Samoa police have launched an investigation into a bizarre international case involving two Samoan men who have appeared on Vietnamese television confessing to the murder of a Sydney gang leader in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Samoa Observer reported that Joseph Vaa, 27, admitted gunning down suspected “Coconut Cartel” ringleader Lorenzo Lemalu Tovia outside a restaurant on May 21. Vaa’s associate, Steve Tofa, 23, has confessed to being his accomplice in the shooting.

Tovia died at the scene while his associate Sauni Sam, 27, is in intensive care in hospital with serious injuries.

• READ MORE: Other Samoan crime reports

A video posted by Vietnamese television channel VTV9 showed Vaa and Tofa wearing black hoods and handcuffs while being marched into a room by police to confess.

Australia’s 7News showed footage of the confessions, with a blank looking Vaa clearly reading out a statement.

“Together with Steve, I came to Vietnam and I was the person who directly used the gun to shoot and kill someone on 21 May,” Vaa said.

“I realise that my actions were wrong and I deeply regret what I have done. The Vietnamese police have treated me kindly and provided me with food and drinks to ensure that I remain in good health.”

Tofa, also called Tafia in some news reports, who looked frightened, then admitted to being an accomplice in the crime.

‘Plans to flee’
“Me together with Vaa, were hired to come to Vietnam to look for two victims, Lorenzo Lemalu Tovia and Sauni Sam, in order for my friend to use a gun and kill them. Although I had plans to flee Vietnam immediately after committing the crime, it was impossible to escape from the Vietnamese police and I accept responsibility for the law,” Tofa said.

“I would like to advise anyone who intends to come to Vietnam to commit crimes to abandon that idea immediately because you will be arrested by the Vietnamese police.”

The duo were initially thought to be Australian but it is understood they used fake passports to travel to Vietnam and were arrested at the Cambodian border less than three days after the shooting.

Lieutenant General Mai Hoàng, the director of the HCM City Police, said authorities would deal strictly with all lawbreakers operating within Vietnamese territory.

“If the subjects provide sincere declarations, they will receive the leniency of Vietnamese law,” he stated.

Local police said the alleged hit men used “military-grade firearms” during the attack last Wednesday night outside the Cee’f seafood restaurant on Truong Dinh Street in Ben Thanh ward. Surveillance footage showed them fleeing on foot immediately afterwards.

The deputy director police, Nguyen Thanh Hung, told state media that police used surveillance measures and digital mapping to trace their movements and escape route.

‘Highly dangerous’
Investigators issued emergency detention orders against the two suspects and said at the time that they were “highly dangerous” and “prepared to resist arrest.”

The Khmer Times reported that during their initial interrogation, the suspects told police that they were acting on behalf of a individual based abroad.

They said they had arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCM city on May 14 and spent several days monitoring the activities of the two Australian victims.

Police have also detained Vietnamese citizen Nguyễn Trọng Nghĩa, 24, a resident of the southern province of Tây Ninh, along with seven other Vietnamese nationals, for allegedly helping the suspects evade capture and failing to report the crime.

Nghĩa reportedly worked as a passenger transport driver on the Ho Chi Minh City-Tây Ninh route.

Meanwhile, Samoa’s acting Police Commissioner, Leiataua Samuelu Afamasaga, said officers were working with Australian police to investigate Vaa and Tofa’s criminal connections.

Police would need to try and determine who funded the trip to Vietnam to carry out the hit, Leiataua said.

Vaa and Tofa, an aspiring bodybuilder, had reportedly been working for a telecommunications company in Samoa and were involved in the local basketball scene.

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

As testimonies from the 428 participants illegally kidnapped by the Israeli regime continue to surface, the United States critical role in the abuses and torture of humanitarian volunteers and journalists has become undeniable.

This role goes beyond the US State Department’s diplomatic shielding and the US Embassy’s refusal to assist American families seeking information; it includes the very ship on which volunteer participants were illegally detained and tortured.

It also includes the weapons used to inflict life-threatening trauma against them.

• READ MORE: Global Sumud Flotilla urges probe of US complicity in members’ abduction and torture by Israel
• Kidnapped Kiwi Gaza flotilla detainee condemns brutal Israeli torture

The US-funded ‘torture ship’
The vessel at the centre of many severe abuses, including systematic torture and sexual assault, was a converted naval landing craft that participants have come to call the “torture ship”.

The vessel is the INS Nahshon, built by Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding (a subsidiary of Bollinger Shipyards) and fully financed under the US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme.

Delivered to the occupation navy in 2023, this ship was used as a floating prison during the illegal April 29 and 30 interceptions off the coast of Crete, where at least 30 participants were injured severely enough that they had to be taken to the hospital.

Brutality inside ‘The beating container’
During the vessel’s deployment, detained humanitarians, doctors, and journalists were processed one by one through a darkened shipping container.

Inside, groups of three to five soldiers systematically brutalised each person who came through the door while those waiting outside listened to the screams.

“All of a sudden I hear, ‘Welcome to israel.’ And I start getting hit, like first hit on the head, second hit in the ribs, then I fall, then they kick me,” said humanitarian activist Yassine Benjelloun, who was also tasered multiple times.

“What lasts maybe three or five minutes seems like a lifetime. You don’t know that the door is going to open, and they’re going to kick you out.”

Megan Marie Dominguez, a US activist, was thrown into the “beating container”, struck with sufficient force to render her nearly unconscious, then passed to a second set of soldiers armed with tasers and what she describes as “other toys to beat people up with.”

Dr Jihan Alya Mohd Nordin, a Malaysian physician on board, described a medical situation unprecedented in her professional experience.

She documented:

• 35 participants with fractures, including broken ribs, shoulder dislocations, and humerus fractures.
• Severe head injuries, concussions, and eye/ear trauma.
• At least two individuals forcibly injected with unidentified substances that left them drowsy and disoriented.
• 14 cases of sexual assault, as well as the systematic, deliberate removal of Muslim women’s hijabs.

“Being a doctor, the main aim is to reduce the sufferings of people,” said Dr Jihan. “But when we cannot do anything to help them, it was the worst and the most horrible feeling that I have.

“It was so devastating.”

Dr Jihan: ‘I was punched, kicked and choked” by the Israeli military Video: News Straits Times

American munitions used against civilians
The weapons deployed on board were also American-made. Stun grenades and metal-bearing projectile rounds were identified by manufacturer markings as products of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS), a brand of the Jamestown, Pennsylvania-based weapons manufacturer Combined Systems Inc. (CSI).

These weapons were fired at close range in enclosed spaces against participants who were sitting down or trying to sleep, a direct violation of the manufacturer’s own usage guidelines.

A structural policy of complicity — the weapons.
The ship. The diplomatic silence. None of this was accidental. Former US State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned in protest over US arms transfers to Israel, is unequivocal:

“Under US law, arms transfers must only be made for purposes authorised by law.

“INS Nahshon’s use by Israel to conduct an illegal seizure in international waters, and then to act as a base for the torture and sexual assault of foreign civilians, including Americans, who had broken no laws, and were acting from conscience to serve an urgent humanitarian need, plainly and grievously violates those terms.

“When this sale was authorised, US officials will have asked themselves how Israel might use this platform. The basis on which they should have denied this transfer has been there since at least the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010 [in which 10 Turkish people were killed by Israeli forces], but is now more clear than ever, and the lesson here is a simple one: that anything we transfer to Israel, Israel will find a way to misuse — whether it is a bomb, a bulldozer, or a boat.”

This is not an isolated incident or the failure of a single administration; it is a structural, bipartisan commitment by the United States government to prioritise its strategic relations above the protection of its own citizens and its own laws.

By using a separately constructed, “broken” vetting process, the State Department routinely circumvents the 1997 Leahy Law, which strictly prohibits US military assistance to foreign units credibly accused of gross human rights violations like torture and rape.

While international law has been flagrantly violated and legal proceedings are now active in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, with Italian prosecutors opening an investigation into kidnapping and sexual assault, the US government continues to look away.

Demands to the United States government
The israeli regime continues to commit genocide using US-built ships and US-made weapons.

The torture of US citizens and humanitarian volunteers with American-made tools is not an anomaly. It is the direct outcome of unconditional US support for a regime continuously committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

What Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) participants survived for days, many Palestinians endure indefinitely without lawyers or consular access.

The Global Sumud Flotilla calls on the United States government to take immediate action:

• Open immediate hearings into the deployment of FMF-funded military assets, including INS Nahshon, against US citizens.
• Suspend all arms transfers to the israeli regime pending that investigation.
• Enforce the Leahy Law without exemption or special processes for the regime.
• Provide a full accounting of every consular and distress request filed by families of detained participants that was dismissed or ignored.
• Investigate the use of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS) munitions, produced under Department of Defense (DOD) contracts, against unarmed civilian humanitarians.
• End unconditional military and diplomatic support for a regime committing genocide.

New Zealand Police Commissioner Richard Chambers says Pacific Island nations are addressing corruption among their police and customs officials.

Chambers has concluded a trip to Suva, Fiji, for the inaugural Pacific Transnational Crime Summit, which brought together Pacific police chiefs, ministers and prime ministers to discuss what is now a “destination market” for drugs and human trafficking.

He said there was a willingness among police chiefs, most of whom are dealing with corruption in their ranks, to discuss these issues with humility.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji crime reports

“We appreciate that it’s pretty hard sometimes to turn down an offer of a large sum of money when the incomes that many police staff earn aren’t great,” Chambers said.

“New Zealand will support our Pacific neighbours when it comes to particular problems, and that’s not new; we’ve done that for many years.”

New Zealand Police have confirmed their involvement in a six-month investigation into 11 Fiji police officers who were allegedly involved with Auckland-based drug dealers.

The investigation followed a leak of more than 100 text screenshots depicting officers accepting bribes and tipping people off about impending raids.

No specifics
Chambers refused to provide any specifics about that case or any others in which New Zealand may be involved.

However, he said that he had “absolute trust” in the Fiji Police Force and its Commissioner, Rusiate Tudravu.

“He talks quite openly about the challenges that he’s encountered as the commissioner there, and what he’s doing to stamp it out,” Chambers said.

“I’ve been a police officer for 30 years, and over that time I’ve done a lot of work with Fiji … I’ve never experienced any issues myself.”

The Pacific is a strategic transit point for traffickers both in Southeast Asia and Central America. Referred to colloquially by officials and experts as the “narco highway”, product is funnelled through Pacific communities on its way to Australia and New Zealand, where street prices are among the highest in the world.

Chambers’ Australian counterpart Krissy Barrett called this her “nation’s shame”, making for a “moral responsibility” to act. Australia has previously committed AU$400 million to regional policing efforts.

Pacific watch
One action stemming from the summit is a new dob-in line for Pacific communities, calling on the public to “be the community’s eyes and ears.”

The online platform, dubbed Pacific Watch, “will allow the public to” safely and anonymously report suspicious behaviour, drug-related activities and other crimes threatening community safety,” as reported by the Fiji Sun. Its slogan will be: ” Recognise, Remember and Report.”

The website features links to every Pacific country’s police page, as well as a “report now” button that leads to a Microsoft Form. It prompts the user to offer the suspect’s name or nicknames, their appearance and features, occupations, transport and a specific address, on top of describing the activity.

“Phase two” will reportedly include the ability to upload photos and videos as evidence.

It comes after the AFP announced a new office in Bogota, Colombia, alongside Colombian, Mexican, US, Interpol and Pacific forces, with a focus on disrupting supply lines. It would serve as an intelligence source for Pacific officials at one of the key entrances and exits of the narco highway.

New Zealand will send a liaison officer there “before Christmas”, Chambers said.

Military presence
Chambers said military officials from across the world were crawling at the summit.

“[One] thing that has been a particular focus this week is the coordination that needs to occur across all maritime activity,” he said.

“So, besides the Australian Navy, here we have the French Navy, the Mexican Navy, the Colombian Navy.”

However, he said that the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), which has partnered with the Fiji Police for the country’s primary counter-drug taskforce, were absent.

Fiji police are currently investigating the death of known drug pusher Jone Vakarisi, who was beaten to death in a military prison. Military officers have also reportedly patrolled streets in Fijian drug hotspots without police present.

Tudravu has continuously maintained that his officers are in control of all counter-drug operations in the country.

It is unclear whether the Australian and Fiji police, who co-convened the summit, extended an invitation to the military.

RNZ Pacific has asked the Fiji Police and the RFMF for comment.

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

New Zealand needs to summon Israeli ambassador to protest over the illegal and brutal treatment of Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid activists — including three New Zealanders — kidnapped in international waters this week.

Peace activists are demanding this in the response to Israel ambassadors being summoned by several host governments over the “degrading” treatment.

Media footage broadcast by Al Jazeera and other media show Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting activists in Israeli custody, including the three New Zealanders — Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel and Hāhona Jason Ormsby.

• READ MORE: Several nations summon Israeli envoys as Ben-Gvir taunts flotilla activists
• 87+ Gaza aid flotilla activists abducted by Israel now on hunger strike
• Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Update: New Zealand has now also condemned the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir with Foreign Minister Winston Peters issuing a statement saying, “we have instructed MFAT to call in the Israeli Ambassador today to directly pass on our grave concerns”.

The latest protest came from the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, who condemned a video showing Ben-Gvir abusing activists as they were forced to kneel on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs.

Kallas described the treatment of the abducted activists as “degrading and wrong” and said rightwing minister Ben-Gvir’s conduct was “unbecoming of anyone holding office in a democracy”.

Peters noted that New Zealand had last year placed a travel ban on Ben-Gvir for “severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution”.

Several countries — including Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Canada — have summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their capitals to express “indignation” over Israel’s treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists.

Other countries condemning the incident include South Korea, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, Turkiye, Austria, Belgium, Colombia and the United Kingdom.

Ben-Gvir’s actions ‘unacceptable’
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot denounced Ben-Gvir’s actions as “unacceptable”, calling for the release of French citizens “as soon as possible”.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand called the incident “deeply troubling”, adding that Ottawa would summon the Israeli ambassador over the incident.

“The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice and the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission,” a flotilla organiser, Brazilian Thiago Ávila, posted on X.

“But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day.”

All 428 activists from 40 countries were part of the peaceful flotilla of more than 50 boats taking humanitarian aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel’s illegal blockade.

“We call on the Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, to summon the Israeli Ambassador,” said Valerie Morse, member of Peace Action Wellington, in a statement.

“He needs to stand up for these New Zealanders who are being detained illegally and tortured by the Israeli military.

“The video footage shows the activists held in stress positions while Ben-Gvir parades around shouting at them.

New Zealand condemns the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.

His latest conduct with…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) May 20, 2026

‘Peters ignored responsibilities’
“Thus far, he has completely ignored his responsibilities as Foreign Minister. We have not heard a word of condemnation for Israel’s blatant kidnapping of ordinary people peacefully sailing in the Mediterranean Sea,” Morse said.

“Peters is greenlighting more Israeli impunity by failing to take action for New Zealanders in extremely vulnerable positions.

“He must demand the immediate release of these New Zealanders without delay and without harm.”

The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice & the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission. But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day pic.twitter.com/8Z7mgJa5uc

— Thiago Ávila (@thiagoavilabr) May 20, 2026

Three New Zealanders are being illegally held hostage by the Israeli military after security forces boarded more than 50 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid bound for the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

They have been named by the flotilla Aotearoa delegation as Mousa Taher, turning 39 next week; Hāhona Ormsby, 56; and Julien Blondel, 47.

All three were among the 428 humanitarian aid activists from 40 countries detained by the Israeli forces when they illegally intercepted the flotilla in international waters near Cyprus over the past two days.

• READ MORE: Foreign ministers of 10 countries say Israel’s storming of the aid flotilla is blatant violation of international law
• Greenpeace calls on global govts to ensure safety of Gaza flotilla stormed by Israeli military
• ‘They threatened to kill us at gunpoint,’ says NZ Gaza flotilla activist
• After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Mousa Taher was aboard the Kasri Sadabat, one of the final 10 boats to be intercepted. A father of seven, Mousa left his children a message before being illegally abducted, writing on a sign for the livestream camera, “I love you”, and “Salaam Baby!”

His 11-year-old son has written a plea to the New Zealand government to intervene:

“To Mr Government: I want to ask you to please help my Dad, Mousa Taher, so his boat doesn’t get intercepted by Israelis. I miss him very much and I hope to see him untouched, not hurt, and in good conditions.

The people in Gaza deserve support, especially all the kids like me. Help my Baba to help Palestinians please.”

— From: Shay Yusuf. Age 11

Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.

Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.

Message to ‘fellow Kiwis’
Yesterday, before his illegal interception, Taher sent the Aotearoa delegation a message announcing, “I have a message to my fellow Kiwis and the New Zealand government.

“I’m on my boat which has humanitarian aid, on the way to Gaza to break the illegal siege of the israeli occupation forces.

“What I would like to say is that, for three years, I watched the uncontested demolition and obliteration of a people. It was on the TV for all of us to watch.

“Our government chose time and time again to do nothing. To be complicit, and to allow this to happen.

“There has been war crime after war crime, and yet the New Zealand government has been investing and shaking hands with these war criminals who are committing war crimes.”

“Our government has a choice. Are you going to uphold international law? Are you going to uphold humanitarian values? Are you going to be the New Zealand that we know and love?

“Or are you going to allow these oppressors to continue?… Please just be humans. And stop the killing of babies… this is my request and my plea. Kia Kaha, and we will see you in Gaza hopefully.”

Blondel abducted second time
Also abducted is New Zealander Julien Blondel, a dual citizen to Switzerland, who was beaten in the face in Israeli military custody after the first interception on April 29.

Despite the beatings, sexual harassment, and abuse that flotilla participants experienced during this abduction, both Blondel and Taher have returned to the flotilla to try and break the siege once more, the Aotearoa delegation said in a statement.

“They returned because they remain steadfast in their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their belief in a liberated world,” the statement said.

Hāhona Chris Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), father of five children, is the third New Zealander to be illegally abducted.

Before the illegal interception, he said, “we are now only days away from Gaza… we need your eyes on us. Your eyes then become the government’s eyes on us.

“It keeps us safe. It keeps us out of harm’s way by the IOF… My freedom is not real if yours is denied. Free Gaza.”

The Aotearoa delegation said: “To echo Hahona’s words, we implore New Zealand to keep its eyes on the abducted flotilla participants to keep our whānau safe. We demand that the New Zealand government does everything in its power to protect them.”

Flotilla organisers demand release
The abducted participants are being taken to a port in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

The Global Sumud Flotilla organisers have demanded the immediate, unconditional release of all the  participants, alongside the more than 9000 “unjustly detained Palestinian political prisoners facing a codified regime of state-sanctioned terror”.

GSF has also called on world leaders to demand the release of the flotilla participants, the release of the Palestinian political prisoners and hostages and an end to the genocide and blockade on Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Global Humanitarian Convoy has been blocked on the outskirts of Sirte in Libya while attempting to reach Gaza. This is despite the unambiguity of the Fourth Geneva Convention: all parties are obligated to allow the free passage of humanitarian aid and personnel.

“The international community must act now and protect the lives of the vulnerable,” said the GSF. “Blocking humanitarian aid is a violation of international law both at sea and on land.

“Our governments must speak up.”

10 countries condemn Israel
Al Jazeera reports that several countries have condemned the Israeli attacks on the aid flotilla.

The foreign ministers of Turkïye, Spain, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Libya, and the Maldives released a joint statement, describing Israeli forces’ actions as “blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.

On Saturday, Trump took revenge on Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy for Cassidy’s vote five years ago to convict Trump, in his second impeachment, for instigating an attack on the US Capitol.

Cassidy thereby became the first GOP senator defeated by a Trump-endorsed candidate in a Republican primary. (Other Republican senators who have stood up to Trump — such as North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and Utah’s Mitt Romney — saw the writing on the wall and didn’t seek reelection.)

Trump’s purge of Cassidy comes in the wake of Trump’s purges of House Republicans who stood up to him, such as Wyoming’s Liz Cheney.

• READ MORE: Trump says Iran attack held off upon Gulf states’ request
• Republican Thomas Massie who stood up to Trump defeated in Kentucky primary
• Other Donald Trump reports

Trump’s next Republican target in the House is Kentucky representative Thomas Massie, who had the guts to oppose US military involvement in Iran, demand release of the Epstein files, and criticise Trump’s spending bills for adding to the national debt. Massie appears likely to be defeated by a Trump-backed opponent in Tuesday’s Kentucky primary.

Trump is marshaling the full force of his MAGA machine — spending more than $30 million on a House Republican primary — to purge another of his political enemies from the Republican House. Even Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth is flying to Kentucky to campaign for Massie’s challenger.

It’s all seen as an investment in intimidating and disciplining Republican office-holders who might otherwise think of straying.

Trump has also purged state legislators who have refused to do his bidding, such as the seven Indiana Republicans who refused to redistrict the state as Trump demanded they do, and who Trump insured were defeated in their recent primaries.

The message is clear to every current or aspiring Republican politician: Be a toady to Trump, or you’re out.

In his concession speech Friday night, Cassidy stated the obvious reference to Trump:

“Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution.

“And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.”

Nicely put but sadly irrelevant because Trump — who’s clearly serving himself rather than the American public — now possesses all levers of power in the official Republican Party.

As Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said yesterday on Meet the Press, “There’s no room in this party to destroy [Trump’s] agenda.”

Former generations of Republican politicians had principles, beliefs, ideals. They thought the federal government too large. Or believed it spent too much money. Or was too lenient on criminals. Or was too eager to support the civil rights of Black people. Or any number of issues with which Democrats disagreed.

Today’s Republican Party no longer has any purpose other than achieving whatever Trump wants, which is mainly to make Trump richer and more powerful. The GOP is now Trump’s; it is no longer America’s.

Today’s Republican voters, by contrast, are showing increasing frustration with Trump. Those who think of themselves as traditional Republicans don’t like Trump’s expansive use of federal power. Those who are fiscally conservative, like Thomas Massie, are upset by Trump’s wanton spending, tax cuts, and soaring debt.

“America-first” Republican voters are concerned about Trump’s intrusions into Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere. And they want the rest of the Epstein files released.

Yet for elected Republicans, survival now depends on personal loyalty to Trump.

All of which raises a fundamental question: Has the official Republican Party — now nearly purged of anyone willing to reflect the concerns of Republican voters rather than Trump’s will — become complicit in Trump’s criminality? Is it aiding and abetting Trump’s lawlessness?

A case can be made that the official Republican Party is indeed complicit.

For Trump, the first and most basic sign of loyalty to him — and therefore survival as a politician in Trump’s Republican Party — is a willingness to publicly proclaim as truth what we know to be two big lies: that Trump won the 2020 election, and that he did not seek to overturn its results by illegal means. As a result, almost all congressional Republicans are now election deniers.

Trump has also made it clear that loyalty to him bars any criticism of his unlawful immigration dragnet, which has so far resulted in the murders of three US citizens by ICE agents and the detention and deportation, without a hearing, of people suspected of being in the US illegally.

To Trump, loyalty requires full support of his foreign policy — including the abduction of a foreign leader, an undeclared war with Iran, and the killing on the high seas of people only suspected of smuggling drugs, in violation of international law.

Loyalty also demands unquestioned support for other of his lawless acts — using the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents, building a mammoth White House ballroom, issuing no-bid contracts to his friends, promoting his family’s businesses and implementing policies favorable to them, accepting gifts from foreign powers, and defying court orders.

Is it fair to conclude from all of this that today’s official Republican Party — the people who are in office because Trump has put them there, or who maintain their office because they back whatever Trump wants — has in effect become a criminal organisation, analogous to the mafia or a drug cartel, whose members are blindly loyal to their criminal bosses?

Robert Reich is a US professor, former Secretary of Labor, co-founder of Inequality Media and writes at robertreich.substack.com

A multinational police investigation implicating 11 Fiji police officers in collusion with drug traffickers has been handed over to prosecutors.

The Fiji police announced that the investigation, lasting nearly six months, now awaits advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on how to proceed.

On December 1 last year, a social media activist posted more than 100 screenshots of Viber messages between the officers and a member of an Auckland-based organised crime group.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji crime reports

Police personnel depicted in the screenshots ranged from beat cops to Criminal Intelligence Division (CID) officers to the head of the Narcotics Bureau.

The texts purportedly showed the Narcotics Bureau chief and others demanding a hit be put out on an individual, providing tip-offs about possible locations and movements. They also depicted officers demanding payments, with details of drop zones and pickup arrangements.

Police said that each officer’s financial histories was investigated.

Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu told local media on 19 December 2025 that the Narcotics Bureau chief had been placed on leave.

NZ ‘assisted’ investigation
A statement confirmed that Australian and New Zealand authorities “assisted” in the investigation. Tudravu confirmed in a press conference that United States authorities were also involved.

New Zealand police said they were “in touch” from December onwards.

“Fiji Police is leading the investigation, and New Zealand Police has offered any support that Fiji Police may require,” they said.

On December 2, Tudravu announced the investigation, with the officers’ phones confiscated shortly after. Police confirmed the investigation concluded last week.

The US Embassy in Wellington, where an FBI office is set up, declined to comment.

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

When the Paris-based global watchdog Reporters Without Borders released their annual World Press Freedom Index dossier online three days before World Press Freedom Day, journalists in the Asia-Pacific region were quick to check out their ranking.

Overall the prognosis wasn’t very flattering. No country in the region was ranked in the top 20 of the 180 countries surveyed, and even New Zealand, which has traditionally done well in the past – including even being in the top 10 a few years ago — had continued its downhill slide.

“New Zealand (22nd) remains the region’s model for press freedom, despite slipping six places,” said the World Press Freedom Index report. “Other Asia-Pacific democracies, such as Taiwan (28th), Timor-Leste (30th) and Australia (33rd), face real challenges to upholding the right to reliable information, yet continue to offer broadly protective environments.

• READ MORE: How Israel’s unprecedented killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza makes accountability reporting almost impossible — Majdolin Hasan and Wadih Sabbagh, GIJN
• We analysed thousands of news articles: here’s the proof of the pro-Israel bias in mainstream media – Adam Johnson, The Intercept
• Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists, while the West merely censors them – David Robie, Declassified Australia
• Gaza, genocide and media: Will journalism survive? — Pacific Journalism Review
• The 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index

“They stand as exceptions in a region where press freedom is being steadily eroded.”

Fiji scored a remarkable 16-place climb to 24th, just two places behind New Zealand, after the scrapping of the draconian Media Industry Development Act in 2023, but this was certainly no grounds to be complacent.

Responding to the rankings and after a woman journalist in Tonga was threatened at gunpoint at Kele’a Voice FM radio station by a jailed-for-life drug gangster’s hooded henchman in Tonga, Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) president Kalafi Moala (himself Tongan and a doyen of Pacific media) declared:

Tongan armed threat against journalist troubles Pacific media freedom

“Threats against press freedom are unfortunately ongoing in the Pacific. The incident in Tonga demonstrates that the enemies of press freedom can come from anywhere — not always the government or those in power, but anyone averse to truth and transparency.

“Whether it is in Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, French Polynesia or anywhere else in the Pacific, media freedom must be protected, advocated for and exercised to the fullest.”

Smear. Kill. Repeat: The constant horror for journalists in Gaza     Video: Al Jazeera

Deafening silence on Gaza
But for all the lively debate and responses across the Asia-Pacific to this year’s Press Freedom Index results, there was a deafening silence and lack of collegial concern from New Zealand to Taiwan about the elephant in the global media freedom room: the unprecedented and chilling wholesale assassinations of Palestinian (and now Lebanese) journalists by the Israeli military forces.

Many of them were targeted and murdered for doing their jobs.

And those still surviving have been risking their lives (and those of their families) day and night while truth-telling to the world with extraordinary courage.

“Under Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977), journalists on ‘dangerous professional missions in armed conflict’ must be treated as civilians. It is one of the clearest protections in international law,” write Majdolin Hasan and Wadih Sabbagh of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).

“Yet in Gaza, their cameras and press vests have become targets.”

Statistics on this Israeli bloodlust are varied, depending on the source and methodology and criteria in compiling the information. According to the latest figures on the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Gaza database, 264 journalists have been killed, 174 wounded and 107 imprisoned. These figures include war-related killings of journalists and media workers in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Iran and Israel.

“By silencing the press, Israel is silencing those who document and bear witness to what human rights groups and UN experts agree is a genocide. CPJ calls on the international community to hold Israel to account for its unlawful attacks on journalists; ensure international media is given immediate, independent access to Gaza; and open humanitarian corridors for journalists.”

Death toll even higher
Some media counts put the death toll even higher. A United Nations human rights web page, for example, cites UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk saying in a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day that the situation for journalists in Gaza is a “death trap”.

“Israel’s war in Gaza has become a death trap for the media. My office has verified the killing of nearly 300 journalists since October 2023, with many more injured,” Türk said.

He urged States to investigate all violations against media workers and expressed alarm at the lack of accountability for killings of journalists.

“This year alone, at least 14 journalists have been killed. Over the past 20 years, only around one in 10 killings has led to full accountability,” Türk said.

In January 2024, I wrote an article for Declassified Australia that was already an “early warning” indicator of the growing death toll among Palestinian journalists. My earlier media freedom articles had frequently dealt with the Philippines, which used to be among the worst countries for the killing of journalists.

In the article, “Silencing the messenger”, I also warned against the growing censorship in what was already emerging as the greatest moral issue of our times: “Western journalists taking a stand against their media outlets’ biased coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza are being targeted with career threats and even dismissal. But their colleagues in Palestine are suffering a worse fate.”

I called on journalists to make a stand for truth-telling and in solidarity with their colleagues in Gaza.

Shameful NZ silence
Yet while the silence in the Pacific is perhaps not surprising given the conflicted collaboration of several governments, such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea, on the wrong side of history, in New Zealand it is shameful. At least in Australia, there has been a strong pushback by journalists against the bias in the mainstream, and one independent publication, Crikey, has been publishing a “register” of journalists who have been on paid junkets to Israel and are regarded as potentially compromised.

Media editor Daanyal Saeed wrote: “It’s become clear that a number of Australian politicians and journalists have been on organised tours to the Middle East — many of them sponsored by pro-Israel lobby groups and interest organisations.”

A similar grooming of New Zealand journalists has also been carried out by pro-Israel lobby groups’ “sponsorship” in recent years, but no media has published a comprehensive list.

Is this “captive journalists” phenomena one of the factors for the perceived bias of much of the New Zealand media? John Minto, national campaigns coordinator of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), the largest and most visible advocacy and protest group in the country, agrees: “The large number of journalists here, who should know better, who have taken all expenses paid trips to Israel are part of Israel’s building of a propaganda base.

“Another important factor is the long history of false smears of antisemitism against anyone criticising Israel. Editors think twice about reporting anything showing Israel in a bad light.

“Just last week an RNZ journalist talked on radio about an interview she had done with UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, and that the interview would be heard on the Nine to Noon show early the following week. The interview was then advertised to be broadcast on the Monday morning but then never appeared on the programme.

“Pressure from the anti-Palestinian racists in the pro-Israel lobby is the only sensible explanation. Most likely it will simply be buried — along with what’s left of RNZ’s journalistic integrity.”

Limited independent reportage
It needs to be realised too that New Zealand media has a limited independent “international” reportage tradition in contrast to Australia and many other countries. What international coverage with a New Zealand perspective that did exist, largely disappeared after the closure of the country’s only independent news agency, the 131-year-old NZ Press Association cooperative. This shut down in 2011.

Minto blames the narrow range of international news as another factor in why New Zealand media seems so slanted.

“The media industry here takes its overseas content solely from Western news sources such as AP [Associated Press, American], Reuters and the BBC [both British-based] alongside UK and US newspapers such as The New York Times, Washington Post and Daily Telegraph. It is packaged by Israeli sympathisers embedded in senior positions across these outlets and the inevitable result is a stream of pro-Israeli propaganda rather than balanced and accurate journalism.

“The recent analysis by The Intercept underscores this built-in bias in favour of Israel and against Palestinians.”

The Pacific Journalism Review also ran a special edition in July 2024 focused on systemic bias in the New Zealand and some international media. The provocative title theme was “Gaza, genocide and media: Will journalism survive?” and it was aimed at alerting journalists that declining credibility was at stake over this critical moral issue of our times.

Maher Nazzal, a Palestinian New Zealander who is a community advocate and chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, echoes this view.

“Much of the New Zealand media coverage on Palestine has been shaped through Western political narratives and reliance on international wire services that often frame events primarily through an Israeli lens,” he says. “This has contributed to the dehumanisation or invisibility of Palestinian voices, including journalists working under unimaginable conditions in Gaza.”

Courage and professionalism
A good point. The courage and professionalism of Gaza journalists has been widely acknowledged around the globe, including their collectively winning the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2024, yet NZ journalists seem to be reluctant to recognise this, let alone give statements of solidarity. Why?|

“What Gaza journalists have shown over the past 19 months is extraordinary courage and professionalism,” says Nazzal. “Many continued reporting while displaced, grieving family members, facing starvation, or living under bombardment.

“Some paid with their lives simply for documenting the truth. Their work has become one of the few direct windows into what is happening on the ground.

“Unfortunately, solidarity from many mainstream media institutions in New Zealand has been limited. There appears to be hesitation, fear of controversy, or political sensitivity around speaking openly on Palestine compared with other global conflicts.

“This silence itself becomes part of the problem.”

An independent New Zealand journalist who has been based in the occupied West Bank for two periods during the Israeli war on Gaza — in 2024 for two months and again last year – is also unimpressed with the local reportage.

Video and photojournalist Cole Martin from Ōtautahi Christchurch believes there is a serious lack of understanding in New Zealand media of the context of the structural and institutional violence towards the Palestinians.

“It is a media scene in Aotearoa that repeats very harmful and inaccurate narratives,” Martin says.

“Also, there is this idea to be unbiased and neutral in a conflict, both perspectives must have equal legitimacy.”

Israel regularly condemned
Reporters Without Borders has regularly condemned Israel for refusing to allow journalists from international media into Gaza, except on rare occasions embedded with Israeli military — they saw merely what Tel Aviv wanted them to see.

RSF has joined unsuccessful legal proceedings led by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) at Israel’s Supreme Court to challenge the ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza. It has also file multiple complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling for investigations into war crimes against journalists.

Minto believes New Zealand journalism is generally embedded with the “built-in bias of Western media” and with very few exceptions local journalists “are as complicit as journalists overseas”.

“I’m the first to admit it’s not easy for journalists to speak up and confront the bias — it’s easier to look the other way.

“Having said that I can’t understand why they would not report on Gaza journalists receiving awards for heroic reporting in circumstances when they know they are on an Israeli hit list. Journalistic solidarity based on fearless reporting which speaks truth to power is sorely missing.”

In general, says Minto, New Zealand journalists wait until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or US President Donald Trump make a statement before they report anything on Gaza or Palestine.

“And it’s not just reporting on the genocide in Gaza. Again and again I hear stories from our journalists — particularly in our state broadcaster TVNZ and RNZ — being directed towards reporting stories alleging antisemitism here rather than Islamophobia which is a far greater threat to our social fabric.

“It’s as though we never had a terrorist attack in 2019 which killed 51 Muslim worshippers.”

Media releases ignored
Mainstream news media routinely ignore media releases by Palestinian and solidarity groups.

“They are read by news editors and chief reporters but are otherwise disregarded,” admits Minto. “In fact, pretty much the only time our mainstream media report on PSNA is when we are attacked by the pro-Israel lobby as they did when we opposed Israeli soldiers coming here for rest and recreation from the genocide in Gaza or when we were attacked for ‘selective morality’ by an Iranian supporter of the old despotic Shah of Iran.

“On the other hand, our media releases are avidly read by our supporters and get good pickup on social media.”

While there was a fierce pushback by pro-Israel groups over PSNA’s controversial “Genocide Hotline” in New Zealand media, there was a more sympathetic response by many international media.

In fact, many campaigns in other countries, partly due to the inspiration of the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), are going further and actively seeking prosecutions of dual-citizen Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers on rest and recreation to their countries.

The Brussels-based foundation is dedicated to “breaking the cycle Israeli impunity and achieving justice for all the victims of the Gaza genocide” — more than 72,000 people so far, mostly women and children. It was established to honour the memory of five-year-old Hind Rajab who was murdered along with her family on January 29, 2024, in a brutal act of genocidal violence by the IDF.

Hind survived the initial attack, but was left trapped in a car alongside the bodies of her family. Her cries for help were broadcast to the world before being killed by an Israeli tank crew. An investigation found that the car was hit by 335 bullets. The inhumanity of this act has been captured in the 2025 docudrama film The Voice of Hind Rajab.

Hasbara propaganda
The PSNA and other groups have regularly complained to TVNZ and the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) about the “appalling reporting” and “systemic bias”, but with little success. At a national hui in Rotorua earlier this month, the PSNA discussed plans to step up its campaign to push back against Israeli disinformation in response to the Knesset’s approval last month of a fivefold budget boost to $730 million for Hasbara — Israeli “public policy”, or propaganda.

In spite of the many obstacles, Maher Nazzal says public awareness about the Palestine struggle has grown significantly in Aotearoa as well as globally: “Community movements, independent journalists, academics, and grassroots organisations have helped challenge dominant narratives and push for more balanced coverage and accountability.”

To improve media coverage, Nazzal would like to see a greater inclusion of Palestinian perspectives, stronger journalistic independence, and willingness to apply universal human rights standards consistently, regardless of who the victims are.

Dr David Robie is convenor of the Asia Pacific Media Network’s Pacific Media Watch project, a former media professor and who previously worked as a journalist and editor with several global news agencies, including Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Gemini News Service.

Amnesty International says it is “deeply alarmed” over the obstruction of justice and chaotic scenes — including gunfire — witnessed at the Philippines Senate this week over a fugitive from the International Criminal Court.

Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who faces an arrest warrant issued by the ICC, escaped from the Senate premises in the early hours of yesterday, May 14, after the gunfire incident on Wednesday night.

Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano confirmed his exit yesterday afternoon.

• READ MORE: Bato dela Rosa, wanted by ICC, evades arrest, escapes Senate premises
• Authorities must arrest former police chief

The independent news website Rappler reported Dela Rosa’s escape yesterday morning, citing information relayed by the Senate secretariat to a credible source.

In response to reports that Dela Rosa had fled the Philippines Senate building allowing him to evade the arrest warrant, Ritz Lee Santos III, executive director of Amnesty International Philippines, said:

“We are deeply alarmed at the obstruction of justice and chaotic scenes witnessed at the Philippines Senate,” he said.

“Ronald dela Rosa’s position as Senator offers him no special protection from an ICC arrest warrant, neither under domestic nor international law. It is hugely concerning that fellow Senators and others appear to have assisted him in evading arrest and in delaying the execution of the arrest warrant — effectively facilitating his escape for now.

“Despite seeking to distance themselves from these events, President Marcos and relevant agencies remain ultimately responsible for ensuring Dela Rosa’s arrest.

Philippine senator wanted by ICC escapes            Video: Al Jazeera

Key role in ‘war on dugs’
Santos said Dela Rosa held a key role in the “war on drugs” under former President Ridrigo Duterte, who is in The Hague awaiting trial on ICC charges of crimes against humanity.

The former police chief was a “clear flight risk” and appeared intent on avoiding accountability, said Santos.

“He should be promptly located, arrested and surrendered to the ICC to answer allegations of crimes against humanity.

“The place for Dela Rosa to challenge his case and the crimes against humanity he is alleged to have committed is in The Hague, in impartial and independent trial proceedings.

“Political authority must not place anyone above the law. In the interest of justice for victims, survivors and their families, those alleged to have committed grave crimes must be held to account, no matter how long it takes.”

Three-day stand-off
After a three-day standoff between law enforcement and dela Rosa at the Philippines Senate, he was reported to have left the Senate building at 2.30am local time yesterday. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

The night before, gunshots were fired inside Senate premises while some Senators and media were still inside. There remain conflicting reports on what led to the shooting.

Various senior administration representatives, including President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, denied that there were attempts to execute an arrest warrant.

On May 11, the ICC confirmed it had issued an arrest warrant for the sitting senator.

The warrant states that the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe” Dela Rosa had committed the crime against humanity of murder, citing incidents in which 32 people were killed between 2016 to 2018.

Papuan women attending a free speech forum organised by the Dogiyai Student Association in Jayapura have condemned what they describe as ongoing violence against women and children in Papua.

The gathering took place in the Lingkaran Abepura area, Abepura District, Jayapura, on Monday.

Activist Vero Hubi said Papuan women continued to bear the impact of prolonged conflict, including violence, displacement, and the loss of family members.

• READ MORE: West Papuan graduation parade turns violent after police object to Morning Star flag
• ‘Genocide continues’ as Indonesia massacres 10 West Papuans, says ULMWP
• Other West Papua reports

“I speak on behalf of Papuan women who have become victims of violence, forced displacement, and the loss of loved ones due to the prolonged conflict in Papua,” she said.

“Many Papuan women today live in fear and under constant pressure,” Hubi said.

She stressed that Papuan women would no longer remain silent in the face of continued suffering.

Hubi also drew attention to the condition of internally displaced communities in several conflict-affected regions, saying many women and children had been forced to flee after homes were allegedly occupied by security forces.

Wounded in bomb blasts
She further alleged that some women were wounded in bomb explosions while attempting to protect their children.

According to Hubi, women across Papua will continue speaking out against all forms of violence targeting women and children.

She also urged institutions responsible for women’s and children’s protection to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Papua and publicly release the findings.

“We demand transparency in the investigation process and justice for the victims,” she said.

Another participant, Yustina Butu, spoke about the psychological burden experienced by Papuans, particularly students from Dogiyai living in Jayapura.

Butu called on Dogiyai police to thoroughly investigate and take responsibility for a number of incidents, especially those involving teenage victims in Dogiyai Regency.

She also said alleged acts of violence committed by security personnel against civilians in Yahukimo and Mimika regencies, including against women and children, must be held accountable.

Duty to protect civilians
According to Butu, the duty of the military and police is to protect civilians, yet many civilians have instead become victims of violence.

“We are calling on Dogiyai police to conduct a comprehensive evaluation regarding the shootings of civilians,” she said.

She further urged the Dogiyai Regency administration in Central Papua to work together with police authorities in addressing the cases.

Butu emphasised the role of women as mothers who nurture and raise children, saying both the government and security forces must properly fulfill their responsibilities to safeguard the public.

“We want our children to grow up safely and peacefully — not in fear or exposed to violence and inhumane treatment. We hope the state and the government will hear and consider our demands,” she said.

Republished from Jubi News with permission.

Previously it was reporting on governments or politics that brought trouble for Tonga’s journalists — now it’s reporting on drugs or gangs.

Tongan journalists are coming to terms with new pressures on media freedom over reporting on the country’s drug crisis, and the role of gangs in it.

This comes after a journalist at Kele’a Publications was threatened at gunpoint in Nuku’alofa, following reporting on drugs issues two weeks ago — the same week as World Press Freedom Day.

• READ MORE: Tongan armed threat against journalist troubles Pacific media freedom
• Tongan police investigate journalist threatened at gunpoint after gang-related report
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

While Tonga police are still searching for the suspect who threatened a journalist, the manager of the Kele’a Publications said police should do more to protect the press.

According to Teisa Cokanasiga, journalist freedoms were usually tested by previous governments when reporting on the police, but the current situation was different and represented a new type of challenge for Tonga’s media.

“The threat was regarding reports that we did about drugs and a specific gang member who is currently serving life in prison. So now we are aware that we have that kind of threat.

“In terms of freedom of the press, to report on political issues and controversial issues concerning the leadership in the country. I think we are fine with that.”

More awareness needed
Cokanasiga said there needed to be more awareness around this kind of threat as it could happen to any member of Tonga’s media.

“It’s just disheartening. And we are now aware that we can get that kind of challenge or risk, not only, I mean, from the public as well.”

For now, Cokanasiga said her team was supporting the journalist, and also being cautious while continuing daily duties.

“We’ve been trying to be, you know, encouraging of each other and at the same time give them space, especially the concerned journalist, and for her to slowly get back to working.”

Attack on Tongan’s constitutional rights
The Media Association of Tonga (MAT) said the incident was an assault not only on the safety of an individual journalist but on the constitutional right of every Tongan to receive information without fear or favour.

MAT’s president, Katalina Uili Tohi, said a climate of fear and intimidation targeting media personnel undermined democratic principles and silenced the very voices that hold power to account.

She said journalists must be able to work without the threat of violence or death.

Meanwhile, the co-chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum, Lepailetai Tosi Tupua has commended the courage and professionalism of the journalist and her colleagues and their swift reporting to police.

He said they awaited the outcomes of a thorough and impartial police investigation into this incident, ensuring public safety and including safety on the job for all media workers reporting these matters.

Police have yet to arrest anyone, but Cokanasiga said they remained in regular contact with both her and the journalist.

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

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

For decades, two irreconciliable narratives about Israel and its motivations have existed in parallel.

On the one side, an official Western narrative portrays a plucky, besieged “Jewish” state of Israel, desperate to make peace with its hostile Arab neighbours. Even to this day, that story dominates the political, media and academic landscape.

Time and again, or so we are told, Israel has held out an olive branch to “the Arabs”, seeking acceptance, but is always rebuffed.

• READ MORE: Shoot Palestinians, not settlers: Israeli general exposes double standard
• Jonathan Cook’s website
• Other reports on the war on Gaza, Lebanon Iran

A largely unspoken subtext suggests that supposedly irrational, bloodthirsty, Jew-hating regimes across the region would have completed the Nazis’ exterminationist agenda but for the West’s humane protection of a vulnerable minority.

A Palestinian counter-narrative, accepted across much of the rest of the world, is choked into silence in the West as an antisemitic “blood libel”.

It presents Israel as an ethnic supremacist, highly militaristic state — armed by the United States and Europe – bent on expansion, mass expulsions and land theft.

On this view, the West implanted Israel as a colonial military outpost, there to subdue the native Palestinian population, and terrorise neighbouring states into submission through relentless and overwhelming displays of force.

No middle ground possible
Palestinians cannot make peace, or reach any kind of accommodation, because Israel pursues only conquest, domination and erasure. No middle ground is possible.

The proof, note Palestinians, is Israel’s long-standing refusal to define its borders. As its military power has grown decade after decade, ever more extreme political agendas have surfaced, demanding not just Israel’s takeover of the last remnants of the Palestinian territories it illegally occupies but expansion into neighbouring states like Lebanon and Syria.

Here are two conflicting narratives in which each side presents itself as the victim of the other.

Two and a half years into a series of Israeli wars against the peoples of Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, how are these two perspectives holding up?

Does Israel look like the frustrated peacemaker facing off with barbaric opponents, or a rogue state whose decades-long aggression has provoked the very retaliatory violence exploited to excuse its constant war-making?

Is Israel a small, reluctant fortress state defending itself, or a Western military client so drunk on its own power that it can no more limit its territorial ambitions than a great white shark can stop swimming?

The truth is that the past 30 months have graphically exposed not only what Israel always was but, by extension, what our own Western states aspired to achieve through their most favoured Middle East client.

Ambassador let slip
In a moment of imprudence last month, Christian Turner, Peter Mandelson’s replacement as British ambassador to the US, let slip the reality. Washington, the West’s imperial hub, he said, had no deep loyalty to its allies — apart from one.

Unaware his words were being recorded, he told a group of visiting students: “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that is probably Israel.”

That special relationship requires that the political and media class in Washington’s other client states, such as Britain, shield the West’s Sparta in the Middle East from critical scrutiny.

So glaring have Israel’s atrocities become that the British government announced last month that it was shuttering its Foreign Office unit tracking war crimes — citing the need for cuts — rather than face further exposure of its collusion in those crimes.

If the British government refuses to monitor Israel’s war crimes, don’t expect more from the establishment media.

For months, Israel has been blowing up village after village in south Lebanon, driving millions of inhabitants from lands lived on for millennia by their ancestors, and it barely registers with our politicians and media.

Israel is destroying Gaza’s water supplies, as it earlier did the tiny enclave’s hospitals and health system, ensuring the further spread of disease, and our politicians and media have barely a word to say about it.

Israel kills, jourmalists, first responders
Israel kills journalists and emergency crews in Gaza and Lebanon week after week, month after month, and it raises barely an eyebrow from the political and media class.

Israel declares “yellow lines“ in Gaza and Lebanon, demarcating expanded borders that formalise its theft of other peoples’ lands, and this instantly becomes the new normal.

Israel continuously violates ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, spreading misery and inflaming yet more anger and bitterness, and once again, our politicians and media turn a blind eye.

Which Western media outlets are pointing out a starkly revealing fact: that Israel now occupies more of Lebanon than Russia does of Ukraine?

An analysis by the Newscord media monitoring group last month confirmed earlier research: that the British media studiously avoid naming ethnic cleansing and genocide when it is Israel — rather than Russia — carrying them out.

Comparing the coverage of the most “serious” establishment British news outlets — the BBC, The Guardian and Sky — with that of Al Jazeera, the study found that UK media consistently choose to obscure Israel’s responsibility for its crimes.

Israel was identified as conducting attacks in Gaza in only around half of British news reports, in contrast to nearly 90 per cent of Al Jazeera’s. As Newscord noted: “Half the time, BBC readers aren’t told who killed the person in the story.”

Hind Rajab headline
That was graphically illustrated in a notorious BBC headline: “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help.”

In fact, an Israeli tank had sprayed a stationary car with gunfire even though the Israeli military had known for hours that it contained a Palestinian girl — the sole survivor of an earlier attack — who emergency crews were desperately trying to reach. Israel killed the rescue team, too.

In another revealing finding, Newscord notes that four out of every five BBC reports on casualties caused by Israel’s attacks used the convoluted passive — rather than active — voice, clearly with the intent to downplay Israel’s culpability and savagery.

The British media also actively undermined the enormity of the Palestinian death toll in Gaza by regularly attributing the figures to a “Hamas-affiliated” Health Ministry — even though the numbers, currently at well over 70,000 Palestinians, are almost certainly a massive undercount, given Israel’s early destruction of the enclave’s government and its capacity to count the dead.

The fact that the United Nations has found the Gaza figures to be credible was mentioned in only 0.6 percent of reports.

Similarly, the BBC and The Guardian made the decision to humanise Israeli captives of Hamas twice as often as they did Palestinian captives of the Israeli state.

The inappropriateness of that double standard is underscored by continuing insinuations from politicians and the media that Hamas “beheaded babies” and carried out systematic rapes on 7 October 2023 — more than two years after those claims were utterly discredited.

Sickening practice
Contrast that with the media’s effective burial of Euro Med Monitor’s report last month on the sickening practice by the Israeli military of raping Palestinian prisoners with dogs trained for that very purpose.

There has been a flood of accounts from Palestinians held captive by Israel of their systematic rape and sexual abuse, confirmed by human rights groups and by the testimonies of whistleblowing Israeli soldiers and medics. Little of this is making headway in the Western media.

Newscord points to a further, veiled problem that skews Western coverage: the omission of established but inconvenient facts that would present Israel in a depraved — that is, an accurate — light.

For example, observes Newscord, the BBC has entirely failed to report all but one of the hundreds of clearly genocidal statements made by Israeli officials, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu down.

It is easy to understand why. Legal authorities usually struggle to make a conclusive determination of genocide because, crucially, it depends on divining intent, which is typically hidden by those committing atrocities.

Starkly, in Israel’s case, not only do its actions in Gaza look like genocide, but its leaders have been crystal clear that those actions are intended to be genocidal. That is behaviour only seen in those intoxicated by a sense of their own impunity.

Once again, the British media have obligingly taken it upon themselves to shield Israel from any legal jeopardy — all in the interests of objective reporting, you understand.

Same story since 1948
This is nothing new. It has been the same story since before Israel’s violent creation on the Palestinians’ homeland in 1948, when 80 percent of the native population were ethnically cleansed by Israel from the new, self-declared “Jewish” state. Or when, in the continuing language of deceit employed by Western political, media and academic elites, some 750,000 Palestinians “fled”.

The aim has been to manufacture and maintain a bubble of illusion for Western publics, one where our own crimes — and those of our allies — remain invisible to us.

Note in this regard the UK government’s determined exclusion of Israel from a recent “independent” inquiry, under former Whitehall bureaucrat Philip Rycroft, into malign foreign financial influence on British politics. It was, of course, Russia that was put chiefly under the spotlight.

Predictably, Keir Starmer’s government rejected in April a petition signed by more than 114,000 people calling for a similar public inquiry into the influence of the powerful Israel lobby.

That came as no surprise, given that any such investigation would have risked foregrounding the many hundreds of thousands of pounds known to have been received by Starmer and his ministers from pro-Israel lobbyists.

The same British political and media class so averse to investigating the malign influence of the pro-Israel lobby is also ignoring Israel’s current, systematic destruction of villages and infrastructure across south Lebanon — in flagrant violation of a supposed ceasefire.

Israeli soldiers have told local media that their job is to target all structures indiscriminately, whether civilian or “terrorist”, with the goal of preventing the Lebanese inhabitants from returning to their villages.

Colonising occupied lands
That fits with Israel’s announcement that it does not intend to withdraw after the fighting ends, and widespread plans to colonise the occupied lands in Lebanon with Jewish settlers.

Were it not for videos of Israel blowing up Lebanese communities breaking through on social media, despite algorithmic suppression, we might not know about Israel’s wholesale efforts to ethnically cleanse south Lebanon.

Responding to these videos with a rare “mainstream” report on the campaign of destruction, The Guardian sugar-coated the horror faced by Lebanese families discovering their homes gone, along with priceless memories and heirlooms. This experience was described — absurdly — by the paper as “bittersweet”.

Critics note a consistent pattern. Israel is not only levelling south Lebanon; over the past 30 months, it has levelled almost every building in Gaza, too.

But the template for both is of much earlier origin, as every Palestinian learns from a tender age.

Having expelled most Palestinians from their homes in 1948, Israel spent years blowing up some 500 villages one after another — even as Israeli leaders publicly claimed to be begging the refugees to return and Western leaders were extolling Israel as the “only democracy” in the Middle East.

Expulsions that the West still pretends did not take place eight decades ago are now being live-streamed. This time, they are impossible to deny, as well as the colonial, supremacist agenda behind them.

Villify the messenger
If the message inhering in Israel’s atrocities can no longer be disappeared, laundered or normalised — as it was in an age before 24-hour rolling news and social media — then a different strategy is required: villify the messenger.

This is the political task of our times.

The anti-racist left are demonised as Jew-hating bigots for trying to burst the West’s long-established bubble of illusion by noisily flagging both the atrocities committed by Israel, supposedly in the name of Jews, and the complicity of their own governments in those atrocities.

Last month, Starmer’s government forced through the Commons a law allowing the police to outlaw protests causing “cumulative disruption” — that is, repeat protests like those against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The media barely blinked.

Last week’s attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green, allegedly by a mentally ill man with a long history of violence, is being quickly exploited by the main parties to prepare for even tighter restrictions on the right to protest.

Britons who try to stop Israeli war crimes, whether by targeting Israel’s factories of death located in the UK or by holding placards in support of this kind of direct action, continue to be treated as “terrorists”, even after a court ruling that the proscription of Palestine Action is unlawful.

With juries often proving reluctant to convict, the British state has set about openly rigging the trials. Juries are blocked from learning about the reasons for the targeting of Israeli weapons factories — the accused’s main defence. Judges instruct juries to convict.

Long-established right
Members of the public who silently hold signs outside court are arrested for reminding juries of a long-established right in law to defy such instructions, follow their consciences and acquit — a police abuse contravening hundreds of years of legal precedent, and one the courts appear increasingly ready to condone.

There are gags, being dutifully obeyed by the media, on other secret malpractices designed to help the British government secure the verdicts it needs to stop activism against the genocide. We only know because Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has used parliamentary privilege to draw attention to them.

It was telling last week that, in the current repeat trial of six Palestine Action defendants, five of them dispensed with their barristers for the closing speeches. They noted, darkly, that their legal representatives could not properly represent them due to “decisions made by the court”.

Meanwhile, the Starmer government is pressing ahead with plans to finally rid itself of troublesome juries and let more reliable judges decide these political show trials alone.

Welcome to the rapid unravelling of Britain’s most cherished constitutional rights — needed chiefly, it seems, to protect a far-off country that, according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), commits the crime of apartheid against Palestinians and may plausibly be committing genocide in Gaza.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. This article was first published on the author’s website and republished with permission.

Fiji’s military chief has made a public admission at a church service that the institution was “at fault” for the death of Jone Vakarisi while he was in military custody.

Local media reported that Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) commander Ro Jone Kalaouniwai, while addressing officers at a military family service, admitted “we are at fault” for Vakarisi’s death.

“We must be held accountable,” he was quoted as saying by local media outlets.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji military reports

State broadcaster FBC reported that Kalouniwai described Vakarisi’s death as an “unintentional” and “regrettable” incident, while the two national dailies reported him saying no one imagined or knew it would end up the way it did.

Vakarisi, 37, was notorious for being at odds with law enforcement and had been linked to criminal networks. He died on April 16 after being detained by soldiers and taken to RFMF’s Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva to be questioned regarding “national security investigations”, which included allegations of trying to break in and access military assets.

Commander Kalouniwai initially attributed Vakarisi’s death to “pre-existing conditions”.

However, he was forced to issue a “correction” after the police announced they had classified Vakarisi’s death as murder.

Murder investigation
A murder investigation is currently ongoing, with no one charged, almost a month since Vakarisi’s death.

The Fiji police and military have launched joint security operations to take down criminal networks in the country. The operations have resulted in a heightened military visibility around the country.

Kalouniwai said the security forces had made progress but “an unforeseen incident occurred at the camp”, the FBC report said. He urged military officers to adhere to the law.

RNZ Pacific contacted Fiji police last week seeking an update on the murder investigation.

In an email reply, Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu said he would not let media dictate police actions and advised RNZ Pacific to continue liaising with the police’s media liaison officer.

Over the weekend, graphic and distressing photos of Vakarisi’s body began circulating and being shared widely on social media.

Fiji’s Online Safety Commission said it was “deeply concerned” about the images being circulated.

“The images being shared are highly distressing, show the deceased in a vulnerable and exposed state, and have caused further pain and trauma to the grieving family members,” it said.

“We strongly urge members of the public to refrain from sharing, reposting, forwarding, or publishing such material across any social media platform, messaging publication, or online platform.”

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

The importance of media freedom is recognised each year globally on May 3. This year the Pacific Island country of Tonga commemorated World Press Freedom Day just a week after one of the most frightening threats to that freedom which took place at a media outlet.

A hooded man brandishing a pistol threatened a female journalist at the newsroom of Kele’a Voice, an FM radio station in Nuku’alofa. The radio station had broadcast a news story about a Tongan deportee serving a life sentence in Tonga for the importation of two kilograms of methamphetamine.

The convicted man was a member of an Australian motorcycle gang known as the Comancheros. He was planning to set up a chapter in Tonga, according to an ABC Foreign Correspondent documentary that included an interview with the man in prison.

• READ MORE: Tongan police investigate journalist threatened at gunpoint after gang-related report
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

The threatened journalist was warned never to broadcast any more stories on the Comancheros and drug trafficking.

The police are still investigating and looking for the man. The incident is to my knowledge the first armed threat ever carried out against any media in Tonga.

The manager of Kele’a Voice, Teisa Cokanasiga, said the incident was a huge threat to their freedom to report the news, and that it was the media’s role to report on stories of public interest.

Veteran journalist Katalina Tohi, president of the Media Association of Tonga (MAT), spoke out strongly: “A climate of fear and intimidation targeting media personnel undermines democratic principles and silences the very voices that hold power to account.”

‘Attack on right to know’
She said that an “attack on the press is an attack on our nation’s right to know”.

“The Media Association of Tonga is appalled by this brazen act of intimidation. Journalists must be able to carry out their work without the threat of violence or death.”

Tohi is also a board member of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA); her condemnation of the Tonga incident is representative not only of MAT’s views, but also those of PINA as the premier news association of the Pacific.

Threats against press freedom are unfortunately ongoing in the Pacific. The incident in Tonga demonstrates that the enemies of press freedom can come from anywhere — not always the government or those in power, but anyone averse to truth and transparency.

Whether it is in Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, French Polynesia or anywhere else in the Pacific, media freedom must be protected, advocated for and exercised to the fullest. Only then can we in the Pacific be assured of the proper exercise of democratic governance, the rule of law, transparency and commitment to truth as foundational pillars of society.

In Tonga, freedom of speech is a fundamental value inscribed in its 150-year-old Constitution. Clause 7 of the Tonga Constitution states:

“It shall be lawful for all people to speak write and print their opinions and no law shall ever be enacted to restrict this liberty.

“There shall be freedom of speech and of the press for ever but nothing in this clause shall be held to outweigh the law of slander or the laws for the protection of the King and the Royal Family.”

Social media issue
In an age when the communication industry has exploded, bringing with it misinformation and disinformation, the dominance of social media platforms has raised an important issue for our profession.

We need to redefine our freedom on the basis of truth, and not just because we have a voice. With the availability of technology such as AI, media freedom may be threatened not so much by forces from outside as from within the industry itself.

Never before has there been a greater emphasis on fact-checking, reflecting a decline in trust and reliability of content. Traditional editing has always included fact-checking, but it has become far more important amid today’s flood of misinformation, AI-generated inaccuracies and manipulated images.

Truth must be the foundation upon which media freedom is built. We are free to speak the truth — we are not free to misinform, deceive or propagate falsehood. There is a huge difference between the freedom to speak truth and the freedom to speak lies.

Freedom of speech is the tool for holding power to account on the basis of truth. And truth matters not only to those who speak but to those who listen; audiences influenced by misinformation train their ears to follow narratives that may be false.

In a world of too many confusing voices, what matters is not simply having a voice but having one that speaks truth — and we cannot be silent about the truth. We must speak, write, print and show, for truth matters.

‘Built on truth’
American civil rights essayist Maya Angelou rightly said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”. Nothing important is built on silence. If it matters, it must be built on truth. And truth is dependent on a free and fearless media to be its voice.

Finally, I wish to point out a Biblical truth, spoken by Jesus himself: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8.32)

Here we see a connection between knowledge, truth and freedom — the freedom that is such a vital part of our Pacific cultures and existence.

Kalafi Moala established Tonga’s first independent newspaper and currently manages the online platform Talanoa ‘o Tonga. He was elected president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) in September 2024. This article was first published by DevPolicy Blog and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

• Pacific Media Watch reports: Tonga dropped five places to 51st out of 180 countries surveyed in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index.

A female journalist in Tonga has been threatened at gunpoint following the broadcast of a news story about an Australian criminal deportee serving a life sentence in Tonga for methamphetamine importation.

The incident, in which an unknown individual threatened the journalist at the Kele’a Publications office in Nuku’alofa 12 days ago — 23 April — is under investigation by police.

Kele’a Publications manager Teisa Cokanasiga told RNZ Pacific that the man featured in the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent documentary had plans to set up a chapter of the Comanchero, an Australian outlaw motorcycle gang in Tonga.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s media win in World Press Freedom Index overshadowed by threats and court summons
• Other Tongan media reports

Cokanasiga said the incident, which appeared to be an attempt to silence the press, had shaken her small team.

“It is a big concern, and it is very worrying to me that this happened to us, to a journalist in our small organisation,” she said.

Cokanasiga said Kele’a Publications lacked resources, such as security cameras, that could assist with the police work and investigations into the incident.

She has calling on Tongans to help them if they have any information about the man.

Cokanasiga said gang-related activity was a big concern in Tonga, as it was in many other Pacific Island nations.

“People in the country are worried about drug trafficking and [the] growing influence of gang-related crimes, and it’s a huge concern.”

However, she said journalists should be allowed to do their job, as it was the media’s role to inform the public about public interest stories.

RNZ Pacific has contacted police for comment.

Media Association ‘shocked’
Meanwhile, the Media Association of Tonga (MAT) has expressed its “profound shock and deep concern”.

“The presence of a firearm in what is understood to be an act of intimidation represents a dangerous and unacceptable escalation against press freedom in the kingdom,” MAT said in a statement on Tuesday.

“MAT views this incident as a direct assault not only on the safety of an individual journalist but on the constitutional right of every Tongan to receive information without fear or favour.”

MAT president Katalina Uili Tohi said targeting of media personnel undermined democratic principles and silenced the voices that held power to account.

“The Media Association of Tonga is appalled by this brazen act of intimidation. Journalists must be able to carry out their work without the threat of violence or death,” she said.

The association is calling on the Minister of Police and the police chief to launch an urgent, thorough, and transparent investigation to apprehend the perpetrator.

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

The Global Sumud Flotilla is demanding the New Zealand government intervene to uphold international law, after being intercepted by Israel.

It said 22 boats carrying aid for Gaza were illegally intercepted in international waters near the Greek island of Crete.

New Zealanders Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel, and Sean Janssen were among the 175 people detained.

• READ MORE: Freedom Flotilla Coalition calls for the immediate release of Global Sumud Flotilla organisers
• NZer in flotilla intercepted by Israel has concussion and possible broken rib, says wife
• Former Greek minister slams ‘Western complicity’ over brutal Israeli kidnap of Gaza flotilla leaders
• Israeli forces raid Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters
• NZer Rana Hamida reports
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports
• Kia Ora Gaza website

O’Connor had received concussion and a possible broken rib, while Blondel was hit in the face, the Global Sumud Flotilla said.

“These citizens are part of a completely legal action onboard vessels that are lawfully exercising navigation rights under article 87 of UNCLOS — to deliver essential aid, open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza, and break the illegal siege on Gaza by the Israeli regime,” it said.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry had called organisers “professional provocateurs” and said it would not allow “the breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza”.

Global Sumud Flotilla said that Blondel had assured the team he was “up to be continuing this going forward,” as the rest of the Flotilla continues to sail.

Two other New Zealanders
Two other New Zealanders, Hāhona Ormsby and Samuel Leason, are currently regrouping with the others in Greece.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it understood up to six New Zealanders had been “caught up” in the interception.

It told RNZ on Saturday that it was aware of allegations made about the treatment New Zealanders had faced while in custody.

“Consular officials in Wellington, New Zealand’s Embassies in Rome and Ankara, and New Zealand’s Honorary Consul in Greece have been working throughout the night and over the past few days to gather information, provide advice to families, and support New Zealanders involved,” it said.

“Immediately following the interception of the flotillas on Thursday, the New Zealand government made it clear to Israel that the safety of New Zealanders involved was paramount and that international law must be upheld.

“These and other views were made clear to Israel’s Ambassador to New Zealand and by New Zealand’s Ambassador to Israel, stationed in Ankara.”

The ministry added that New Zealand had a long-standing “do not travel” advisory in place for Gaza, explicitly warning against any attempt to enter by sea.

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

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. Israel is also on trial for genocide in a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa supported by other countries.

In middle of this month, two regencies in Papua again became epicentres of grief and national controversy.

Puncak Regency in Central Papua and Yahukimo in Mountainous Papua were struck by shooting incidents that claimed more than a dozen lives.

The tragedy reopened old wounds about how armed violence too often misses its target, making innocent people victims.

• READ MORE: Wenda calls on Indonesia to halt crackdown on peaceful Papua protests
• Stop selling arms to Indonesia, West Papuans urge Netherlands
• Other West papua reports

More than that, the events ignited a serious dispute between the official account of Indonesian state security forces and survivor testimonies, calling into question the credibility of the state’s response amid a genuine humanitarian emergency. The wounds and sorrow run so deep that no remedy seems capable of healing them.

The deadliest incident occurred in the Kembru sub-district of Puncak Regency. Initial reports spoke of an exchange of fire between the Indonesian military (TNI) and an “armed criminal group (KKB)” — as Indonesian authorities describe resistance groups — on April 14.

But the public was truly shaken days later when the Minister of Human Rights revealed that 15 civilians had been killed and seven wounded — overwhelmingly non combatants, including women and children.

What is striking is that the minister’s statement was delivered in the context of a “firefight” between the TNI and the armed resistance.

Meanwhile, the TNI, in a clarification on April 21, offered a different narrative. According to the TNI source, there were two separate incidents: first, a shootout that killed four members of the Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB/OPM), and second, a massacre of civilians carried out by the OPM itself.

With that statement, the TNI implicitly denied that its troops had fired on civilians. Sorrow splits between the official version and the cry for truth rising from the earth.

When survivors speak: ‘They were in uniform’
The contradiction peaked when the media interviewed survivors in hospitals. One survivor stated unequivocally that people in military uniforms shot him and other villagers. This is no mere rumour.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which conducted an initial investigation, found that several survivors consistently identified state security forces as the perpetrators.

Even more troubling, a report by the Papua People’s Assembly (MRP) for Central Papua stated that TNI soldiers from the Habema, Maleo, and Damai Carstenz units chased and attacked civilians in Makuma, Milome, and Kembru villages. The assault involved four helicopters, drones, firearms, and grenades.

One father, whose child was among the victims, told the Governor and Vice Governor at the hospital that villagers were attacked from the air around five or six in the morning, with grenades dropped from helicopters and drones. Some grenades, he said, were thrown directly into honai — traditional Papuan houses.

“They threw grenades by hand from above,” he said, cradling his wounded child.

Civil society reports indicate the military operation actually began on April 13, when the TNI attacked a TPNPB base in Pogoma District — previously acknowledged as a battlefield.

Two days later, the assault expanded to refugee camps in Kembru District, where thousands of civilians were sheltering. The result: innocent civilians became targets.

The MRP recorded at least nine civilian deaths, including a baby in the womb whose mother was also killed, plus 14 wounded. Komnas HAM reported 12 civilian deaths, while the Ministry of Human Rights said 15.

The discrepancy reveals a lack of coordination and verification at the central level, let alone the difficulty of accessing isolated locations.

More harrowing is the testimony of a woman seven months pregnant, treated at Dian Harapan Hospital in Jayapura. She was shot in the lower jaw.

In a soft but firm voice, she said the perpetrators were state security forces. She described troops attacking the village with helicopters and ground forces, using grenades and firearms. Even after the shooting, she said, uniformed soldiers posed for photos with the victims.

If true, this incident can no longer be called a mere “firefight” — it is a potential gross human rights violation. Physical wounds can be treated, but the trauma of being betrayed by those who were supposed to protect you lasts a lifetime.

Local government’s fast action amid the controversy
Amid the deadlock, the local government moved with noteworthy speed. The Governor of Central Papua, Meki Nawipa, together with Vice Governor Deinas Geley, visited Mulia Regional Hospital on April 17.

The governor declared that the provincial government would cover all medical costs and guarantee education for children who lost parents. An integrated emergency team, including the Indonesian Red Cross, was formed for data collection, evacuation, and psychosocial support.

The Regent/Mayor of Puncak Regency, Elvis Tabuni, unable to hold back tears, distributed aid and condolence payments. Yet challenges remain because access to the Kembru sub-district is difficult, isolated and prone to armed clashes.

The villagers’ sorrow was somewhat eased by the presence of local leaders, but the root wound — the uncertainty of justice — remains embedded.

Yahukimo, different pattern, same grief
Almost simultaneously, Yahukimo Regency was rocked by the shooting of a state civil servant, Yemis Yohame, head of the Housing Subdivision. He was found dead from gunshot wounds on April 21.

Unlike in Puncak, the response was relatively clearer. The Regent/Mayor of Yahukimo quickly stated that the shooting was a criminal act by an “armed criminal group (KKB)”, with no political agenda. The TNI and police launched an operation to hunt the perpetrators.

The contrast is stark. In Puncak, a large scale armed clash caused widespread civilian harm, with strong allegations of state human rights violations. In Yahukimo, the action was a targeted assassination.

For Yemis Yohame’s family, the grief is just as deep. The problem of violence in Papua is not homogeneous. But the most alarming case is Puncak, because it involves potential gross human rights violations by state forces.

If state troops shot civilians, that is not merely “imprecise fire” — it is a serious violation of the right to life and safety.

Komnas HAM stressed that any attack on civilians — by state or non state actors — violates international humanitarian law, and urged the TNI commander to evaluate operations by the Habema Task Force and pursue transparent legal action.

Without such steps, the wounds of Puncak will remain open.

Church leaders also condemned the violence. Father Yanuarius Yance Yogi criticised both sides for sacrificing innocent civilians.

“Both parties have sophisticated equipment. Yet why must civilian lives be sacrificed?” Reverend Dominggus Pigai said the situation in Papua is a military and humanitarian emergency zone. Reverend Benny Giay said the indiscriminate attack on civilians proves the state does not want Papuans to live on their own land.

Displaced grief: A humanitarian emergency
Reports indicate the military operation has triggered a massive wave of displacement. Of the twenty-five districts in Puncak Regency, only two have not seen their people flee.

Thousands of civilians are scattered in forests, neighbouring villages, and other regencies such as Timika, Nabire, and Jayapura. They live in fear, lacking food, clean water, and health services.

The Indonesian Red Cross has carried out cremations, but medical care on the ground remains extremely limited. The displaced endure an uncertain existence: driven from their own villages, stripped of shelter, and haunted by the trauma of grenade blasts and helicopter roars.

The hope of Papuans
The tragedy in Puncak presents the administration of President Prabowo Subianto with a profound test of the state’s commitment to protecting its citizens and upholding human rights. In addressing this complex situation, the government is respectfully encouraged to consider a series of measured and transparent steps that prioritise truth, justice, and the welfare of all Papuans.

First, the administration may wish to break from the pattern of contradictory official narratives by publicly acknowledging the credibility of survivor testimonies and the preliminary findings of Komnas HAM and the Papua People’s Assembly.

Rather than denial or ambiguity — which risk deepening perceptions of a legitimacy gap — the government could demonstrate leadership by establishing an independent, joint fact finding mission.

Such a mission would ideally include Komnas HAM, respected Papuan civil society leaders, church representatives, and, where appropriate, international observers, all operating with full access to affected villages and operational documents.

The objective would be to uncover the factual truth about what transpired, why civilians became victims, and who bears responsibility, without prejudging outcomes. Should evidence confirm gross human rights violations, the administration is respectfully urged to ensure that legal proceedings move forward genuinely.

Beyond the investigative track, the administration is encouraged to recognise that Puncak has already entered a humanitarian emergency. The displacement of thousands of civilians from nearly all districts demands a coordinated, large scale response that goes beyond the commendable but limited efforts of local authorities and the Indonesian Red Cross.

The government could consider declaring a temporary humanitarian corridor to enable the unhindered delivery of food, clean water, medical supplies, and psychosocial support to displaced populations hiding in forests and neighbouring regencies.

Evacuation plans, with special attention to pregnant women, children, the elderly, and the injured, would offer immediate relief. Working in partnership with the provincial government, the central administration might also commit to documenting every displaced family and restoring their basic rights to shelter, health, and education before any discussion of return.

Without such humanitarian action, broader peace and development efforts risk being seen as hollow.

Concerning the security sector, a diplomatic but firm reassessment may be timely. The administration could consider ordering a temporary suspension of offensive military operations in civilian populated areas of Puncak pending the outcome of the independent investigation.

The current approach — relying on aerial surveillance, drones, and ground manoeuvres — has, according to multiple testimonies, failed to consistently distinguish between armed group members and non-combatants, as illustrated by grenade attacks on honai homes and the wounding of a pregnant woman.

A review of rules of engagement, with specific prohibitions on the use of air delivered explosive weapons in or near civilian settlements, would align security practices with international humanitarian law.

Furthermore, the administration might explore a gradual shift from a military dominated posture toward a strengthened civilian led security framework that places the protection of civilians at its centre. Allegations that soldiers posed for photographs with victims, if substantiated, point to serious breaches of military ethics; in such a case, transparent court martial proceedings would help restore public trust.

Equally important is a broader political and developmental strategy that addresses the root causes of recurring violence. The administration is respectfully encouraged to initiate a genuine, inclusive dialogue process that brings together not only security forces and armed groups but also traditional leaders, church authorities, women’s organisations, and civil society representatives from across Papua.

Such a forum would be empowered to discuss not merely ceasefires and humanitarian access, but also longstanding grievances related to economic exploitation, land rights, political representation, and historical injustices.

In parallel, the government could reconsider the scale and nature of development spending in Papua, shifting from large scale extractive projects that often displace communities toward locally controlled economic initiatives that create tangible benefits for Papuan families.

Education, healthcare, and infrastructure built in genuine partnership with Papuan communities would likely build more trust than any number of military operations.

Finally, the administration may find value in engaging other stakeholders constructively. Komnas HAM deserves enhanced resources and political protection to conduct long term monitoring of both the investigation and the humanitarian response. Church leaders across Indonesia can be important moral partners in demanding accountability while accompanying Papuan communities in their grief.

International partners, while respecting Indonesia’s sovereignty, could be invited to offer technical assistance for independent investigations and humanitarian operations, and to continue diplomatic dialogue on civilian protection in Papua.

The media, too, has a role in connecting past and present violence to hold power accountable, rather than treating each tragedy as an isolated event.

Ultimately, what happened in Puncak and Yahukimo in April 2026 shows that the cycle of violence in Papua has never truly stopped. The discrepancy between survivor testimony and official statements cannot be left unresolved.

A purely security based approach has never been enough. A humane approach, dialogue, and equitable economic development must become mainstream. As the Regent of Puncak, Elvis Tabuni, said through his tears, they are citizens who should be protected — not turned into targets.

The wounds and sorrow left by this tragedy may never fully heal — at least, not as long as the truth remains hidden and justice is not upheld. Time will tell whether the state can uphold its constitutional mandate, or whether it will allow the land of Papua to remain soaked in the blood of its innocent children.

And for those who survived — who every night still hear the screams of their fallen friends — that wound will continue to sing in the silence: a sorrow that remains unhealed.

Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Pacific Studies, Indonesian Christian University, Jakarta. He is also an honorary member of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) in Aotearoa New Zealand, and an occasional contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Fiji Minister for Defence and Veterans Affairs Pio Tikoduadua has confirmed that a police officer seriously injured during a checkpoint incident in Laqere is his daughter.

In a statement, Tikoduadua said the incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday at a joint checkpoint involving the Fiji Police Force and the Republic of Fiji Military Forces.

“At approximately 3am, officers on duty encountered a vehicle that failed to stop. A pursuit followed through the Nakasi corridor and back toward Laqere,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji security reports

“During the attempt to stop the vehicle, a police officer was struck and sustained serious injuries. She is currently receiving treatment at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital and remains in a serious but stable condition.”

Tikoduadua revealed the injured officer was on duty at the time of the incident.

“The officer is my daughter. She was on duty at the checkpoint at the time of the incident,” he said.

He confirmed that suspects have been arrested and that items believed to be illicit drugs were recovered from the vehicle, with investigations continuing.

Risk faced by officers
“This incident reflects the level of risk that officers face in responding to drug-related activity. Drugs are not only a policing issue — they present a national security concern. They are linked to organised activity and increase the likelihood of violence,” he said.

Tikoduadua stressed that joint operations between police and the military will continue to address such threats and maintain public safety.

“I am concerned as a father. I am also clear in my responsibilities as minister. The work being carried out by our officers must continue, and those responsible for this incident will be dealt with through the law,” he said.

He also called on the public to allow authorities to carry out their investigations without interference.

“I ask the public to allow the police to complete their investigations and to avoid speculation. My focus remains on her recovery and on supporting the officers who continue their duties.”

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Jone Vakarisi was heard screaming and begging before he was “brutalised to death” in Fiji military custody last week, according to his sister.

Melehola Tagaga told RNZ Pacific Waves that the well-known drug pusher was asked if he was planning a coup, before the military arrested him at home and took him to the Queen Elizabeth Barracks for questioning last Thursday.

The Fiji Police Force classified the 37-year-old’s death as murder following a high-level meeting in Suva involving the Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and security and military chiefs on Monday.

• READ MORE: Fiji police confirm murder probe launched into death of man in military custody
• Other Fiji military reports

“An investigation is underway with the support of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Commander, as earlier stated, so it will be thoroughly conducted,” police spokesperson Ana Naisoro said.

Vakarasi had become somewhat notorious in the capital, linked to turf wars and engaging in violence with law enforcement in recent years.

Local media outlets have described him as a local “drug lord” who was “involved in criminal networks”.

Fiji’s top military and police brass were on Bau Island farewelling the late President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau when news broke of his death last Friday.

His death certificate, dated April 18, lists asphyxia, aspiration of gastric contents, severe traumatic head injuries and blunt force trauma to both the head and chest as the causes of his death.

The Republic of Fiji Military (RFMF) commander Ro Jone Kalouniwai initially attributed the victim’s death to a “sudden and severe medical emergency” and “the presence of a pre-existing condition”.

However, he issued a second statement on Monday to correct the record, saying “the earlier description did not fully reflect the medical findings now available”.

Victim begged for his life
Melehola Tagaga claimed that people living close to the military barracks in Nabua, near Suva, told the family they heard Vakarisi “yelling and screaming” for hours before he died.

“My brother was saying “oi lei, au via bula”, meaning, “hey, I want to be alive,” and that is all they heard, all through the night,” she said.

Tagaga, 50, an entrepreneur in Sacramento, California, said his home was raided first by the police, then later by the military.

Both were looking for weapons and drugs, but nothing was found, then “disappointed” they questioned him about a possible coup.

“A family member that was there heard the term coup … they asked if he heard or had a plan or knew of someone that was plotting another coup. And he said he had nothing to do with it and he didn’t know anything about it,” Tagaga said.

She described the father of four as an “entrepreneur”, a “family man” but admitted he had previous “gang-related” convictions involving violence.

“What do you expect from the kind of society that we live in in Fiji … people were becoming more territorial, so if you felt threatened, wouldn’t you do something to make sure your family and friends are safe? [from rival territories and authorities].”

She said the family were demanding justice and an independent, fully transparent investigation into the death, claiming the military and the police were “in cahoots” with each other.

“With the the wrongdoing, we want accountability, regardless of what the allegations are (against Vakarisi). We still don’t have a clear explanation of what happened to him,” she said.

“His life probably didn’t matter to them [the military] but it mattered to us … he had a past with the law but that didn’t give them the right to kill him. A person’s life in custody should be protected.”

Lawyer says death ‘extrajudicial’
Rajendra Chaudhry, a lawyer and the son of former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, told Pacific Waves the death was an extrajudicial killing.

“I find it highly alarming that there was an attempt to cover it up, which is clearly unacceptable … the commander ought to have known about that. So the [initial] statement that was released under his name was misleading to say the least,” Chaudhry said.

He said it was not a simple communication oversight, it was a serious coverup that was exposed only after the death certificate was made public.

“I am quite disgusted to see comments on social media supporting the military because Vakarisi was a drug peddler, the military must respect the rule of law. He should have been handed over to the police for questioning and processing,” Chaudhry said.

“They [the police] should take charge of the investigation and deal with it independently, they should not act in collaboration with the military because the military is being investigated, it doesn’t make sense.”

While he had confidence in Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu, he said the military “leans on” section 131 of the Constitution, which states that that the military is responsible for the overall security of the country.

“That provision is a licence to act extra-constitutionally and must be read together with emergency provisions, where the military is required to act in safeguarding Fiji in the national interest, it should not have a say in domestic or governance matters, which is the role of the police and the government of the day.”

A Fiji military spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr Eroni Duaibe, said it would be inappropriate to comment while a police investigation was underway.

Human rights abuses
The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) echoed Chaudhry’s views, adding that Fijians were too frightened to question what the military does.

NGOCHR chair Shamima Ali called for a transparent, independent investigation into the human rights abuses involved in the murder

Aman Ravindra-Singh, a Fiji human rights lawyer who is in exile in Australia, equated asphyxia with strangulation.

Ravindra-Singh fled from Fiji in 2022 to avoid jail for contempt of court following a series of Facebook posts critical of the then prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and the former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

“In my personal view, based on other similar deaths in custody matters that I have looked at in the past, these injuries are consistent with torture, where a person is brutally beaten repeatedly to the head and chest, resulting in death,” he said.

In an exclusive interview with Mai TV’s The Brunch talkshow, Vakarisi’s ex-wife Kuini Osbourne rejected claims that he was involved in illegal drug and gun-related activities, as widely reported in local media.

She said following Vakarisi’s post-mortem, the pathologist explained to her his cause of death.

“He choked on his [own] blood and fluid that came up and [the doctor] explained that it was like strangulation.”

The pathologist said due to the severe trauma to Vakarisi’s head and chest he had internal bleeding from broken ribs, “he choked when the blood and fluids came up. He couldn’t vomit it or spit it out,” she said.

Meanwhile, Fiji police declined to say what Vakarisi’s previous convictions were.

“We will respond on policing issues, matters arising out of jurisdictional matters, such as convictions, is not for us to comment on,” Naisoro said

“We will not be commenting on anything other than the investigation, so as not to jeopardise the process,” she said.

Vakarisi’s older sister Tagaga said both their father and uncles had served in the military.

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

The Fiji Police Force has launched a murder investigation following the death of wellknown drug pusher Jone Vakarisi, who died in military custody on Thursday.

Police spokesperson Ana Naisoro told RNZ Pacific that “investigators are gathering intelligence to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the victim’s death”.

“The heads of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) and the police are reconfirming their commitment towards conducting a thorough investigation, appealing once again to members of the public to allow the investigative process to run its course,” Naisoro said.

• READ MORE: Commander says RFMF remains committed to accountability
• Fiji military faces questions after death of Jone Vakarisi in custody
• Other Fiji military reports

Meanwhile, the Suva High Court has closed criminal proceedings against Vakarisi, after the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) made an application to stop proceedings.

Fijivillage.com reports that public prosecutors were appealing Vakarisi’s suspended sentence for having marijuana within the confines of a court in January 2023.

He was reportedly found with 15.2 grams of marijuana and sentenced to three months in jail, suspended for two years by the Suva Magistrates Court.

The appeal hearing was meant to be held on Monday.

Application granted
Chief Justice Salesi Temo granted the ODPP’s application after reviewing medical evidence.

The court requested a copy of the death certificate, which was released by the police’s Director of Criminal Investigations.

Conflicting reports emerged over the weekend regarding the death of Vakarisi, who was reportedly linked to major criminal networks.

News of his death broke on Friday, while top military and police brass were gathered on Bau Island, farewelling the late President and Speaker of the House, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.

The RFMF said in a statement on Saturday that the death was due to “a sudden and severe emergency” during questioning at the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Nabua, approximately 10 minutes’ drive from Suva City.

RFMF commander Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai said the victim, in his late 30s, had “voluntarily presented” himself with three others to the RFMF headquarters “to assist with investigations.”

Kalouniwai attributed Vakarisi’s death to “a pre-existing condition”. However, Vakarisi’s family has disputed the military’s account, telling local media that he was “not a sickly person at all”.

Later statement
However, a later statement by General Kalouniwai corrected aspects of the initial military communication concerning the death of Vakarisi, saying that the RFMF acknowledged that the earlier description of the incident as a “medical emergency” did not fully reflect the medical findings now available, reports Fijivillage.com.

This followed the receipt of the post mortem report for Vakarisi.

The commander said the RFMF recognised the seriousness of these findings.

Queenie Osbourne, the mother of Vakarisi’s children, told The Fiji Times, that Vakarisi and others were taken from their home to the army barracks on Thursday night without any formal explanations.

A leaked death certificate, which first appeared on Fijian social media on Saturday, has now been verified by Fiji Police commissioner Rusiate Tudravu to be an official police document.

According to the document, the causes of Vakarisi’s death were listed as asphyxia, aspiration of gastric contents, severe traumatic head injuries, and blunt force trauma to both the head and chest.

“No one informed us of his death from the night he died. We found out when he was in the morgue,” Osbourne was quoted as saying by The Fiji Times.

Vakarisi’s family is calling for justice.

A high-level meeting took place in Suva involving the Prime Minister, security chiefs and military leaders before the police decided to issue a statement classifying Vakarisi’s death as murder.

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

The Fiji military has found itself at the centre of a national firestorm following the death of a wellknown drug peddler, Jone Vakarisi, in army custody last Thursday.

Conflicting reports have emerged over the weekend regarding the death of Vakarisi, who was reportedly linked to major criminal networks.

News of his death broke while top military and police brass were gathered on Bau Islands, paying their final respects to the late President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.

• READ MORE: Man linked to gang activity dies after Fiji military detention, local media report
• Other Fiji military reports

The Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) said in a statement on Saturday that Vakarisi’s death was due to “a sudden and severe emergency” during questioning at the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Nabua, approximately 10 minutes’ drive from Suva City.

RFMF commander Ro Jone Kalouniwai said Vakarisi, in his late 30s, had “voluntarily presented” himself alongside three others to the RFMF headquarters “to assist with investigations”.

Kalouniwai pinned Vakarisi’s death to “a pre-existing condition”. However, Vakarisi’s family has disputed the military’s account, telling local media that he was “not a sickly person at all”.

Queenie Osbourne, the mother of Vakarisi’s children, told The Fiji Times, that Vakarisi and others were taken from their home to the army barracks on Thursday night without any formal explanations.

Leaked death certificate
A leaked death certificate, which first appeared on Fiji social media on Saturday, has now been verified by Fiji Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu to be an official police document.

According to the document, the causes of Vakarisi’s death are listed as asphyxia, aspiration of gastric contents, severe traumatic head injuries, and blunt force trauma to both the head and chest.

“No one informed us of his death from the night he died. We found out when he was in the morgue,” Osbourne was quoted as saying by The Fiji Times.

Vakarisi’s family is calling for justice.

Commisioner Tudravu said heads of the RFMF and Fiji Folice Force “are both in consensus of letting the law take its course, through the conduct of the investigation which is currently underway”.

According to the RFMF statement, at least one military officer has already been placed in military custody for internal disciplinary investigations.

Fiji’s Human Rights Commission said it was “concerned” about the death in military custody and has called for “a prompt [and] independent investigation”.

Aman Ravindra-Singh, a Fiji human rights lawyer who is in exile in Australia, said that based on other similar deaths in custody matters that he has looked at in the past, the injuries listed in Vakarisi’s death certificate “are consistent with torture, where a person is brutally beaten repeatedly to the head and chest resulting in death”.

‘A matter of grave concern’ – minister
Fiji Defence Minister Pio Tikoduadua has described Vakarisi’s death as “a serious matter”.

Tikoduadua said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the circumstances of the case while police inquiries were ongoing.

“The proper process must be allowed to take its course, and all relevant facts must be established independently and professionally. Any loss of life in such circumstances is a matter of grave concern,” he said in a statement.

“I expect the full cooperation of all relevant authorities with the police investigation. Accountability, adherence to the rule of law, and respect for due process must remain paramount.

He also urged the public to allow the investigation to proceed without speculation or the spread of misinformation.

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

The Fiji Police Force has confirmed that a man who was taken in for questioning by the Republic of Fiji Military Forces in Suva has died in custody.

Fijian media are reporting that the man was a wellknown “drug lord” known to local authorities.

The man was among a group allegedly linked to gang activity who were taken in for questioning by the military on Thursday night, fijivillage.com reports.

• READ MORE: Fiji military puts public ‘on notice’ citing national security threats
• ‘We will comment later,’ says military chief over army custody death
• Other Fiji military reports

Police spokesperson Ana Naisoro said an investigation into the incident was underway.

The incident comes amid ongoing joint operations between the police and the military.

This week, the Fijian military warned that individuals responsible for “any attempt to destabilise national security” and those who aid “individuals engaged in criminal activity” had been put on notice.

The death also comes as Fijians mourn the passing of the former President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, who has been accorded a state funeral today.

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

The Fiji military has warned that individuals responsible for “any attempt to destabilise national security” and those who aid “individuals engaged in criminal activity” have been “put on notice”.

It comes after the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) confirmed just last Friday that “unknown individuals” had made “unsuccessful” attempts to access its installations.

To allay public anxiety, the RFMF assured that “there is no threat to public safety arising from the incident”.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji military security reports

However, in a statement on Monday night, the military said it had initiated joint security operations with the Fiji Police Force as “a deliberate and measured approach to recent unacceptable challenges to security, including threats to infrastructure and isolated acts of violence against civilians and officers in the line of duty”.

While pointing out its constitutional responsibility to “ensure the security, defence and wellbeing of Fiji and all Fijians”, the RFMF said it would not take these matters lightly.

“Therefore, we put on notice that any attempt to destabilise national security or endanger the wellbeing of citizens will be met with firm, lawful and proportionate action.”

According to the statement — authorised by the military commander — the enhanced security measures are expected to “continue for as long as necessary”.

“Members of the public are reminded that providing shelter, assistance, or support to individuals engaged in criminal activity is an offence and directly undermines national security.”

The Fiji Military is encouraging the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities to the relevant authorities.

‘Alarming’ development – Labour Party
The Fiji Labour Party (FLP) has reacted to the developments by questioning the current state of national security in the country.

“As a party that has twice been the victim of military coups — in 1987 and 2000 — we understand only too well how fragile national security can become when well-organised elements with ill intent are allowed to operate,” it said in a statement on Sunday.

It said the unauthorised access to RFMF installations “is particularly alarming when set against the backdrop of rising drug-related activities and seizures across Fiji in recent times”.

“The emergence of sophisticated, well-coordinated criminal elements poses a direct threat to public safety and national stability,” the party said in a statement.

“Even though the RFMF has confirmed that no weapons, ammunition, or equipment were compromised, the very fact that such attempts were made sends a dangerous signal: our defence installations may not be as impenetrable as we have been led to believe.”

FLP is demanding clear answers and concrete action to strengthen safeguards across all military and strategic installations.

Meanwhile, Fijians are set to head to the polls later this year.

The general elections can be held anytime between August 7 (earliest) and 6 February 2027 (latest).

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

There is a bitter truth that must be spoken before we can talk honestly about what is happening to us now. Michael West Media reports on Australia’s quiet complicity in the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran.

COMMENTARY: By Andrew Brown

When the bombs fell on Gaza, Australia was quiet.

When the hospitals were destroyed, when the aid was blocked, when children were pulled from rubble in pieces, when the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and humanitarian organisations with decades of credibility in conflict zones used words like genocide, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment, Australia was quiet.

Not uniformly. Not entirely. There were protests in every major city, sustained over months, of a size and seriousness this country has not seen since the Iraq War.

• READ MORE: Iran accepts ceasefire after Trump says it will pause bombing for two weeks
• Synagogue in Tehran ‘completely destroyed’ in US-Israeli attack
• Top university says US-Israel attack targeted Iran’s progress, AI learning
• Other US-Israel war on Iran reports

There were independent senators who stood in Parliament and said what needed to be said, in plain language, without diplomatic hedging. There were journalists, academics, former diplomats, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians who signed petitions, marched in the streets, and wrote letters that went largely unanswered.

Palestinian-Australian, Muslim-Australian, Arab-Australian communities, and many others with no personal connection to the conflict beyond a functioning conscience, screamed into a political void and were told, in effect, to calm down.

Or apprehended for wearing a t-shirt.

“I’m offended by crocs,” says man apprehended by many police & special ops for wearing “F… Israel” t-shirt

The footage #andrewbrown #legend #auspol pic.twitter.com/fc1p3f911d

— Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) April 6, 2026

The country, as a political entity, its government, its major institutions, its official voice to the world, was quiet.

The cost of silence
That silence had a cost. Not just a moral cost, though the moral cost is staggering and will take generations to fully reckon with.

A strategic cost. The cost of allowing a logic of unchecked military impunity to establish itself as the operating principle of the US-Israeli alliance. A logic that, once normalised in Gaza, did not stay in Gaza.

It never does.

More than 72,000 people killed so far. More than 171,000 injured. An entire civilian population, in one of the most densely populated places on earth, was systematically starved, displaced, and destroyed.

Journalists were killed in numbers that constitute, by any honest accounting, a deliberate campaign to eliminate witnesses. Paramedics were bombed. UN peacekeepers were struck.

Aid workers from Australia’s own partner organisations were killed in strikes so precise they could not have been accidental.

Australia expressed concern.

Calibrated, diplomatically worded, operationally meaningless concern.

And then, when the same alliance, emboldened by 18 months of zero meaningful consequence, turned its weapons on a sovereign nation-state, on Iran, on February 28 of this year, Australia expressed support. Called it constructive. Offered the American justification back to its own people as sovereign Australian policy.

Warnings ignored
The people warning loudest about Gaza were not merely warning about Palestinians. They were warning about a system. A system in which American military power and Israeli strategic ambition, freed from the constraints of international law and serious allied pushback, would expand. Would find new targets. Would come, eventually, for the stability of every country caught in its orbit.

They were right. And they were called antisemitic for saying so.

Iran did not come from nowhere. The assault on Iran is the direct and logical extension of the impunity normalised in Gaza. If you can destroy a civilian population with no meaningful consequence, you can bomb a sovereign nation.

If the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu means nothing, then international law means nothing. And if international law means nothing, then the only operating principle is force.

And the consequences of force are distributed not just to the combatants but to every country whose government chose alignment over principle.

Australia chose alignment over the people of Gaza. It chose it again over Iran. And now it is discovering, at the bowser and the checkout and the business bank account, exactly what that choice costs.

The war came home
Here is what makes this moment different from every protest march and every unanswered letter that came before.

The pain is no longer abstract.

When Gaza burned, the average Australian, cocooned by geographic distance, insulated by a media that kept the most confronting images off prime time, reassured by politicians who described it as heartbreaking while doing nothing, could maintain the fiction that this was someone else’s tragedy.

Terrible, certainly. Distant. Manageable. Something that happened over there, to people over there, in a conflict that had been going on forever and would presumably continue

without any particular bearing on the school fees or the mortgage or the quarterly business figures.

That fiction is now dead.

The fuel price spike is not over there. The supply chain disruption is not over there. The investment uncertainty showing up in superannuation statements, in business loans that just got harder to service, in the job that exists today and may not exist in three months.

None of that is over there.

The war came home. Not in body bags. Not in the specific grief of a military family. It came home in the way that imperial adventurism always eventually comes home to the countries that enable it.

Through the economy. Through the slow, grinding, distributed punishment of a population that was never consulted, never warned, and never honestly told what their government’s choices would cost them.

Australia’s complicity
Australia was a participant in Gaza’s destruction. Not with weapons. Not with soldiers. With silence. With diplomatic cover. With the specific, material legitimacy that flows from a liberal democracy declining to formally object. And with the arms adjacent, intelligence and security cooperation that flows through Five Eyes and has never been seriously interrogated in the Australian public domain.

Complicity is not passive.

When you have the power to intervene, to sanction, to condemn, to withdraw diplomatic cover, and you choose not to, you are not a bystander. You are a participant. And participants, eventually, share in the consequences.

The Palestinian people could not make Australia listen with their suffering alone.

Not because Australians are cruel. They are not. But because the suffering was made distant. The media made it complex. The politicians made it delicate. The lobby groups made it professionally dangerous to say in plain language what was plainly happening.

The whole architecture of managed consent did its job with brutal efficiency for 18 months.

But a 40 percent fuel price increase cuts through managed consent, as does a wave of small business closures. And young Australians told to absorb the economic consequences of a war their government endorsed without their knowledge or consent. That cuts through everything.

The people who protested over Gaza, who were dismissed and belittled and accused of antisemitism and told they were being naive about geopolitical complexity, understood something that the political class is only now beginning to grasp: That the world does not offer permanent non-involvement. That the wars you enable reach you. That the impunity you excuse comes back denominated in currencies you understand personally.

Fuel. Food. Jobs. Mortgages. Businesses. Futures.
This is that reckoning. The genocide in Gaza did not wake Australia up, the bill for enabling it will.

And when Australia wakes, fully, clearly, with the focused fury of people who now understand exactly what was done to them, the politicians who called it constructive and the media that told them to blame the Energy Minister are going to find that managed consent has a shelf life.

That shelf life has expired.

An Iranian government spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, has declared that the attacked “bridges and the Pasteur Institute are symbols of Iran’s scientific strength” in response to the latest US onslaught.

She added that they were “the product of a civilisation that spans thousands of years” and that “its depth is hard to grasp for those who speak the language of the ‘Stone Age.’”

“For a land that has lit the lamps of knowledge for centuries, these threats carry only one meaning: you can strike the infrastructure, but you will not touch the roots of a nation . . .

• READ MORE: Steel plants, bridge hit as US-Israel attacks expand — Iran vows retaliation
• Iran’s president urges global health bodies to act after US-Israeli strike on Pasteur Institute in Tehran
• Iranian president calls on American public to challenge US war motives
• Other US-Israel war on Iran reports

“Iran will rebuild and continue moving forward,” Mohajerani said.

This comes as the United States and Israel have escalated their attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran, destroying a historical medical research facility, as well as a vital bridge connecting the capital to other regions in the country.

The illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran has targeted and destroyed the Pasteur Institute of Iran, one of the country’s leading public health and research institutions, in a direct attack on civilian and scientific infrastructure in the country.

JUST IN:

US and Israel have targeted Iran’s B1 Bridge in Karaj again, the tallest bridge in the Middle East.

The renewed strike occurred while rescue and relief teams were assisting victims from the initial attack… See more pic.twitter.com/EojvvsPp9V

— Ayatollah Alireza Arafi (@Realarafi) April 2, 2026

In numbers — human cost of the war on Iran:

• Iran: 1937 killed; 24,800 wounded
• Lebanon: 1345 killed, including 125 children; more than 4040 wounded
• Israel: 28 killed (all but one were civilians), including 10 Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon, 3223 injuries hospitalised
• US: 13 killed in combat and two of non-combat causes, more than 200 injured
• Occupied West Bank: Four people killed
• UAE: 12 killed, 169 injured
• Bahrain: 3 killed
• Saudi Arabia: 2 killed, 20 injured
• Kuwait: 6 killed
• Oman: 3 killed
• Qatar: 16 injured
• Jordan: 20 injured
• Syria: 4 killed
• Iraq: More than 107 killed

Israel’s Parliament has approved a one-sided death penalty measure to execute Palestinians.

It is one of the most extreme laws in the nation’s history, and will exacerbate the far-right government’s illegal system of apartheid.

Some members of the Knesset, including ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, were seen wearing noose pins in the Knesset yesterday, and celebrating with champagne on live TV after the bill passed.

• READ MORE: ‘Dangerous escalation’: World reacts to Israel passing death penalty law
• Other Palestine genocide reports

Ben-Gvir said hanging is “one of the options,” as is execution by the electric chair or euthanasia.

The law was passed with 62 votes to 48 in its final reading.

The bill drew international condemnation ahead of its passage, including from the European Union, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and Amnesty International. Human rights groups have vowed to challenge the bill in Israel’s Supreme Court.

The legislation, which has garnered broad public support in Israel, authorises executions for “terrorists” who kill “with the intent to deny the existence of the State of Israel,” according to Haaretz — effectively ensuring it won’t apply to any of the settlers who routinely murder Palestinians.

‘Confessions’ by torture
In military courts in the occupied West Bank, execution by hanging will now be the default punishment for terrorism. Only Palestinians are tried in these courts, and 96 percent of people are convicted, though cases are largely built on “confessions” extracted through torture.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians condemned the bill yesterday ahead of the vote as an “extreme escalation in Israel’s genocidal policies against Palestinians”.

“The progression of the legislation marks not just a profoundly unjust and illegal act of discrimination under international law, but a far more sinister escalation of Israel’s apartheid legal systems,” the center wrote.

Israeli Knesset death penalty for Palestinians.       Video: Al Jazeera

Israel is currently imprisoning about 9500 Palestinians, according to the human rights group B’Tselem, and about half of them are held under administrative detention.

According to the group, the Israel Prison Service has already started to prepare designated execution facilities.

B’Tselem on Sunday called the bill “another official killing mechanism” that will further normalise the slaughter of Palestinians, as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza and intensifies attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Human rights violation
“The death penalty is a total violation of the most basic human rights, primarily, the right to life,” B’Tselem wrote.

“Israel enforces a comprehensive policy of killing and oppression against the Palestinian people in all the territories it controls. The Death Penalty Law gives Israel’s apartheid regime yet another tool for advancing that policy.”

On top of Monday’s bill, the Knesset is also considering another death penalty measure to impose on alleged October 7, 2023, attackers.

According to Amnesty International, that bill would effectively expand the unilateral powers of military judges and eliminate judicial safeguards.

The Middle East is in flames. Britain is being dragged into an illegal war, the aims of which are entirely unclear, reports Richard Sanders of Double Down News.

“It’s a war of choice, and the man who chose it is Benjamin Netanyahu. Why, yet again, is the West dancing to Israel’s tune?

“I’ve made a number of videos exposing Israeli crimes. This one is different. It’s directed at conservatives and people generally who support the state of Israel.

• READ MORE: The End of Israel: The Ultimate Evidence — Richard Sanders
• Tehran vows to extract ‘heavy price’ for Israeli hits on two nuclear sites
• Other Israeli wars on Palestine and Iran reports

“I believe our indulgence of Israel is not just morally wrong. It’s against the interests of the US and the UK and ultimately against the interests of Israel itself.

“It is leading us all to disaster. Palestine is the place you come thundering, crashing into the buffers, the limits of the Western liberal moral imagination.

“The tragedy and complexity of Israel is that it’s both a product of the most unspeakable racism and a cause of it. Zionism was born from the suffering of Jewish people in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, from a desire for a safe haven, a territory where Jews would for once be the hosts and not the eternal guests.

“It was framed as a return to a historic biblical homeland. and for its supporters. These two factors give it an entirely different complexion morally from other enterprises where predominantly European populations have settled far-flung parts of the world.

Dispossession and subjugation
“There’s no doubt that the Zionist dream has enormous emotional power. The problem, of course, is the other side of the equation, the people. It was inflicted upon the Palestinians whose experience of dispossession and subjugation was no different from that of countless other peoples subjected to European colonialism.

“In fact, arguably, it’s been considerably worse than many, precisely because of the licence and indulgence granted to the Israeli state.

“Let’s lay out the bold, indisputable facts. In 1948, more than 80 percent of the Palestinian population of what became Israel fled their homes. Now, if you want to believe this was not an act of deliberate ethnic cleansing, fine.

“What’s undeniable is that they were never allowed to return. In 1947, they were there. In 1949, they were not. The granting of the vote to that small fragment of the Palestinian population that remained provided a democratic fig leaf for the new state, one that was blown away once the Israelis occupied Gaza and the West Bank in 1967.

The End of Israel                                     Documentary: Double Down News

“There Palestinians have no right to vote for the political entity, the state of Israel that controls their lives. Jewish settlers, on the other hand, occupying the same territory do.

“Even in East Jerusalem, which as far as the Israeli government is concerned has been formally annexed to Israel, Palestinians cannot vote. Political rights depend upon ethnicity. That is not democracy.

“Israel is and has always been a state whose defining feature is that it’s structured to ensure the domination of one ethnicity over another. What else does the term a Jewish state mean?

‘Elephant in the room’
“This is the elephant in the room. the simple, blindingly obvious, undeniable fact that the Western political media class has decided that we must never mention or acknowledge, despite the fact that all of the world’s leading human rights organisations, including the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, have denounced Israel as an apartheid state.

“Now scour the history of the modern world. No people has ever resigned itself to being second class citizens in their own country. Spend just 10 minutes at a checkpoint in the West Bank and you get it.

“The disfiguring dehumanisation, the humiliation of elderly men and women forced to stand in the sun for hours waiting for 18-year-olds to search them.

“The brutalisation of young men in particular, the daily control of rage that is the lot of every Palestinian. It is simply emotionally, psychologically intolerable.”

• Watch the full Double Down News video

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: An Israeli court has closed an investigation into the death of Walid Ahmad, a 17-year-old from the occupied West Bank who died in an Israeli jail six months after he was arrested, held without charges and accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.

An autopsy showed Ahmad likely starved to death after suffering extreme weight loss, muscle wasting and untreated scabies. Human rights groups say nearly 100 Palestinians have died in Israeli jails since October 2023.

Meanwhile, local and international media outlets report Israeli forces recently tortured a Palestinian toddler in Gaza to coerce a confession from his father.

• READ MORE: Trump talks up deal with Tehran as Iranian missile, drone attacks continue
• Other US-Israeli attacks on Iran, Palestine genocide

According to reports from Palestine TV, Al Jazeera and others, the child’s father, Osama Abu Nassar, was detained near the al-Maghazi refugee camp after he came under fire from Israeli soldiers.

He was forced to approach an Israeli checkpoint, where he was separated from his 18-month-old son, stripped naked and forced to watch as soldiers used a cigarette to burn one of the toddler’s legs while using a nail to puncture the other.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as a new UN report warns Israel is systematically torturing Palestinians on a scale that “suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent”.The report, titled “Torture and Genocide”, was written by Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory.

In July, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on her over her report naming dozens of companies she says are profiting from Israeli occupation and genocide in Gaza. Amnesty International blasted the sanctions as a “shameless and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice”. Francesca Albanese’s new book is When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words and Wounds of Palestine. She joins us from Geneva, Switzerland.

Francesca, thank you so much for being with us. Why don’t you lay out what you found in your new report, “Torture and Genocide,” that you just presented at the U.N. Human Rights Council?

Torture and Genocide — a new UN report.     Video: Democracy Now!

Transcript

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Thank you. Thank you, Amy and Nermeen.

I’ve been investigating genocide for over two years now. So, five out of eight reports I’ve produced for the United Nations focus on genocide, acts of genocide, the context in which a genocide happens, why the genocide is not stopped, the layers of complicity from states and private companies, which is the reason why also I’m sanctioned by the United States, against which now my 13-year-old daughter, who’s an American citizen, is the only one to take action suing the Trump administration.

But of all the investigations I’ve carried out, this has been absolutely the most excruciating, that led me to say that Israel uses torture in a systematic and widespread fashion, intentionally and sadistically, to break the spirit of the Palestinians, not just as individuals, but as a people, considering the scale and intensity of torture.

And I monitored torture behind bars, collecting hundreds, hundreds of testimonies, directly and from Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, but also analyzing what experts call torturous environment, meaning the cumulative impact of all the practices, of all the crimes that Israel has massively inflicted on the Palestinians — again, beyond the torture, sodomisation, raping in jail, the enforced disappearance, which is touching 4000 people.

This is new. This is a new crime, including for Israel, toward the Palestinians. But also starvation, constant forced displacement, not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and home demolition, the fear of being always threatened with death or other crimes, it creates a torturous environment for the Palestinians, which is an essential element of genocide.

And it is genocide.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Francesca, if you could elaborate on this point that you’ve just made and that you make in the report, namely, that torture has effectively become state policy for Israel since October 2023? So, what are the kinds of transformations you’ve seen, both in terms of Israeli security personnel, as well as settlers, against the Palestinians?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, I have to say that what I’ve investigated is something on which even the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Israel/Palestine had shed light already, the fact that Israel, after October 7, has massively used torture to punish the Palestinians vindictively.

In fact, the concept of torture has become a state policy is something that the Committee Against Torture found out recently.

I have zoomed in: What does it mean, and where does it come from? Surely, one of the main engineers or architects of this, what’s been called — what he has called the “prison revolution,” is Itamar Ben-Gvir, was — immediately after October 7, has declared that the Palestinians in jail will not be afforded luxury treatment or five-star treatment anymore, as if it was a five-star hotel, what the Israeli prison system afforded Palestinians before October 7.

By the way, in 2023, in July 2023, I produced a report showing how widespread and systemic was the arbitrary treatment of Palestinian detainees, so, just to give a context.

But the conditions have become more and more brutal, and intentionally so. What does it mean? Palestinians have routinely been abducted — I mean, detained without charge or trial. They’ve been arrested, because Palestinians, if they were specific professionals, like journalists and doctors or headed medical personnel, all the more.

Seventeen hundred Palestinian healthcare personnel have been killed. Hundreds remain in jail. And they have been shackled, blindfolded, beaten, humiliated, stripped naked, photographed, filmed, exposed to Israeli civilians, including settlers, coming in to document and to film, to participate into this orgy of depravity, of how a person can be humiliated.

But the most painful, excruciating thing — and I’ve read some of the testimonies — is how Palestinian women and men have been sodomised, have been raped, with bottles, with knives, with metal rods. Even the prisoner who was sodomised through — was raped with a knife, brought to the hospital.

Five Israeli officials were identified and pressed charged against, and now the charges have been dropped. And the person who leaked the video from within the military apparatus is under house arrest on top of it.

So, not only that I’ve documented the vindictiveness toward the Palestinians, the humiliation, the continuous abuses against them in jail, really to break their spirit once and for all as a people, but also the fact that there has been almost something celebratory against the mistreatment of Palestinians in jail among the society.

The legislative power, the Knesset, has been discussing the right to rape Palestinians, and so other members of the executive. The judiciary has not looked into it. And as I said, even those who were found, caught on video, committing this crime were released.

AMY GOODMAN: Francesca, in this last 30 seconds, what are you calling for?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Oh, for justice. Justice. Israel must be stopped, because, Amy, I can’t even use the past tense. As we speak, there are still over 9000 Palestinian hostages, hostages to an unlawful occupation in Israeli jail.

The only thing this — International Court of Justice has spoken. Israel must withdraw the occupation, the troops, the colonies. And the exploitation of Palestinian resources must end.

Meanwhile, the settlers continue to terrorise people. Very few Israelis are engaged against this. So member states must intervene, cut ties and stop weapons transfers to Israel once and for all, and bring the perpetrators to justice.

AMY GOODMAN: Francesco Albanese, we thank you so much for being with us, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. We’ll link to your report, “Torture and Genocide,” and have you back on to talk about your book.

Republished from Democracy Now! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Democrats in Congress have sounded the alarm over US President Donald Trump pledging to commit more war crimes in Iran after he traded threats to energy infrastructure with the Iranian government, with the Republican declaring Saturday that he would take out the country’s power plants unless it reopened the Strait of Hormuz to all traffic.

Just a day after Trump claimed that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran,” in a post that remains pinned to the top of his Truth Social profile, the president took to the platform with a clear threat on Saturday night.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump said.

• READ MORE: Iran vows to ‘completely close’ Hormuz Strait if US attacks power plants
• No bigger hypocrisy in the world than Israel complaining about Iran’s ‘lawbreaking’
• Other US-Israeli war on Iran reports

Trump’s post came after Ali Mousavi, the Iranian representative to the International Maritime Organisation, told the Chinese news agency Xinhua on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that is a key shipping route, including for fossil fuels — remains open to all vessels not linked to “Iran’s enemies.”

It also followed the Israeli military — which is bombing Iran alongside the United States — suggesting that the US was responsible for a Saturday attack on Iran’s uranium enrichment complex in Natanz.

According to The Associated Press, with his new threat, Trump “may have meant the Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran’s biggest, which was already hit last week, or Damavand, a natural gas plant near Tehran, Iran’s capital.”

Responding to Trump’s Saturday post, US Representative Don Beyer (D-Va.) said: “It’s important not to shy away from candidly discussing the president’s increasingly erratic behaviour. His worsening instability is a clear and growing threat, not only to the American people but to the world.”

Trump has no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so he is threatening to attack Iran’s civil power plants. This would be an attack on civilians. This is what Putin is doing in Ukraine. This would be a war crime. End this war in Iran.

— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) March 22, 2026

Hell-bent on destruction
Representative Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) was similarly critical  over Trump’s pledge “From ‘help is on the way’ for Iranian protestors to threatening war crimes against an entire population. The United States is being run by a maniacal tyrant hell-bent on destroying this country and the world along with it.”

Other critics also pointed out that Article 56 of the Geneva Convention states in part that “works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes, and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.”

The AP reported that after that strike on the Natanz complex, “Iranian missiles struck two communities in southern Israel late Saturday, leaving buildings shattered and dozens injured in dual attacks not far from Israel’s main nuclear research center.”

“Israel’s military said it was not able to intercept missiles that hit the southern cities of Dimona and Arad, the largest near the centre in Israel’s sparsely populated Negev desert,” according to the news agency. “It was the first time Iranian missiles penetrated Israel’s air defence systems in the area around the nuclear site.”

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, said on X on Saturday that “if the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle… Israel’s skies are defenseless.”

After Trump’s threat, the Speaker added on Sunday that “immediately after the power plants and infrastructure in our country are targeted, the critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed, and the price of oil will remain high for a long time.”

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. This article is republished under Creative Commons.

Democracy Now! speaks with Iranian Israeli political activist Orly Noy, editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call, about her recent article, “Longing for My Tehran.”

“It’s been a very emotional time since the beginning of the war, not just because we are constantly running in and out of shelters,” says Noy, “but because this time, the footage of the bombing that I grew accustomed to seeing for over two years from the genocide in Gaza was now coming from my homeland.”

Noy also comments on Israeli political support for the war on Iran, saying “the very few attempts to protest against the war were brutally crushed by the Israeli police.”

• READ MORE: Trump scolds allies over Strait of Hormuz operation; UAE closes airspace
• Chris Hedges: The world according to Gaza – it’s only the start
• War on Iran: Australia should put trust in its neighbours not a modern Titanic rogue state
• Other US-Israel War on Iran reports

Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is also increasing. “Up until now, our worry was about the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Now it is just about executing Palestinians, both by the army and by the settlers,” says Noy.

Transcript:

The United States and Fiji have filed separate declarations of intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging the country is committing genocide in Gaza.

While the US explicitly rejects the allegation that Israel is committing genocide, Fiji raises issues about how the 1948 Genocide Convention should be interpreted.

The 34-page Fiji declaration was filed on March 12 and is signed by Ambassador Ilaitia Tamata, Fiji’s Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva, reports The Fiji Times.

• READ MORE: Fiji files intervention in Gaza genocide case at ICJ
• Israel’s genocide in Gaza: Whatever happened to South Africa’s case at the ICJ?
• Palestine will continue to seek justice against Israel at ICC and ICJ, says The Hague ambassador
• More Gaza genocide lawsuit reports

In the declaration, Fiji said it was exercising its right under Article 63(2) of the ICJ Statute to intervene as a party to the Convention, arguing that the case raises important questions about how it should be interpreted.

The filing confirms that Fiji has appointed its Permanent Representative to Israel, Ambassador Filipo Tarakinikini, as agent for the proceedings.

The Fiji filing was made alongside separate interventions by Namibia and Hungary, according to a press release issued by the court on Friday, reports Middle East Eye.

All four states submitted declarations under Article 63 of the ICJ statute, which allows countries that are parties to a treaty under dispute to intervene in order to present their interpretation of that treaty.

Iceland, Netherlands also file
Earlier on Thursday, Iceland and the Netherlands also filed declarations under Article 63.

South Africa filed the case in December 2023, accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention through its military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of  October 7 that year.

Pretoria argues that Israel’s conduct — including mass killings, destruction of infrastructure and the imposition of conditions of life threatening the survival of Palestinians in Gaza — amounts to genocide.

Israel denies the accusation and claims its war is justified by considerations of self-defence.

The US submission on Thursday stands out among most interventions for directly defending Israel against the accusation brought by South Africa. Taking sides in a case is highly unconventional under Article 63 submissions.

“It’s very unusual for an intervening state (US) to use language like that,” explained Professor Gerhard Kemp, a scholar of international law.

“States normally stick to the legal issues, which can even be helpful for both sides. But terms like ‘false’ or ‘wrong’ don’t really move the needle,” he told Middle East Eye.

“They are probably aimed at a different audience.”

US argues genocide claim ‘false’
In its declaration, Washington argues that allegations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza are “false” and urges the court to apply a strict legal threshold when determining genocidal intent.

It says, uncontroversially, that genocide can only be established where there is clear proof of specific intent to destroy a protected group.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza: Whatever happened to South Africa’s case at the ICJ?

That intent should only be inferred when it is the only reasonable explanation for the conduct in question, it says.

The submission argues that the ICJ must be fully convinced before determining an act is genocide, due to the exceptional gravity of the crime. It also says civilian casualties and destruction during armed conflict do not by themselves prove genocidal intent.

“The United States submits that the Court should maintain its standard for inferring intent. Lowering the standard risks broadening the application of the term ‘genocide’ such that it no longer carries its original weight and meaning, and invites attempts to misuse the Genocide Convention as a gateway for bringing extraneous disputes before the Court,” the US claimed.

Hungary and Fiji’s submissions similarly advance legal arguments that align closely with Israel’s position in the case.

Narrow interpretation
Hungary’s declaration calls for a narrow interpretation of genocide and emphasises that civilian casualties and destruction during armed conflict do not in themselves demonstrate genocidal intent.

Fiji’s intervention likewise urges the court to apply an extremely high evidentiary threshold for genocide, and cautions against relying heavily on reports by international organisations or non-governmental groups when assessing allegations.

By contrast, Namibia’s declaration focuses on a broader interpretation of the Genocide Convention and emphasises how genocidal intent may be inferred from patterns of conduct and cumulative evidence.

Namibia argues that acts such as the denial of humanitarian aid, repeated displacement and deprivation of basic necessities could fall within the Convention’s prohibition on deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a protected group.

Its submission also stresses that genocide can be committed through omissions, including a refusal to allow or facilitate life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians under a state’s control.

Third-state interventions
The new filings add to a rapidly expanding list of states seeking to intervene in the proceedings.

Since April 2024, similar interventions have been submitted by Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Turkey, Chile, the Maldives, Bolivia, Ireland, Cuba, Belize, Brazil, the Comoros, Belgium and Paraguay in support of the South African argument.

Palestine and Belize have also sought to intervene under Article 62 of the court’s statute, which allows states to apply to participate in proceedings if they believe they have a legal interest that could be affected by the court’s decision.

Under Article 63, intervening states do not become parties to the dispute. Instead, they are permitted to present their interpretation of the treaty at issue — in this case the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The interpretation adopted by the court in its eventual judgment will also be binding on those states.

The case has become one of the most closely watched disputes ever heard by the ICJ and has drawn an unusually large number of third-state interventions, which have reached 22.

The court has already ordered Israel in legally binding provisional measures to take steps to prevent acts that could violate the Genocide Convention and to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israel ignores court orders
Israel has repeatedly ignored the orders.

A final ruling on whether Israel has breached the Convention is expected in 2028. But it could take longer, depending on the length of hearings and the two parties’ adherence to deadlines.

On Thursday, Israel was scheduled to submit its counter-memorial, or arguments in response to South Africa’s accusations, after several deadline extensions by the court.

The court has yet to announce that Israel has filed its evidence, however.

During its devastating onslaught, Israel has so far killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. It has also destroyed most of the enclave’s homes, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure, rendering it largely uninhabitable for its 2.3 million civilians.

A UN commission of inquiry concluded last September that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

The UN report’s authors, including legal experts Navi Pillay and Chris Sidoti, told Middle East Eye that the report used evidence and a similar methodology in its analysis to that which will be used by the ICJ.

The Israeli military prosecution has controversially cancelled the indictment of five soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in southern Israel, reports Anadolu Ajansi.

“In light of significant developments that have occurred since the indictment was filed in the Yemen Field case, the military prosecution has decided today to cancel the indictment,” the Israeli army said in a statement yesterday.

The torture case dates back to July 2025, when Israeli soldiers tortured and sexually assaulted a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility, causing serious injuries and a tear in the rectum.

• READ MORE: Khamenei demands closure of US bases as Trump says war going ‘very well’
• Four possible outcomes with the war on Iran – but only one viable
• Other Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners reports

Earlier, Israeli news media outlets, including the public broadcaster KAN, claimed that Israel released the tortured detainee on October 13, 2025, to the Gaza Strip as part of a group of prisoners released under the exchange deal with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Sde Teiman, which literally means “Yemen Field” in Arabic, is an Israeli military base in the Negev Desert in southern Israel.

Interrogators there have become notorious for physical and sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees from Gaza to the extent that it has been dubbed “Israel’s Guantanamo” in reference to the infamous US detention facility in Iraq.

The Sde Teiman prison has witnessed widespread violations against Palestinian detainees, including severe beatings, prolonged restraint, and medical neglect, which have killed people, according to Palestinian and Israeli media and human rights reports.

A Papua New Guinean anthropologist has warned that a campaign by authorities to remove communities from informal settlements in Port Moresby will not solve growing social problems in PNG’s capital.

The government is determined to end the role of settlements as what Prime Minister James Marape describes as “breeding grounds for terror” as part of its law and order reforms, but recent evictions have run into problems.

Almost half of Port Moresby’s estimated population of around 500,000 live in settlements, often without legal title or access to basic services. Some of the settlements have become notorious as crime hotspots.

• READ MORE: PNG govt defends using tear gas, force to evict illegal settlers in capital
• Other PNG settlements reports

However, in late January, police moved into the settlement at 2-Mile, sparking clashes with residents that resulted in two deaths and numerous injuries.

Police then moved to evict another settlement at 4-Mile, but this met with a legal challenge which led to the National Court placing a stay order on the eviction.

While the campaign is essentially paused, Marape has said his government would soon announce a permanent plan to replace unplanned settlements with properly titled residential allotments.

He also apologised to residents affected by the evictions, in recognition that many law-abiding and hard working families have made settlements their home over the years.

Urban drift
Previous attempts at evicting settlement communities did not exactly lay a template for the success of what authorities are trying to do in 2026.

In numerous cases, homes were destroyed or razed to the ground, people were left homeless and then simply moved to other areas of vacant land or ended up living with wantoks in other parts of Morebsy.

A PNG anthropologist who has done extensive work on settlements, Dr Fiona Hukula, noted that settlements are long-established communities, stretching back decades.

“Essentially, people came to work in the towns and the cities, like in Port Moresby, and so where there was low cost housing, or where people weren’t able to afford housing, they started living in settlements, and some of the settlements on the outskirts, there’s stories that they made some kind of connection and deals with the local landowners.”

Dr Hukula said over the decades, migration to the towns and cities had grown significantly, but the available housing had not kept pace.

“People are just now coming into the city, really, to access better services, health and education. Some Papua New Guineans are coming to the city to escape various forms of conflict and violence.

“And this is now where we’ve seen just an influx of people coming into the city, and obviously there’s nowhere to live, and they live in settlements, and many of Moresby settlements are populated by families who have been there for several generations.”

‘Difficult thing I have to do’
Many of Moresby’s settlements are now populated by families who have been there for several generations. Removing people from these communities is a complex challenge.

“An eviction is not going to solve the problem, because people will just go and find somewhere else to stay (in Moresby), especially if they’re generational families who have lived in these settlements, who don’t necessarily have the ties back to their rural villages and their connections to their people in their village,” Dr Hukula said.

Adding to the complexities of the eviction drive are social connections forged in the National Capital District (NCD) over the years.

The head of the NCD Police Command Metropolitan Superintendent Warrick Simitab admitted that for him personally, leading the eviction exercises such as at 2-Mile had not been easy.

“It’s been difficult, because I grew up here. I grew up in NCD. For example in 2-Mile. Most of my classmates that I went to school together with, they live there. So for me personally, it’s a difficult thing that I have to do,” he told RNZ Pacific.

Simitab would not be drawn on when the evictions would start up again, saying things were paused while political leaders decide next steps.

Criminal hotspot
The local MP for Moresby South Justin Tkatchenko said the 2-Mile settlement had become a notorious criminal hotspot, and that the people of the city had had enough of it.

“Hold ups nearly every night and every day, women have been raped, attacked, citizens have been held up, cars stolen, injured, abused for nearly 20 years,” he said.

Things came to a head when police were shot at and those living in 2-Mile refused an ultimatum given by police to hand over the criminals, he explained.

Tkatchenko said the government was steadily working on resettling settlers with proper, legal allocations of land to live on.

“We have already allocated land and sub-divided that land for over 400 families in the 2-Mile Hill area and other areas. Some have already been resettled and moved, and others will follow suit,” the MP said.

Dr Hukula acknowledged that crime linked to some settlements was an issue that the general population keenly wanted addressed.

But she said persisting with displacing communities from other settlements would not address the underlying cause of the problem.

‘Ticking time bomb’
“It is a ticking time bomb. It’s going to be like this, where there’s evictions and then people move. And the thing is that the cycle of violence continues, and that’s what we’re trying to address here, the crime.”

The anthropologist stressed that “not everybody in settlements are criminals”, saying the people who lived in settlements were often working people, “people who are doing the menial jobs in the offices, the office cleaners, the people who are drivers, all of these kinds of people also live in settlements.

“And so when they’re being kicked out, there are people who can’t go to work, children who can’t go to school”.

Dr Hukula has researched and written about how settlement communities have developed informal systems of settling disputes or addressing law and order problems such as through local komiti groups or village courts.

These provided a way in which the communities could maintain order and general respect between their people. But “because the settlements have just exploded now it’s not like necessarily everybody comes from the same area or the same province” she said, making it harder to maintain a social balance.

In Dr Hukula’s view, “the village courts and the community leaders still play an extremely important role in being that bridge” between the authorities and the settlement community, and should be supported to play that role.

She said one of the other main things the government could do to help the situation was “to make sure that there’s affordable housing for all levels, all kinds of Papua New Guineans”.

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

The Media Council of Papua New Guinea (MCPNG) has condemned an alleged assault on a senior female reporter and called on the police to conduct a full independent investigation into the incident last Friday.

Council president Neville Choi also condemned the attack and threat against one of its own
members, saying reporters in Papua New Guinea must be “respected for the work that they do in informing and educating the public of what is happening around them”.

A statement at the weekend by the MCPNG detailed the circumstances of the attack and although the reporter was not named in the report, she was bylined in her news story about injuries suffered by prisoners in an attempted break-out at the Bomana jail near the capital Port Moresby.

• READ MORE: PNG Media Council calls for investigation after alleged assault of journalist
• PNG Media Council calls for investigation into assault of reporter by CS officers

The reporter, Rebecca Kuku, is an experienced reporter of The National daily newspaper.

Her article reported that “more than 50 remandees were injured, and nine hospitalised in what a top official described as a failed jail break” at the Bomana Correctional Service Institution on Monday, 23 February 2026. Photographs of some of the injured remandees were published with the article.

The MCPNG statement said “an attack on one journalist is an attack on the media industry”.

The statement said that the attack happened about 11am on Friday, February 27, as Kuku was about to enter Correctional Service headquarters to attend a Press conference.

‘Confronted by 5 officers’
“She was confronted by five Correctional Service male officers who questioned her about an article that she had reported on in relation to injuries sustained by prisoners at the Bomana Correctional Service facility,” the statement said.

“One of the CS officers punched the female reporter on her left ear, to which she reacted by pushing him away in self-defence, while another officer attempted to slap her across the face.

“Following the incident, the reporter returned to the office and reported the matter to her editor before filing a formal police complaint regarding the attack.”

“The unprovoked attack was in relation to a news article in The National carrying the reporter’s byline entitled “50-plus prisoners injured in ‘failed’ jail break.”

The MCPNG quoted a brief statement by The National newspaper management:

“The National merely reported a serious assault upon prisoners perpetrated, it has been confirmed, by warders.

“The Prime Minister has ordered an investigation. For warders to now assault a journalist is reprehensible and does nothing to improve the image of the service.

“We are fully supporting our journalist in filing a criminal assault case. We are calling on the CS command to look into this and discipline the officers responsible.

“We have lodged a complaint with the CS management. Regardless of this we will continue to report fairly all matters to do with CS including this incident.”

‘Damning evidence’
Since the incident, said the MCPNG, said it had received “damning evidence” which included Whatsapp messages and voice notes which reflected the “very worrying conduct of officers” within the Correctional Services.

The media council reminded the public that “freedom of the press is the fundamental right
of journalists and media organisations to report, publish, and disseminate information, news, and opinions without government censorship, intimidation, or undue restriction”.

President Neville Choi condemned the attack and threat, saying reporters in Papua New Guinea must be respected for the work that they do in informing and educating the public of what is happening around them.

He added that citizens not happy with a news report could raise a formal complaint with the MCPNG Media by writing to the council, or via its website complaints page.

In a comment reported by ABC News, Choi said public servants and authorities needed to understand the importance of journalists.

“We’re not here to point fingers at anybody, we’re here to report the facts and for our citizens to make more informed decisions and even for authorities to pay attention to what may be happening that they don’t know about.”

The National reported that Prime Minister James Marape had ordered a full investigation.

Amnesty International has condemned Israeli authorities over unleashing a series of unlawful measures deliberately designed to dispossess Palestinians in the occupied West Bank — including East Jerusalem — and to make the annexation of the territory an irreversible reality.

These decisions since December 2025 represent an unprecedented escalation – in scale and speed – in Israel’s project to expand illegal settlements.

They facilitate the takeover of more Palestinian land, authorise a record number of new settlements, expanding existing ones, and formalise registration of land in the West Bank as Israeli state property.

• READ MORE: Other Israeli illegal annexation reports

While successive Israeli governments have pursued policies aimed at expanding settlements and entrenching occupation and apartheid, the latest measures underscore how the current Israeli government has turbocharged these efforts, in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza.

“What we are witnessing is a state, led by a Prime Minister wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, openly gloating about its defiance of international law,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns.

“Despite hundreds of UN resolutions, Advisory Opinions from the International Court of Justice and global condemnation, Israel continues to brazenly expand illegal settlements, entrenching its cruel system of apartheid and destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods.

“The unconditional support of the USA government, combined with the pervasive lack of international accountability for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, decades of crimes under international law linked to its unlawful occupation and its system of apartheid, has further emboldened Israel to escalate its illegal actions.

‘Formalising land grabs’
“This includes formalising land grabs with full confidence that it will face no consequences.

“The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action.”

— Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns.

“The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action.

“Third states have failed to respect their own legal obligations, refusing to use the tools at their disposal, such as suspension of the EU Israel Association Agreement, to deter Israel from pursuing its unlawful agenda.”

On 10 December 2025, the Israel Land Authority published a tender for 3401 housing units in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

The plan seeks to expand the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and create a continuum with occupied East Jerusalem.

This would sever the West Bank in two, permanently rupturing urban Palestinian contiguity between Ramallah, occupied East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem.

Forced transfer of Palestinians
Together with the construction of a bypass road which was set to begin this month, this plan will also lead to the forcible transfer of the Palestinian communities living in the area.

While since the 1990s successive Israeli governments have attempted to implement the E1 plan, it remained largely dormant for decades due to international pressure.

Its current advancement with such speed signifies a government that is brazenly pursuing its settlement expansion agenda amidst insufficient international pushback.

Since its occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, Israel has introduced and developed an oppressive administrative and legal architecture of dispossession and control against Palestinians.

The current government has been relentlessly accelerating this project by fast-tracking settlement expansion and land seizures.

On 11 December 2025, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to establish 19 new settlements, bringing the total number approved by the current coalition government to 68 in just three years and the total number of official settlements to about 210.

About 750,000 Israeli settlers currently live illegally in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Retroactive ‘legalisation’
The new settlements include the retroactive “legalisation” of outposts built in violation of even Israel’s own domestic laws.

Credible media reports indicate at least three of these sites sit upon land from which Palestinian communities, such as Ein Samia and Ras Ein al-Ouja, were recently forcibly transferred following state-backed settler violence.

According to Peace Now, an Israeli organisation monitoring settlement expansion, in 2025 alone, a record 86 outposts were established, primarily “herding” or “farming” outposts” which have significantly contributed to the spike in state-backed settler violence and forcible transfer of Palestinian communities.

Protected by the Israeli military and funded by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, the outposts have turned the lives of Palestinian farmers and shepherds, particularly in Area C, into a “living hell”.

Settlers in the outposts aggressively prevent Palestinian shepherds from accessing their grazing land, depriving them of their main livelihood, as well as seizing land by force, vandalizing property, stealing livestock and attacking Palestinians and their homes.

According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, 21 Palestinian communities were fully or partially uprooted in 2025 as a result of state-backed settler violence.

A mother of three from Ras Ein al-Ouja, near Jericho, told Amnesty International: “The fear of attacks forced us to put our children to bed with their shoes on, because we might have to flee at any moment.”

Freezing cold
In January 2026, she and her family were driven out in the freezing cold along with another 122 families — in total more than 600 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from this community.

A declaration by the Israeli civil administration on 5 January 2026 designating 694 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian towns of Deir Istiya, Bidya and Kafr Thulth in the northern West Bank as “state land”.

This was declared along with a series of measures to expand control over the West Bank announced by Israel’s security cabinet on February 8 to mark a further escalation in Israel’s land grabs.

These measures include repealing Jordanian legislation still in force to allow Israeli settlers to purchase Palestinian land without oversight increasing Israeli civil administrative control over planning and construction in Hebron City and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, as well as granting Israeli authorities new enforcement powers in archaeological sites and in issues related to water and environment in Areas A and B.

On 15 February 2026, the Israeli cabinet issued a decision that amounts to annexation under Israeli law.

It allocated more than 244 million NIS (Israeli shekels) for the establishment of a government mechanism to facilitate land registration in Area C, transferring the powers of land registration from the civil administration to Israel’s Ministry of Justice.

Currently, nearly 58 percent of the land in Area C of the occupied West Bank is unregistered, according to Peace Now.

Seized Palestinian land
Israel has already seized more than half of that area through state land designations.

Palestinians face almost insurmountable hurdles to prove land ownership due to Israel’s archaic interpretation of Ottoman land laws which require Palestinians to provide an array of documents, maps and other records that most Palestinians do not have access to.

“Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it. Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions.”

— Erika Guevara-Rosas

“Land registration is yet another Israeli euphemism for land grabs and dispossession. Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it,” Erika Guevara-Rosas said.

“Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions.

“Israel has totally disregarded its obligations as an Occupying Power towards Palestinian civilians and instead has deliberately and consistently advanced its aggressive annexation agenda, in blatant violation of international law, which categorically prohibits annexation and establishment of settlements in occupied territory.

“These measures are in brazen defiance of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinions of 2004 and 2024, the latter of which unequivocally found Israel’s presence in the OPT to be unlawful.

“A subsequent UN General Assembly resolution set September 2025 as the deadline to end Israel’s unlawful occupation.

“Yet instead of complying, Israel has simply invented new ways to violate international law, further entrenching its unlawful occupation and apartheid — while the international community continues, at best, to pay lip service to Palestinians’ rights and taken no effective action.”

Republished from Amnesty International.

By Jodesz Gavilan in Manila

The confirmation of charges hearings at the International Criminal Court (ICC) kicked off on Monday this week setting the stage for four days of high-stakes arguments over former President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war.

The team of prosecutors, victims’ representatives, and the defence are laying out their cases aiming to prove — or challenge — whether Duterte’s actions warrant trial.

After this pre-trial hearing, the ICC judges may decide whether there is enough evidence to move forward to a full trial, a process that could define Duterte’s legacy and signal accountability.

• READ MORE: Other Rodrigo Duterte reports

The past few days have been tense, with prosecutors presenting the systematic anti-illegal drug campaign that led to the thousands of deaths under Duterte, while victims’ representatives described the human toll in stark terms.

The defence team, so far, has painted a portrait of a president who was tough, outspoken, and misunderstood, but whose actions, they argued, were within the law.

Rappler has highlighted some of the most striking statements from the sessions. This will be updated as the confirmation of charges progresses and ends tomorrow.

Day 1 — February 23, 2026

Read the highlights from Day 1 at Rappler

“Mr Duterte’s criminal plan and his intent were no secret. He not only shared them with his co-perpetrators and members of the [Davao Death Squad], but also made them abundantly clear to the general public in the numerous public statements that he made time and again.

“His intent and knowledge are shown by the multiple statements that he made throughout his mayoral and presidential tenure promising to reduce crimes by killing alleged criminals, promoting the common plan, and urging the police and even members of the public to kill alleged criminals.”

— Deputy ICC prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang on how Duterte’s public speeches demonstrate his intent and knowledge in promoting drug war killings

“The arrest and detention of Mr Duterte has not stopped impunity in the Philippines. The virus of impunity that he spread all over the country has become a cancer that has metastasised, infecting millions of Filipinos. Mr. Duterte has created clones of himself. He converted millions of peace-loving citizens into bloodthirsty disciples who have become converts to the belief that violence and killings are valid solutions to societal problems.

“The killings masterminded by Mr Duterte continue to have consequences for the victims, even to this day, because of his clones. These mini-Dutertes harass, threaten, or commit outright violence against the victims and their families.”

— Lawyer Joel Butuyan, ICC-appointed common legal representative for victims, on the culture of impunity in the Philippines and the continuing threats faced by families of drug war victims

“If the charges are not confirmed in this case, one of the gravest concerns of the victims is that Mr Duterte will return to the Philippines as a conquering hero. He will resume preaching his gospel of impunity. In fact, if Mr Duterte could threaten to slap the judges of this court — which he did while he was president — this chamber should imagine the kind of terror-filled threats and the violent actions that can easily be used against the victims if the suspect walks free from this court.”

— Lawyer Joel Butuyan, ICC-appointed common legal representative for victims, on the potential risks if Duterte is not tried in court and punished.

“Rodrigo Duterte was, and will always remain, a unique phenomenon. His style of statesmanship was novel and unpalatable to many. His expletives and hyperbole grated, while his honesty and wild popularity irritated. He spoke openly from the heart, sincerely and truthfully. And what a contrast between him and his successor in Malacañang. For [Duterte], his word was his word, and the people knew it. For President Bongbong, his was for the wind and the people will not forget it.”

— Lead defence counsel Nicholas Kaufman on Duterte’s style of leadership and his contrast with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“[Duterte]’s rhetoric was calculated to arouse fear and obedience, to instill fear in their hearts, and to inculcate a respect for the law in their minds. Nothing more, nothing less. That was his intent, and it was not criminal.”

— Lead defence counsel Nicholas Kaufman on Duterte’s use of rhetoric to enforce law and order.

“The reality is that Mr Duterte’s message was clear, and it was understood by the perpetrators, and it was followed. That message was: commit murder at my direction, and I will protect you, I will pay you, I will promote you. That’s what happened.

“And I’ll say this as well, your Honours, for purposes of this confirmation hearing, disregard every speech ever made by Mr Duterte. Throw them all out. There is still ample evidence of substantial grounds based on the other evidence which we have put on our list of evidence. And the evidence as a whole, when you weigh it together, will show that what [Nicholas Kaufman] said is not correct, that Mr Duterte intended for his subordinates to follow the law and that he was interested and that his speeches were simply bluster.”

— Senior trial lawyer Julian Nicholls of the ICC prosecution team, on why evidence beyond his public speeches demonstrates intent to commit killings.

Day 2 — February 24, 2026

Read the highlights from Day 2 at Rappler

“Mr Duterte goes on to comment on extrajudicial killings. And as he does so, your Honours will note the nonchalant, casual manner in which he draws his finger across his throat . . .  And in this opulent, gilded presentation room, the officials laugh along with their president while he boasts about his skills in extrajudicial killing. Outside, on the streets of the Philippines, the bodies pile up.”

— Lawyer Edward Jeremy of the ICC prosecution team, on the behaviour of Duterte during public speeches that were shown in the confirmation of charges hearing

“And in the face of this public outcry, Mr Duterte was forced to temporarily withdraw police from drug operations . . .  And this led to a reduction in the frequency of killings. In announcing this temporary withdrawal, Mr Duterte sarcastically stated that he hoped that this would satisfy ‘bleeding hearts and the media’. And, in this way, he publicly communicated that this was not a genuine effort to prevent crime, but rather a temporary attempt to placate public criticism. And less than two months later, Mr Duterte decided to once again scale up operations.”

— Lawyer Edward Jeremy of the ICC prosecution team, on Duterte’s response following the killing of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos

“From everything you have heard over the past two days, there can be no doubt about Mr Duterte’s knowledge and intent. He intended that the crimes would be committed and he was aware that they would be committed as a result of implementing the common plan . . .  Mr Duterte knew because he himself established the DDS to kill people. He repeatedly broadcast his intention to implement the common plan nationally if elected president. He made it clear that this would involve killing.

“Once he was president, he moved his trusted co-perpetrators from Davao into key national positions. And as the number of killings rose, Mr Duterte persisted with the common plan. He praised the 32 killings in a one-time big-time operation in Bulacan. He publicly named so-called high-value targets. He promised to protect police and as your Honours have heard, Mr Duterte has admitted to many of these things.”

— Lawyer Robynne Croft of the ICC prosecution team, on the deliberate orchestration of drug war killings and the role of the Davao Death Squad and national officials in executing the common plan.

“We speak for families who cannot be here, mothers who buried their sons, children who lost their parents, the spouses who now raise families alone, and communities that have lived for years under fear and silence and that continue to bear the consequences of violence that swept through their neighborhoods like a storm. These victims appear today before you not as mere statistics or distant figures or images in reports . . . but as human beings whose rights under the Rome Statute have been violated in the most profound ways.”

— Paolina Massida, principal counsel of the Office of Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV), on what the families of drug war victims had to go — and are going — through.

“The shooting could happen immediately, behind closed doors or in the street, or the victims would be taken away by the gunmen, only for shots to be heard minutes later and the body to be discovered by local residents. At times, bodies were dumped elsewhere, sometimes with hands tied or heads wrapped in plastic. Relatives typically found them after being alerted by policemen or by the neighbors.”

— Paolina Massida, OPCV principal counsel, on the pattern of killings during Duterte’s drug war.

“In other cases, victims tried to seek justice. They went to the police, to local officials, to government agencies. They filed reports, they asked for investigation, they begged for answers. Their pleas were ignored, their complaints were dismissed, their testimonies were doubted. In some cases, the very people they approached for help were the same ones involved in the violence. They were left with no path forward. No institution was willing to hear them, no authority was willing to protect them, no system was willing to acknowledge what was happening.”

— Paolina Massida, OPCV principal counsel, on the systemic failure in the Philippines to provide justice or protection for drug war victims.

“The victims have waited years for this moment. They have been silenced, stigmatized, and denied justice in their own country. Today, they stand before you with the hope that justice long denied may finally be within reach. This [ICC] is their last refuge. And today, on their behalf, we ask this chamber to affirm that their suffering matters, that their rights matter, and that the rule of law extends even to the most powerful by confirming all the charges against Mr Duterte and committing him to trial.”

— Paolina Massida, OPCV principal counsel, on the appeal of victims for accountability.

“Mr Duterte’s drug war campaign targeted the very humanity of the victims, of their families, and of their communities. In Filipino, the indirect victims expressed this in one sentence: ‘Inalisan kami ng dangal.’ We were stripped of our dignity.”

— Lawyer Gilbert Andres, ICC-appointed common legal representative for victims, on their dehumanisation and targeting during Duterte’s drug war.

Republished from Rappler with permission.

A number of remand prisoners at Papua New Guinea’s Bomana Prison have been injured in a confrontation with Correctional Services officers.

Port Moresby General Hospital has confirmed to local media that nine inmates were rushed to hospital, and that two are in a critical condition.

Sources at the maximum security prison in Port Moresby told RNZ Pacific that on Monday officers conducted a standard activity in a cell block where they ordered 62 men held on remand to vacate their cells and allow a search.

• READ MORE: Other PNG prisons reports

The stated objective of the search was to locate contraband, specifically mobile phones.

However, the inmates allege that officers destroyed property belonging to remandees, including “essential legal and court documents, clothing, bedding, and various personal necessities”.

They also claim officers misappropriated property, including food rations.

When the inmates subsequently protested about their belongings being destroyed or taken away, a confrontation resulted.

Officers responded ‘violently’
They claim officers responded violently, called in off-duty officers for reinforcement and brutally assaulted most of the 62 remandees with bush knives, iron bars and other instruments.

A source within PNG’s Correctional Services has confirmed to RNZ Pacific that a confrontation took place between inmates and officers.

Acting Correctional Services Commissioner Bernard Nepo also confirmed the incident to The National newspaper, but did not address the circumstances around the injuries.

RNZ Pacific spoke briefly with the Minister for Corrections, Joe Kuli, who said he was not aware of the incident, but that he would seek information from officials.

RNZ Pacific has sought comment from Correctional Services.

The inmates are seeking intervention by higher authorities over what they describe as “inhumane treatment” and misconduct by Correctional Services officers.

Many of the inmates are being held in prolonged pre-trial detention. Due to a backlog in PNG’s court system, some remandees wait years in prison before going to trial.

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

A West Papuan leader has accused the Indonesian government of lying over its operations and “masking” the military role of some civilian aircraft.

Disputing an Indonesian government statement about reported that TPNPB fired upon an aircraft in Boven Digoel, killing both the pilot and copilot, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda said the aircraft was “not civilian”.

Wenda added that the Indonesian government was “tricking the world” about its military operations in West Papua.

• READ MORE: Confusion over West Papua bombing, displacement claims
• Indonesia bombing refugee camps in West Papua, says Wenda
• More West Papua reports

“The Cessna plane the TPNPB [West Papua National Liberation Army] fired upon in Boven Digoel was not a civilian plane, as the police spokesman misleadingly stated, but part of a security operation,” Wenda said in a statement.

“Indonesia is again disguising their military activity as [civilian] activity. They are also willfully breaching the no-fly zones established by the TPNPB.”

The occupied conflict areas in which the Indonesian military TNI were “not permitted to fly” had been “clearly marked out by the TPNPB”.

“This is the same pattern Indonesia used in 1977, when Indonesia used a disguised civilian plane to bomb villages across the highlands and massacre thousands, including many members of my own family,” Wenda said.

Clear strategy
He added there was a clear strategy behind this — “Indonesia wants to avoid the attention that would be drawn by a large scale military buildup, so they mask their introduction of weapons and other military equipment and personnel”.

Wenda said they were effectively “using their own people as human shields”.

Indonesian soldiers and equipment next to a civilian aircraft. Image: ULMWP

The TPNPB attacks took place on February 11, with the plane being downed and the pilot and co-pilot being killed.

A second attack took place in Mimika, near the Grasberg gold and copper mine, which has been the cause of so much West Papuan deaths over the past 40 years.

“Indonesia then immediately began operating their propaganda machine, claiming that the planes were simply engaged in civilian and medical supply distribution,” Wenda said.

“The truth is that these aircraft were involved in intelligence and security operations.

Media blackout
“Indonesia is only able to spread these lies and mislead the international community because of their six-decades long media blackout in West Papua.

“No journalists or NGOs are allowed to operate in our land. West Papua is a closed society, just like North Korea. I thank God we have civilian journalists to document their lies.”

By breaching these rules the military were inviting further attacks, Wenda said.

“We must always remember that the Indonesian military uses any armed action by West Papuans for their own gain, as a pretext for more militarisation, more displacement, and more deforestation and ecocide.”

Wenda said their aim was always to escalate the situation as a way of ethnically cleansing Papuans, forcing them to become refugees in their own land, and strengthening their colonial hold over West Papua.

“It isn’t a coincidence that in the week since this incident we have seen an escalation in Yahukimo, an Indonesia-occupied community health centre, and transformed it into a military post, displacing and traumatising local residents.”

Using hospitals and other health infrastructure for military means was a clear breach of international humanitarian law, Wenda said.

Normal for military
In West Papua such behaviour was normal for the military.

“In the same week in Puncak regency, Indonesian military personnel seized a school, preventing students from learning and putting ordinary people at risk of harm. Soldiers are posted in classrooms with guns.”

Wenda called on the Indonesian government to withdraw their troops from occupied West Papua, allow civilians to return home, cease using civilian vehicles as a cover for military action, and immediately facilitate a UN Human Rights visit to West Papua — as has been demanded by more than 110 UN Member states.

“Ultimately, Indonesia must come to the table to discuss a referendum,” Wenda said. “This is the only path to a peaceful solution in West Papua.”

An Indonesian Embassy spokesperson blamed the “armed criminal group”, an expression it  uses to describe resistance movement fighters.

Fiji’s former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and ex-police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho are out on bail after appearing in court, charged with inciting mutiny.

The pair appeared for a first call before the Suva Magistrates Court yesterday and were granted bail under strict conditions.

Magistrate Yogesh Prasad also issued a stop departure order, meaning they cannot leave Fiji.

• READ MORE: Former PM Bainimarama and Qiliho charged with inciting mutiny
• Other Fiji politics reports

The state requested time to provide a full set of disclosures to the defence and the matter was adjourned until March 5.

Prosecutors allege that in 2023 the two encouraged senior military officers to arrest and overthrow their commander, Ro Jone Kalouniwai.

They are alleged to have spoken with high-ranking military officers during a meeting and “grog session” in July that year at Bainimarama’s Suva home.

Bainimarama also faces a second charge relating to text messages he allegedly sent between January and July 2023 to Brigadier General Manoa Gadai urging him to take command.

Night behind bars
The long-serving former prime minister, who is also a former head of Fiji’s military, spent Wednesday night behind bars with Qiliho before their court appearance.

They were arrested, handcuffed and driven to Totogo police station following lengthy questioning that day.

The Opposition leader Inia Seruiratu said the timing of their arrest suggested it was politically-motivated.

The former FijiFirst MP claims Bainimarama is still a threat to Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government.

“Political opponents, of course Bainimarama and [Aiyaz Sayed-] Khaiyum and a few others are a big threat to the current government.

There may be political reasons behind this because of the elections in 2026.” Seruiratu said.

Party rebranded
The opposition leader has rebranded the deregistered FijiFirst party and set up a new political party, People First, to contest the general election.

Seruiratu said he had hoped Bainimarama would back the new party, but he did not.

He still believes Bainimarama has political currency.

“Although people may think they [Bainimarama and Sayed-Khaiyum] are just minor players, they can be involved to some extent, given their past achievements and popularity. They still have support, they still have sympathisers, Seruiratu said.

RNZ Pacific has sought comment from military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Eroni Duaibe and the government’s information director Samisoni Pareti.

Serious allegations
Fiji Labour party leader, Mahendra Chaudhry is questioning why it took the government so long to deal with the allegations.

“The charges and allegations are serious. If such attempts were made to incite mutiny, they should have been investigated much earlier and disposed of, rather than coming right toward the end of the term of the current government.”

Seruiratu added that their arrest reflects well on Fiji.

“No-one is above the law, this is the rule of law in action. Of course everyone, regardless of who you are in society, is answerable to the law and it is happening in Fiji right now.”

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

The issue of Australians — and New Zealanders as well — serving in the Israeli military has sparked growing debate as the genocidal war crimes in Gaza mount.

Most of those involved are believed to be dual Israeli-Australian citizens, and under current Australian law, it is not automatically illegal to join a recognised foreign army, reports OnePath Network.

However, critics say the lack of transparency, including unclear numbers, roles, and oversight, is troubling, especially while international courts are examining serious allegations linked to the conflict.

• READ MORE: Thousands of Western nationals fought Israel’s war on Gaza: What to know
• Other Gaza genocide reports

Proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel is on trial for  genocide in a case brought by South Africa, and International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu and other officials have intensified questions about Australia’s responsibility to monitor its citizens abroad.

According to an Al Jazeera report, more than 50,000 Western nationals — most of them holding US or European Union passports — have joined the Israeli military in its genocidal war that has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians.

The largest number is from the United States — 12,350 dual nationality US-Israel citizens and 1207 multiple nationalities — followed by 6127 French dual national citizens and 337 multiple nationalities, according to data obtained by the Israeli NGO Hatzlacha through Israel’s Freedom of Information Law.

Australia is well down the list with 502 dual nationality soldiers and 119 multiple nationality citizens. New Zealand is 56th with 39 and 11.

Accountability major concern
A major concern being raised is accountability: if any Australians serving in Gaza were involved in alleged war crimes, would they actually be investigated?

Legal experts say Australia has “universal jurisdiction” laws, meaning citizens can theoretically be prosecuted for serious crimes committed overseas, but so far, there has been little public evidence of active investigations.

Critics argue this creates a perception of double standards.

The debate ultimately centres on whether Australia is willing to apply the same scrutiny to its own nationals in foreign conflicts, ensuring that military service abroad does not place individuals beyond the reach of the law.

Similar questions apply to New Zealand.

A preliminary check of the latest Jeffrey Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice identifies several notable appearances of Pacific Island countries.

Where Pacific Islands people or places are mentioned in the deceased convicted pedophile’s emails, they often appear in routine daily news summaries, immigration or visa advice and briefings about offshore financial services in jurisdictions including some of the Pacific’s renowned tax havens.

But amid the bland items there are communications in the files which speak more sharply to Epstein’s way of life, his influential connections and the global nature of his trafficking network.

• READ MORE: Maher Nazzal: The Epstein Files – the real scandal is the silence
• Struggling to navigate the Epstein files? Here is a visual guide
• Other Epstein Files reports

Tahiti is mentioned in various email exchanges involving Epstein, including with people who were actively on the look out for young females.

It features in correspondence with Jean-Luc Brunel, the late French model scout who killed himself in a French prison while awaiting trial for charges including the rape of minors.

“Who is the girl that antoine verglas shot about a month ago [sic],” Brunel asks Epstein on 14 August 2013, “Is it the girl from tahiti”?

In June that same year, the president of the New York Giants, Steve Tisch, asked Epstein about another female from Tahiti who the late pedophile wanted him to meet, enquiring whether she was a “working girl”.

Tisch has not been charged with any wrongdoing connected with Epstein.

Epstein appears to have visited French Polynesia numerous times between 2005 and 2017, sometimes staying in Bora Bora, according to bank statements released by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The files also show emails with Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, while she was in Tahiti, in 2009. Maxwell was later found guilty of grooming and trafficking girls as young as 14 years old for him and given a 20-year prison sentence in the US.

‘Fiji Water and candy’
For a time, Epstein was evidently obsessed with Fiji Water, the popular natural artesian water product sourced from Yaqara in Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu.

Bottles of Fiji Water were a common sight in Epstein’s dwellings, as one girl who was employed at an Epstein residence observed in a note book-type entry used as testimony for investigators and now shared on DOJ’s website:

“Kitchen — stacks of fiji water bottles. Woman had bikini bottoms on & had towel walk through. This is how rich people live, beautiful naked people around.”

Other files show people who managed Epstein’s household and travel were often ordering new boxes of Fiji Water — at home or on the go, Fiji Water had to be in supply.

“Principal prefers Fiji water and candy on his vehicles while being transported. Principal prefers finger food snacks with Fiji water in his jets while being transported,” advised one assistant.

Holidays in the sun
Epstein often invited people to visit, and his correspondence in the files is full of instances of him reaching out to fellow global travellers, often to find them already holidaying, in the Pacific:

“Im in santa fe, come visit,” said Epstein to someone named Reid Hoffmann who appears to be Reid Hoffmann, the founder of Linkedln, on 14 August, 2013.

“I am in Papua New Guinea mostly off grid,” Hoffman replied.

There’s a similar exchange with former Microsoft executive, Nathan Myhrvold, who replied on 28 November 2016 that he was in Rarotonga.

There is no suggestion that Hoffmann or Myhrvold are involved in any wrongdoing connected with Epstein.

Crypto and MBS
Epstein was interested in a plan announced by the Marshall Islands government in early 2018 to release its own cryptocurrency to serve as an official legal tender in the Micronesian country.

On March 1 that year he sent information about the Marshalls’ crypto plan in an email to Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist for Donald Trump during his first term as US President.

What is perhaps more interesting is the exchange in the prior emails in the thread.

“MBS coming to wash 19th,” Epstein said to Bannon in reference to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s upcoming visit to Washington DC.

Bannon was across it and replied “To have breakfast with Jared”, in apparent reference to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Then talk turned to crypto in the Marshalls.

Shipping hassles
On his behalf, Epstein’s assistants purchased some cultural artwork from Papua New Guinea.

An invoice issued in July 2012 from Wewak-based company Pacific Artefacts, and addressed to New Zealander Brice Gordon, who worked for Epstein, listed the artwork as “Kwoma Tribe Painted Bark Panels”, priced at US$6000.

But getting an export permit for the panels from the PNG National Museum proved a lengthy process, as did arranging for the shipping through PNG’s national carrier Air Niugini, according to emails from a clearly frustrated Epstein assistant whose name is redacted.

This person was familiar with Air Niugini, and found its tracking system too inefficient, as per their email from 2 July 2012.

“I have never been able to track a shipment in the ‘system’. Inwards or outwards. I send in donated medical supplies about 4 times a year to a surgeon and it has much of the same frustrating path as this one seems to be having,” he said.

Yachts and Russians
Even after he died, Epstein’s reach was felt in the Pacific, including in relation to a yacht coming to the attention of the FBI while docked in Palau.

Amid the files is an exchange between late 2021 and early 2022 involving FBI officers following a heads-up that “Epstein’s yacht is parked down here in Palau” amid “a possible effort by a Russian oligarch to use Palau as a haven for their yacht”.

“Is our chain of command interested in this information? The Palauan government I previously tried to provide us with information a couple months ago on a yacht they believe had ties to one of the spin off Jeffery Epstein cases where they also demonstrated a willingness to assist USG/DOJ in impounding the vessel.”

It is unclear if the boat — which an attaché for the FBI in Canberra noted was registered in the Marshall Islands — was ever impounded.

But it is one more Pacific connection in the DOJ’s mass collection of files which, when not redacted, shed light on a powerful abuser whose tentacles spread around the globe.

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

The Epstein Files were never just about one man.

Jeffrey Epstein didn’t operate in a vacuum. His crimes were grotesque, systematic, and, crucially, protected for decades. That alone should unsettle anyone who believes power is held accountable.

What’s disturbing isn’t only what he did, but what didn’t happen afterwards.

• READ MORE: Struggling to navigate the Epstein files? Here is a visual guide
• Other Epstein Files reports

How does a trafficker move across borders, fly politicians and royalty, launder wealth, avoid serious prosecution for years, and then conveniently die in a high-security facility with cameras malfunctioning and guards “asleep”?

That’s not a coincidence. That’s institutional failure at best, complicity at worst.

The real scandal is the silence.

Names were known. Networks were hinted at. Evidence existed. Yet accountability stopped at Epstein himself, the perfect firewall.

How power protects itself
Once he was gone, so was the urgency. Files sealed. Investigations stalled. Media interest redirected.

This is how power protects itself.

Whether you call it the Deep State, the ruling class, elite immunity, or simply entrenched systems of power, the pattern is familiar:

The powerful are insulated, the truth is managed, and justice is selective.

Epstein wasn’t an anomaly. He was a symptom.

And until transparency replaces secrecy, and accountability reaches upward instead of downward, the question will remain:

Who was Epstein really working for?

And who benefited most from him never speaking?

Maher Khalil Nazzal is a Muslim Palestinian refugee living in Auckland and co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

The United States has designated two high-profile public office holders from Palau and the Marshall Islands for “significant corruption”, the US Department of State says.

Palau’s Senate president Hokkons Baules has been designated “for his involvement in significant corruption on behalf of China-based actors,” while the former mayor of the Kili/Bikini/Ejit community in the Marshall Islands Anderson Jibas has been designated “for his involvement in significant corruption and misappropriation of US provided funds during his time in public office”, the department said in a news release.

The designations render Baules, Jibas, and their immediate family members ineligible for entry into the US.

According to the State Department, Baules abused his public position by accepting bribes in exchange for providing advocacy and support for government, business, and criminal interests from China.

“His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected US interests in Palau.”

Baules has dismissed the allegations, telling news media last April he was the target of a smear campaign aimed at ruining his name.

The department said Jibas abused his public position “by orchestrating and financially benefiting from multiple misappropriation schemes involving theft, misuse, and abuse of funds from the US-provided Bikini Resettlement Trust”.

Stolen funds
It added Jibas’ actions resulted in most of the funds being stolen from the Kili/Bikini/Ejit people who are survivors and descendants of survivors of nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s.

“The theft, misuse, and abuse of the US-provided money for the fund wasted US taxpayer money and contributed to a loss of jobs, food insecurity, migration to the United States, and lack of reliable electricity for the Kili/Bikini/Ejit people.

“The lack of accountability for Jibas’ acts of corruption has eroded public trust in the government of the Marshall Islands, creating an opportunity for malign foreign influence from China and others.”

US laws allow the government to name foreign nationals and their close family if there is strong evidence they were involved in serious corruption or human rights violations.

The designations come at a time of intense strategic competition between the US and China over influence in the Pacific.

Both Palau and the Marshall Islands have Compacts of Free Association (COFA) with the US, which grant the US exclusive military access in exchange for economic aid.

“The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who abuse public power for personal gain and steal from our citizens to enrich themselves. These designations reaffirm the United States’ commitment to countering global corruption affecting US interests,” the State Department said.

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

Speaking before the Senate Banking Committee this week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explicitly stated that the US deliberately caused a financial crisis in Iran with the goal of fomenting civil unrest in the country.

Asked by Senator Katie Britt what more the US could be doing to place pressure on the Ayatollah and Iran, Bessent explained on Thursday that the Treasury Department had implemented a “strategy” designed to undermine the Iranian currency which crashed the economy and sparked the violent protests we have seen throughout the country.

“One thing we could do at Treasury, and what we have done, is created a dollar shortage in the country,” Bessent said. “At a speech at the Economic Club in March I outlined the strategy.

• LISTEN: A reading by Tim Foley
• Other Iran reports

It came to a swift and I would say grand culmination in December when one of the largest banks in Iran went under.

“There was a run on the bank, the central bank had to print money, the Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded, and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.”

This is not the first time Bessent has made these admissions. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, the Treasury Secretary said the following:

“President Trump ordered Treasury and our OFAC division, Office of Foreign Asset Control, to put maximum pressure on Iran.

And it’s worked, because in December, their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under; the central bank has started to print money. There is dollar shortage.

They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the street. So, this is economic statecraft, no shots fired, and things are moving in a very positive way here.”

Following these remarks, Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Farres wrote the following for Common Dreams:

“What Secretary Bessent describes is of course not ‘economic statecraft’ in a traditional sense. It is war conducted by economic means, all designed to produce an economic crisis and social unrest leading to a fall of the government. This is proudly hailed as ‘economic statecraft.’

“The human suffering caused by outright war and crushing economic sanctions is not so different as one might think. Economic collapse produces shortages of food, medicine, and fuel, while also destroying savings, pensions, wages, and public services.

Deliberate economic collapse drives people into poverty, malnutrition, and premature death, just as outright war does.”

Bessent laid out these plans in advance at the Economic Club of New York back in March of last year, saying the following:

“Last month, the White House announced its maximum pressure campaign on Iran designed to collapse its already buckling economy. The Iranian economy is in disarray; 35 peRcent official inflation, has a currency that has depreciated 60 percent in the last 12 months, and an ongoing energy crisis.

“I know a few things about currency devaluations, and if I were an Iranian, I would get all of my money out of the Rial now.

“This precarious state exists before our Maximum Pressure campaign, designed to collapse Iranian oil exports from the current 1.5–1.6, million barrels per day, back to the trickle they were when President Trump left office.

“Iran has developed a complex shadow network of financial facilitators and black-market oil shippers via a ghost fleet to sell oil, petrochemical and other commodities to finance its exports and generate hard currency.

“As such, we have elevated a sanctions campaign against this export infrastructure, targeting all stages of Iran’s oil supply chain. We have coupled this with vigorous government engagement and private sector outreach.

“We will close off Iran’s access to the international financial system by targeting regional parties that facilitate the transfer of its revenues. Treasury is prepared to engage in frank discussions with these countries. We are going to shut down Iran’s oil sector and drone manufacturing capabilities.

“We have predetermined benchmarks and timelines. Making Iran Broke Again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy. Watch this space.”

The US has been orchestrating plans to foment unrest in Iran by causing economic strife for years. In 2019 Trump’s previous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo openly acknowledged that the goal of Washington’s economic warfare against Iran was to make the population so miserable that they “change the government”, cheerfully citing the “economic distress” the nation had been placed under by US sanctions.

As unrest tore through Iran last month, Trump egged protesters on and encouraged them to escalate, saying “To all Iranian patriots, keep protesting, take over your institutions, if possible, and save the name of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you,” adding, “all I say to them is help is on its way.”

Deliberately trying to ignite a civil war in a country by immiserating its population so severely that they start attacking their own government out of sheer desperation is one of the most evil things you can possibly imagine.

But under the Western empire it’s just another day. They’re doing it in Iran, and they’ve also aggressively ramped up efforts to do it in Cuba, where the government has just announced it will be rationing oil as the US moves to strangle the island nation into regime change.

A lot of attention is going into The Epstein Files right now, and understandably so. But it’s worth noting that nothing in them is as depraved and abusive as what our rulers are doing right out in the open.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

Fast-paced electronic music pumps in the background as a rapid montage of moving images flash across the screen.

In a 20 second video, French sailors hunker down in an inflatable speeding over swells.

Another sailor, in bright red shorts, is lowered from a helicopter onto the vessel’s back deck. Captured crew with faces blurred are held in a galley, as bags full of drugs are pulled from below deck and loaded onto pallets for lift-off.

• READ MORE:  France’s High Commission reports seizure of 4.87 tonnes of cocaine in French Polynesian waters
• Lack of investigation into cocaine vessel could hamper regional drug mapping, expert warns
• Other Pacific drug reports

“Throwback to the latest drug seizure at sea by the French Navy, as if you were part of it,” reads the social media caption from French armed forces, documenting last month’s drug seizure by the frigate Prairial.

What the video does not show
French sailors dropping 4.87 tonnes of cocaine into the ocean near the Tuamotu group, north-east of Tahiti. Tossing drugs overboard may be a time-honoured tactic for drug smugglers at sea — but a new one for authorities.

“This record seizure is a successful outcome of the new territorial plan to combat narcotics developed by the High Commissioner of the Republic in French Polynesia,” reads a statement on their website.

Record seizure — worth at least US$150 million — and record disposal, in record time.

One raising questions worldwide.

Why?
“Why won’t France open an investigation after the seizure of these 5 tons of cocaine?” reads the January 20 headline in the French edition of Huffington Post.

Prosecutors in Tahiti emphasised the costs faced by French Polynesia if it were to prosecute all drug traffickers.

“Our primary mission is to prevent drugs from entering the country and to combat trafficking in Polynesia,” said Public Prosecutor Solène Belaouar. As “more and more traffickers transit through our waters we must address the issue of managing this new flow.”

Belaouar told French media that prosecuting drug cases locally costs 12,000 French Pacific francs a day, or about US$120 per person.

This new concern about costs came as the French territory winds up another drug trafficking case. Under those estimates, the conviction of 14 Ecuador sailors caught smuggling in December 2024 would represent around US$600,000.

Last Thursday, they had their appeal against trafficking 524 kilos on the MV Raymi dismissed, meaning their jail sentences of six to eight years are confirmed. Costs of this case compare with the US$93 million spent between 2013 and 2017 constructing a new prison, Tatutu de Papeari,  with a capacity of 410 inmates in Tahiti.

A question sent via social media about the drug dump went unanswered by ALPACI, Amiral commandant la zone maritime de l’océan Pacifique.

Overall, drug seizures by French forces worldwide have increased dramatically.

A total of 87.6 tons of drugs were seized in 2025 in cooperation with state services, including local police, customs and the French Anti-Drug and Smuggling Office (OFAST), nearing twice the previous record of 48.3 tons set the year before, in 2024.

Those statistics seem unlikely to quieten concerns about the new cost-cutting strategy.

Sunny day
Boarded on a sunny day on January 16, the MV Raider carried a crew of 10 Honduran citizens, with one from Ecuador. All faced lengthy jail terms if convicted.

Instead, French authorities let all 11 go, allowing the crew to resume their journey on the offshore supply ship. That decision contrasts with the high-profile approach sometimes taken when it comes to illegal fishing boats, with many captured and resold or set on fire and sunk at sea.

Dozens of public social media comments in French Polynesia and the Cook Islands questioned the disposal of the drugs at sea, with some calling for the ship’s seizure. Tahiti news media were the first to question the decision to catch and release.

“4.87 tonnes of cocaine . . .  but no legal action taken,” Tahiti Nui Television noted as the news broke a few days later.

At first, French authorities claimed the seizure took place in international waters or the “high seas”.

Lead prosecutor Belaouar told TNTV that “Article 17 of the Vienna Convention stipulates that the navy can intercept a vessel on the high seas, check its flag of origin, ask the Public Prosecutor, and the High Commissioner is involved in the decision, if they agree that the procedure should not be pursued through the courts, and that it should therefore be handled solely administratively.”

However, TNTV also quoted legal sources as stating the drug seizure of 96 bales took place within the “maritime zone” of French Polynesia.

Ten days after first reports of the seizure, Belaouar was no longer talking about the “high seas”, instead claiming the need for a new strategy to handle drug flows.

Drug ‘superhighway’
“The Pacific has become a superhighway for drugs”, Belaouar asserted, adding that “70 percent of cocaine trafficking passes through this route.”

Those differing claims raised questions in Tahiti, and 1100 km to the south-west, when the briefly seized vessel, the MV Raider, turned up off Rarotonga broadcasting a distress signal.

Customs officials told daily Cook Islands News the vessel was reporting engine trouble, and confirmed MV Raider was the same vessel that had been intercepted by French naval forces with the drugs on board.

Live maritime records also show the tug supply boat as “anchored” at Rarotonga.

Aptly named, the Raider caught official attention before passing through the Panama Canal, with a listed destination of Sydney Australia.

Anonymous company
Sending a small coastal boat some 14,000 km across the world’s largest ocean drew attention on a route more usually plied by container ships up to nine times longer.

Also raising questions — the identity of the ship owners.

A signed certificate uploaded online by an unofficial source appears to show that the last known ownership traces to an anonymous Panama company named Newton Tecnologia SA.

That name also appears in a customer ranking report from the Panama Canal Authority, with Newton Tecnologia appearing at 541 of 550 listed companies.

Under Panama law, Sociedad Anonomi — anonymous “societies” or companies — do not need to reveal shareholders, and can be 100 percent foreign owned.

A review of various databroker services show one of the company directors as Jacinto Gonzalez Rodriguez.

A person of the same name is listed on OpenCorporates in a variety of leadership roles with 22 other companies in Panama, including engineering, marketing, a “bike messenger” venture, and as treasurer and director for an entity called “Mistic La Madam Gift Shop.”

However, Newton Tecnologia SA does does not show up in the same database, or searches of the country’s official business registry.

A similarly named company is registered in Brazil but is focused on educational equipment, not shipping, with one director showing up in search results at community art events.

‘Dark fleet’
Registered with the International Marine Organisation under call sign 5VJL2, the MV Raider is described as a “Multi Purpose Offshore Vessel” with IMO number: 9032824.

Online records indicate that the ship was built in 1991 in the United States, with a “Provisional Certificate of Registry” from the Togo Maritime Authority dated only two months ago, on 19 November 2025. With a declared destination of Sydney, Australia, the Raider and its Togo certificate are valid until 18 May 2026.

According to maritime experts, provisional certification is a red flag that allows what industry sources term the “dark fleet” to exploit open registries. This “allows entry on a temporary basis (typically three to six months) with minimal due diligence pending submission of all documentation,” according to a 2025 review from Windward, a marine risk consultancy.

“Vessels then ‘hop’ to another flag before the provisional period expires.”

Where there’s smoke
Windward listed Togo as being among ship registries that flagged ships with little to no oversight, along with Antigua and Barbuda, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belize, Cameroon, Comoros, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Hong Kong, Liberia, Mongolia, Oman, Panama, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Vietnam.

In the Pacific, other registries noted by Windward as failing basic enforcement include Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Previously registered in Honduras, the July 2023 edition of the Worldwide Tug and OSV News reports that GIS Marine LLC, a Louisiana company, sold the Raider in 2021 to an “undisclosed” interest in Honduras.

Other records indicate GIS Marine acted as managers but the actual owner was a company called International Marine in Valetta, Malta. The only company with a similar name at that address, International Marine Contractors Ltd, is shown as inactive since 2021.

For now, though, the Raider is among tens of thousands of ships operating worldwide with “provisional certification” — allowing ships to potentially skip regulations requiring expensive maintenance and repair.

That may have been the case for the Raider, with Rarotonga residents filming what one described as “smoke” rising from the ship a day after issuing a distress call.

Where there’s drug smoke, there’s usually a bonfire of questions afterwards.

Including from José Sousa-Santos, associate professor of practice and head of the University of Canterbury’s Pacific Regional Security Hub, who told Cook Islands News that since the vessel was intercepted in French Polynesian waters “it falls under French legal jurisdiction”.

Jason Brown is founder of Journalism Agenda 2025 and writes about Pacific and world journalism and ethically globalised Fourth Estate issues. He is a former co-editor of Cook Islands Press.

Papua New Guinea’s government has defended the use of force to evict residents of an informal settlement in the capital Port Moresby.

Police used tear gas to move people out of the Two-Mile settlement last week, while heavy machinery was used to tear down homes and two people were killed in clashes.

Acting Prime Minister John Rosso said the forced eviction was necessary to protect law-abiding citiizens from long-running criminal activity in the community.

• READ MORE: Two senior ministers defend Two-Mile eviction
• Police urge residents to vacate compound before evictions
• Other PNG settlements reports

The National reports him saying the settlement was on state land which had been unlawfully occupied for years.

“The settlement has, for far too long, been a major source of law and order problems, resulting in numerous attacks on city residents and police, as well as injuries to innocent people,” Rosso said.

“This eviction is not happening without reason. It is the direct result of repeated criminal activities and serious threats to public safety.

“The state has a responsibility to protect law-abiding citizens and restore order.”

Rosso, also the Minister for Lands, Physical Planning and Urbanisation expressed sympathy for the hardworking people who had been living at Two-Mile, saying that not everyone there had been involved in criminal activities.

The eviction operation prompted unrest and clashes between some settlers and police.

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

Political leaders in a Papua New Guinea province plagued by gun violence are making a collective stand to stop it.

There is a new sense of political will among Enga Province’s political leaders and police to come down hard on the use of illegal weapons. But they are confronted by a daunting task.

Recent research by Joe Barak of PNG’s National Research Institute has tracked the escalation of tribal and election-relate violence in PNG, particularly in the Highlands where the most frequent violent attacks are recorded.

• READ MORE: Other Engan reports

The research shows that Enga Province had the highest number of incidents, 79 between the years 2018 and 2022, or 27.8 percent of the overall number of incidents in the Highlands region during that period.

Prime Minister James Marape this month laid out a ‘war on guns’-type plan to crack down on lawlessness in PNG by asserting the authority of the state. But all too often in Enga the authorities have been part of the problem.

Each of the past few general elections have sparked deadly fighting between supporters of rival candidates in at least two of Enga’s electorates, with fingers of blame pointed often at political leaders.

Furthermore, there’s now more high powered weapons in circulation than ever, and in many cases they are sold by the country’s security forces, police and military.

This set of issues is not confined to Enga, but this province has seen the worst of it. A massacre in an Engan village in 2024 which killed at least 49 people was shocking even for a part of the country familiar with tribal warfare.

No respect for authority
Enga’s Governor, Sir Peter Ipatas, said people in his province had taken lawlessness to another level using modern guns, with no respect for authority.

“In the past, the tribe used to take ownership and they would discuss whether to fight or not,” he explained.

“These days, you have got young people who are on drugs or whatever, causing fights, and a lot of innocent people’s lives are at risk, so we need to come up with a tough strategy to identify all these culprits.”

Prosecutions have been lacking and this needed to change, Ipatas said, adding that it required police to “actually do their job to make sure that our people who do not respect authority, who break the laws, are investigated and prosecuted properly”.

A generally poorly resourced police force has long struggled to deal with social disorder in Enga.

Also Engans have had a lot to deal with themselves in the past couple of years, including landslide disasters, political instability and displacement of communities caused by the Porgera gold mine operations. Through it all, the violence persists.

Lethal force
Early last month in Enga’s Wapenamanda district, a raid on suspected illegal firearms holders by the elite police Kumul 23 unit resulted in five people being killed.

Despite criticism about alleged deaths of innocent people in the raid, Marape was unapologetic about the use of lethal force to target illegal gunmen

He said this approach would continue because those driving violent conflict through the build-up of illegal weapons had ruined countless lives in this area.

“Wapenamanda was a peaceful district — it’s now destroyed,” the prime minister said.

However, the former commander of PNG’s Defence Force, retired Major-General Jerry Singirok, commended Enga’s political leaders for finally saying “enough is enough”.

He said they were taking ownership of their past mistakes, and showing a willingness to get their clans and tribesmen to put down their guns.

Illegal guns
However, before Enga’s violence problem can be stemmed, the build-up of illegal firearms needs to be addressed.

General Singirok has been pushing for gun reform in the country for decades. He headed a UN-backed report into gun violence in the Highlands which was published last year, finding there could be as many as 100,000 illegal weapons in circulation in the region, many of which are sold by police, military and corrections officers.

“I had a particular encounter where a tribesman showed me a pump action shotgun bought from the police force, and the young people on the street said ‘well, if you don’t have bullets, we buy [them] from the military and the police’,” Singirok said.

“So as part of the crackdown, the government must hold security forces accountable and [serve] heavy penalties on those soldiers who are moonlighting their weapons or selling their weapons or selling ammunition.

“It’s very important to cut off the supply chain of weapons and ammunition,” he said, noting that security forces needed to enforce command and control, and regularly account for use of weapons and ammunition from their armories.

The government is looking at a range of options to reduce the massive build-up of illegal firearms across the country, with Marape mentioning a possible amnesty period and a buy-back scheme.

Singirok said the major 2005 gun reform report he authored made clear that incentives are the way to go. He said communities were more likely to give up arms if they know projects that help develop health, education or other services can be established in their area as a result.

Heat on police
Both Singirok and Ipatas said they expected that having an Engan Member of Parliament as PNG’s new police minister would help combat law and order problems in the province.

The prime minister appointed one of Enga’s veteran politicians, Sir John Pundari, the MP for Kompiam-Ambum, an electorate which has suffered repeated tribal violence since the 2022 national elections.

Firstly, rather than Enga, Pundari had his sights on PNG’s capital Port Moresby, where he singled out police senior commanders, saying they need to set an example for the rest of the country by lifting the standard of policing.

“Improve your duty statements, monitor those KPIs, do audit against those KPIs. The deliverables must be visible. The outcomes must be felt. The pride of policing in this country must start from the National Capital District.”

Pundari’s message may have been corporate in language, but it reflected hopes of many Papua New Guineans: for police to simply do their job.

To do their job they need to be properly resourced — that has not always been the case. It will have to be if police are to stop the fighting, the massacres and political vendettas in Enga.

Pundari is pushing for the death penalty to be brought back to deter violent crimes in the country.

PNG’s political class is sounding deadly serious about ending gun violence, but the ‘big men’ will have to lead by example.

As far as Enga is concerned, the true test of that commitment will come in next year’s general election.

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

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has asked for an urgent meeting with Police Commissioner Richard Chambers and is calling for “cohesive action” over escalating attacks by Israel supporters against Palestinians and human rights activists.

The network said in a statement a rock had been hurled through the window of New Plymouth activists Kate and Grant Cole last week.

Co-chair Maher Nazzal said attacks from Zionist supporters had become “more frequent and dangerous” over the past year.

• READ MORE: Photos of attack on Palestine activist’s property ‘censored’ by Facebook
• Australia cancels visa of Israeli influencer over ‘hate speech’ against Islam
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• Other Palestine activism reports

“In the case of the Coles, the rock through their window was just the latest in a series of targeted attacks on them and their property,” he said in the statement.

“They have twice endured spray-painted Israeli flags on their fence. Their car tyres were slashed on four different occasions. They had vile lies about them delivered in letterboxes around their neighbourhood.

“This time, it was a rock flung through their window with the message ‘Snap Action — REQ’ attached.”

Nazzal said local police had failed to take these attacks seriously. They had suggested to the Coles that they should “spend a lot of money on security systems”.

He said attacks on activists were increasing even before US President Donald Trump’s “failed ceasefire agreement” for Gaza was signed last October 10.

Pro-Israel lobby ‘has failed’
“The pro-Israel lobby is upset their side has failed to keep the genocide in Gaza completely out of public view,” Nazzal said.

“They have lost the debate. Poll responses show New Zealanders register two to one that New Zealand should sanction Israel for genocide and recognise a Palestinian state.

“Israelis and Israel’s supporters are taking their shock and frustration out on Palestine solidarity activists.

“In the past couple of weeks alone, two women activists were stalked after a protest in Auckland.

“There was spray painting and vandalism of PSNA co-chair John Minto’s home, an assault on a supporter by an ex-IDF soldier in Auckland and attacks on our supporters in Napier.”

Nazzal said that while the police had been vigorous in investigating and prosecuting anyone they believed to have been acting for Palestinian rights — such as the broken window at Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ home and an assault on an Israeli soldier holidaying here — they were slow to follow up on attacks on Palestine supporters.

He said the police were keen to “pull out all stops” for the Israeli Embassy to defend Israeli soldiers “fresh from a genocide in Gaza — but can’t find the time to take attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian supporters seriously.”

Police Commissioner Chambers has referred PSNA’s meeting request to the Acting Assistant Commissioner Iwi and Community Partnerships for follow-up.

France’s High Commission in French Polynesia has reported the seizure of 4.87 tonnes of cocaine in its maritime zone.

The armed forces in French Polynesia (FAPF), the national gendarmerie and the local branch of the anti-narcotics office (OFAST) were involved in the intercept.

A statement from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) have congratulated authorities in French Polynesia over the reported seizure, with the drugs reportedly bound for Australia.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific drug reports

Gulf News reported the cocaine was being transported on a ship sailing under Togo’s flag, according to a source close to the investigation.

AFP commander Stephen Jay said police staff posted in the Pacific, and members of Taskforce Thunder, would seek to work with French Polynesia authorities to identify people linked to the seizure.

Taskforce Thunder, launched in October, targets illicit commodities and the forced movement of people through the Pacific.

Jay said the AFP was committed to working closely with its law enforcement partners to deliver maximum impact against transnational criminal syndicates targeting Australia, the Pacific and throughout Europe.

‘Exceptional work’
“I would like to thank the exceptional work of our partners in French Polynesia, who have prevented a significant amount of illicit drugs from reaching Australia,” Jay said.

“The harm caused by organised crime syndicates attempting to import illicit drugs into Australia is significant, and extends beyond individual users to a myriad of violent and exploitative crimes.”

Australian Border Force acting commander Linda Cappello said Australia’s strongest defence against transnational organised crime was the depth of its relationships across the Pacific and beyond.

“For those seeking to exploit maritime and supply chains to move illicit drugs the message is clear: coordinated vigilance across the region significantly increases the risk of detection and disruption.”

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