevada Test Site.
Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Image: RNZ Pacific/Giff Johnson
Despite this, “only a small fraction of the population has been officially recognised as exposed enough for screening and medical attention; even that came with its own downsides, including people being treated as experimental subjects,” the report said.
Women reported adverse outcomes “In interviews and one 1980s country-wide survey, women have reported many adverse pregnancy outcomes,” said the report.
“They include stillbirths, a baby with part of the skull missing and ‘the brain and the spinal cord fully exposed,’ and a two-headed baby. Many of the babies with major birth defects died shortly after birth.
“Some who lived suffered very difficult lives, as did their families. Despite extensive personal testimony, no systematic country-wide scientific study of a possible relationship of adverse pregnancy outcomes to nuclear testing has been done.
“It is to be noted that awareness among US scientists of the potential for major birth defects due to radioactive fallout goes back to the 1950s. Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivor data has also provided evidence for this problem.
“The occurrence of stillbirths and major birth defects due to nuclear testing fallout in the Marshall Islands is scientifically plausible but no definitive statement is possible at the present time,” the report concluded.
“The nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands created a vast amount of fission products, including radioactive isotopes that cross the placenta, such as iodine-131 and tritium.
“Radiation exposure in the first trimester can cause early failed pregnancies, severe neurological damage, and other major birth defects.
No definitive statement possible “This makes it plausible that radiation exposure may have caused the kinds of adverse pregnancy outcomes that were experienced and reported.
“However, no definitive statement is possible in the absence of a detailed scientific assessment.”
Scientists who traveled with the Rainbow Warrior III on its two-month visit to the Marshall Islands earlier this year collected samples from Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap and other atolls for scientific study and evaluation.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fiji’s Minister for Health and Medical Services has revealed the latest HIV numbers in the country to a development partner roundtable discussing the national response.
The minister reported 490 new HIV cases between October and December last year, bringing the 2024 total to 1583.
“Included in this number are 32 newborns diagnosed with HIV acquired through mother-to-child transmission,” Dr Atonio Rabici Lalabalavu said.
Fiji declared an outbreak of the disease in January. The Fiji Sun reported around 115 HIV-related deaths in the January-September 2024 period.
Fiji’s Central Division reported 1100 new cases in 2024, with 427 in the Western Division and 50 in the Northern Division.
Of the newly recorded cases, less than half — 770 — have been successfully linked to care, of which 711 have been commenced on antiretroviral therapy (ART).
Just over half were aged in their twenties, and 70 percent of cases were male.
Increase in TB, HIV co-infection Dr Lalabalavu said the increase in HIV cases was also seeing an increase in tuberculosis and HIV co-infection, with 160 individuals in a year.
He said the ministry strongly encouraged individuals to get tested, know their status, and if it was positive, seek treatment.
Fiji Minister for Health and Medical Services Dr Atonio Lalabalavu . . . strongly encourages individuals to get tested. Image: Ministry of Health & Medical Services/FB/RNZ Pacific
And if it is negative, to maintain that negative status.
“I will reiterate what I have said before to all Fijians – HIV should not be a death sentence in Fiji,” he said.
In the Western Pacific, the estimated number of people living with HIV (PLHIV) reached 1.9 million in 2020, up from 1.4 million in 2010.
At the time, the World Health Organisation said that over the previous two decades, HIV prevalence in the Western Pacific had remained low at 0.1 percent.
However, the low prevalence in the general population masked high levels of HIV infection among key populations.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Three staffers from Papua New Guinea’s peak anti-corruption body are embroiled in a standoff that has brought into question the integrity of the organisation.
Police Commissioner David Manning has confirmed that he received a formal complaint.
Commissioner Manning said that initial inquiries were underway to inform the “sensitive investigation board’s” consideration of the referral.
That board itself is controversial, having been set up as a halfway point to decide if an investigation into a subject should proceed through the usual justice process.
Manning indicated if the board determined a criminal offence had occurred, the matter would be assigned to the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate for independent investigation.
Local news media reported PNG Prime Minister James Marape was being kept informed of the developments.
Marape has issued a statement acknowledging the internal tensions within ICAC and reaffirming his government’s commitment to the institution.
Long-standing goal The establishment of ICAC in Papua New Guinea has been a long-standing national aspiration, dating back to 1984. The enabling legislation for ICAC was passed on 20 November 2020, bringing the body into legal existence.
Marape said it was a proud moment of his leadership having achieved this in just 18 months after he took office in May 2019.
The appointments process for ICAC officials was described as rigorous and internationally supervised, making the current internal disputes disheartening for many.
Marape has reacted strongly to the crisis, expressing disappointment over the allegations and differences between the three ICAC leaders. He affirmed his government’s “unwavering commitment” to ICAC.
These developments have significant implications for Papua New Guinea, particularly concerning its international commitments related to combating financial crime.
Crucial for fighting corruption An effective and credible ICAC is crucial for demonstrating the country’s commitment to fighting corruption, a key component of a robust AML/CTF regime.
Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) often includes governance and anti-corruption measures as part of its conditionalities for financial assistance and programme support.
Any perception of instability or compromised integrity within ICAC could hinder Papua New Guinea’s efforts to meet these international requirements, potentially affecting its financial standing and access to crucial development funds.
The current situation lays bare the urgent need for swift and decisive action to restore confidence in ICAC and ensure it can effectively fulfill its mandate.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi will be suspended for 21 days, and MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke suspended for seven days, taking effect immediately.
Opposition parties tried to reject the recommendation, but did not have the numbers to vote it down.
Te Pati Maori MPs speak after being suspended. Video: RNZ/Mark Papalii
The heated debate to consider the proposed punishment came to an end just before Parliament was due to rise.
Waititi moved to close the debate and no party disagreed, ending the possibility of it carrying on in the next sitting week.
Leader of the House Chris Bishop — the only National MP who spoke — kicked off the debate earlier in the afternoon saying it was “regrettable” some MPs did not vote on the Budget two weeks ago.
Bishop had called a vote ahead of Budget Day to suspend the privileges report debate to ensure the Te Pāti Māori MPs could take part in the Budget, but not all of them turned up.
Robust, rowdy debate The debate was robust and rowdy with both the deputy speaker Barbara Kuriger and temporary speaker Tangi Utikare repeatedly having to ask MPs to quieten down.
Flashback: Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipa-Clarke led a haka in Parliament and tore up a copy of the Treaty Principles Bill at the first reading on 14 November 2024 . . . . a haka is traditionally used as an indigenous show of challenge, support or sorrow. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone/APR screenshot
Tākuta Ferris spoke first for Te Pāti Māori, saying the haka was a “signal of humanity” and a “raw human connection”.
He said Māori had faced acts of violence for too long and would not be silenced by “ignorance or bigotry”.
“Is this really us in 2025, Aotearoa New Zealand?” he asked the House.
“Everyone can see the racism.”
He said the Privileges Committee’s recommendations were not without precedent, noting the fact Labour MP Peeni Henare, who also participated in the haka, did not face suspension.
MP Tākuta Ferris spoke for Te Pāti Māori. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
Henare attended the committee and apologised, which contributed to his lesser sanction.
‘Finger gun’ gesture MP Parmjeet Parmar — a member of the Committee — was first to speak on behalf of ACT, and referenced the hand gesture — or “finger gun” — that Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer made in the direction of ACT MPs during the haka.
Parmar told the House debate could be used to disagree on ideas and issues, and there was not a place for intimidating physical gestures.
Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said New Zealand’s Parliament could lead the world in terms of involving the indigenous people.
She said the Green Party strongly rejected the committee’s recommendations and proposed their amendment of removing suspensions, and asked the Te Pāti Māori MPs be censured instead.
Davidson said the House had evolved in the past — such as the inclusion of sign language and breast-feeding in the House.
She said the Greens were challenging the rules, and did not need an apology from Te Pāti Māori.
Foreign Minister and NZ First party leader Winston Peters called Te Pāti Māori “a bunch of extremists”. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
NZ First leader Winston Peters said Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party speeches so far showed “no sincerity, saying countless haka had taken place in Parliament but only after first consulting the Speaker.
“They told the media they were going to do it, but they didn’t tell the Speaker did they?
‘Bunch of extremists’ “The Māori party are a bunch of extremists,” Peters said, “New Zealand has had enough of them”.
Peters was made to apologise after taking aim at Waititi, calling him “the one in the cowboy hat” with “scribbles on his face” [in reference to his traditional indigenous moko — tatoo]. He continued afterward, describing Waititi as possessing “anti-Western values”.
Labour’s Willie Jackson congratulated Te Pāti Māori for the “greatest exhibition of our culture in the House in my lifetime”.
Jackson said the Treaty bill was a great threat, and was met by a great haka performance. He was glad the ACT Party was intimidated, saying that was the whole point of doing the haka.
He also called for a bit of compromise from Te Pāti Māori — encouraging them to say sorry — but reiterated Labour’s view the sanctions were out of proportion with past indiscretions in the House.
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the prime minister was personally responsible if the proposed sanctions went ahead. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the debate “would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious”.
“Get an absolute grip,” she said to the House, arguing the prime minister “is personally responsible” if the House proceeds with the committee’s proposed sanctions.
Eye of the beholder She accused National’s James Meager of “pointing a finger gun” at her — the same gesture coalition MPs had criticised Ngarewa-Packer for during her haka. The Speaker accepted he had not intended to; Swarbrick said it was an example where the interpretation could be in the eye of the beholder.
She said if the government could “pick a punishment out of thin air” that was “not a democracy”, putting New Zealand in very dangerous territory.
An emotional Maipi-Clarke said she had been silent on the issue for a long time, the party’s voices in haka having sent shockwaves around the world. She questioned whether that was why the MPs were being punished.
“Since when did being proud of your culture make you racist?”
“We will never be silenced, and we will never be lost,” she said, calling the Treaty Principles bill a “dishonourable vote”.
She had apologised to the Speaker and accepted the consequence laid down on the day, but refused to apologise. She listed other incidents in Parliament that resulted in no punishment.
Maipi-Clarke called for the Treaty of Waitangi to be recognised in the Constitution Act, and for MPs to be required to honour it by law.
‘Clear pathway forward’ “The pathway forward has never been so clear,” she said.
ACT’s Nicole McKee said there were excuses being made for “bad behaviour”, that the House was for making laws and having discussions, and “this is not about the haka, this is about process”.
She told the House she had heard no good ideas from the Te Pāti Māori, who she said resorted to intimidation when they did not get their way, but the MPs needed to “grow up” and learn to debate issues. She hoped 21 days would give them plenty of time to think about their behaviour.
Labour MP and former Speaker Adrian Rurawhe started by saying there were “no winners in this debate”, and it was clear to him it was the government, not the Parliament, handing out the punishments.
He said the proposed sanctions set a precedent for future penalties, and governments might use it as a way to punish opposition, imploring National to think twice.
He also said an apology from Te Pāti Māori would “go a long way”, saying they had a “huge opportunity” to have a legacy in the House, but it was their choice — and while many would agree with the party there were rules and “you can’t have it both ways”.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi speaking to the media after the Privileges Committee debate. Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said there had been many instances of misinterpretations of the haka in the House and said it was unclear why they were being punished, “is it about the haka . . . is about the gun gestures?”
“Not one committee member has explained to us where 21 days came from,” he said.
Hat and ‘scribbles’ response Waititi took aim at Peters over his comments targeting his hat and “scribbles” on his face.
He said the haka was an elevation of indigenous voice and the proposed punishment was a “warning shot from the colonial state that cannot stomach” defiance.
Waititi said that throughout history when Māori did not play ball, the “coloniser government” reached for extreme sanctions, ending with a plea to voters: “Make this a one-term government, enrol, vote”.
He brought out a noose to represent Māori wrongfully put to death in the past, saying “interpretation is a feeling, it is not a fact . . . you’ve traded a noose for legislation”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
One of seven people transferred to mainland France almost a year ago, following the May 2024 riots in New Caledonia, has been allowed to return home, a French court has ruled.
Frédérique Muliava, a former Congress staffer, was part of a group of six who were charged in relation to the riots.
Under her new judicial requirements, set out by the judge in charge of the case, Muliava, once she returns to New Caledonia, is allowed to return to work, but must not make any contact with other individuals related to her case and not take part in any public demonstration.
Four days after their arrest in Nouméa in June 2024, Muliava and six others were transferred to mainland France aboard a chartered plane.
They were charged with criminal-related offences (including being a party or being accomplice to murder attempts and thefts involving the use of weapons) and have since been remanded in several prisons across France pending their trial.
In January 2025, the whole case was removed from the jurisdiction of New Caledonia-based judges and has since been transferred back to investigating judges in mainland France.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fiji’s Maritime Safety Authority has launched an investigation into Goundar Shipping Limited following two incidents involving its vessels.
Late last month, one vessel ran aground on the reef of Ono-i-Lau, and villagers had to step in to ferry stranded passengers to nearby islands using small boats.
On Monday, the Lomaiviti Princess II was sent to assist with salvage operations of the grounded boat in Ono-i-Lau.
But the rescue boat never made it as it capsized in Suva Harbour, where it remains on its side.
The company’s managing director George Goundar told local media “the mishap at Suva Harbour regarding the Lomaiviti Princess II was not the works of the company”.
He directed all questions to the Fiji Ports Cooperation.
Maritime Safety declines comment FBC News has asked the ports cooperation for comment, but the outlet reported the Maritime Safety Authority had refused to comment further.
Minister Ro Filipe Tuisawau said the matter was under investigation and a release would be issued after he received an update on the matter.
On May 29, the company posted on social media about the first incident, saying “GSL Management would like to sincerely thank the people of Ono-i-Lau for your tremendous support following the mishap”.
“We acknowledge and appreciate your assistance in ensuring the passengers were safely brought ashore.
“The vessel is now en route to Suva.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.