By Stephanie Tran

The Labor Government has joined with the Coalition to vote against a Greens amendment which would have stripped deductible gift recipient status from Australian organisations found to be supporting an illegal occupation by funding Israeli settlements and organisations linked to the IDF.

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi introduced the amendment in the Senate this week, arguing that Australian taxpayers should not subsidise organisations whose funds support illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Genocide is a war crime. Ethnic cleansing is a war crime.

“But in this country, you can send money to fund those war crimes, and you’ll receive a tax deduction,” Faruqi told the Senate.

• READ MORE: Other Australian charities and genocide reports

Both Labor and the Coalition opposed the amendment.

Faruqi referenced investigations by Michael West Media which revealed that Australian charities registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) were hosting fundraisers linked to the IDF and Israeli settlements in the West Bank while benefiting from Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status.

“These charities are helping to bankroll the genocide in Gaza by channelling funds to organisations linked to the IDF and to violent illegal settlements off the back of Australian taxpayer money.”

The proposed amendment would have amended the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to provide that an entity would not be entitled to DGR endorsement if it had supported an “illegal occupation”.

Last month, the UK Charity Commission launched an investigation into charities in England and Wales donating funds to illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine.

ACNC rules ‘don’t extend to … international law’
Faruqi said the amendment was necessary because the existing regulatory framework did not adequately address conduct that breached international law.

“By maintaining DGR status for these supposed charities, the government says that this violence is okay. That is what this government is doing. That these murders are okay. That this ethnic cleansing is okay,” she said.

“How can supporting ethnic cleansing, settler occupation, and murdering Palestinians be ensuring the safety of vulnerable individuals overseas? It cannot, and the ACNC has not been able to answer these questions.”

When she previously moved the amendment in March, Labor senator Anthony Chisholm told the Senate that the ACNC’s external conduct standards did not extend to conduct under international law.

Faruqi said that meant charities could continue to fund activities that are unlawful under international law while retaining their tax concessions.

“Labor is more than happy for those who participate in, sustain, and fund the illegal occupation of the West Bank, an occupation that Labor itself has recognised as illegal, yet it gets a tax deduction,” she said.

Labor Senator Tim Ayres said, “charity registration can be revoked by the ACNC where the governance and external conduct standards are not met”.

However, Ayres reiterated the government’s previous position that “the external conduct standards don’t extend to conduct under international law.”

Subsidising illegal occupation
Faruqi challenged Ayres over whether the ACNC was investigating specific organisations identified in the MWM investigations.

She cited the Chai Charitable Foundation, which received more than $19 million in tax-deductible donations in 2025 and had hosted campaigns for organisations that publicly stated they provided direct support to IDF soldiers.

She also referred to reporting by MWM which revealed that the Foundation had hosted fundraising campaigns linked to settlements in Tekoa and Hebron in the West Bank.

Faruqi also cited investigations into United Israel Appeal Australia, which reported $50 million in revenue in 2024, and funded the Lone Immigrant Soldier programme, which provides support to immigrants serving in the IDF. The organisation has also funded settlement-related activities in the West Bank.

“Minister, do you know if the ACNC is investigating these organisations?” Faruqi asked.

Ayres heads off allegations
Ayres responded that “the ACNC is an independent regulator and it’s accountable for the work that it does on an independent basis”.

When Faruqi pressed him on whether he should know whether the organisations were receiving tax deductions and whether the allegations demonstrated that existing safeguards were insufficient, Ayres said he could not respond to questions about individual organisations.

Faruqi challenged the government over the external conduct standard requiring charities operating overseas to take reasonable steps to protect vulnerable people.

Palestinians living under occupation, displacement, and genocide

“are clearly vulnerable people. Australians are deeply distressed that tax-deductible donations may be supporting organisations connected to the very forces and settlements harming them,” she said.

“Minister, why won’t the government listen to those concerns and support this amendment, so that it can be crystal clear that Australian tax concessions cannot be used to subsidise what your own government recognises as an illegal occupation? What is the problem here?”

Ayres said the government’s “approach in relation to the broader question has been very clear”.

“I don’t really understand the relationship that you’re trying to draw between the purposes of this piece of legislation, which is about DGR status and a whole range of things,” he said.

Escalating settler violence
The amendment comes as violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has escalated, with two Palestinian teenagers murdered last week by Israeli troops.

Sixteen-year-old Khalil Abu Alia and 19-year-old Omar al-Nassan were killed in the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir after settlers entered the village under police and military escort.

Abu Alia, who was about to begin year 11, was shot in the neck while standing on the doorstep of his home. Al-Nassan, who had recently graduated from the same school, was also shot and died before reaching hospital.

The two teenagers were among five students from the same school killed in Israeli attacks this year. The other victims included a 17-year-old Palestinian youth footballer and two 14-year-olds.

At the same time, Israeli forces demolished the homes of 12 Palestinian families in Khirbet al-Taban in the South Hebron Hills, leaving all 70 residents homeless, including 28 children, according to Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem.

The organisation said the community was the 66th Palestinian community to have been wiped out since October 2023.

“These are whole worlds and lives extinguished in evil, depraved, and violent attacks that have become part of everyday life for Palestinians,” Faruqi said.

Coalition, Nats, Labor, One Nation — same deal
The Coalition also opposed the amendment.

Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie accused Faruqi of conflating support for the IDF with criminal conduct and criticised what she described as

abhorrent anti-Semitic comments.

“Listening to Senator Faruqi, it would seem that supporting the IDF or the families of the IDF is somehow now a crime in Australia,” McKenzie said.

She said the Coalition would not support the amendment and “look forward to voting no as soon as possible”.

Faruqi, meanwhile, argued that the amendment was about preventing Australian tax concessions from supporting activities Australia itself recognises as unlawful.

“The International Court of Justice, in 2024, called on parties, states such as Australia, to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of illegal situations created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories,” she said.

“Labor allows Australian charities to funnel money to support ethnic cleansing, apartheid, violence, and occupation.”

She accused Labor of hypocrisy

over its position on Palestinian statehood and Israeli settlement expansion.

“It is completely disingenuous for the government to say it supports a Palestinian state while effectively subsidising its destruction,” Faruqi said.

“Supporting these heinous crimes deserves a criminal investigation, not a tax deduction.”

“Labor says they mourn the death of Zomi Frankcom, but in the same breath, they hand tax benefits to those who support the murderers.”

Stephanie Tran is a journalist with a background in both law and journalism. She has worked at The Guardian and as a paralegal, where she assisted Crikey’s defence team in the high-profile defamation case brought by Lachlan Murdoch. Her reporting has been recognised nationally, earning her the 2021 Democracy’s Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting and a nomination for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award. This article is republished from Michael West Media with permission.

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/09/peters-hot-air-over-israeli-settlement-trade-ban-rules-out-of-step-with-world/ Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:52:55 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133300 Asia Pacific Report

A pro-Palestine national advocacy and protest group has accused New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as being “derelict in its duties” if it is unable to identify and ban products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) made this statement today following announcements by the United Kingdom, France and Canada that they would ban imports of products which originated from the settlements. Nine other countries have pledged to follow up.

MFAT is reported to have stated a ban “would be complex and require a full policy process” and so New Zealand could not do this — at least until after the general election on November 7.

• READ MORE: Palestine Forum condemns NZ for talk, no ‘meaningful action’ over illegal Israeli settlements
• NZ joins call to end Israeli settlement expansion, but not import ban
• UK, France, Canada to ban imports from Israeli settlements — NZ critical but stops short of joining
• UK bans goods from Israeli West Bank settlements in ‘comprehensive reset’: What that really means
• Other Gaza, Palestine reports

PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said in the statement Palestinian support groups had been urging the government to identify imports from the occupied Palestinian Territory for more than 20 years, on the basis that settlement goods were falsely labelled as a “Product of Israel”.

“Then in July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that UN members must ‘distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967’, as a means of ending the occupation,” she said.

“That’s plenty of time for MFAT to work out how to deliver a trade ban.”

Tamimi said there was ample precedent for import bans.

“The sanctions New Zealand imposes on Russia include oil, gas, coal and gold. Other Russian imports are prohibitively tariffed.

“There were comprehensive import bans on apartheid South Africa.

“So statements, like those made by ACT Leader David Seymour, that New Zealand is ‘a trading nation — we don’t generally use trade bans to make political points’, is quite untrue.”

Tamimi said MFAT was also falsely claiming that New Zealand was sending a clear signal to Israel that New Zealand condemned settler violence, and the Israeli government must control it, and it must not expand settlements.

“The government has banned a small bunch of rabid settlers from entering New Zealand, along with two ministers,” she said.

“But it also sent a clear message at the same time, in June last year, by stating that that it was just two ministers, and the ban was specifically not ‘designed to sanction the wider Israeli government’.”

“Yes, the message is clear to Israel — the New Zealand criticism is meaningless hot air.”

 

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/09/a-landmark-un-report-says-the-world-will-overshoot-the-1-5c-climate-target-what-happens-now/ Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:42:53 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133236 ANALYSIS: By Jacqueline Peel and Wesley Morgan

For more than a decade, the world has been trying to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

That’s no longer possible, according to a new United Nations report. We will likely pass 1.5°C in 2030. That’s not good news for anyone, least of all Australia and New Zealand’s Pacific Island neighbours who face rapidly rising seas.

In response to the report, Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr said:

It is hard to overstate the depth of emotion for those of us living on the frontline after having fought so hard to put the 1.5 degree limit at the heart of the Paris Agreement […] calls for greater ambition are no longer enough — we need to see an urgent and unprecedented increase in political will and investment in a climate safe future

READ MORE:

The small silver lining is that it’s still possible for this to be a temporary overshoot of the target. If nations redouble their efforts to phase out fossil fuels and reduce other sources of emissions, they could limit peak warming to 1.8°C and then use carbon removal methods to bring temperatures back to 1.5°C or below this century.

In 2026, the world is already about 1.4°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and the damage and death toll from climate-boosted disasters is ramping up.

The United Kingdom is warning of possible food shortages amid a historic drought. Wildfires hit new areas in France and Spain, while glaciers are melting rapidly and the oceans are at their hottest level on record. The enormous El Niño event emerging in the Pacific is likely to bring major disruption.

Every fraction of a degree makes things worse.

There are no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C. Urgent cuts to emissions and efforts to protect the most vulnerable are our best remaining options. Failure to do so risks irreversible harm.

Why does 1.5°C matter so much?
The 2015 Paris Agreement established a shared goal for the world: keep the rise in global average temperatures above pre-industrial levels “well below” 2°C and “pursue efforts” to hold warming to 1.5°C.

This goal was set based on expert scientific assessments that warming of more than 2°C would be dangerous and that limiting warming to 1.5°C was necessary to minimise climate risks.

Pacific nations fought hard to include 1.5°C in the agreement, arguing it was essential for their communities to “stay alive” in the face of rising sea levels and other climate-fuelled threats.

Last year, the world’s top court — the International Court of Justice — ruled that 1.5°C is the primary temperature limit nations have committed to work towards.

This ruling means that if governments fail to act as ambitiously as they can, they could be sued in international courts.

In May this year, a majority of nations voted in the UN General Assembly to endorse the court’s ruling and urge action to keep to 1.5°C.

It’s not time to give up
Warming of 1.5°C will be bad. But 1.6°C will be worse, and 1.7°C worse again. Every increase will bring more extreme weather, more loss of nature, more loss of land to the sea and more harm to humans.

If we stay over 1.5°C, we risk triggering climate tipping points — sudden shifts which cannot be undone on human timescales. These include the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melting, the collapse of crucial heat-distributing currents in the Atlantic Ocean or the Amazon rainforest becoming a source of emissions.

Overshooting 1.5°C doesn’t mean it’s time to throw out the Paris Agreement. It is not working fast enough, but it is working.

Solar power and electric vehicles have boomed and electrification has accelerated. Nations have cut emissions enough to avoid the worst climate futures of a 3°C rise or even higher.

According to the Climate Action Tracker, the Paris Agreement has averted the equivalent of 1°C of warming. Rather than hitting 3.6°C by 2100, the world is on track for 2.6°C.

While this is progress, it is not enough. Global emissions are plateauing, but have still not begun to fall in earnest.

As damage from climate change mounts, leaders must do the work and begin rapidly cutting emissions to keep the goal of net-zero by 2050 alive.

To get temperatures back under 1.5°C, we will also need to pull gigatonnes of carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere using tree planting and nature restoration. We may also need technological approaches such as rock weathering or ocean alkalinity enhancement, though these are not proven at scale and can come with other risks.

We are all in this together
It may seem as if climate action faces impossible headwinds, as populism surges and the current United States administration doubles down on fossil fuels.

It is worth looking beyond these headlines. It took almost 70 years for the world to install a terawatt of solar power, but then just two years for the second and another two for the third terawatt. In ten years, that figure will likely have tripled. Developing nations are moving rapidly to take up non-polluting electric transport.

Climate change can no longer be ignored. As damage mounts, nations will have to cooperate to cut emissions as rapidly as possible and figure out how to safely and equitably pull carbon back out of the atmosphere.

Action depends on strong political will, inclusive governance, and finance to help developing countries cut emissions and adapt.

In November, Australia will lead negotiations at the next international climate summit, COP31, in Turkey. Leaders and diplomats will work to keep 1.5°C in reach — even after overshoot. Australia can point to its own rapid clean energy transition and urge others to set clear pathways to go electric — and wean themselves off the production and use of fossil fuels.

Climate change has been described as a super wicked problem — big, complex and impossible to solve simply. The solution is to see the urgency of the issue and act cooperatively to tackle it.

If we make it a problem for the next generation, there may be no way back to a safe climate.

Dr Jacqueline Peel is professor of law, The University of Melbourne; Dr Wesley Morgan is research associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, University of New South Wales. Republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons.

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/08/debt-in-the-pacific-systemic-and-current-threats-to-regional-economic-sovereignty/ Tue, 08 Sep 2026 01:30:38 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133215 ANALYSIS: By Antonia Bhagwan in Suva

The Pacific may have moved beyond the worst of the covid-19 pandemic, but its economic consequences continue to weigh on governments across the region.

Once again, countries are facing rising debt levels. In its 2026 Pacific Economic Update, the World Bank linked the current financial landscape to slower economic growth, narrowing fiscal space, climate disasters, high dependence on imported fuel, and an uncertain global economy.

According to Joey Tau, coordinator of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), the region’s current debt problem must be understood historically and structurally.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific economics reports

“Over the past two decades, both internal and external developments have challenged the economic structures of Pacific Island states,” says Tau.

The region operates within a history of colonisation and has long been characterised as a group of “underdeveloped” small island states “faced with economic challenges”.

“It is under these conditions that debt has been something inherited from our colonisers, and we continue to struggle with.”

Public debt obligations
“Many Pacific Island countries continue to face challenges in meeting their debt obligations,” says PANG deputy coordinator Adam Wolfenden.

The issue of public debt in the region is a serious concern, with “real-world implications” for the diversion of public funds away from other essential services. The issue should not be reduced to simply “debt-trap diplomacy”.

According to Wolfenden, the terminology and implication that only certain donors are using funds for influence can distract from deeper questions about how borrowing is used to develop economies.

It can also distract from how debt obligations impact on public spending and economic sovereignty.

The region’s debt picture is mixed. The World Bank reports that average public debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratios declined modestly in 2025, with the average falling by 1.8 percentage points.

Between 2023 and 2025, the number of countries assessed at high risk of overall debt distress fell from five to three. However, four countries remain at high risk under the broader debt vulnerability analysis.

Fiji remains a notable example. Public debt stood at around 79 percent of GDP in 2025, the highest among the 11 countries covered in the report. While this is below its pandemic peak, the World Bank notes that progress towards stabilising the country’s debt has stalled, exposing deeper questions about Fiji’s economic make-up and need for diversification.

Public debt ratio doubled
“Meanwhile, Solomon Islands public debt-to-GDP ratio has nearly doubled, increasing by approximately 14 percentage points since 2022 to reach 30 percent of GDP in 2025. Ongoing elevated fuel costs will continue to further strain government spending and government deficits.

As some Pacific countries move away from grant-only financing towards a greater share of concessional borrowing, the World Bank says maintaining debt sustainability will become more difficult.

The World Bank projects public debt to rise in 2026–2027 as fiscal deficits widen and growth moderates.

For countries with limited financial buffers, concessional financing from multilateral institutions may become the primary avenue for covering financing gaps, despite the additional debt burden that will accompany this.

“The geopolitical competition in the Pacific has not necessarily led to greater access to resources for the region; rather, there is a global shrinking in the grants available, shifting more countries into lending financing,” says Wolfenden.

“This results in increased pressure on Pacific economies and political positioning.” At the same time, he argues that development finance cannot be separated from strategic interests.

“Infrastructure investments are often associated with, or facilitate access to, raw materials in the region,” Wolfenden says.

“This can result in financing infrastructure that has a distinct dual-use, providing the donor government with more power over the loan recipient.

“Donors may differ in the mechanisms for providing funds, but there is a shared understanding that debt creates opportunities for influencing the region.”

To illustrate, Wolfenden mentions that Australia’s development assistance is shifting to “securitisation”, compared to how the United States’ is withdrawing from the region while continuing to weaponise its trade policy.

Such approaches “further undermine the Pacific.”

Who Benefits?

“Borrowing is important, but are we borrowing for the sake of actual tangible development?” asks Tau.

“As small island developing states, are we put in a position that encourages ongoing borrowing, so it becomes a habit where your economy is dependent rather than looking at other options?

“It all comes down to the priorities and plan behind the borrowing,” he says. Tau argues that instead of allowing external interests to determine national spending priorities, fiscal planning should “equate to human development, ensuring that infrastructure services are not just accessible to its urban centres, but basic services reach its rural majority.

“Citizenry budgeting is necessary to establish whether public resources are being directed towards what communities actually need rather than depending on what a government chooses.

“It needs to be people informing priorities.”

Regional responses
Climate change continues to damage infrastructure and place additional pressure on public finances. In Tonga, for example, the economic impact of climate-induced events is disproportionately large, with the annual average loss estimated at TOP 178 million ($US 77 million), or 18.2 percent of GDP.

That is more than the total education and health budgets combined. This indicates that Tonga cannot fully absorb such losses on a yearly basis by itself.

“As the region continues to go through climate-induced impacts on infrastructure, what is the regional approach around ensuring that the Pacific doesn’t get into a debt spiral?” Tau asks.

It is especially challenging for Pacific governments facing growing spending needs while grant financing declines. The World Bank recommends credible fiscal frameworks, stronger debt and cash management, improved revenue collection, better project selection and procurement, and more disciplined borrowing.

However, these blanket suggestions are not always suitable in the Pacific context. The World Bank also warns that climate adaptation, resilient infrastructure, water, energy, transport, and public services will require substantial financing.

This creates a difficult balance. While grants are preferred, borrowing may be necessary to establish the infrastructure needed for economic growth potential. However, borrowing can leave governments more exposed to future crises, with excessive debt obligations undermining spending on other components of a growing economy, such as health, education, and targeted supports.

The World Bank therefore points to integrating disaster-risk financing and climate adaptation into fiscal planning. For Tau, however, the response also needs to extend beyond national fiscal planning to regional mechanisms that can help countries absorb financial shocks caused by climate change.

“We will incur unprecedented or unprojected expenditure, and we have to be prepared for it,” he says.

“We have to create an environment and facilities that, one, address this issue, but also sustain the region.”

Sovereignty and looking ahead
Ultimately, the Pacific’s debt challenge is a question of economic sovereignty. It asks whether Pacific governments have the space to determine their own development priorities and fund them without interference.

Wolfenden highlights the need for “greater economic and energy sovereignty in the region” in the face of inherited debt, global uncertainty, an erratic United States administration, the global fuel crisis, and climate change.

Tau similarly warns that the region’s sovereignty, including its ownership of state-owned enterprises, resources, access to resources and islands, is at risk if development priorities are not focused on long-term wellbeing.

“Fiscal policies need to project the realities of the economic status of a country. That means ensuring the wellbeing of its people first and foremost,” he says.

Antonia Bhagwan is a final-year student journalist who recently completed an internship with the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) as part of The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism programme. Published in collaboration with Asia Pacific Report.

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/07/west-papua-the-pacifics-new-test-of-indonesias-sovereignty-narrative/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 23:40:10 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133151 ANALYSIS: By Ali Mirin

The 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Koror, Palau, last week has pushed West Papua back to the centre of Pacific diplomacy.

At an Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) caucus held on the margins of the Forum, leaders reaffirmed their longstanding call for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to visit the West Papuan provinces.

They urged Jakarta to facilitate the visit before 31 December 2026, the end of Indonesia’s term as president of the UN Human Rights Council.

• READ MORE: UN human rights commissioner visit to West Papua on track, says Indonesia
• Other West Papua reports

Crucially, the MSG said that if the requested steps were not undertaken, Indonesia’s associate member status would be reviewed at the 2027 MSG Summit.

The question is whether Jakarta is willing to allow independent international observers to see, hear, and assess conditions in West Papua?

Sovereignty cannot be the end of the conversation
For decades, Indonesia has relied heavily on sovereignty and territorial integrity when responding to international criticism of West Papua.

Jakarta maintains that Papua is an integral part of Indonesia and that its political status was settled through the international arrangements culminating in the 1969 Act of Free Choice.

From this perspective, calls for international intervention can be portrayed as challenges to Indonesia’s territorial integrity and interference in its domestic affairs.

But sovereignty and accountability are not mutually exclusive. Recognition of territorial sovereignty does not eliminate a state’s responsibility for human rights. Nor does it prevent international organisations from seeking access to investigate allegations of abuses.

The unresolved legacy of 1969
Indonesia’s sovereignty argument also rests heavily on history. Under the 1962 New York Agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands, administration of West New Guinea was temporarily transferred to the United Nations before being transferred to Indonesia.

The agreement envisaged an act of self-determination before the end of 1969.

Rather than a territory-wide referendum involving universal and direct participation by the adult population, the process involved representative councils. UN records state that 1026 members of the enlarged representative councils were asked to express the population’s choice, and all chose continued association with Indonesia.

The UN General Assembly subsequently adopted Resolution 2504, taking note of the Secretary-General’s report and the agreement concerning West New Guinea.

The dispute, therefore, is not whether the 1969 process occurred. It clearly did. The deeper question is whether it represented a genuinely free expression of the political will of West Papuans.

This historical disagreement remains politically powerful because the competing narratives have never been reconciled.

For Jakarta, 1969 closed the question of sovereignty. For many West Papuans, it remains evidence that their political aspirations were never freely tested.

But contemporary Pacific diplomacy should not become trapped entirely in this historical dispute. Even if one accepts Indonesia’s present sovereignty over Papua, contemporary human rights questions remain legitimate.

Indonesia’s anti-colonial rhetoric
There is also an uncomfortable contradiction in Indonesia’s international rhetoric.

Indonesia has historically presented itself as an anti-colonial state and a supporter of the principle that peoples should be free from colonial domination.

At the UN Pacific Regional Seminar on Decolonisation in Bali in 2023, then-Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi stated that “independence is the inalienable right of all nations” and argued that colonialism must be abolished.

Indonesia’s response is that West Papua is not a colonial territory and that its political status was settled through an internationally recognised process.

That is a legitimate position for Indonesia to defend. But the political question remains: if self-determination is a universal principle, how should it be applied when Indigenous Papuans continue to challenge the political circumstances under which integration occurred?

Jakarta’s ‘right path’ needs a destination
Indonesia has responded by insisting that the proposed UN visit is progressing and is “on the right path.” Yet the phrase raises more questions than it answers.

What does “the right path” actually mean?

When will the visit occur?

Will UN officials have freedom of movement?

Will they be able to speak privately with Indigenous communities?

Will they meet civil-society organisations, church leaders, victims, local officials and political representatives?

Will they be able to visit areas affected by military operations and displacement?

And will their findings be published without political interference?

These are not unreasonable demands. They are the minimum conditions necessary for an assessment to have credibility.

If Jakarta is confident that conditions in Papua have improved, an independent UN assessment could actually strengthen Indonesia’s position.

Transparency is not necessarily a threat to sovereignty. In fact, it can reinforce legitimacy.

Why the MSG decision matters
The MSG is uniquely placed in this debate because West Papua is not merely a distant foreign policy issue for Melanesian governments.

West Papuans are Indigenous Melanesians, and the MSG was established to strengthen political, economic, and cultural cooperation among Melanesian peoples.

Indonesia’s associate membership has therefore always contained a political tension.

Jakarta seeks recognition and legitimacy within an organisation representing Melanesian interests, while some MSG members continue to raise concerns about the rights and welfare of Indigenous Melanesians inside Indonesia.

The organisation has not abandoned dialogue. Fiji has made clear that engagement with Jakarta remains necessary. But dialogue without measurable outcomes risks becoming a diplomatic holding pattern.

The proposed OHCHR visit provides a practical benchmark. The MSG has effectively placed a deadline on the issue. That changes the diplomatic calculation. Jakarta is no longer responding only to general statements of concern; it is responding to a specific request accompanied by a potential institutional consequence.

The Pacific is testing itself
Pacific governments increasingly speak of a regional order grounded in Indigenous rights, human security, climate justice and self-determination. They insist that Pacific priorities should not simply be dictated by larger external powers.

West Papua therefore presents a difficult consistency test. At the same time, Pacific diplomacy must avoid reducing every disagreement with Indonesia to a confrontation over sovereignty. Indonesia is too important to the region for that approach to be strategically sustainable.

The better approach is precisely what the MSG appears to be attempting: engagement combined with accountability.

A new phase in the West Papua debate
The significance of Koror is therefore not that the Pacific has suddenly endorsed West Papuan independence. Nor has the MSG decided to remove Indonesia. What has changed is the political language.

The debate is shifting from the binary question of “Indonesia or independence” towards the more immediate question of “sovereignty and accountability”.

That shift creates political space for Pacific governments to demand transparency without having to settle the final status question first. It also places greater responsibility on Jakarta.

Indonesia has spent decades defending its sovereignty over West Papua. It now has an opportunity to demonstrate that sovereignty is compatible with transparency.

The coming months will determine whether the Koror decision becomes another diplomatic statement or a genuine turning point.

For West Papuans, this is not merely a diplomatic dispute. It concerns whether their experiences can be independently heard and investigated.

For the MSG, it is a test of whether Melanesian solidarity has practical meaning.

For the Pacific Islands Forum, it is a test of whether its principles apply consistently.

For Indonesia, it is a test of whether sovereignty can coexist with scrutiny.

And for the United Nations, it is a test of whether international human rights mechanisms can gain meaningful access to one of the Pacific’s most enduring political disputes.

Indonesia’s sovereignty may be internationally recognised, but sovereignty should never become a shield against legitimate human rights scrutiny.

Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic and writer from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star Mountains region of Papua New Guinea. He holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/07/west-papua-activist-calls-on-pacific-leaders-to-pressure-indonesia-over-un-visit/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 23:20:05 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133174 By Susana Suisuiki of RNZ Pacific

For 20 years, West Papuan activist Paula Makabory has not set foot in her ancestral homeland. Her family still lives in West Papua, but she has not seen them since she left in 2006.

Speaking to RNZ Pacific Waves from Melbourne, Makabory said she did not know what would happen if she attempted to return.

As Pacific leaders push Jakarta to allow a long-awaited United Nations Human Rights Commissioner visit to West Papua, Makabory, who is an executive member of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), said the leaders needed to apply more pressure on Indonesia.

• READ MORE: West Papua: The Pacific’s new test of Indonesia’s sovereignty narrative
• UN human rights commissioner visit to West Papua on track, says Indonesia
• Other West Papua reports

In 2019, Pacific leaders requested that Indonesia allow a team from the UN Human Rights Office to visit West Papua to conduct an independent investigation into the alleged human rights abuses in the region.

Seven years later, the request for the visit has been unfruitful.

But this year during the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Palau, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) stated that if Indonesia did not allow the visit to happen, they would review its associate membership status in their 2027 summit.

In a statement sent to RNZ Pacific, a spokesperson for the Indonesian embassy in New Zealand said there had been no discussion of a review on its membership within the MSG. They also stated that the UN visit was “on track”.

Makabory said she would believe the visit was happening when Indonesia made good on its commitment.

“I think it’s going to be great news if it comes to action for real, because it has been a couple of years that Indonesia is still not talking or even inviting the United Nations human rights commissioner, or her office to visit West Papua to conduct an independent investigation,” she said.

Makabory said the prime ministers of Fiji and Papua New Guinea needed to negotiate a firm timeline with Indonesia for the visit, otherwise Indonesia would “never open the door”.

Melanesians ‘need to stand up strong’
Makabory said the situation in West Papua was worsening, with humanitarian and environmental concerns at a crisis point.

According to Makabory, there are more than 125,000 Indigenous Papuans who are internally displaced across multiple regencies, including Nduga, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Jayawijaya, Maybrat, Teluk Bintuni, Yapen Islands and Tambrauw. The displacements, she said, was the result of military operations, aerial bombings and armed conflicts.

There are more than 80,000 Indonesian security forces operating in West Papua who Makabory alleges are responsible for extrajudicial executions, civilian shootings and disrupting peaceful protests.

Makabory also raised concerns about the expansion of the Merauke food estate and mining operations, saying they are destroying Indigenous land and contributing to deforestation and environmental damage.

In addition to the UN human rights office, Indonesia needs to allow other international groups, such as humanitarians and foreign journalists, to enter, Makabory said.

She added that this could only happen if the MSG used its influence with Indonesia rather than signing deals.

“I think the MSG countries or leaders as guardians of our region, they need to stand up strong. They need to see that West Papua belongs to Melanesia, and they need to protect their own kind.”

A review of Indonesia’s associate membership in 2027 on the condition that no visit would happen was not strong enough, according to Makabory. She said the MSG should take it a step further and suspend Indonesia.

Despite being barred from returning to West Papua, Makabory told Pacific Waves it is her homeland and nothing compares to it. She said she believes that the spirit of the Melanesian brotherhood and Pacific islanders will lead to a path that will “save West Papua”.

This story was first published on

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/05/france-commits-more-financial-help-to-struggling-new-caledonia/ Sat, 05 Sep 2026 01:15:23 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133104 By Patrick Decloitre of RNZ Pacific

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced more financial assistance for New Caledonia to assist the financially-embattled French Pacific territory.

The announcement follows a three-hour meeting with a bipartisan delegation led by New Caledonia’s President Milakulo Tukumuli this week.

Lecornu said this was to serve as a lifebuoy to help New Caledonia overcome its most urgent challenges, including a near-collapse of the French territory’s pension scheme and medicare, which are both described as being on the verge of collapse.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Its other aim was to help New Caledonia conclude its 2026 financial year (11 million euros) and balance its 2027 budget (50 million euros).

A major part of the announced assistance was also quoted as amounting to “400 to 600 million euros”.

He also spoke about consultations to coordinate the package’s implementation during a “Prime Minister’s mission” team at a date yet to be determined.

Since his election in July 2026, Tukumuli has expressed serious concerns regarding New Caledonia’s financial situation and the risk of what he termed a “shutdown”.

High debt level
He also expressed serious concerns at New Caledonia’s high level of debt, following loans contracted with the French government as a result of the covid crisis and, more recently, the civil unrest that took place in May 2024.

The unrest and its related effects caused 14 deaths and significantly impacted New Caledonia’s economy, with an estimated €2 billion in material damage (mostly to local businesses) and an estimated drop of 13.5 percent in the Gross Domestic Product, as well as over 12,000 unemployed.

New Caledonia’s recurrent request was also, in the face of record debt, to obtain that current loans (and its interests) be converted into into non-refundable grants.

Lecornu said most of this fresh assistance would be in the form of grants.

Apart from Lecornu, New Caledonia’s group of politicians, since Monday, have held meetings in Paris with top officials from the Finance ministry, French minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou and both Presidents of France’s Parliament chambers, the Senate (Gérard Larcher) and the National Assembly (Yaël Braun-Pivet).

They are also scheduled to meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday this week (Paris time).

The announcement was also understood to come with strings attached, in the form of assurances from New Caledonia’s government that “urgent reforms” will be carried out.

Cautious satisfaction
Reacting to Lecornu’s announcement, New Caledonia’s Congress President (Speaker) Virginie Ruffenach, who is part of the delegation, expressed cautious satisfaction.

She acknowledged the response was “very good news” and met “about 90 percent of our request” for an initial plea of 540 million euros.

But she remained cautious and said the announcement now required “clarifications”, especially on how much will be disbursed in the form of grants and how much through loans.

“We don’t want to bring more debt to New Caledonia,” she said.

She assured that New Caledonia had already passed a significant number of reforms resulting in savings of “365 million euros”.

“It’s a lot, but it’s not enough. We’re just beginning to recover. Our fiscal revenues are slightly increasing … But this needs to be accompanied for at least two years,” she told reporters in Paris.

Tukumuli earlier stressed that more loans for the French Pacific territory was just “untenable”.

“Between 2020 and 2026, we have borrowed 1.5 billion euros,” New Caledonia’s President elaborated.

“And now we have arrived at a totally unreal situation whereby in 2026, we have borrowed again to repay the 2025 loan”.

The announced commitment will however have to receive the French Parliament’s approval, as part of the French 2027 budget debates.

Throughout the week, New Caledonia’s delegation has also held lobbying talks with French MPs from caucuses across the political chessboard, only months ahead of France’s Presidential and general elections, starting in April 2027.

This story was first published on

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/04/un-human-rights-commissioner-visit-to-west-papua-on-track-says-indonesia/ Fri, 04 Sep 2026 06:55:42 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133076 By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific

Indonesia’s government has indicated that a visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua is on track.

This comes as Melanesian Sperarhead Group (MSG) countries agreed to push Jakarta to facilitate the visit, after years of apparent inaction.

A request for the visit was made by Pacific Islands Forum countries back in 2019, but it has still not gone ahead, despite ongoing human rights violations in Papua.

• READ MORE: Melanesian countries to review Indonesia’s status at MSG if no action on West Papua visit
• West Papuan leader calls on Pacific Forum to ‘break its silence’ and denounce Indonesian military violence
• Other West Papua reports

A statement issued by MSG states from this week’s Pacific Forum leaders meeting in Palau appeared to reflect frustrations that the visit has still not been facilitated.

The statement said that if a visit by the UN Commissioner’s office was not facilitated by Indonesia in order for a report on human rights issues in West Papua to be produced by their next summit in 2027, then Indonesia’s associate member status in the MSG will be reviewed.

The full members of the MSG are: Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s FLNKS Kanak Movement. The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has observer status at the MSG, and Indonesia has associate member status.

‘Constructive discussion’
In a response to RNZ Pacific following the statement, a spokesperson from Indonesia’s Embassy in New Zealand said there was “no discussion to review our membership within the MSG”.

“We are always in constructive discussion on the issues deemed important by other members of the MSG, and we can also confirm that the said proposed visit is on the right path.

“As you may have [been] aware that on July 2025, we already facilitate[d] a visit from UN Special Rapporteur [for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Albert Kwokow] to Papua,” the spokesperson said.

“We can agree that this shows good intention from the government of the Republic of Indonesia to the advancement of prosperity of all Indonesians.”

Ongoing conflict in Papua
The long-running conflict between the West Papua Liberation Army and Indonesian military forces in Papua has escalated in recent months, causing mass displacement of some Papua village communities in the region around Highland Papua province.

In the latest reported violence, human rights workers told RNZ Pacific that four members of the Liberation Army had been arrested and killed by Indonesian forces in Yahukimo Regency in recent days, and another member seriously injured, while six civilians were also arrested during the incident.

The spokesperson for the embassy said that during the 62nd Session of the Human Rights Council, the High Commissioner assessed “that force must not be used to pursue territorial claims or political demands”.

“The sovereign equality of States, territorial integrity, and non-interference remain the foundation of the international order; respect for international law and the principles of UN Charter is non-negotiable.”

The spokesperson said Indonesia supports “a cooperative and non-confrontational approach to human rights issues, based on mutual respect and national ownership”.

This story was first published on

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/04/two-small-pacific-islands-creating-one-big-stink-with-france-over-ownership/ Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:39:25 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133063 SPECIAL REPORT: By Ben Bohane

Amid an escalating sovereignty and maritime boundary dispute with France, Vanuatu has now filed an “application” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against France.

Vanuatu is seeking international recognition of sovereignty over two small islands in its far south.

The islands are known on charts by their European names Matthew and Hunter islands, but in Vanuatu they are called Umaenupne and Umaeneg with claims of long standing cultural and religious ties to the islands.

• READ MORE: Umaenupne and Umaeneg – isles of the Resting God — Ben Bohane
• Other Ben Bohane articles

From the early 1900s Vanuatu was jointly administered by France and the UK under a condominium regime.

In 1962, Australian planter and aviation pioneer Bob Paul, along with his aviator friend Henri Martinet applied to the Joint Court of New Hebrides to claim the islands, but their claim was rejected when France claimed the islands as part of New Caledonia.

Vanuatu has initiated proceedings at the ICJ following the collapse of negotiations between the two countries in Paris in July, and decades of unsuccessful attempts over the years since Vanuatu’s independence in 1980.

President Emmanuel Macron had offered to resolve the dispute when he visited Vanuatu in 2023 and meetings have since taken place in Port Vila last November and in Paris this past July. But the negotiations failed to deliver an agreed outcome.

Legal precedent risk
French analysts are concerned about the legal precedent of conceding the islands to Vanuatu, worried it will re-energise similar territorial disputes France has with other nations over remote islands, such as Clipperton atoll, which Mexico wants back.

The French rightwing have also applied pressure to the issue, with Marie Le Pen warning after the meeting in Port Vila last November that the two islands were “not [Macron’s] to give away.”

The ICJ is the world’s highest judicial body, and could provide a final, legal determination on the dispute. Vanuatu is banking on France supporting their application for a ruling.

At the most recent Davos meeting in January, President Macron affirmed France’s commitment to international law and even warned against a world in which “the law of the strongest” prevails.

Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Jotham Napat told The Sydney Morning Herald:

“Umaenupne (Matthew) and Umaeneg (Hunter) Islands have always belonged, and will always belong, to the people of Vanuatu. Vanuatu is a strong supporter of the international rules-based order and of the peaceful resolution of disputes through international law.

“Seeking recognition of Vanuatu’s sovereignty over these islands is not an act of confrontation; it is an exercise of our rights through the legal processes of that international order. It is about addressing an unresolved colonial legacy with dignity, determination and confidence in international law.”

Sovereignty dispute
Stephen Webb, an Australian lawyer acting for the Vanuatu government — who also acted for Timor-Leste in its maritime boundary dispute with Australia — said:

“This is fundamentally a legal dispute over sovereignty, and the ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, specifically established to resolve disputes between States in accordance with international law. For Vanuatu, bringing this matter before the ICJ is about finding a definitive, peaceful and legally binding resolution.”

In recent years, Vanuatu won global support for leading the initiative for an advisory opinion from the ICJ clarifying obligations and consequences of causing harm to the climate.

This initiative was endorsed unanimously by the UN General Assembly, including by France who co-sponsored the resolution.

With the ICJ confirming receipt of Vanuatu’s application, attention turns to France’s response. The court can only determine the dispute with France’s acceptance, so France now needs to decide whether it will submit the questions of sovereignty over the islands to judicial determination.

China outright rejected the ICJ’s decision in favour of the Philippines in its 2016 case against China’s claims over the South China Sea.

Given France’s vocal championing of international law, it may be more difficult for France to take the same position.

Pacific decolonisation
If France rejects Vanuatu’s case, it also risks putting itself offside with a Pacific region committed to decolonisation and further unrest in New Caledonia.

Indigenous Kanak chiefs in New Caledonia, including the leader of the pro-independence FLNKS movement Christian Tein, have all backed Vanuatu’s claims, stating Kanaks never had links to the two islands and they belong to Vanuatu.

Kanak chiefs have told Vanuatu’s leaders that when New Caledonia becomes independent, it will return the two islands to Vanuatu.

The coming months will reveal whether this dispute has any chance of being resolved before the world’s highest court.

Ben Bohane is Vanuatu-based Australian journalist and policy analyst who has reported the Pacific for nearly 30 years. This article was first published by The Sydney Morning Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/03/minerals-military-strategy-draw-the-eye-of-trump-to-isolated-atoll-and-its-230-people/ Thu, 03 Sep 2026 06:13:57 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133018 ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Milne

Isolation has been a challenge for the people of the atoll of Tongareva, 1300km north of the Cook Islands capital on Rarotonga.

Distance has made it difficult for the 230 residents to get supplies, or to travel for school and work. There are no scheduled flights; a ship visits every two months.

But isolation hasn’t been their greatest enemy; arguably, it’s engagement with the outside world that’s done them more harm. Ever since the crew of a passing English sailing ship, the Lady Penrhyn, dubbed the island Penrhyn in 1788, the people have suffered the colonial ambitions of distant empires.

• READ MORE: Pacific Islands Forum: Should outside nations be allowed at the leaders’ summit?
• US expected to announce major fuel security deal at Pacific Islands Forum
• Pacific leaders urged to be united behind 2050 climate action vision
• US pushes critical minerals agenda in Cook Islands with Penrhyn ‘lifeline’
• Other PIF reports

Missionaries brought new rules suppressing the language and faith and traditional cultural practices. Sailors brought disease that harmed the people and the plants.

An imported coconut blight led to a catastrophic famine that nearly depopulated the island.

The grimmest tragedy was in the 1860s, when London Missionary Society pastors sold 472 islanders for about five silver dollars a head, as slaves to Peru.

They boarded the Spanish and Peruvian ships with a promise of good pay and a safe return. It was a lie. Most died in exile.

Considering history
Islanders will be quietly considering that history, after news this week that the United States and New Zealand governments will invest $102 million in building a new deepwater port on the atoll, potentially providing a staging post for overseas naval vessels.

This is not new; the atoll was home to a US base in the Second World War. American GIs built port infrastructure and a 3000m crushed coral airstrip there.

It became a stopping point for the big Catalina flying boats; stripped hulks of American bombers still sit on the atoll as physical scars of the war. Children grew up who never knew their fathers — an emotional scar of the war.

There has long been talk — some supportive, some opposed — of a deepwater port in Tongareva’s big 233 sq km lagoon, reportedly 90m at its deepest point. Rarotonga businessman Charles Pitt argued in 2009 that the Americans should build commercial interests there, to give them a strategic position between China’s interests to the west in Sāmoa, and French Polynesia to the east.

Pitt warned that Chinese fishing interests were planning to open a business on Penrhyn — and it was always that potential for Chinese involvement that motivated the greatest concern in US-aligned countries.

In 2018, when I was editing the Sunday Star-Times, we reported on the front page that Cook Islands and Niue had “blindsided” NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters by signing up to China’s belt and road infrastructure lending scheme, and that there was talk of Beijing financing a deepwater port on Penrhyn.

It was a possibility that some in the islands would have welcomed, as I discovered when our family moved to the Cooks the following year. Henry Puna, the long-serving PM, told me the US had picked up and gone at the end of the war, and never really returned.

China had been “very present” in the Pacific.

America’s return ‘welcome’
“Unfortunately for a long time, America has not been,” Puna mused. “We would welcome America’s return.”

This all explains why US-aligned Winston Peters (on his return as foreign minister) reacted so angrily last year to Puna’s protegé and successor, Mark Brown, going to Beijing to sign a strategic partnership with China.

Accusing Brown and his officials of a lack of transparency, Peters cut $30 million core development support to the Cook Islands government, impacting on some basic health, education and tourism services.

Now, things have changed. The Cooks government had told me they would welcome America’s return. Well, this week they got it.

The announcement of the construction of a new port on Tongareva has been welcomed by the atoll’s MP, Vaine Wichman, who told the Cook Islands News it’s a “landmark investment”.

“Over 80 years after the wartime presence of US forces in Penrhyn, this investment is both historically symbolic and economically transformative,” she says. “Penrhyn was once part of the Pacific’s strategic defence network, and today this partnership reaffirms this.”

It comes just a week after the arrival of a new $5 million government-procured interisland passenger and cargo vessel, offering the hope of better, safer, more secure connectivity to all the remote outer islands.

A Peters ‘triumph’
Some see this as a political triumph for the mercurial Peters in the final weeks of his term as foreign minister; after playing hardball, he dragged the Cooks away from the influence of Beijing.

Others see it as a power play by Mark Brown, who has won the interest and investment of the world’s most powerful nation.

Most of all, none can ignore the opportunity this offers the Trump Administration — the strategic chance to be able to dock and stage operations from the centre of the vast Pacific basin. And ensuring China can’t.

Moreover, back in February, I reported that MFAT Chief Executive Bede Corry and his diplomats had discussed critical minerals developments with both the US and the Cook Islands. That’s now borne fruit for the White House.

Because this week’s deal opens the door (or the channel) to the $1 billion US-owned American Ocean Minerals Corp and Odyssey Marine Exploration, which agreed to merge this year.

And to Cook Islands Investment Corp’s new partnership with US firm Wetstone to fund offshore mineral exploration. It gives US firms first dibs on what I’ve described as the most lucrative treasure trove of undersea critical minerals in the EEZ of any country in the world.

Yet amid the political back-slapping, some Tongareva locals sound a note of caution. On the atoll’s Facebook group, administrator Ula Tini warns the US and China are readying for conflict — and the atoll has now been drawn into it.

Tongareva ‘been here before’
“Tongareva has been here before,” he says. “Our ancestors witnessed aircraft, military personnel and major infrastructure arriving on an island that much of the world probably knew very little about.”

Isolation, he agrees, has been one of the atoll’s biggest challenges. This port could help.

“But our people should still ask the hard questions… Could the facilities have future strategic or defence uses? How many jobs and business opportunities will actually go to Tongarevans? What environmental protections will be put in place for our lagoon, reef and marine resources?”

Tini wants his children and grandchildren to inherit more than a new port. That means ensuring that this time, the small community engages with the world on its own terms.

“What is Tongareva’s place in the future of the Pacific — and are we ready for it?”

Jonathan Milne is managing editor of Newsroom and a former editor of the Cook Islands News. This analysis was first published by Newsroom and is republished with permission.

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/09/03/israel-ready-to-forcibly-remove-gaza-population-but-awaiting-us-approval/ Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:56:07 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=133010

Asia Pacific Report

Israel has plans ready to forcibly remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip but is waiting for the United States to figure out where to take them, the Defence Minister has boasted, reports The New Arab and news agencies.

Forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

“There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” Defence Minister Israel Katz told a conference hosted by Israeli news site Ynet and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

• READ MORE: Israel still wants to remove Palestinians from Gaza, defence minister says
• Other Gaza reports

The Israeli government “is organised and prepared to get them out — by sea, by air, by every way possible,” he said.

The US embassy referred requests for comment to the State Department in Washington.

US President Donald Trump, at the start of his second term, stunned much of the world by publicly calling for all two million Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip.

Trump claimed a plan of developing the Mediterranean territory, devastated by Israeli bombardment since the October 2023, into a luxury resort destination.

Strong pushback
Trump walked back the idea following strong pushback, including from Egypt, the only country other than Israel to neighbour Gaza.

The proposal was also condemned by Palestinians themselves, for whom any effort to force them off their land represents how the “Nakba”, or catastrophe; their forced mass displacement by Zionist forces in 1948, is ongoing.

Announcing a supposed ceasefire in October, Trump laid out 20 points for the territory that included no forced displacement.

Katz, known for his xenophobic and horrific remarks, said that Trump had only “frozen” the idea as he looked for countries to take in Palestinians, as Egypt was not an option.

“The plan hasn’t been cancelled; it is being discussed all the time, even now, and I think there is no other solution for everyone’s good,” he said.

“But for it to happen, we need the US. When will we get their approval? Whenever it becomes clear that Hamas is not meeting its obligations” under the ceasefire, he said.

Katz, without citing his source, claimed 80 percent of people in Gaza wanted to leave but that Hamas was preventing them.

ICC arrest warrants
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Katz’s predecessor Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israeli attacks have already internally displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s people since October 2023.

Israel’s genocidal war has since killing 73,470 in Gaza, with more than 1400 since the alleged “ceasefire” in October 2025.

New Zealand signed an international letter criticising Israel which foreshadows sanctions but a pro-Palestine advocacy group has rapped the government over its “haphazard” and “mixed messages” West Asia policy.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) cited a “hint of future economic sanctions” against Israel in a statement of concern issued jointly by New Zealand, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Canada just over a week ago.

However, New Zealand did not put its name to another second and stronger statement of condemnation against Israel constructing the highly strategic E1 illegal settlement on the Occupied West Bank.

• READ MORE: ‘Not sorry’ – will international pressure mean justice for Zomi Frankcom?
• PSNA slams NZ’s ‘uncaring’ lack of signature on global Israeli settlements censure
• Why Israeli tenders for illegal E1 West Bank settlement prompted outrage
• Other Gaza, Palestine reports

The second statement was issued at the same time, and had been signed by 22 Western countries.

All the countries who signed the second letter, except New Zealand and Germany, also signed the first one.

PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said in a statement that ether New Zealand was deliberately identifying and aligning with Germany — which is Israel’s third largest arms supplier — or “outsourcing” its foreign policy,

“More likely, it’s National outsourcing its foreign policy to New Zealand First, whose leader is blatantly pro-Israel. That haphazard arrangement results in mixed and ambiguous messages for the world and for New Zealanders,” Tamimi said.

Warning over tenders
She said there was a suggestion of economic sanctions in the second statement which did have New Zealand’s signature.

The statement stated “businesses should not consider bidding for construction tenders.

“They should be aware of legal and reputational consequences, including the risk of involving themselves in various breaches of international law.”

Tamimi said this warning was presumably to local companies in each country. It was a notice that the governments of the signatory countries could bring legal proceedings or amend legislation to thwart these companies.

“If governments follow this through, this is hugely important for investment funds in New Zealand which operate under Acts of Parliament, such as the Super Fund, ACC and KiwiSavers,” she said.

“The Super Fund lost a court case earlier this year, due to its attempts to keep investing in companies profiting from Israeli West Bank settlements. The writing is on the wall for other investors in Israel.

“Investment in genocide and apartheid Israel is neither a prudent nor moral choice for anyone.”

The United States and New Zealand will co-fund a new “lifeline” port with the Cook Islands on Penrhyn Atoll — a former US military base.

The US says it will commit US$50 million, while New Zealand will contribute US$10 million.

The US Deputy State Secretary, Christopher Landau, said it would build on the Critical Minerals Framework that the Cooks signed with the US in February, which advances the keen interest from Washington in deep sea mineral resources in the Cook Islands.

• READ MORE: Peters blasts Solomon Islands cabinet ministers for move against PM Wale
• Solomon Islands ‘dangles over the edge of political instability’ as three ministers quit
• Missing leaders won’t derail Pacific Islands Forum outcomes, says secretariat
• Vanuatu Special Envoy calls for PIF to ‘reopen’ issue of Pacific access to West Papua
• Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched
• Other PIF reports
• Other West Papua reports

“This project underscores the United States’ strong commitment to our partners in the Pacific,” Landau said, noting that US personnel constructed Penrhyn’s port and airstrip more than 80 years ago.

“Through transformational infrastructure initiatives such as this, we are making the United States and our partners safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown called the port a “lifeline” for the Pa Enua, adding capacity for domestic shipping and inter-island travel.

“We thank the United States and New Zealand for partnering with us to deliver on a priority our people have themselves identified,” Brown said.

Landau, Brown and New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters made the announcement at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Palau today.

The February agreement between the US and the Cooks committed them to “responsible investment aligned with high environmental, social and governance standards,” and “the development of secure, diversified and resilient critical minerals supply chains.”

Prime Minister Brown told reporters on Friday, while in Auckland engaging with New Zealand realm leaders, that he would ensure the Cook Islands people were the ultimate beneficiaries of US investment.

This story was first published on

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) should revisit a proposal for an independent regional delegation to visit West Papua and assess reported human rights concerns, says Vanuatu Special Envoy on Decolonisation and Maritime Boundaries Delimitation Joe Natuman.

With the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting (PIFLM) opening today, Natuman said Pacific leaders would have an opportunity to reconsider the issue and determine how the region could respond to continuing concerns about human rights and the wellbeing of the people of West Papua.

Natuman, a former prime minister, said the Forum had previously proposed sending a delegation to West Papua to assess the human rights situation directly.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched
• Other PIF reports
• Other West Papua reports

However, he said the Forum had written to the Indonesian government regarding the proposed visit but had not received a response.

Natuman said direct access remained important if Pacific leaders were to develop a clearer understanding of the situation and consider reports of human rights concerns raised at regional and international levels.

The proposed visit could provide a fact-finding mechanism for Pacific countries, allowing representatives to engage with relevant stakeholders and assess conditions before reporting their findings to the Forum.

Natuman said the issue also extended to the participation of West Papuan representatives in regional and international forums, where he claimed their involvement had faced obstacles.

Similar challenges
He pointed to similar challenges within the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and said there would be no West Papuan delegation attending the upcoming PIF.

Natuman also referred to discussions surrounding West Papua at United Nations human rights mechanisms in Geneva, arguing that Indonesia’s position within international institutions had presented additional challenges for those seeking greater access to the territory.

With the Forum meeting in Palau, Natuman said Pacific leaders should reconsider West Papua.

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale made an emergency trip back to Honiara on Sunday morning from Palau after a motion of no confidence was filed against him.

Wale was in Palau to attend the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting as its current chair.

He was suppose to hand over the chairmanship to Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr in Palau.

• READ MORE: Notable absences loom ahead of PIF leaders’ meeting in Palau
• Other PIF reports

Wale, 57, was elected prime minister of the country on May 15 and has been in office for just over 100 days.

The no-confidence motion against him over the weekend has been filed by East Malaita MP and Minister of Home Affairs Manasseh Maelanga. The Solomon Islands Parliament has confirmed it has received the notice.

Maelanga is accusing Wale of making unilateral decisions without proper consultation and without taking matters through cabinet.

“The motion follows concerns that the Prime Minister has repeatedly made decisions on matters of national importance without properly consulting Cabinet or obtaining its approval,” Maelanga said in the statement.

“I have taken this step with confidence in our democratic institutions and a firm commitment to stable, transparent and accountable government.”

Claims rejected
Maelanga has also rejected claims that the challenge against Wales leadership was intended to derail ongoing investigations.

The motion is the first major political challenge for Wale since coming to power.

He had only just landed in Palau when news of the no-confidence motion back home reached him.

When questioned at the airport by a Solomon Islands journalist on the matter, he said: “When I go, I will tell you more.”

He was gone the next day in the early hours of the morning.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister and Pacific Islands Forum chair Matthew Wale.

Other Solomon Islands officials who travelled with the prime minister to Palau were surprised to hear about the leadership challenge.

Local media have described the no-confidence motion against Wale as an “internal coalition revolt”.

“There appears to be a split within the GREAT Coalition. Few Ministers and MPs within the GREAT Coalition are likely to tender their resignations,” according to a report by Solomon Star.

Pacific security and geopolitics analyst Dr Anna Powles described the timing of the no-confidence motion as “deeply unfortunate”.

This story was first published on

It has been six months since the United States and Israel launched their coordinated military campaign against Iran on February 28. The war is easily cast as the latest turn in the long antagonism between Washington and Tehran, but that frame misses its immediate context.

Its real context is the aftermath of October 7, 2023: Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza that followed spread across the region, wore down Iran’s network of allies, and pulled Israel and Iran into increasing confrontation, culminating in the 12-day war of June 2025 and the US-Israel campaign launched last February.

The bilateral track only sharpened this trajectory. Nearly eight years before the current war, Trump’s first administration launched “maximum pressure” aimed at driving Iran’s oil exports to zero.

• READ MORE: Iran to draft conditions to open Hormuz following mediator requests
• Other War on Iran reports

When it failed to force political change, economic coercion eventually gave way to military force. Six months on, the campaign has come full circle, back to economic pressure applied with greater force. Economics, then war, then economics again.

At the 100-day mark, Tehran could plausibly present the outcome as a victory of survival: Its adversaries had failed to topple the system, and by its own measure that was what mattered.

Six months on, that claim is harder to sustain because the pressure has shifted to the terrain on which Iran has always been weakest. The question is no longer whether Iran can survive military attack, but whether it can withstand an economic siege with no sign of lifting.

A leadership hollowed out at the top
The most visible change is at the summit. After the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening strike, his son Mojtaba was appointed just more than a week later, a succession Tehran presented as proof of continuity and cohesion.

But six months on, he has yet to make a verified public appearance. His portrait is carried through city squares and at mourning ceremonies, and decrees are issued in his name, while rumours about his condition persist.

A leadership that once drew its authority from the visible presence of a single figure now rests, in part, on an absence.

The state has also had to rebuild its command structure in the middle of the war. The opening strike killed IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour and armed forces chief-of-staff Abdolrahim Mousavi, while other senior commanders were slain in the weeks that followed.

On August 10, decrees issued in Mojtaba’s name formalised a new military leadership, including Ahmad Vahidi as IRGC chief and Ali Abdollahi as chief-of-staff.

The appointments appear to favour loyalty and continuity over change and were widely read as a signal that Tehran did not intend to soften its posture. The deeper significance is simpler: A state still rebuilding its high command in the sixth month of a war is not doing so from a position of strength.

From maximum pressure to ‘Economic Outcast’
The clearest sign that the war has returned to its economic origins is the campaign Washington has intensified since suspending strikes in early August. US officials had already branded the broader effort “Economic Fury”; on August 24, the Treasury launched Operation Economic Outcast, an expanded campaign aimed at severing Iran’s remaining financial links with the outside world.

Its instruments are familiar from the pre-war “maximum pressure” era but are being applied more aggressively: Secondary sanctions on those moving Iranian oil, measures against its “shadow fleet” and financial networks, and greater enforcement of international sanctions.

Iran’s oil exports, near 1.8 million barrels a day before the war, have fallen to below half a million; inflation is approaching 90 percent, with food prices more than double what they were a year ago.

Yet the siege lands on an economy whose troubles were never solely the work of sanctions.

Iran had long failed to insulate itself from an architecture built over decades, from US sanctions dating to the 1980s to United Nations Security Council resolutions since 2006.

Neither the 25-year, $400 billion partnership with China nor the strategic treaty signed with Russia in early 2025 delivered the stability Tehran sought. Before the war, Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian had acknowledged that sanctions alone could not account for the depth of the crisis and that governance bore its share.

The economic weapon works in part because the state it targets was already structurally exposed.

That pressure is now enforced at sea. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation on February 28 and, six months on, it has not reopened; the naval blockade that followed has fused with the closure into a single chokehold on Iran’s trade.

Diverging narratives in Tehran
That structural exposure is forcing a longstanding divergence into the open. For years, Iran’s leadership has explained its crises through two competing narratives: One, advanced by the political leadership, acknowledging failures of economic governance; the other, promoted by the security establishment, attributing unrest to external enemies.

Under the pressure of the siege, that divergence has sharpened into a disagreement over the war itself. President Pezeshkian, who signed the June memorandum with Washington, has spoken with growing candour about an economy giving way, saying this month that Iran’s difficulties have “multiplied several times over” as revenue has fallen.

On August 21, he argued that it would be “better to end [the war] today, while we are in a position of strength”, even as his government prepared Iranians for painful increases in fuel prices.

Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has put the danger more bluntly: “No matter how much military power we have, if the people are hungry and there is no financial circulation, economic growth, or national production, we will not endure.”

Yet he remains tied to the security establishment’s logic, insisting diplomacy carries weight only when backed by readiness for war and casting Washington’s economic turn as an admission of military failure.

That Iran’s two most senior civilian figures now say publicly that hunger, not bombardment, is the greatest threat marks a shift from the confident rhetoric of the war’s first months. It has not settled the argument over who is responsible, only raised its stakes.

Six months on, Iran’s leadership still measures the war by the standard it set at the outset: The system has not fallen, and everything else it considers recoverable. By that measure, survival remains a form of victory.

Pressure now falls on household
But the pressure now falls on the household and the market, where it is harder to answer with the language of resistance. The divide between a president urging an end to the war and a security establishment determined to outlast it is no longer concealed.

The war has also produced the terms of its own possible end. The closed strait and the blockade have become the centre of gravity for diplomacy. Reopening the strait and lifting the blockade are the levers each side holds over the other and the most plausible opening for negotiations that could bring the conflict to a close.

This leaves Iran with a difficult choice. To negotiate a settlement on terms Washington would accept risks provoking the internal fracture the hardliners fear; to hold out risks a bleeding economy and a winter that will test the state’s capacity to provide.

The war has also reinforced, within parts of the leadership, the conviction that only a nuclear capability could have deterred the initial attack, making any lasting settlement harder to reach.

Beneath these immediate pressures lies a more enduring pattern. The confrontation between Washington and Tehran has always been, at its core, a contest shaped by what the political elites of the two countries believe about each other and about the risks of dealing with each other.

On the Iranian side, US hostility has repeatedly deepened divisions within the political elite rather than compelling agreement, reinforcing its reluctance to make bold decisions about negotiating with the US.

Pressure intended to force Tehran’s hand has instead hardened the hesitation it sought to break, compounding Iran’s political and economic strains.

Six months into this war, that pattern is again on display: the campaign has come full circle to the economic weapon it began with, the Iranian elite is more divided, and the bold decision a settlement would require remains as distant as ever.

There is little sign that this cycle will end soon.

Professor Mahjoob Zweiri is an academic and senior political analyst specialising in Iran and Middle East politics. This article was first published by Al Jazeera and republished under Creative Commons.

In the past year there has been a scramble by the big powers to secure the continuing supply of “rare minerals” that are used in batteries driving electric cars and wind power turbines. There is a looming catastrophe awaiting the Pacific Ocean if countries in the region are not alert to the environmental threats facing the region.

Decades ago, greedy industrialists were polluting the air, and their governments refused to listen to scientific warnings of a looming climatic disaster, and now the island nations of the South Pacific are facing the brunt of climate change disasters.

If the current trends of digging out rare minerals from wherever you can find them continues, we will be left with oceans — especially the Pacific — where we cannot swim or fish, further threatening the livelihoods of many small Oceania nations.

• READ MORE: Pacific protesters against deep sea mining challenge US exploration ship
• Other Pacific deep sea mining reports

With the scramble for rare minerals extending to the deep seabed, a new geopolitical battle is hotting up in the South Pacific, where corruption and divisions among Pacific Island countries could be fermented by global powers battling to control the supply chain, with countries like Cook Islands, Kiribati and Nauru on the frontline.

Eliki Drugunalevu, a member of the research team that compiled the Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA) to the COP 29 meeting in Azerbaijan in 2024, warned in an interview with In-Depth News that inaction by the United Nations to pause the march towards deep sea mining for precious metals would result in a “catastrophic impact” on the Pacific for the long term.

“People on the Pacific islands rely on the ocean not only for their sustenance but also for their economic survival,” he said.

“If the fish are not going to come in, they will have to fish in another community’s fishing grounds, that will have a butterfly effect and create conflict.”

‘Protected’ by ISA
The deep blue oceans are expected to be protected by an autonomous international organisation, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) as the “common heritage of mankind” under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was adopted by the United Nations in 1982 and signed and ratified by 168 UN member states.

But the US has refused to sign the convention, objecting to articles restricting seabed mining.

Now the Trump administration seems keen to provide licences to American companies to mine the seabed in the Pacific, while the ISA which on July 31 concluded its latest two-week council and assembly meetings in Jamaica, is deadlocked in framing commercial exploitation guidelines — known as a Mining Code– for the seabed.

At the meeting, 45 countries called for a moratorium or precautionary pause on seabed mining, with Vanuatu in the Pacific proposing that such a pause be in operation until the risks are fully understood and the necessary scientific knowledge is available for a transparent process.

“Deep-sea mining is fraught with immense scientific uncertainty, [so] caution and common sense prevailed at this session, with member states rejecting a rushed adoption of the mining code,” noted Simon Candon, international media manager of Lisbon-based Oceano Azul Foundation in an interview with IDN.

With the US trying to undermine the UNCLOS and ISA, he added that “many countries used the assembly to unite against unilateral mining, agreeing that bypassing the ISA for commercial operations threatens ocean governance and the common heritage of humankind.

“But consensus could not be yet found on Vanuatu’s proposal.”

Onus on miners
Profesor David Schoeman, of the Ocean Futures Research Centre at Queensland’s University of the Sunshine State, argues that the onus should be on prospective seabed miners to provide empirical evidence that their activities will not cause harm to the ocean ecosystem.

“In terms of the type of evidence that could be provided, the gold standard would be a before–after, control–impact (BACI) study of simulated [small-scale] mining operations at select locations, with appropriate sampling of biotic and abiotic elements of the ecosystem over periods covering the anticipated recovery time of the system”.

Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ)  — a high seas area stretching over 4500 km between Hawai’i and Kiribati across to Mexico — is poised to become the first commercial seabed mining operation in the world if the US subsidiary of the Canada-based The Metals Company (TMC) succeed in getting an US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, licence to mine, in contravention of the UNCLOS.

Their application is currently under review.

Dr Felix Mallin, senior researcher of the Italian National Research Council told IDN that a test done in CCZ a few years ago with one machine alerted the scientific community to the damage to marine life in the deep oceans.

“While any commercial operation would be orders of magnitude bigger. Even if the scars left by modern technology were smaller, we would be looking at a much bigger aggregate damage across vast tracts of ocean floor,” he warns.

“For the Pacific, the fisheries link and the impact it might have on economic life is the one that should worry people most. Some modelling has projected tuna biomass in CCZ rising in coming decades, by up to about a third for skipjack, as global warming pushes stocks east, right into the zone where mining might take place.

‘Industrialising the water’
“So, if we are unlucky, we could be industrialising the water exactly where the region’s most valuable renewable resource is heading.”

While the ISA Mining Code negotiations drag on, Dr Mallin argues that what is needed is an environmental harm independent baseline study in the Pacific, “which no one wants to fund”.

He notes that the prospective seabed mining companies have plugged enormous financial resources into developing technology and lobbying, and if commercial returns are not forthcoming quickly, the investors could flee.

Thus, they are exercising enormous pressure on small Pacific Island states.

Nauru, a nation of 12,00 people, which was exploited by phosphate miners in the 1990s resulting in an environmental disaster to the land, is now been targeted by the seabed miners.

In 2021, Nauru said it would grant a commercial-scale seabed mining approval in their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) — granted under the UNCLOS — to a subsidiary of TMC, which rang alarm bells at ISA, and triggered an urgency to come up with a Mining Code.

The ISA called for a pause while the code is been negotiated, another arm of the UN has come up with another treaty, the Boundaries Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement which came into effect in January 2026.

Agreement ‘plugging gaps’
This agreement is designed to plug gaps in the UNCLOS, to safeguard seabeds outside a nation’s EEZ.

A controversy is currently brewing in the Cook Islands over US corporate designs to mine the seabed that belongs to the Pacific Islanders.

While Cook Islands has 240 sq km of land, it owns just under 2 million sq km of sea. Under UNCLOS it exercises full sovereign rights to explore, exploit, and manage the natural resources of the seabed and subsoil within its expansive EEZ.

Another Pacific nation, Kiribati’s EEZ covers over 3 million sq km via its far-flung islands, making it one of the largest oceanic territories in the world. They generate significant economic revenue through fishing access agreements with foreign nations to this zone.

It is believed that China is wooing Kiribati to gain future access to seabed mining in their EEZ.

It will be lucrative for such island nations to sell mining rights to the ocean seabed under their EEZ’s, but the problem is, no one knows what would be the long-term impacts of such mining on marine resources like fisheries, and the ocean environment in general.

“My fear is that places like Kiribati and the Cook Islands (with their small populations) will simply be bought off by US miners,” warns Michael Field, Auckland-based editor of South Pacific Tides.

“Pacific states will get just licensing money out of mining [as they do with fishing] but undersea minerals will not provide much in the way of jobs or revenue.

“Minerals, for example, extracted in the Cook Islands, will have to be refined, probably in Asia. The profits will come elsewhere but the environmental risks will be the exclusive property of Pacific people”.

Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lankan-Australian journalist and international communication scholar. He is author of GeoPolitics and the Media in Asia and the Pacific: Pulling in Different Directions. This article was first published by IDN and is republished with permission.

A few months back, the story of the Victoria University of Wellington economist Dr Eleanor Vance and her 1978 paper “The Market Autocrat: Anticipating the Neoliberal Siege on Welfare States” was shared numerous times on my Facebook feed.

Soon after, the heartwarming story of former prime minister Jacinda Ardern donating hundreds of thousands of dollars from speaking fees to building shelters for the homeless was all over social media.

And yesterday, I read about a meeting between the radical leftist former president of Uruguay, Pepe Mujica, and Princess Diana sharing their “deepest reflections on life”.

• READ MORE: Who’s behind the flood of AI slop online? — The Listening Post

The three stories have two things in common: they’re positive stories aimed squarely at political progressives, and they’re complete bullshit: AI slop.

Worryingly, they were shared on my social media feeds by a former board member of RNZ, a former foreign correspondent, a former journalism lecturer, and the editor of a professional trade magazine.

I’ve just read a tearjerker of a note here on Substack about Rachel Foster, a Vermont baker who took to delivering a blueberry muffin each Friday to a customer in a hospice. Gemini tells me it’s AI slop. (Yes, there’s an irony in the fact that by far the quickest way to identify AI slop is to ask an AI.)

That note has received more than 27,700 likes and 780 restacks.

Confession time
And, confession time, a year or so ago, I might have shared a piece of viral AI slop when I first heard about Burkina Faso’s leader Captain Ibrahim Traore and his defiant anti-imperialism. I say might because there were some legitimate stories among the flood of AI-generated video and text stories that filled my social media feeds.

Rosa Cafferty, in her paper A Digital Divide: A Breeding Ground for Hate, explains how social media’s need for eyeballs for its advertisers has seen it using algorithms to cluster people into bubbles and echo chambers.

“Algorithms exploit vulnerabilities, prioritising sensational, emotional, and divisive content which thrives on outrage and extremity. As a result, posts evoking anger, outrage, and fear gain far more visibility than those promoting reflection or nuance.”

That’s undoubtedly true but something else is going on here. People are sharing heartwarming and inspiring stories “promoting reflection” and “nuance” — that are completely bogus. If nothing else, it reveals there’s a demand for stories that give people hope.

My Facebook feed is, like everyone else’s, populated by my “friends” — people who not surprisingly share many of my values and interests.

If I were, say, an anti-abortion supporter of one rule for all, corporal punishment, and a tough-on-crime approach, no doubt my “friends” and the algorithms would be dishing up an entirely different AI menu — different but still most likely a bogus one.

The business logic of algorithms driving division and anger, described by Cafferty, is the same logic that drives commercial media: maximising the number of eyeballs that can be fed paid adverts.

Same thing with a twist
The same thing is at play here but with a twist. While Meta, X, and YouTube have traditionally platformed content created by the mainstream media, cannibalising their advertising base in the process, now Meta is paying creators to produce content. Content that doesn’t need to meet any standards of accuracy or truth.

The Jacinda Ardern slop was posted by a page called Kindness in Power. Until recently it was wall-to-wall AI-generated stories celebrating Ardern, many of which went viral. It currently has 5800 followers – including four I know, one of whom is a published writer.

Choosing Ardern with her massive following — both in Aotearoa and internationally — and her much smaller but highly motivated haters was a masterstroke. Glowing stories about Ardern are shared and commented on equally by those who love her and those who don’t and want to cry hypocrisy (and much worse).

Kindness in Power has — for some reason — pivoted from Ardern to stories about the All Blacks:

BREAKING: Former All Blacks Standout Identified as a Primary Suspect in Shocking S.ex.ual Ass.ault Investigation…

SHOCKING NEWS: The All Blacks have just announced that the team has parted ways with one of its veteran players…

There’s still the occasional political post but without the kindness:

BREAKING 30 MINS AGO: Chris Hipkins and Toni Grace have just delivered a massive bombshell announcement, sending shockwaves throughout New Zealand and leaving supporters…

Not a winning plan
It’s not a winning game plan. That story about Jacinda Ardern and the homeless was shared and liked thousands of times; the All Black ones rarely get liked more than a handful of times.

“Shady” who shared the story about the kind-hearted Vermont baker ended the note by inviting readers to subscribe to “see more kindness stories like this”.

Does Shady know it’s a made-up story — probably. Should Shady know — definitely.

Another Shady post is lifted directly from Moonlight_myths on X, which describes itself as: Story sanctuary — Quote haven — bite-size novels and pure vibe.

Anyone on X looking at Moonlight_myths’ bio is aware the story is fiction, while thousands of commenters on Substack believe it to be real.

Shady has 23,000 subscribers on Substack — some paying the US$6.50 a month — and tens of thousands of followers across other social media platforms.

There’s a link at the bottom of the President Mujica–Princess Di Facebook post that takes you to a page that explains it was an AI-generated “what if” story. (I doubt anyone who had clicked on that link would bother sharing the article. It makes a piss-poor fairy tale.)

Request to Deepseek
I asked Deepseek — the Chinese AI that’s apparently slightly less environmentally disastrous than its US competitors — to write me a short story based on an imaginary meeting between the princess and the president. In less than five seconds this is some of what it spat out.

A princess trapped in a broken marriage arrived seeking help, but a former guerrilla fighter, living without luxuries, uttered a phrase that left her trembling: “Freedom costs, but slavery costs more.” Imagine a world where a British royal princess and a former Uruguayan guerrilla fighter shared their deepest reflections on life. It seems impossible, but it happened… At the presidential residence, José Mujica, then a senator, sipped mate in the garden while reviewing some documents. His hands, calloused from years of working the land, firmly held the traditional gourd.

Sure, there are giveaways for fans of Mujica: he never lived at the presidential residence, preferring a shack on his small farm. And the style has the ickiness of so much AI inspirational slop. And it plagiarised the other AI produced story.

But five seconds! Facebook creators can literally churn out hundreds of these stories an hour and Meta will pay them for it.

The ABC investigation last week revealed Meta is paying white nationalists with neo-Nazi links and an anti-vaxxer to create content.

Meta declined to comment but it seems the company is agnostic about whether its creators are peddling hate or spreading fake stories of hope — as long as they’re capturing eyeballs.

And AI are just as quick at churning out fake images. An author of books on heterodox economics — not someone you’d expect to be fooled easily — recently shared this photo of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni draped in the Palestinian flag.

The image and others like it have gone viral. The world is desperate, it seems, for a woman leader of courage to call out the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Sadly, Meloni, a fan of Mussolini, isn’t that woman.

The Jewish president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, is a leader who has spoken out repeatedly against the genocide, but weirdly it’s barely reported.

It’s not only content creators wanting to make a quick buck using AI to generate images. A post in support of Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury recently included a photo of him smoking a pipe out of his cheek.

And a group opposing the building of AI data centres in New Zealand posted this obviously AI-generated image a week or so ago.

Already passed the point?
Now it feels as if we’re still at a point where the sceptical can spot AI slop. But with AI developing at an incredible pace, who knows how long that will last and whether we’d know if we had already passed that point.

The New York Times is reporting today that (gift link): “The digital sewage heap has sprawled across tech platforms, cheapening meaningful content and polluting the information ecosystem, as chatbots and video generators continue to advance.”

And it reports that across the internet, tech companies are undertaking a generative waste detox.

We can be sure that the detox is being undertaken for one reason and one reason only: the inundation of the internet with seemingly unlimited AI slop is bad for business. But it seems what’s bad for one business is good for another: Meta.

In the 1960s the American Bible Society published Good News for Modern Man in the hope of spreading the Christian message amongst the masses; today social media platforms are full of AI-generated fake good news stories (as well as stories of hate and pretty much any shit you can imagine) all driven by the state religion: capitalism.

It’s bad news for humanity, and one thing we can all do is stop sharing it and for everyone’s sake stop using it to produce second rate writing and even worse images.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and an Asia Pacific Report contributor. His Substack is Towards Democracy.

As Indonesia marks the 81st anniversary of its independence today — August 17 —  the republic has much to celebrate.

Over eight decades, Indonesia has transformed itself from a newly independent archipelago into one of the world’s largest democracies and economies, holding together an extraordinarily diverse nation across thousands of islands.

But anniversaries are not only moments for celebration. They are also moments for reflection.

• READ MORE: Indonesia at 81: Whose sovereignty are we celebrating?
• Indonesia’s magnitude 7.7 quake kills at least 51, displaces thousands
• Other Laurens Ikinia articles

From Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost region, one question deserves particular attention:

After 81 years of independence, what do development, equality and “Merdeka” (“freedom”) really mean for Indigenous Papuans?

Recent demographic figures make that question increasingly urgent.

Population data from May–June 2026 puts the population across the land of Papua — Indonesia’s six Papuan provinces — at 5,797,499 people. Of these, 2,283,703 are recorded as Orang Asli Papua (OAP), or Indigenous Papuans, in Indonesia’s centralised Population Administration Information System.

That is roughly 39.4 percent of the total population.

This could mean everyone outside that category is non-Papuan. Administrative records may include Indigenous Papuans whose status has not been properly identified. Better verification is essential.

Still, the figures point to a profound demographic transformation. Indonesia, at 81, needs to talk seriously about what that means.

Independence and Indigenous dignity
Indonesia’s independence was founded on a powerful principle: people should live with dignity and have a meaningful say over their future. That principle matters for Indigenous peoples too.

Around the world, Indigenous rights increasingly mean more than formal equality. They include protecting cultures, languages, customary institutions, and ancestral lands, while ensuring meaningful participation in decisions that affect Indigenous communities. Papua belongs in that conversation.

Indigenous Papuans are not simply another category in a population database. They represent hundreds of communities with distinct languages, customary systems, histories and relationships with ancestral territories.

Papua is among the most culturally and linguistically diverse places on Earth.

Protecting that diversity should not be seen as an obstacle to Indonesian nation-building. It should be one of its achievements.

After 81 years, Indonesia should be confident enough to recognise that national unity and Indigenous rights are not contradictory. A strong nation should be able to protect both.

Papua’s quiet demographic transformation
Papua has changed dramatically in recent decades. Roads now connect communities once accessible mainly by air or on foot. Towns have expanded. New provinces and districts have emerged. Airports, ports, telecommunications, mining, plantations and government institutions have transformed the economic landscape.

Alongside this development has come another powerful force: internal migration from other parts of Indonesia.

Migration itself is not the enemy. Many migrants have lived in Papua for decades. Some were born there. They teach in schools, work in hospitals, operate businesses, serve in government and contribute to local economies. The real issue is not whether non-Papuans should live in Papua.

The question is whether rapid demographic change, combined with unequal access to education, capital and economic networks, could gradually weaken Indigenous Papuans’ ability to shape the economic and social future of their ancestral homeland.

Across Papua’s growing urban centres, economic competition is intensifying. Land values are rising, businesses are expanding, and new opportunities are emerging. But people do not enter that competition from the same starting line.

A young Indigenous entrepreneur from Papua’s highlands may compete with someone raised with better schools, stronger business networks, easier access to banking and greater family capital. Calling that competition “equal” does not make the starting conditions equal.

What has Special Autonomy delivered?
Indonesia has already recognised that Papua requires a distinctive policy approach. That recognition lies at the heart of Special Autonomy, or Otonomi Khusus Papua.

Special Autonomy was intended, among other things, to give Papua greater authority and resources while strengthening the protection and empowerment of Indigenous Papuans.
More than two decades later, however, the important question is no longer simply how much money has been allocated. It is what that money has achieved.

How many Indigenous Papuan doctors, engineers, teachers, academics and entrepreneurs have been produced? How many OAP-owned companies have become competitive businesses? How many Indigenous Papuans hold senior positions in industries operating in their ancestral territories?

And how many children in remote Papuan communities now receive an education comparable to children elsewhere in Indonesia? These should be among the measures defining the next generation of Special Autonomy.

Papua does not simply need more government spending. It needs measurable Indigenous empowerment.

Land is more than an economic asset
Demographic change becomes particularly sensitive when it intersects with Indigenous land. For many Papuan communities, land is not simply property. It is identity. Mountains, forests, rivers and valleys carry genealogical, spiritual and historical relationships stretching across generations.

Modern development, however, also gives land commercial value. A road can turn customary territory into valuable real estate. An administrative centre creates demand for housing. Plantations transform forests into economic assets. Mining can turn mountains into resources worth billions.

In these situations, Indigenous communities may find themselves negotiating with institutions and corporations possessing far greater financial, legal and political resources. That imbalance cannot be ignored.

Indigenous rights should therefore become a central pillar of Papua’s development model, rather than something discussed only after disputes emerge.

Customary communities need stronger legal protection, transparent consultation and meaningful participation in decisions affecting their territories. Development should happen with Indigenous Papuans, not merely around them.

Better data, better policy
The 2026 figures expose another challenge: Indonesia needs more transparent and credible Indigenous demographic data.

The figure of 2.28 million registered OAP should be the beginning of the conversation, not its conclusion. A census is needed.

Indonesia should be able to answer basic questions: How many OAP live in each province and district? What are their education and health outcomes? How many attend university or own businesses? How much customary land remains under Indigenous control? And how is internal migration changing Papua’s demographic landscape?

Without reliable data, policy risks becoming guesswork. Special Autonomy cannot be properly evaluated if the government from the central to regional level cannot measure whether Indigenous Papuans themselves are progressing.

Education is the real battleground
Ultimately, Papua’s future will not be determined by population numbers alone. It will be determined by human capacity.

A population can be numerically smaller yet remain culturally, economically and politically strong when its people are educated, healthy and economically productive. That is why education should become the centrepiece of Indonesia’s next Papua strategy.

Consider a Papuan child born today in Puncak, Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Nduga or Pegunungan Bintang districts. One day, that child may compete for a university place or professional job with students from Jakarta, Surabaya, Makassar or Yogyakarta.

But that competition begins long before the university entrance examination. It begins with maternal nutrition and early childhood development. It continues through primary education, teacher quality, electricity, internet access, books, laboratories and healthcare.

If those foundations are radically unequal, the final competition cannot reasonably be called equal.

The most powerful affirmative-action policy Indonesia can pursue is therefore not simply reserving positions for Indigenous Papuans. It is preparing Papuans so well that they can compete for those positions with confidence.

Papua does not need permanent dependency. Papua needs capacity.

A new meaning of Merdeka
Every August 17, the word “Merdeka” echoes across Indonesia.

It means freedom. But 81 years after independence, perhaps freedom should also be measured by whether people have the capacity to shape their own future.

For Indigenous Papuans, Merdeka should mean that a child born in a remote village has a realistic pathway to become a doctor, engineer, professor, entrepreneur or national leader.
It should mean communities can participate in development without losing their ancestral land. It should mean Papuan languages and cultures survive modernisation rather than becoming its casualties.

And it should mean demographic change does not translate into cultural, economic or political marginalisation.

This is not an argument against migration, nor a call to divide Papuans from other Indonesians. It is a call for Indonesia to make the promise of independence meaningful for one of its most distinctive Indigenous populations.

The demographic figures should not create fear. They should create urgency.
Indonesia still has an opportunity to build a model in Papua where economic growth, national integration and Indigenous rights reinforce rather than undermine one another.

That means better demographic data, stronger protection of customary land, investment in education and healthcare, affirmative economic opportunities, accountable Special Autonomy institutions and meaningful OAP participation in decisions affecting Papua.

Ultimately, Indonesia’s Papua policy should be judged by a simple question: Are Indigenous Papuans becoming stronger or weaker in their own homeland?

By Indonesia’s centenary in 2045, Papua will look very different. Its cities will be larger, its infrastructure more extensive and its economy more closely connected to Indonesia and the wider Asia-Pacific.

But infrastructure alone will not define success.

The real test will be whether Indigenous Papuans stand at the centre of that transformation — educated, healthy, economically competitive, culturally confident and capable of shaping their communities’ future.

A nation can build roads, airports, ports and cities. The greater achievement is building a country where development does not require Indigenous peoples to disappear.

Eighty-one years after independence, Indonesia has an opportunity to prove that Papua can modernise without losing Papuans — and that “Merdeka” can mean progress without erasure.

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 a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Today, we mark an extraordinary milestone: 42 years of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC).

As we reflect on this journey, we are reminded of the countless lives that have intersected with our work since 1984. Over the past four decades, 168,145 survivors have accessed the services of FWCC and its branches throughout Fiji.

These include survivors of domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, child abuse, and other forms of violence and abuse.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre reports

Yet numbers alone can never tell the full story.

Statistics cannot capture the fear of a woman escaping violence in the middle of the night. They cannot describe the courage it takes to disclose rape for the first time.

They cannot measure the resilience of survivors who rebuild their lives after trauma, nor reflect the determination of women who refused to give up despite experiencing violence, discrimination, and inequality.

Every individual who walked through our doors came seeking safety, support, and dignity. Many arrived carrying experiences that no one should ever have to endure. Many came believing they were alone. Our role was, and continues to be, to ensure they know they are not.

Principles of feminism
Throughout our history, FWCC’s work has remained firmly grounded in the principles of feminism, women’s human rights, human rights, dignity, equality, and justice. These principles have guided our response to violence against women and girls, shaped our advocacy, informed our research and training, and strengthened our commitment to building a society where all women and girls can live free from violence, discrimination, and inequality.

While our primary focus has been addressing violence against women and girls, our services have always recognised the diversity of the communities we serve. Over the past 42 years, we have worked with women in all their diversity, including women from rural and urban communities, women with disabilities, young women, older women, women from different ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, and women of different sexual orientations and gender identities.

We have also supported men and boys affected by violence and abuse, as well as members of the LGBTQI+ community who have sought counselling, support, information, and protection.

Looking back, the impact of FWCC extends far beyond the people who directly accessed our services. It can be seen in the women who found safety and rebuilt their lives. It can be seen in the police officers, health workers, teachers, community leaders, faith leaders, and advocates who received training and developed a deeper understanding of violence against women and women’s human rights.

It is reflected in laws, policies, and public conversations that have been influenced by decades of advocacy, research, and evidence-based work. It is reflected in generations of women and girls who now know that they have rights, that violence is never their fault, and that support is available.

Centre’s leadership
No reflection on the journey of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre would be complete without acknowledging the leadership of our coordinator, Shamima Ali. For more than four decades, she has been the most influential voice for women’s human rights in Fiji and the Pacific. Her unwavering commitment to ending violence against women and girls, advancing gender equality, and holding institutions accountable has helped shape not only the direction of FWCC but also the national conversation on women’s rights and human rights.

Under her leadership, FWCC has grown from a small feminist organisation into a nationally and internationally respected centre for crisis intervention, advocacy, research, training, and feminist leadership. Through times of political uncertainty, social resistance, and changing public attitudes, she has remained steadfast in speaking out against injustice and ensuring that survivors’ voices and experiences remain at the centre of our work.

Some people witness history and others help shape it. Shamima Ali has done both. Thank you, Sham.

We also acknowledge with gratitude the staff, counsellors, trainers, volunteers, trustees, supporters, allies, donors, partners, and communities who have stood with us over the last four decades. Your dedication, commitment, and belief in this work have made these achievements possible.

We also extend our sincere appreciation to the Australian government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the New Zealand government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), for their longstanding partnership and support. Their contributions have strengthened efforts to advance women’s human rights and respond to violence against women and girls in Fiji and across the Pacific.

As we reflect on 42 years, we are also mindful of those whose experiences remain unseen and unheard. Their stories remind us that violence against women remains one of the most urgent human rights challenges facing our nation.

That is why our work remains as important today as it was in 1984.

We do not mark anniversaries simply to celebrate longevity. We mark them to honour feminist persistence and resilience.

Our dream has always been to work ourselves out of business. Until that day comes, the work continues.

Republished from the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre website, 13 August 2026.

An exclusive poll reveals a tight election with no clear winner, as the surging Cook Islands United Party (CIUP) challenges the governing Cook Islands Party (CIP) while cost-of-living concerns dominate voter focus.

With just two days to go before the country heads to the elections on Wednesday (Thursday NZ time), a Cook Islands News election poll shows no clear winner, indicating a coalition will be required to form the next government.

None of the political parties contesting the election achieved a majority in a sample of voters — representing just over one percent of those registered to vote — polled across the country.

• READ MORE: Other Cook Islands elections reports

The governing CIP, which is seeking a fifth consecutive term, holds a narrow baseline lead with 30.5 percent popular support but faces a fierce challenge from the surging CIUP at 26.7 percent.

The Democratic Party, which lost ground in the 2022 general election, has slumped further in the polls to 8.6 percent — tying with the Independents.

With more than a quarter of the electorate (25.7 percent) still undecided and Independents capturing over 20 percent of votes in the Pa Enua (outer islands), no single party currently possesses a clear, unassisted path to a 13-seat parliamentary majority.

CIP leader and caretaker Prime Minister Mark Brown said they were grateful to be in front, which matched what their candidates were hearing at the doors — “a lot of quiet support for a team that has delivered”.

Taking ‘nothing for granted’
“But a lead is not a result, and we take nothing for granted,” Brown told Cook Islands News. “With a field this wide, every vote has to be earned, and we intend to keep earning them right up to election day.

“The only poll that counts is the one on August 12, and that one belongs entirely to our people.”

Compared to previous electoral baseline, Teariki Heather-led Cook Islands United Party has experienced a major surge and has effectively displaced the Democratic Party as the primary challenger to the incumbent CIP.

Heather welcomed the poll, saying they were “grateful” for the surge in support and adding, “we [moved] at least from a minority party to a major party now”.

He said he expected this level of support and foresaw becoming a major challenger to the governing CIP.

Democratic Party leader Tina Pupuke-Browne said they took the poll result “seriously”.

“Of course I would like to see the Democrats polling higher, but I am not going to dismiss a poll simply because one part of it is uncomfortable,” Pupuke-Browne said.

25.7 percent undecided
She noted that 25.7 percent of those polled remain undecided.

“That tells me many people are still weighing up their choices and looking closely at what each party and candidate is offering,” Pupuke-Browne said.

“I do not believe any political party is entitled to anyone’s vote, including people who want a change of government. We have to earn their support.”

She said the Democrats would continue to do that by talking about the issues people raise with them every day, “the cost of living, support for families and pensioners, opportunities for our young people, the Pa Enua, better public services, and accountable government”.

“We are putting forward a serious alternative. Ultimately, it is for the voters, not politicians, to decide who they trust to form the next government.”

Brown said he respected undecided voters.

“In a serious election, weighing it up carefully is exactly what a thoughtful voter should do, and I would never take their vote for granted,” he said.

‘Look at the record’
“My message to them is simple: look at the record, and look at the plan. Over 10 years we rebuilt the economy after covid, halved the government’s debt, lifted pensions, the Child Benefit and the minimum wage, and kept the buses free.

“Our manifesto carries that forward with five clear promises.

“For us it’s important that we keep working to prove to those undecided voters that we are the government of choice.”

United Party’s Heather asked the undecided voters to “reconsider and work with the United Party, because definitely we need change”.

“Obviously, there is quite a number of those who are not sure who they would decide — that’s what the poll says, but honestly, I believe, the people will vote on the 12th for United Party … the people just sitting on the fence and not coming out loud, but on the 12th, they will come out loud and you will have the absolute figures then.”

Incumbent Mark Brown is the preferred prime minister at 35.2 percent followed by Heather at 19 percent and Pupuke-Browne trails at 5.7 percent.

A majority — 50.5 percent — of respondents across the Pa Enua and Rarotonga identified the cost of living and inflation — including fuel prices, water and power bills, housing, transportation and consumer goods — as their primary concern.

Republished from the Cook islands News with permission.

The environmental and human rights documentary Pesta Babi (Pig Feast): Colonialism in Our Time has been awarded both the 2026 Udin and Tasrif Awards from Indonesia’s Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) during the organisation’s 32nd anniversary celebration at the Press Council Hall in Jakarta.

The Udin Award was presented to director Dandhy Dwi Laksono and the production
team behind Pesta Babi — which premiered in New Zealand in March — while the Tasrif Award went to the documentary’s production team.

Producer Victor C. Mambor, publisher of Jubi Media, who accepted the awards on behalf of the team, said they were dedicated to Papuans who had experienced discrimination and been denied their rights.

• READ MORE: West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military
• Read other Pesta Babi documentary reports

“These awards are also for the journalists, particularly the Pig Feast team, for their
consistency in producing this film,” he said.

“The team faced many challenges during production, and some of those problems continue today. But we’re happy because being an AJI member has always meant being no stranger to problems.”

He said journalists must continue to speak out about issues that needed to be brought
to public attention and stand alongside people experiencing oppression.

Anthropologist and documentary filmmaker Cypri Jehan Paju Dale, who accepted the Tasrif Award on behalf of the team, said receiving the two awards was an honour and an opportunity to affirm shared values.

‘Destruction of ecosystems’
“A major injustice is still taking place in Papua. Land appropriation, the destruction of
ecosystems and military operations have continued for more than 60 years and are
now occurring on a scale we have not seen before,” Paju Dale said.

He said Papua was experiencing extractive mining, while thousands of people had been displaced from their villages by military operations and mining concessions.

Paju Dale said the film’s screenings had helped encourage communities to speak out and that the awards should be understood as recognition of Papuan communities and their right to resist.

“Resistance by Papuan Indigenous communities is legitimate,” he said.

He cited the opening paragraph of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, which states that independence is the right of all nations and that colonialism must be abolished because it is inconsistent with humanity and justice.

“We also dedicate this award to AJI. Journalists are on the front lines of exposing practices of ecocide and genocide in Papua, while reminding us that the Constitution states that colonialism must be abolished,” he said.

AJI Indonesia secretary-general Bayu Wardhana said the decision to award Pesta Babi was made independently by the respective juries and was not subject to intervention from AJI.

‘The right choice’
“We believe the juries made the right choice. It reflects Indonesia’s current situation, and the position journalism must take: standing with those who cannot speak for themselves—the voiceless,” Bayu told ABC Indonesia.

The Udin Award itself is one of AJI’s highest recognitions for individuals or groups
that contribute to the struggle for press freedom, civil liberties, democratic development and human values.

The award is named after Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin, known as Udin, a journalist
with the Bernas daily in Yogyakarta who was killed on 16 August 1996 after reporting
on corruption in Bantul.

Udin became a symbol of the fight against corruption and journalists’ resilience in the
face of threats and attacks from those accused of crimes against humanity.

The Tasrif Award is named after Suardi Tasrif, a prominent Indonesian journalist regarded as the “Father of Indonesia’s Journalistic Code of Ethics”.

During his lifetime, Tasrif was a prominent advocate for press freedom and freedom
of expression, which he regarded as fundamental human rights.

AJI Indonesia first presented the award in 1998 to Munir, then coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS). It has since been awarded regularly to individuals and groups that consistently defend freedom of expression and press freedom.

The 2026 Udin Award jury comprised Arif Maulana, deputy chair of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI); Almas Sjafrina of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW);
and Masduki, an AJI official and representative of PR2Media.

The Tasrif Award jury consisted of Gema Gita Persada of the Legal Aid Institute for
the Press (LBH Pers), Daniel Awigra of the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG),
and Ignatius Haryanto of Multimedia Nusantara University (UMN).

Republished from Jubi News/West Papua Daily in collaboration.

NSW Police have dropped charges against the remaining climate protesters from Rising Tide’s 2024 People’s Blockade of Newcastle Harbour — the site of the world’s largest coal port.

Climate Defenders Australia, which represented 117 of the arrestees, had repeatedly petitioned police to withdraw anti-protest charges after they failed to prosecute test cases, and were required to pay A$73,000 in costs.

• READ MORE: Police drop charges against 125 Rising Tide protesters two years after Newcastle port blockade
• Rising Tide climate activists say they feel ‘vindicated’ after more than 100 charges are dropped
• Other Rising Tide protest reports

Another 100 arrestees remain charged from the 2025 Rising Tide protest — the backlog for police and courts is another measure of the failure of Premier Chris Minns’ draconian anti-protest laws.

With the victory of progressive Dr Abdul El-Sayed over Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic primary this week, prepare yourself to hear enormous quantities of bullsh*t in the United States about the Democratic Party now being “taken over” by “Democratic Socialists”.

Or as the reliably establishment New York Times described what’s at stake, “can an insurgent candidate, with unabashedly left-wing positions, win in a moderate state?”

Oh, p-l-e-a-s-e.

• READ MORE: How Abdul El-Sayed’s ‘extraordinary’ win stunned pro-Israel establishment

Michigan Democrats didn’t choose Dr El-Sayed because he’s “unabashedly left wing” or a Democratic Socialist (in fact, he’s not).

They chose him because he’s a fighter — at a time when America needs fighters willing to stand up to the worst tyrant who has ever occupied the Oval Office.

Corporate Democrats– such as Haley Stevens, along with Rahm Emanuel, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries — aren’t up to the task because they won’t bite the corporate hands that feed them campaign money.

They won’t criticise the billionaire class. They refuse to see how big money has corrupted America.

Billionaires backing neo-fascism
Yet it’s big corporations and the billionaire class that are supporting Trump’s neo-fascism.

They’ve sucked up to Trump for corporate welfare, giant tax cuts, tariff exemptions, antitrust acquiescence, and war contracts. They’ve given Trump hundreds of millions for his inauguration, his ballroom, his 250th birthday, his superPAC.

Jamie Dimon and Wall Street; Elon Musk and his billionaire bros; Brad Carp and his corporate lawyers; Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Ellisons — all have sold their integrity for huge profits.

They’ve created media empires that won’t criticise Trump, financial empires that feed Trump’s crypto, energy empires that feed off Trump’s war, and legal empires that allow Trump to ride roughshod over the rule of law.

Which is why America desperately needs people in Congress who will fight against Trump and his sycophants.

The Democratic Party isn’t being taken over by Democratic Socialists. There’s no civil war between progressives and moderates. We aren’t witnessing an ideological battle between the “left” and the “center”.

We’re seeing America wake up to the tyranny that’s engulfed us, and to a crisis of affordability that’s causing most Americans to struggle financially while fueling the biggest stock market rally in history.

Tyranny is handmaiden of money
When corporate America and Wall Street are unleashed — when the President of the United States has made an implicit deal with the moneyed interests to back him and his authoritarian regime in exchange for tax cuts, deregulation, monopolisation, and pay-to-play corruption — of course prices soar and wages stagnate.

Tyranny is the handmaiden of the moneyed interests.

The Democratic Party’s mega-donor class may be horrified by the rising tide of progressive populism overtaking more than a few primaries this cycle. It spent tens of million of dollars on Stevens — making the Michigan primary one of the most expensive in American history.

Too bad. It’s time that the Democratic Party’s mega-donor class recognises that its real choice is between democracy and tyranny, between an economy that works for all or one that works for a small sliver at the top.

If the mega-donor class chooses the latter, it may be acting in its narrow self-interest, but it will also be acting against the future of this nation.

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

COMMENTARY: By John Hobbs

A friend who lives in Gaza, just posted the following:

“From the sea of Gaza, I do not look out . . . I stand on the edge of the world, shouting in a direction that does not hear, and I know that between me and them there is not just a sea, but a silence that is skilled at betrayal.”

The New Zealand government has remained silent on the issue of genocide by Israel against the peoples of Gaza, despite numerous other countries publicly condemning Israel’s actions as genocide.

From time to time, the government might call for a “two-state solution”, join allies to issue protestations that the harm inflicted on the Palestinian people must stop, demand a ceasefire, or take part in various resolutions at the United Nations calling for an end to atrocities.

But all the while, the Israeli government rapidly expands its illegal settlements and continues to allow settlers to kill Palestinians under the watch of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). Israel is doing everything it can to drive the remaining Palestinian people out of their villages and cities in Occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The gap between the government’s insincere words and its willingness to take real action mirrors the coalition’s approach to Māori. Here at home, it claims to uphold, honour, and respect the Treaty relationship, all while rolling out policies to dismantle the rights owed to Māori as Treaty partners.

Just as it’s important to hold the government to account for domestic policy, it’s equally important to hold it to account for foreign policy. It’s erroneous to think that the two aren’t intimately connected.

Disgraceful foreign policy
The government’s disgraceful foreign policy approach to Gaza and Palestine was shown up recently during a visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark and the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson.

The women were there on behalf of “The Elders,” an independent group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, working for peace, justice, human rights, and a sustainable planet. They stated: “We believe that the policies of the current Israeli government are leading to Palestine disappearing in plain sight.”

STATEMENT | “Palestine must not disappear.”

Following their visit to the Middle East, Mary Robinson, Graça Machel, @HelenClarkNZ and Hina Jilani call on leaders to act now to stop the disappearance of Palestine at the hands of the Israeli government.

Read the full statement… pic.twitter.com/3crFe2bFnk

— The Elders (@TheElders) July 17, 2026

The evidence for this comes from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In its Humanitarian Situation Report of June 19, 2026, it noted:

“6200 Palestinians, including more than 3000 children, have been forcibly displaced because of settler attacks and related access restrictions across 119 communities. Of these, more than 3,600 people were displaced from 46 communities that have effectively been erased, meaning they were completely emptied of their residents. In 2026 alone, as of mid-June, Israeli citizens, armed and backed by the army, have expelled 2200 Palestinians.”

This is what the person living in Gaza describes as the “silence that is skilled at betrayal”.

Just as it does with Māori, New Zealand uses laudable language to give the appearance of care and decency, but it is a veneer that masks deep insincerity and an unwillingness to take concrete steps to actively protect rights.

There is no doubt the coalition government has “betrayed” the Palestinian people of Gaza, the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. But in fact they’ve done worse. They have potentially made New Zealand complicit in the act of genocide.

Not fulfilled obligations
It is likely that New Zealand has not fulfilled its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948, which requires that “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”

Chris Sidoti is an international human rights lawyer, an expert on national human rights institutions, and a member of The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In a recent address in Wellington, he argued that, in addition to not committing genocide, states had an obligation to prevent it.

“States shall act to prevent the commission of genocide and shall punish the commission of genocide. New Zealand has an international legal obligation to act to prevent the commission of genocide.

“That does not require that genocide actually occur. My prime minister, from Australia, is very keen on saying we can’t say whether this is genocide or not. We’re waiting for the International Court of Justice to decide that issue, which may be in the next five or 10 years.

“That’s not the obligation. The obligation is to act to prevent genocide. It is a prior obligation, and it’s an obligation that is designed to ensure that genocide never exists. So it is an obligation in advance.

“In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued what are called provisional measures, which is like an injunction under your law and ours. And in issuing provisional measures, the Court said that there is a risk that the rights of Palestinians under the Genocide Convention are being or will be infringed. Now, you cannot get a more authoritative case. As of January 2024, all parties to the Genocide Convention have been under an obligation to act to prevent. And the question therefore is, what have you done?”

I recently sought access, through the Official Information Act, to the advice received by the government on New Zealand’s complicity under the Genocide Convention. The government’s decision to withhold the information was reviewed by the Office of the Ombudsman, which in turn supported the government’s right to withhold the advice under legal privilege, as in their view it was not outweighed by the public interest in releasing that information.

How could it not be in the public interest to understand New Zealand’s obligation to act, or otherwise, to prevent genocide?

Labour’s principled stance
Recently, Labour’s foreign policy spokesperson, Vanushi Walters, visited Canberra and met with Noura Saleh, Chargé d’Affaires for the State of Palestine. She is the Palestinian ambassador responsible for the diplomatic relationship between Palestine and Australia and New Zealand.

The last time New Zealand had one-to-one diplomatic engagement with the Canberra-based Palestinian Authority ambassador to New Zealand and Australia was in 2022, when Izzat Salah Abdulhadi visited Wellington at the invitation of former foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta.

That the current government has had no engagement with the ambassador speaks volumes. It’s another example of silence, and silencing.

Sure, New Zealand engages diplomatically at the UN and through its ambassadors in Türkiye and Egypt, but this is all done behind closed doors. The absence of any effort to build a relationship with the Palestinian Authority closer to home is another dimension of betrayal.

What is particularly important as a result of Vanushi Walters’ engagement with Noura Saleh is that she articulated the Labour Party position on Palestine heading into the 2026 election.

Walters stated that Labour was clear about what it would have done if in government now: “We would have recognised Palestine. We would have sanctioned Israel. We would have looked to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ. We would have ensured that New Zealand complies with the ICJ opinion on the Occupied Territories.”

This is similar to the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori positions. Both parties have consistently called out Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, and criticised the government for failing to prohibit New Zealand entities from engaging with illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Illegal engagement
Such engagement is illegal under international law, as reflected in a UN Security Council resolution (UNSC 2334), which New Zealand co-sponsored in 2016. The resolution states that nations must cease engagement with settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Successive New Zealand governments have ignored this requirement and continue to do so.

Last year, the Green Party championed a private member’s bill, which sought to apply sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation and rapid expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territories. The bill, modelled on the Russia Sanctions Act 2022, which imposed sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine, was supported by Labour and Te Pāti Māori, but the coalition government opposed it.

It is time to support those political parties that more accurately reflect the values of compassion, kindness, and human decency, as expressed through tikanga Māori.

John Hobbs has been a career public servant, working for various government departments and ministers. He has a Master of Commerce (Hons) in Economics from the University of Auckland and a Master of Arts (Thesis) with Distinction in Peace and Conflict Studies, from the University of Otago. He is currently undertaking a PhD at Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies — Te Tumu School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies, Otago University.

This article was first published by E-Tangata and is republished with the author’s permission.

In the run-up to the 1975 New Zealand election, the Labour, National, Social Credit, and Values parties all committed to the target of spending 1 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, with 70 percent of that coming from the government.

If we had met that target, the government would have spent $3 billion this year rather than the $1.2 billion — or 0.27 percent of GNP — allocated to foreign aid.

That 0.7 percent figure was not plucked out of thin air. In 1970, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling on wealthy nations to commit that amount annually to Official Development Assistance (ODA).

• READ MORE: NZ government’s climate strategy: Let it burn
• Other Jeremy Rose articles

Three years later, Prime Minister Norman Kirk committed the country to the 0.7 percent target with the aim of reaching it by 1976. By the time Labour was voted out of office in 1975, it had reached 0.524 percent.

Kirk was clear: wealthy countries had an obligation to help poorer ones, and they needed to get on with it.

In the run-up to the last election, the National, Labour, and Green parties all committed to meeting the country’s climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement — an international treaty aimed at keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees.

No surprises there. The Paris Agreement was signed by the John Key National government in 2015, and Jacinda Ardern had been elected on making climate change her generation’s “nuclear-free moment”.

Stressed importance
The then leader of the opposition, Christopher Luxon, had stressed the importance of climate change action in his maiden speech in March 2021.

Luxon said he was proud that Air New Zealand had become a foundation member of the Climate Leaders Coalition during his tenure as CEO of the company.

“I understand, of course, that a country is not a company,” he said. “However, New Zealanders look to the government to get things done. It’s not good enough saying you’re going to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but not do it.”

Coming up to the end of Prime Minister Luxon’s first term in office, emissions reductions are falling at less than half the rate required to meet our Paris targets, according to the Climate Change Commission’s latest report.

The economy has stalled, petrol prices are at record highs, manufacturing is in crisis, consumption levels are well down, renewable electricity generation levels are at record highs, and yet the dial on carbon emissions has barely moved.

The reason for that can be summed up in a word: “zero.” Not as in the net zero carbon emissions by 2050 promised by the Paris Agreement, but zero action or commitment to reducing carbon emissions.

As Newsroom’s Marc Daalder has argued, the coalition government’s strategy amounts to: “Let it burn“.

Mitigation spend ruled out
And in the run-up to October’s election, Prime Minister Luxon has ruled out spending the $5 billion Treasury has estimated it would cost to meet the country’s Paris Agreement with offshore mitigation.

That $5 billion shortfall — or about 84 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent — covers the decade from 2021 to 2030. So, about $500 million a year.

Add that figure to New Zealand’s current spend on ODA and it comes to close to 0.4 percent of GNP — significantly less than was being spent in 1975 and well below the 0.7 percent target.

Climate change mitigation under the Paris Agreement and overseas aid are not the same thing. Countries that miss their Paris targets domestically can simply purchase certified carbon credits in other countries to make up their shortfalls.

But as Switzerland, the first country to enter into bilateral mitigation agreements under Article 6 of the agreement, has shown, they can be.

To date, Switzerland has signed 17 bilateral agreements with countries in South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Pacific.

In Vanuatu, it has funded off-grid solar power projects; in Thailand, electric buses; in Chile, battery storage and electric transit; and, in Senegal, biogas digesters to prevent deforestation by reducing reliance on firewood.

Switzerland meeting obligations
Switzerland is meeting its Paris obligations and improving the lives of tens of thousands of people in the process.

We can choose climate justice over preparing for war

The great Māori statesman Sir Apirana Ngata argued that the Māori contribution in the two world wars was the “price of citizenship”.

It was surely one of the saddest sentences spoken in the history of Aotearoa. The idea that young Māori men who were shipped to Europe in the First World War to kill and be killed for “God, King and Empire” — as the memorials have it — had a debt to pay to a settler colonial state that had brutally dispossessed their parents and grandparents is tragic.

But it’s not surprising that, faced with the reality of building a liveable future in that state, the Māori world divided between those like Ngata who sought accommodation and acceptance with those in power and those like Princess Te Puea Herangi who rejected the war and actively opposed conscription.

A generous interpretation of the coalition government’s decision to increase the country’s military spend by $1.58 billion — to $5.9 billion — this year is that they think it is the price of international citizenship.

More likely, they know it’s the cost of being accepted by the powerful. It is nearly 60 years since Martin Luther King described the USA as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”.

Hard to reconcile
And it is as true now as it was then. It’s hard to reconcile a commitment to a “rules-based order” with cosying up to a US regime that is not only trashing the rules but committed to destroying the courts that adjudicate them.

Their lack of public condemnation of the US’s attacks on sovereign states, the murder of school children, assassinations and kidnapping of world leaders, extrajudicial killings of alleged drug runners, and the funding of a genocide suggests our government is more interested in being close to power than supporting those attempting to uphold international law.

And no doubt the government hopes that it will be a boon for the country’s fledgling arms industry. Rocket Lab — now a supplier to the Pentagon — has shown the stratosphere is the limit when it comes to the military-industrial complex, and New Zealand’s anti-nuclear legislation is no obstacle.

The one type of stimulus right-of-centre governments approve of is military Keynesianism.

There was no real public debate over whether prioritising spending on the likes of MH-60R Seahawk helicopters, at a cost of more than $2 billion, over the existential threat of climate change — to not only New Zealand and its Pacific neighbours but the world — is the right thing, or most cost-efficient thing, to do.

That increase in the military budget alone is close to what New Zealand spent on ODA for 2026 plus the $500 million Paris annual shortfall.

The $5.49 billion being spent on the military — with the aim of making New Zealand’s military interoperable with the US and its allies — is money not being spent on transitioning New Zealand and its Pacific neighbours to renewable energy and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Ecological catastrophe and nuclear war are the two existential threats facing the world.

Choosing to prioritise military spending over international aid and climate change mitigation brings us closer to both.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by his Substack Towards Democracy.

The people won. The environment won. The Lyttelton port remains in public hands. For now.

Please join the protest tomorrow. There is more on the table. And the battle for the port is far from over.

The DP World deal being dropped can be attributed to rousing support and brilliant speakers who moved hearts and minds at a public meeting in Lyttelton two weeks ago. Thanks to these people and organisations the proposed deal with DP World (yes, that predator company with a shocking track record) has been turned down.

• READ MORE: Christchurch City Holdings rejects DP World-backed proposal to take over Lyttelton Port
• Capitalism. Colonialism. Why the DP World money trail leads to destruction — Saige England
• A tale of power being taken from the people and handed to predator companies
• Other Lyttelton Port reports

The people united and they were not defeated!

One of the public meeting speakers, environmental campaigner Sara Campbell, says: “While this is a win in the fight for public control of public assets … the fight is far from over.”

A protest outside CCHL offices tomorrow will go ahead as planned. At those offices, the CCHL will be deciding on LPC’s $800 million proposal to expand the port, which includes further land reclamation.

“We are demanding that LPC-CCHL does not proceed without full public scrutiny, consultation and partnership with mana whenua,” says Campbell.

The official ‘back down’
This is the official press release from the Christchurch City Holdings Limited (CCHL) backing down from the proposed DP World deal:

“Christchurch City Holdings Limited (CCHL) have declined to proceed with a proposal to lease operations at the port.

“The unsolicited proposal from Tōnui Consortium, representing DP World and three Runanga: Ngāti Wheke, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, and Te Taumutu, was received by CCHL in June.

“The consortium proposed acquiring a majority interest in a long-term lease of the operating entity of LPC.

“CCHL Chair, Bryan Pearson, acknowledged the effort by the Tōnui Consortium in considering the future of Lyttelton Port and preparing the proposal. ‘Lyttelton Port is a strategic asset for the city and region, and there are diverse groups within our community with interests in its future,’ says Bryan Pearson.

“’Our assessment of the proposal, as presented, is it does not meet the threshold for ongoing consideration and is not sufficiently compelling to warrant further detailed investigation by CCHL, or additional consultation with Council given its Letter of Expectation.’

“CCHL is mindful of the LPC workforce and the breadth of community interest in the port’s operation.Christchurch City Council’s 2026/2027 Letter of Expectation to CCHL is explicit in its direction, which does not support leasing the port and encourages retention of a directly employed workforce.

“CCHL reached its conclusion specifically considering LPC’s improving operational and financial performance, as well as input provided by LPC on the resilience of its infrastructure and the leadership required to maintain a culture of safety and efficiency.

“Bryan Pearson says ‘CCHL maintains full confidence in the LPC board and management and their operation of the port, and continues to work closely with LPC in considering the port’s long-term development and associated investment.'”

My view on this is that this is one victory and full credit goes those who spoke against this deal, who rallied and organised and spoke against the devious bid: NZDE — New Zealanders for a Democratic Economy; the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) Lyttelton branch secretary Gerard Loader; the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) Lyttelton Port branch secretary Mark Wilson; environmental campaigner Sara Campbell; human rights and Keep Our Assets campaigner John Minto; Marney Ainsworth and the Māori people who spoke up — and all the people who signed the petition against this potential travesty.

In these times when there seems to be few gains — when so much is taken out of public hands — it is great to see people move change.

The change came because the people spoke out. They used their hearts and minds.
The people won but it is a temporary win.

This was a close call. Too close. Predator companies still loom large and secret meetings are still being held behind closed doors.

It’s not the end. The battle continues. We need to keep our port clean and safe for the people and the environment.

KOA welcomes ‘victory’
Keep Our Assets convenor Murray Horton said KOA was pleased that Christchurch City Holdings Ltd (CCHL) had rejected the unsolicited proposal from the Tōnui Consortium (comprising DP World and three runanga) to acquire a long term lease of Lyttelton Port Company’s (LPC) operations.

“This is a victory for common sense. Lyttelton Port is a vital strategic asset for Christchurch, Canterbury, the South Island and, indeed, the whole country. So, it is vital that it remains in public ownership and control, subject to democratic accountability through the elected Christchurch City Council,” he said.

”KOA congratulates the port unions and grassroots community groups who have successfully campaigned to keep our port public.

“It would have been particularly egregious if DP World, 100 percent state-owned by the United Arab Emirates, had got its sticky fingers on Lyttelton’s revenue stream. The UAE is a highly dodgy state indeed.

“We savour the victory but know that we can’t relax our vigilance. Lyttelton is an attractive target for transnational corporations and their local allies. This is not the first time a move has been made on our port. Twenty years ago a similar unsuccessful bid was made, involving a Hong Kong corporation. There well be another ‘unsolicited offer’ in the future.”

And KOA was fully aware that, behind closed doors, CCHL was conducting a review of Enable, the broadband company, and another of CCHL’s portfolio of publicly-owned companies. There remained a threat to sell that, said Horton.

“Time and again the people of Christchurch have made it very clear that they want the city’s publicly-owned assets to remain exactly that. This decision by CCHL recognises that reality.”

And the last word goes to MUNZ’s Gerard Loader: “We thank the people of Lyttelton and greater Christchurch getting in behind this campaign as it was all for our next generations and what we leave for them.

“From the bottom of our hearts.

“Now we have crossed the DP World hurdle our focus now turns to keeping ‘Enable’ in the hands of future generations, so the fight continues.’

“See you all at the march tomorrow.”

In solidarity.

Saige England is a humanitarian journalist and activist for community and the environment. She was present at the Lyttelton public meeting last week in support of community action. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

• Tomorrow’s protest rally outside the CCHL offices 8-10am

Christchurch City Holdings Limited (CCHL) has declined to proceed with a controversial proposal to lease operations at the port, the company announced today after recent public meetings denounced the proposal.

The unsolicited proposal from Tōnui Consortium, representing DP World and three Runanga: Ngāti Wheke, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, and Te Taumutu, was received by CCHL in June, said CCHL in a statement.

The consortium proposed acquiring a majority interest in a long-term lease of the operating entity of LPC.

• READ MORE: Capitalism. Colonialism. Why the DP World money trail leads to destruction — Saige England
• A tale of power being taken from the people and handed to predator companies
• Other Lyttelton Port reports

CCHL chair Bryan Pearson acknowledged the effort by the Tōnui Consortium in considering the future of Lyttelton Port and preparing the proposal.

“Lyttelton Port is a strategic asset for the city and region, and there are diverse groups within our community with interests in its future,” said Pearson in the statement.

“Our assessment of the proposal, as presented, is it does not meet the threshold for ongoing consideration and is not sufficiently compelling to warrant further detailed investigation by CCHL, or additional consultation with council given its Letter of Expectation.”

CCHL was mindful of the LPC workforce and the breadth of community interest in the port’s operation, the statement said.

Explicit direction
Christchurch City Council’s 2026/2027 Letter of Expectation to CCHL was explicit in its direction, which did not support leasing the port and encouraged retention of a directly employed workforce.

CCHL reached its conclusion specifically considering LPC’s improving operational and financial performance, as well as input provided by LPC on the resilience of its infrastructure and the leadership required to maintain a culture of safety and efficiency.

Pearson said: “CCHL maintains full confidence in the LPC board and management and their operation of the port, and continues to work closely with LPC in considering the port’s long-term development and associated investment.”

A packed public meeting in Lyttelton earlier this month opposed the takeover attempt by DP World of Lyttelton Port.

The meeting was organised by New Zealanders for A Democratic Economy.

Wednesday: The United States signs a civil nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. A “decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership,” Washington calls it.

Thursday: The President Trump logs onto social media and reneges — unilaterally slapping on a new condition that was never part of the deal he just signed.

The condition is that Saudi Arabia must sign on to the Abraham Accords and recognise Israel.

• READ MORE: Is the US-Saudi nuclear deal on, or in limbo?
• Other Lim Tean articles

No phone call to Riyadh first. No consultation. Just a Truth Social post, blindsiding the very partner he’d shaken hands with 24 hours earlier.

And here’s the part Washington seems not to grasp: this precondition is dead on arrival.

MBS has said it again and again, most recently as an official rejection just weeks ago — no normalisation with Israel without an independent Palestinian state, East Jerusalem as its capital, full stop.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry has called it “non-negotiable”. Trump is demanding surrender to a position Riyadh has never once wavered from.

Not statecraft
This is not statecraft. This is not deterrence. This is a superpower treating a sovereign signature as a rough draft — and then attaching a condition it knows, or should know, will never be met.

Ask Kyiv. Ask Tehran. Ask now Riyadh: what is an American signature actually worth?

The Legitimacy Principle is simple — power without consistency is not strength, it is liability.

A state that cannot honour its own agreements within a day, and cannot read its own partner’s red lines, cannot lead a rules-based order. It can only bully one, until the world stops showing up to sign.

Washington is agreement incapable.

Trump’s undercutting of the nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia shortly after it was signed by adding the requirement that the Saudis recognize Israel (they won’t) signals everyone including the Iranians that you can’t trust a deal with Trump. https://t.co/8QoDnZdBNF

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 26, 2026

Lim Tean is a Singaporean lawyer, politician and commentator. He is the founder of the political party People’s Voice and a co-founder of the political alliance People’s Alliance for Reform. He also hosts Lim’s Substack.

A New Zealand national solidarity group for Palestine has condemned plans by Nauru to open an embassy in Jerusalem as an “alarming indication” of Israel diplomacy consolidating illegal occupation of Palestinian Territory and “buying Pacific votes” at the United Nations.

“Nearly half of the countries with embassies in Jerusalem are from the Pacific and this clearly shows the effort and dollars Israel is putting into the region,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) spokesperson Rinad Tamimi.

She said in a statement Israel was “unashamedly” using Pacific countries to undermine the international consensus that Israel’s claims over all of Jerusalem were not legally valid.

• READ MORE: Nauru’s government announces plans for embassy in Israel
• Pro-Palestinian activists plan protest against ‘Israeli pond’ diplomacy push in Pacific
• Fiji opens embassy in Jerusalem
• Let peace govern security – A pastoral message from the Pacific Conference of Churches
• Other Pacific and Israeli diplomacy reports

Israel and the government of Nauru announced this week that Nauru would open an embassy in Jerusalem, following news in January that Samoa would locate its embassy there.

Papua New Guinea and Fiji have already established their embassies in Jerusalem, along with the US, Paraguay, Honduras, Guatemala and Kosovo.

All other countries have their embassies in Tel Aviv to avoid inferring approval of Israeli sovereignty claims over Jerusalem.

“Tuvalu, with a population of 12,000, has only five diplomatic posts in the entire world — and suddenly its government finds a need to have another one in Jerusalem,” Tamimi said.

Pacific votes at UN
“The other concerning aspect is the Pacific votes in the United Nations.

“In 2024, there was a landmark vote in the United Nations to instruct Israel that it had 12 months to get out of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“New Zealand voted in favour, along with 123 other countries. But seven Pacific nations voted against upholding this statement of international law. That was half of the 14 countries who voted against,” Tamimi said.

“Obviously we are in favour of Pacific countries being independent and making their own choices. But PSNA is speaking out to support of indigenous groups in those countries who see Israel as a highly aggressive modern colonial venture which should not be permitted by their governments to manipulate the Pacific for its interests against international law.

“New Zealand’s government is critical when it believes other countries are increasing their interests in the Pacific. It’s time Wellington made the same statements about Israel.”