Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau says Pacific security is about the security of the Pacific peoples and their way of life as identified by Forum leaders in the Boe Declaration.

Kalsakau said this reaffirmed climate change as the single greatest threat to regional security.

The PM was speaking at the opening of the Pacific Fusion headquarters in Port Vila on Tuesday, alongside Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific climate action reports

He said Vanuatu, with the world’s first climate change refugees with the relocation in 2005 of 100 villagers in Torba Province, “will always consider climate change its top priority”.

He said climate change is real, an existential threat, impinging on the security and stability of all nations.

“We do not have to look too far to see how the increased intensity of climate change-induced tropical cyclones wreak havoc on the daily lives and livelihoods of our people and set us back years in our development,” said Kalsakau.

He said Vanuatu’s Pacific brothers also faced human security challenges caused by the nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands (by the US), Mororoa Atoll (France) and Australia (United Kingdom).

‘Our reefs are dying’
“With the effects of global warming and nuclear testing, our ocean is getting warmer, our reefs are dying and fishes are now very scarce.

“Our children and grandchildren are bound to never experience what we’ve enjoyed in our childhood.

“The maintenance and sustenance of our marine resources must be the top priority of our Pacific leaders.”

Kalsakau said there were other pressing issues such as the Fukushima nuclear waste water discharge and AUKUS.

“I say again that Pacific security is about the security of our Pacific peoples and way of life.

“This is why Vanuatu stood alongside our Pacific brothers and sisters to produce the Rarotonga Treaty. Which brings me to today’s very special occasion.

“The Pacific Fusion Centre is guided by the regional security priorities identified by the Boe Declaration and supports regional decision-making on these shared security priorities,” he said.

The centre, which is funded by Australia and to be run in collaboration with Pacific Forum member states, will aim to provide training and analysis on regional security issues.

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

Journalist, author and media academic David Robie has launched an independent news and current affairs website to complement his long-established Asia Pacific Report.

While Asia Pacific Report will continue to cover regional affairs, the new website — dubbed Café Pacific, the same name as his blog which is being absorbed into the new venture — will focus on more in-depth reports and make available on open access a range of books and articles previously hidden behind paywalls.

Café Pacific will be operated on a Creative Commons licence basis as is APR.

• READ MORE: The new Café Pacific website
• Other reports from the author/publisher

Dr Robie, formerly founding director of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and a professor of Pacific journalism, described the website project as “innovative”.

The about page says: “Café Pacific : Media freedom and transparency is the Asia-Pacific news articles archive and website of journalist and author David Robie, published with the support of Multimedia Investments Ltd in collaboration with Asia Pacific Report, EveningReport.nz and the Asia Pacific Media Network, and contributing colleagues, academics and freelancers.”

“There is a real need for an outlet such as this — specialist Asia-Pacific websites are rare,” says Dr Robie.

“It will be a rather eclectic website, but will focus on many of the critical issues that are either ignored in mainstream media or underplayed — such as climate justice, decolonisation in ‘French’ Polynesia and Kanaky New Caledonia, digital divide, education equity, environmental integrity, human rights, media freedom, podcasts, sustainable development and the crisis in West Papua.”

Recent scoops
Among recent scoops on the website were publication of the detailed “what we told the French Prime Minister” document of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) and several exclusive West Papua reports.

The website will also be a repository for Dr Robie’s past journalism, books and academic research, making publications more publicly accessible.

Dr Robie praised EveningReport.nz and Multimedia Investments managing director Selwyn Manning for his “perceptive” role in designing and developing the website.

“Selwyn has a long track record of supporting student and alternative journalism as witnessed with first Pacific Scoop and then Asia Pacific Report. And now we see it again with Café Pacific.”

Selwyn Manning and security analyst Dr Paul Buchanan will resume their popular weekly podcasts, “A View From Afar”, about current issues on EveningReport.nz and social media outlets tomorrow at noon.

• The promo for Thursday’s programme
• Listen to the podcasts
• Watch the podcasts
• Midday Thursdays (NZT)
• 8pm Wednesdays (EDT)
• Past episodes

Following the publication of the book Toxic some 9 months ago and President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to French Polynesia last July, the response from the French administration has been to send French nuclear experts to Tahiti.

Their mission was to give clear and transparent answers about the state of former nuclear test sites among other topics. It was a way to counter the book’s anti-official version of the CEA’s (Centre d’Experimentation Atomique) claim of “clean and non-contaminating radioactivity” on both atolls.

The Commission of information created for those former sites of nuclear tests of the Pacific, was made up of 3 French civil servants involved in the controversial Paris roundtable — also called Reko Tika — organised by President Macron last July.

• READ MORE: The Moruroa Files – how cutting edge science, secret documents and journalism exposed a Pacific lie
• Thousands rally in Tahiti over nuke legacy
• France reassures Tahiti about nuclear legacy

In a media conference, they talked about radiological and geo-mechanical surveillance of the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls. They came with more scientific expertise and data that seemed to dispel the original idea of “clear and transparent answers”.

As far as the environment was concerned around those former nuclear sites, the conclusion was that the sites were much safer now after the presence of caesium-137 (a radioactive isotope of caesium formed as one of the more common products of nuclear fission) was noticed to be less year by year in all parts of the environment.

To “prove” their case of an independent and transparent study, they took samples of beef meat, whole milk or coconut juice from both atolls and are readily available to the population and analysed those samples.

Their results showed that the levels of radioactive concentration were far less than the “maximum levels admissible” — or whatever that means for the Ma’ohi who are not versed in the scientific jargon.

Artificial radioactive fallout level ‘low’
As for the health of the population, they reassured the people from the atolls that the level of toxicity of artificial radioactive fallout measured from 2019 to 2020 was extremely low, according to the data collected by the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRNS).

They established that the overall efficient dose (external exposition, internal exposition by ingestion and inhalation) of radioactivity was evaluated at 1,4 mSv (the measure of radiation exposure) in Mā’ohi Nui — which is two times lower than in France.

An even stronger reassurance was offered to the media when the question of a possible collapse of the northern part of the atoll of Moruroa was mentioned. The French experts replied that such a disastrous scenario was extremely unlikely, because the geo-mechanical system Telsite 2 put in place in 2000, would detect signs of unusual activities weeks beforehand.

Notwithstanding their initial answer, they added that even in the worst-case scenario, preventative measures would be taken to evacuate the population of Moruroa, and Tureia would not be hit by this improbable landslide.

A reassurance that clearly leaves doubt on whether Moruroa is at all safe.

When asked by one of the local journalists, Vaite Pambrun, why the atolls were not “retroceded” (ceded back) to their people now that it is “safe”, the delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault was at pains to explain that it was not possible because plutonium was not buried deep enough under the coral layer, and for safety reasons the French state still needed to monitor the atolls.

A somehow contradictory response that does not surprise the people who are used to the rhetoric used by the French state for the last 50 years.

France seems to offer very reassuring measures and answers, but the populations have learnt in the past that the word of the French state must be taken with a lot of mistrust and scepticism especially when it comes to nuclear matters.

France trying to wipe out nuclear traces from Polynesian memory

Independence leader Oscar Temaru, and former president of Tahiti, was quick to organise a press conference where he criticised the conclusions reached by the nuclear experts who seemed to contradict their findings about the safety of the atolls that still needed more monitoring, hence the refusal to retrocede.

After the last Paris roundtable, Temaru accused the French state and the local government — which he calls the local “collabos” (alluding to the French who collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War) to try “to wipe out the last evidence and vestiges that constitute the history of nuclear colonisation by the army and the money”.

According to Temaru, there is a trust crisis against the local government of territorial President Eduard Fritch and the French state that is going to last for a long time.

Those strong words also came after the decision was taken to completely destroy the last nuclear concrete shelter on the atoll of Tureia, wiping out for ever any traces of nuclear presence.

This decision is reminiscent of the one taken by the same French state to raze to the ground the two nuclear shelters used by the army on Mangareva.

By the same occasion, the hangar with the flimsy protection of corrugated iron used for the local population during the nuclear tests was also demolished. All those structures were pulled down in the early 2000s.

Father Auguste Ube Carlson, president of the anti-nuclear lobby Association 193, has also denounced the rhetoric used by the French state which “pretends’ to bring some new answers that have a “sound of deja-vu and that do not fool any of the populations who have suffered through the nuclear era”.

According to one of the Association 193 spokespeople, France is telling local populations that all is well in the best of worlds and there is nothing to worry about.

A more mitigated reaction

Local historian Jean-Marc Regnault conceded that it has been a struggle to get the French state to give access to files that at one point were declassified and then re-classified to now be reopened to the public which he considers a victory.

He does not share the same stance taken by Oscar Temaru regarding the wiping out of the last atomic shelter in Tureia. According to the historian, the shelter is a hazard to the population of Tureia as it contains asbestos and therefore needs to be destroyed.

Regnault positions himself as a researcher who, like any other member of the public, will be able to write the history of the nuclear era thanks to all those thousands of documents now available to be consulted, unless classified as state secrets.

He sees the history of a nation not in terms of buildings but in terms of what can be written and taught to the younger generations. The destruction of the building does not equal the wiping-out of a nation’s memory.

He finds it remarkable that teachers will have the material to teach the history of the atomic tests in Mā’ohi Nui, which was one the tenants of the Tavini party when they were at the helm of the country in 2004.

It is up to the women and men of Ma’ohi Nui to realise their dreams of writing the history of their islands by consulting those archives, especially the military ones and not be forced to only hear one narrative, that of the French state.

There is a movement toward more transparency, according to Regnault.

What about the conclusions drawn by the book Toxic?
The Delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault, has been particularly dismissive of the book Toxic. He says that it is clear that the calculations based on the simulations are wrong and he rejected the deductions made by the book that the French state have played down the impacts of nuclear tests fallout on the Polynesians.

However, he admitted that 6 nuclear tests did not have favourable weather forecasts and generated radioactive fallout that led to doses “below the limit accepted by those working on the nuclear sites” but “higher than the doses accepted by the public”.

This is the reason why it is absolutely legitimate for people who have been contaminated to seek compensation.

He tells the press that the calculations and the investigation by Disclose wrongly contradict those made by the CEA in 2006 where the data and the mode of calculations were extremely technical and scientific and 450 pages long.

He suggested that those who were involved in the research and the publishing of Toxic were not versed enough in the technical jargon of the final document released by the CEA.
It is not enough to tell the truth but it must be accessible to the public, according to Bugault.

The book Toxic fails to explain in a clear and simple way how its calculations were carried out and achieved. He promised that in April 2022 the anti-Toxic book will be published by the CEA on Tahiti.

Ena Manuireva, born in Mangareva (Gambier islands) in Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia), is a language revitalisation researcher at Auckland University of Technology and is currently completing his doctorate on the Mangarevan language. He is also a campaigner for nuclear reparations justice from France over the 193 tests staged in Polynesia over three decades and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

In this week’s security podcast, Dr Paul G. Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning discuss:

• three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-style attacks;
• legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves;
• and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attack that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

• READ MORE: Other reports about NZ’s LynnMall attack

The attack occurred last Friday, 3 September 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Samsudeen, who was fatally shot by special tactics police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Refugee who sought asylum
Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought political asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by Islamic State (ISIS), and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Dr Buchanan and Manning examine questions about whether this tragedy could have been prevented and considered New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• The Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

Dr Buchanan and Manning also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

• More information about the A View From Afar weekly podcasts on EveningReport.nz

Republished in partnership with EveningReport.nz

Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

In this this week’s episode of A View from Afar today, Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan are joined by Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie to examine instability in the Pacific  – specifically to identify what is going on in New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa.

This is the second part of a two-part Pacific special.

In the second half, Buchanan and Manning analyse the latest developments on Afghanistan and consider whether the humiliating withdrawal of the US suggests an end to liberal internationalism.

• VIEW MORE: The first part of the two-part Pacific special of A View From Afar
• More on Afghanistan with A View From Afar

Specifically the first half of this episode looks at:

• New Caledonia where there will be a third and final referendum on Kanaky independence;
• Samoa where there has been a new government installed — the first in four decades — but only after the old guard attempted to resist democratic change, a move that has caused a constitutional crisis; and
• Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has had a new addition to his political headaches — the question of how Fiji gets its NGO and aid workers out of Afghanistan.

In the second half of this episode Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning dig deep into the latest from Afghanistan.

The deadline for Western personnel to have withdrawn from Afghanistan is looming. The Taliban leadership states it will not extend the negotiated deadline of August 31, and US President Joe Biden insists that the US will not request nor assert an extension.

But Biden has instructed his military leaders to prepare for a contingency plan. 

• What does this humiliating withdrawal indicate to the world?
• Is this the realisation of a diminishing United States, a superpower in decline?
• Can the US reassert itself as the world’s policeman, or does Afghanistan confirm the US is in retreat and signal an end of liberal internationalism?

Watch this podcast on video-on-demand on YouTube and see earlier episodes at EveningReport.nz or subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

A collaboration between EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz.

In this episode of A View from Afar, Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning are joined by David Robie to discuss how covid-19 has become a trigger of instability in the wider Pacific region.

Dr Robie is editor of AsiaPacificReport.nz and a specialist in Melanesian and Pacific affairs.

In this, the first of a two-part special, we analyse how covid-19 has been a trigger of instability across the Pacific region.

And specifically, for this episode, we deep dive into instability in Melanesia focusing on:

• Security issues in Papua New Guinea;
• Indonesia’s interests in dividing regional groups such as the Melanesian Spearhead; Group (MSG); and
• a security crisis that has developed in Fiji after the recent detention of nine politicians and activists who dared to criticise former military coup leader, Voreqe Bainimarama’s government.

• Follow A View From Afar at EveningReport.nz

How determined are Labour to take the necessary steps to fix inequality and poverty? Will electoral calculations triumph over their principles and stated ambitions?

These are some of the questions being asked on the political left, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government looks determined to stand by while social problems continue to get worse under their watch.

During their last term in government, Ardern and colleagues failed to be transformational on their key promise of fixing inequality and poverty. And now they are choosing policies that massively increase inequality, while ignoring the plight of those at the bottom.

• READ MORE: ‘You can’t eat kindness’

That’s why this week more than 60 charities and NGOs made an open plea to the government to increase welfare benefits before Christmas.

Despite the extraordinary conditions at the moment, Ardern response was a firm “no”. Poverty advocates say Labour should be “ashamed”, with many suggesting that the prime minister’s own advocacy of kindness and compassion is directly contradicted by her actual decisions.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, Matthew Hooton argues that the poverty advocates “have a point” in their dissatisfaction, as “Ardern’s response to these issues is unsatisfactory”. He argues that this week’s rejection of benefit increases “has prompted the first mini-rebellion on her left”.

Hooton is particularly dismissive of Ardern’s plea for more time to consider benefit levels: “she says more ‘work’ is needed but it is not clear what ‘work’ is required to make a basic decision on benefit levels.

Why is more ‘work’ needed?
Ruth Richardson, after all, took just 53 days after the October 27 1990 election to announce her benefit cuts. It is not obvious why any more “work” is needed to make the opposite decision.

In any case, the “work” was presumably already done in Ardern’s now eight and a half years in the children’s portfolio and by her [Welfare Expert Advisory Group].”

So should the left be rebelling? And is Labour putting hanging on to power above tackling poverty? Hooton seems to believe so: “The Prime Minister just emotes her usual concern.

“This is not economically or socially sustainable — and surely not politically sustainable either. There must come a time when Ardern’s own political base demands something more on such issues than her frowny-concerned face.

“It will be another 100 years before Labour again wins a mandate like the one Ardern secured last month. If she won’t act now on the issues she says concern her, left-wing activists will be entitled to ask whether hungry children and young couples struggling to buy a house really mean anything to her beyond being useful walk-on parts during election campaigns.”

Similarly, writing in the National Business Review yesterday, Brent Edwards says the debate “is a pointed rejoinder to Ardern from those who do not believe she is as committed to reducing child poverty as her rhetoric suggests”, and he argues that the decision to keep benefits down is unsurprising, given that Ardern’s decisions are guided by electoral considerations.

Brent Edwards contrasts the benefit decision with the first policy announcement of the Finance Minister: “Grant Robertson announced the Cabinet had decided to extend the small business cashflow loan scheme, which was due to end next month, for another three years and extend the interest-free period from one to two years.

Wooing the business community
“It is also looking at other changes to make the scheme more accessible for small businesses. It was the new government’s first decision of this term and is part of its attempt to woo the business community.”

So, just how long will beneficiaries and others in poverty have to wait until Labour delivers? Today’s Stuff newspaper editorial asks: “It takes more than one term to solve it, but will it take more than two?”

The editorial says Ardern is risking damage to her own brand by talking about kindness but doing the opposite: “Poverty advocates are used to hearing governments say one thing about poverty, especially the emotionally powerful issue of child poverty, but do another.”

They also ask: “What is the political cost of kindness? Or conversely, what is the political cost of doing nothing?”

Poverty advocates are understandably upset by Ardern’s rejection of action on poverty, and some are starting to speak out strongly against her and the government. Auckland Action Against Poverty’s coordinator Brooke Stanley Pao has said that Ardern is “choosing to keep people and families in poverty”.

According to this article, Pao “challenged the prime minister and other politicians to try and live on the current benefit for a month and ‘see how they find themselves’.”

Brooke Stanley Pao also wrote about this just prior to the election, saying, “You can’t eat kindness“. Responding to Ardern’s mantra, she says “We want more than kindness. We want the political bravery necessary to lift people out of poverty. Anything else is lip service.”

Leftwing bloggers losing faith
Other leftwing bloggers are losing their faith that Labour and Ardern really believe in progressive politics. For example, No Right Turn says: “The message is clear: their ‘kindness’ extends only to rich people, who will be exempted from paying their fair share of the costs of the pandemic (or society in general).

“As for poor kids, they can keep on starving. Which once again invites the question: what is Labour for, exactly, if they’re not going to ever deliver anything?”

The Child Poverty Action Group reports “the dismayed, disappointed and, in some cases, furious response to its dismissal” of benefit increases by Ardern and asks of the Government, “What, exactly, are they waiting for?”

She argues that increased payments would have an immediate impact on alleviating poverty.

McAllister also draws attention to the Government making decisions in the Covid environment that are likely to worsen inequality while ignoring the needs of those at the bottom: “Using children as economic shock absorbers – that’s unreasonable.

“Covid-response policies that stretch inequity even further – that’s unreasonable. Child Poverty Action Group research this year has shown that core entitlements for those receiving benefits are mostly far below key poverty lines, and in some cases will be tipping people into severest poverty.

“We modelled a scenario that shows 70,000 additional children are at risk of poverty due to Covid-19 on current policy settings.”

Why Labour is ‘tinkering’
For more on what Janet McAllister thinks is wrong with the current government policies, see Why Labour’s tinkering of our welfare system just isn’t enough.

Looking back at what Labour have implemented over the last term, she concludes: “By themselves, these policies are disappointing. It’s still just tinkering around the edges and far from big, bold moves to cut the mustard.

“They’re of no use to many of our poorest families.”

Another poverty advocate, Max Rashbrooke of Victoria University of Wellington, has written in The Guardian about how disappointed he is with progress on child poverty under the government, and how things look set to get worse unless policies are implemented that live up to the lofty targets set by Ardern.

The problem according to Rashbrooke is that Ardern “has relied largely on the ‘third way’ policies of her Labour predecessor, Helen Clark, in her fight against child poverty.”

And so although there has been some “modest progress” on some poverty measures, these are essentially the result of picking the low-hanging fruit. He points to Treasury modelling showing that “the number of families in ‘material hardship’ – those reporting they are unable to afford basic items – will ‘rise sharply’.”

Is it true that the government can’t afford to increase benefits? Not according to business journalist Bernard Hickey, whose must-read column this week argues that Ardern and Robertson seem determined to massively increase inequality by following outdated economic philosophies.

Making homeowners richer
He asks: “Is it more important that homeowners are $100 billion richer? Or that hundreds of thousands of children are left unnecessarily in poverty?”

Here’s Hickey’s main point: “It is bizarre that a Labour government and a Reserve Bank that talk a big game on their social responsibilities and sustainability are choosing to pump up to $150 billion into increasing housing market valuations for the richest half of New Zealanders who own homes, but don’t think they can afford increasing benefits at a cost of $5.2 billion for the hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents living in poverty.”

He points out that “economists as conservative as those at the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank are now begging Governments to do things differently by spending money on the poor and on infrastructure, rather than just pumping up asset prices to make the rich even richer.”

Hickey also refers to a report out this week with findings from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study. You can read the report here: Now we are eight: Life in middle childhood.

Hickey sums up the inequality findings: “Nearly 40 per cent are living in cold, mouldy and damp homes. About a third are obese. About 20 per cent of the families surveyed did not have enough money to eat properly.

“Nearly 15 per cent of the eight-year-olds had already moved school twice, largely because of having to move from one rental property to the next.”

Not everyone is criticising Labour’s rejection of benefit increases. Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking says that giving into such a demand would take the government down a “slippery slope”, and be too expensive for little real gain.

Urgent need for relief
There is no doubt there is urgent need for relief for those at the bottom. And this week the Auckland City Mission launched a campaign to replenish their run-down stocks of food, noting that prior to covid they estimated “10 percent of Kiwis experienced food insecurity on a regular basis.

“Due to covid-19, it believes the figure is now closer to 20 percent – or one million people – who do not have enough good food to eat on a weekly basis.”

And today it’s being reported that the government’s two-tier welfare payments have come to an end.

Finally, what’s to be done about poverty and inequality, given this government has no great interest in being transformational on this issue? According to veteran leftwing commentator Chris Trotter, “it’s time for some ‘earnest struggle'”. He argues that Labour will only ever carry out leftwing reforms if they are forced to.

Trotter wants to see less reliance on appeals to Ardern and Robertson to “be kind”, and more mass marches down Auckland’s Queen St.

Dr Bryce Edwards is a New Zealand-based political scientist of reliability and prominence. His analysis and commentary is regularly published on EveningReport.nz. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with permission.

As China celebrated the 70th anniversary of the birth of its Communist Party on October 1 with an extravagant military parade, down south in Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters continued their struggle to have all of their five demands heard. This was met with brute force by Hong Kong’s “raptor” riot police, resulting in serious injuries to journalists and protesters.

Veby Indah, a 39-year-old Indonesian journalist, permanently lost the sight in one of her eyes last Sunday while filming. Police shot a rubber bullet into a group she was standing beside while live streaming.

Other local and foreign journalists have made complaints of being physically harassed by the police, something which the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) has strongly condemned.

For the first time since the protests began four months ago, two protesters have been shot with live ammunition in recent days and more than 1400 people have been arrested since June. The first protester to be struck was an 18-year-old male protester who was shot in the chest by a riot police officer at close range, narrowly missing his heart on October 1. He is in a stable condition but has been charged with one count of rioting and two counts of assaulting a police officer.

The second protester was a teenage boy aged just 14, who was shot by a plainclothes police officer on the evening of October 4. In a night of continued mayhem, Chinese banks and MTR stations were firebombed, which prompted metro lines to be shut down and plunged the city into further chaos.

Recently, I spoke to a well-spoken young 20-something protester named *Dickson attending an anti-police brutality protest at Prince Edward station in Mong Kok.

“A lot of the protests are banned, which is a big problem because protesting is a basic right that Hong Kongers have or used to have. The way that the Hong Kong government and Beijing is handling this isn’t any different to how they have handled things for the last 70 years. In previous times, most protests fail and after awhile the movement dies off and then things get worse. It’s one country going against a special administrative region, we don’t have much we can do as citizens. At the same time, its seems that the protest movement has this time caught a lot more attention internationally,” said Dickson.

Sheer desperation
At the same protest a middle-aged lady named *Mary approached me with a voice of sheer desperation, “We are very afraid of the Hong Kong police and the CCP are hiring secret police from mainland China and they want to arrest our Hong Kong people. We want to see the CCTV footage from this [Prince Edward] metro station to find out what really happened on August 31,” referring to a prior incident, when police were accused of seriously assaulting protesters and allegedly covering up the evidence.

Earlier that day, I had bumped into a nurse named *Ally who was attending a weekend protest at The British Consulate-General building. After exchanging contact details, she later emailed me thanking us for covering the story, something that multiple Hong Kong citizens have done during our time in Hong Kong.

“I’m a registered nurse working in the department of surgery in one of the hospitals in Hong Kong. Amnesty International reported that the Hong Kong police assaulted a protestor after they were arrested. This is true. One protester was admitted to my ward after he was arrested, his CT report showed a splenic laceration and a fractured nasal bone. We found multiple abrasions over his face and body, there was a lot of bruising which is consistent with being beaten by baton.

“These were noted to be seen all over his body, the laceration on his leg needed to have sutures. I couldn’t believe that the patient got such an injury before he was arrested? As healthcare professionals, all of us felt very shocked and angry after we approached the patient. According to the patient, he said the police took him to the toilet and used their fist to attack his abdomen. They also used some hard object to beat his back and beamed a laser directly into his eyes. I can’t believe they are the police and not triads,” she wrote, along with a screenshot from a text message conversation with one of the doctors on duty at the time.

This escalation of events comes as Chief Executive Carrie Lam adopted the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to introduce a ban on protesters wearing masks, which came into effect on October 5, further pouring more fuel onto the protester’s fire. The repressive law was enacted in the 1920s by the then British colonial power and it was last used in 1967 to quell a communist riot that spilled into Hong Kong from the mainland during the Cultural Revolution.

Communists organised demonstrations targeting police and planted bombs in the streets and causing a period of turmoil. The Emergency Regulations Ordinance can give the government tremendous power to seize assets and search and arrest anyone they chose. It was not difficult for Lam to put this in place due to the fact she has a majority of seats in the Legislative Council.

Growing fears
On top of that, there are still growing fears among some citizens that the PLA could be readying themselves to take matters into their own hands. Earlier in the week, Reuters released an investigative report estimating that (according to diplomats), there might be as many as 12,000 troops already on the ground in Hong Kong.

Shortly after the mask-ban was announced we spoke with Emily Lau, a former member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council.

“We are at a very dangerous stage now. The pro-Beijing political parties and business people supporting Carrie Lam are very ignorant and unwise to push Hong Kong to the brink. This law about banning face masks is so provocative and I think it is going to be very useless. The whole procedure is wrong. They did not do any consultation. They used the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to give them the power to enact legislation without going through the Legislative Council properly,” Lau told me.

I asked Lau what we can expect to see from the protesters in response to this new law.

“Many protesters have taken part in illegal assemblies anyway and they were not afraid, so they are not going to be afraid of this law. They will have to build another ten prisons, it’s laughable.

I think many groups will be up in arms, even doctors because they wear the masks to protect themselves. The people are not going to take it lying down and many young people think they don’t have any future anyway and they will go and die, which is very sad. They are very emotional and so the thing to do is to help them to calm down not aggravate the situation. This can not go on and nor should it be allowed to go on. Otherwise you will see Hong Kong as once a safe, vibrant and free city suddenly decline, and also if that’s the case, we will no longer be a very good international business and financial center.”

Election climate
Next Month is the district council election and the DAB (pro-Beijing party) has already suggested it should be postponed (perhaps indefinitely) until the climate calms down.

“They can have an election in Afghanistan, so why can’t they have one here? But of course they are very afraid they will lose and lose very badly. That means not only will they lose their seats in the the district council, which have no power, but our system is such that the district councilors elect 117 members of the chief executive election committee and the way this election is carried out is that the overall winner takes all. So whoever gets a majority in the district council will get all the 117 seats in the chief executive election committee. So if they do very poorly they are going to hand over 117 seats to the pro-democracy camp. But first let’s see what happens in the coming days with this mask ban…”

It is clear and proper that New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is closely monitoring a concerning situation of deteriorating violence in West Papua.

It is also apparent that groups who have long monitored the security situation in West Papua have contacted the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, urging her to speak up against the violence and human rights abuses in the Indonesian-controlled state. I believe the Prime Minister should. Here’s why.

When considering the history of West Papua – the increasing violence; the enduring wish of its peoples for self-determination; the arrests on treason charges of those who seek a pathway toward independence; the intensifying concerns of its immediate neighbours Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the states that make up the Melanesian Spearhead Group – it would be a brave but significant step should New Zealand also add its considerable weight behind a call for a multilateral-led resolution to the West Papua conflict.

LISTEN: Selwyn Manning talks West Papua on RNZ’s The Panel

New Zealand’s reputation as an honest-broker on global human rights issues, and the Prime Minister’s significant reputation for being able to identify common-ground, and, map out a way forward for parties with disparate interests, would provide significant leverage and resolution to a conflict that is at risk of becoming a human catastrophe.

Also, New Zealand is right smack in the middle of the Asia Pacific region. Despite Australia’s historical interests in Melanesia, this is New Zealand’s patch as well. Human rights abuses, conflicts, disorder within our region will impact on New Zealand in the future as they have in the past.

Take the Solomon Islands conflict in the early 2000s. The Melanesian state was descending into civil war. In 2003, I was in Townsville, at an Australian airforce base when the leaders of Melanesian and Polynesian states (including New Zealand’s Helen Clark and Australia’s John Howard) signed a non-aggression pact and sent armed forces to the Solomon Islands to help reestablish peace and progress.

The operation became known as RAMSI (Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands).

Under RAMSI, once order was restored in the Solomon Islands, the countries of this region helped the once chaotic state to establish good governance and government operations, and helped to establish a thriving civil society.

The merits of RAMSI can be seen today in how the Solomon Islands now functions as a progressing state and valuable member of the Pacific Islands Forum.

Learning from East Timor
Regarding West Papua, New Zealand, and indeed the other nations of the region, ought not to permit a repeat of the violence that took hold of East Timor in 1999.

For years those advocating self-determination in East Timor were persecuted and killed by forces and militia loyal to Indonesia’s interests. In 1999 the crisis descended into massacre. In the end, it was estimated over 100,000 people were butchered in an unnecessary and preventable street-conflict.

At the time in 1999, New Zealand was hosting APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-Operation) leader’s summit. It was the end of the National Party’s run of government and Jenny Shipley was the Prime Minister. The government was determined to keep East Timor and its troubles off the APEC agenda. It refused to allow the massacre to be discussed at formal APEC meetings, that is, until the United States’ then president Bill Clinton and Japan’s then Prime Minister Keizō Obuchi demanded that a special meeting to discuss a multilateral response to the East Timor crisis be held.

While thousands of people were being massacred on the streets of East Timor’s capital, Dili, the leaders of APEC’s nations forged a consensus that became a pathway to peace.

Pressure from world leaders
Obuchi’s message to his Indonesian counterpart Habibie was as follows: “East Timor remains in a very difficult situation. But Japan has a good relationship with Indonesia. And Japan will continue to encourage Indonesia to take measures to bring East Timor back to a state of peace.”

He went further with diplo-speak akin to: “We are your friend Habibie, you know we are your friend. Afterall we provide you with $2 billion US in humanitarian aid [60 percent of the annual total]. We do not want to take that away from you, to do so will cause hardship throughout Asia, and only bring retaliatory consequences to all. So allow the international peacekeepers in to help you bring about peace. To do so is not an embarrassment. It is recognising the gesture of a friend. And to do so will prevent Japan from having to withdraw its aid to the people of Indonesia.” (ref. Scoop, Selwyn Manning, 1999)

The gesture was significant and began a process that led to East Timor becoming the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste – a self-determining independent state.

I argue here, that there is no need for Asia Pacific’s leaders to sit back and dispassionately observe a disturbing escalation of violence in West Papua.

Timor-Leste’s experience, as does RAMSI’s – the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands – provide examples of how leaders of a region, who have the willpower, can and do bring warring parties back from the brink of atrocity.

Jacinda Ardern has, for good reasons, obvious diplomatic credentials. She is seen as an honest broker on the world stage. A new generation leader. She is reacquainting New Zealand to a foreign policy that we were once proud of as an independent Pacific Island state. The realignment is something to celebrate. With regard to West Papua, there is an opportunity to use it to do good. The people there are being persecuted and killed for their ethnicity and for their political views.

It need not be so.

The New Zealand government is considering the recommendations of a former deputy prime minister and lawyer as it embarks on designing a new wave of controversial spy-law reform. And again, it looks certain to drive a wedge into contemporary New Zealand.

On one side are those who support and trust the government to get the balance right between security intelligence and civil liberties, and on the other… those who don’t. Previous polls on such matters suggest the split is about 50/50.

The report was delivered to the government on February 29 and had been kept under wraps until yesterday (Wednesday, March 9). It is titled: Intelligence and Security in a Free Society and was written by former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister in the Clark Labour Government, Sir Michael Cullen, and, Dame Patsy Reddy, a lawyer with corporate experience.

Sir Michael and Dame Patsy write: “The need to maintain both security and the rights and liberties of New Zealanders has been at the forefront of our minds. Given the intrusive nature of the agencies’ activities, New Zealanders are understandably concerned about whether those activities are justifiable. This concern is not helped by the fact that the agencies’ activities have been kept largely in the shadows.”

Fair comment

But I would add to that the fact the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was found only four years ago to have been operating illegally under the current Prime Minister’s governance. That is, until he changed the law in 2013 to accommodate the spy agency’s illegal operations.

And after much public outrage on the matter, the Prime Minister also read into the new legislation a retrospective element, making past illegalities legal. In some suburbs of Auckland, slick manoeuvres such as this are called a “hustle”.

However, in this report, there is some progressive thinking in evidence. For example Sir Michael and Dame Pasty recommend New Zealand’s spy laws be redrafted and brought under one single intelligence and security act, so as to make it clear what the spy agencies “can and cannot do”.

In a comprehensive report such as this, there is much detail, and within it much that when brought out for discussion will attract considerable and enduring controversy.

Let’s look at the recommendations regarding proposed authorisation procedures.

Targeted survaillance
This set of recommendations frame how authorisation is applied for, and given, when spy agencies seek to surveil New Zealand citizens and permanent residents. The recommendations include changes to:

* how targeted surveillance is authorised against New Zealanders and permanent residents be designated as Tier 1 authorisation and require sign off from the Attorney-General and a judicial commissioner. This changes from the Prime Minister (or minister responsible for the intelligence agency) and commissioner.

* how covert spying and intelligence gathering activities be designated as Tier 2 authorisation and would require the sign off of just the Attorney-General

* how open source intelligence gathering is authorised, defining it based on how it is collected (which includes the surveillance of organisations, people, and individuals while in a public place) – such activities would be designated as Tier 3 authorisation and would only require a broad policy statement to be issued by the Attorney-General.

If the spy operations intend to target a foreign dignitary, or embark on an operation likely to have implications for New Zealand’s foreign policy or international relations, then the Attorney-General “should be required” to refer authorisation applications to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for comment.

Is this an erosion of the status quo, of the current requirement that security intelligence operations involving the surveillance of New Zealand citizens and permanent residents require a warrant signed off by the commissioner and Prime Minister or minister responsible?

Or is it improving on the current regime by tagging the responsibility to the Attorney-General, a minister in the Executive Government’s cabinet whose justifications can be more readily challenged, even reprimanded, than can a prime minister?

‘Two hops’
The report fails however to address the fact that when our security intelligence agencies target an individual placing him or her under surveillance, breach a network, a computer, smartphone or communications device, they initiate an operative methodology referred to as up to “two hops” – which means hundreds or even thousands of others fall into the scope of surveillance simply because they may have been in direct communication with the individual under surveillance or (in the case of two hops) been in communication with an individual who may have been in communication with the individual upon whom an authorisation surveillance warrant has been granted and actioned.

It is believed that this is how Keith Locke’s SIS file included references to surveillance while he was a member of Parliament representing the Green Party. Helen Clark, who was the prime minister at the time, suggested no warrant had been authorised permitting the SIS to place Locke under surveillance. However, it is believed, that a person of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, whom Locke was in communication with, was the subject of an authorised and warranted surveillance operation. If correct, then Locke’s privacy and rightful right to political liberty was breached without authorisation.

The report fails to address this nor make a recommendation on how such a practice should be addressed.

Scope of the spy agencies
There is considerable attention given to how the security agencies should come under the State Services Act and be under one umbrella; that accessible information databases be defined and information and intelligence sharing and cooperation among public agencies (including the Police and Inland Revenue) be permitted.

It suggests a legislative catch-up be initiated to detail in law how the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) work with the Police on operations, share skill-sets, and prevent duplication of the same within other agencies.

The National Assessments Bureau (NAB) is also given some attention, suggesting it be brought into the fold as a significant specialist analysis body that works with executive government and politicians to understand and accurately assess the intelligence product. The NAB has been doing this in part since it was brought in from the cold, its title changed from the under-utilised External Assessments Bureau and brought within the respectable influence of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The report did not observe nor comment on how professional, efficient, or otherwise the spy agencies are. However, moves to locate elements of the intelligence community within the scope of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet suggest deep-seated concerns by those of the Public Service’s highest office. And the fact that senior members of the DPMC have in recent years been seconded to the SIS and GCSB also suggest a tipping point was breached once realisation was publicly noted of ill-defined and illegal surveillance activity.

The report also fails to address the question of in whose interests (foreign or otherwise) the GCSB and SIS serve. The Edward Snowden revelations, and the FBI’s involvement in the raids on Kim Dot Com and his associates (of which the GCSB was found to have been illegally involved) underscore why the public rightfully has concerns that external foreign powers use the GCSB as an instrument that serves their own national security interests.

Human rights
The report does mention how human rights should be a consideration for investigations conducted by the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, which could offer a counter-balance to the previously heavy-weighted national security intelligence considerations applied to trade implications.

This recommendation may provide a reference, or at least a point of discussion, should the SIS embark on another disastrous, costly, wobbly, and legally flawed security risk certificate exercise – as was initiated when former Algerian politician and academic Ahmed Zaoui was imprisoned unjustly after seeking asylum and refugee status in New Zealand. In that case, the SIS cited likely negative trade implications with Algeria as justification for imprisonment without a trial while the Government considered Zaoui’s fate and possible deportation. Of course in the end, after years of legal battles and millions of dollars spent, the SIS retracted its security risk determination and deemed Zaoui not to be a risk to New Zealand’s national security at all.

Oversight
With the forever intensification of state security intelligence powers, there has been much discussion about the need for more robust oversight. It is interesting, if not disappointing, that Sir Michael and Dame Patsy only recommend a slight tweaking of the status quo.

For example, it is recommended the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security’s investigative powers be expanded in scope to include investigations into ‘sensitive’ operations. And, the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee be increased to a minimum of five and a maximum of seven politicians. There is nothing in the report’s recommendations that addresses Sir Michael and Dame Patsy’s observation that politicians on the intelligence committee are at times unable to fathom the detail or underlying consequences of information communicated during intelligence briefings – presumably due to the use of jargon, intel-speak, and vague references in the communications.

One would have expected, at the very least, this report would have recommended a robust oversight committee be established with a mix of sworn in and appointed experts including political, judicial, constitutional, and formerly operational members.

In Summary
There is much detail in the report, and overall Sir Michael and Dame Patsy have provided a robust analysis of today’s security intelligence environment, its demands, complexities, and referenced realities of security threats (whether they be cyber-security, human, infrastructure, or reputational in nature).

The Cullen-Reddy report does not make recommendations nor observations as to whether New Zealand has the balance right between the state’s search and surveillance powers and those of the citizenry’s right to expressions of freedom and liberty without undue corruption of those ideals.

And as far as public discussion, discourse and debate is concerned, it would have been helpful had the report included an observation of where New Zealand currently sits on the search and surveil Vs civil liberties axis when compared to the other Five Eyes intelligence partner states – I would suggest the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act 2013 and other states’ counterpart legislation could be used as a benchmark.

The full Cullen/Reddy report 

Dr Paul Buchanan’s comprehensive analysis

Respected New Zealand Herald journalist Phil Taylor’s reportage last week has again raised concerns about poor transparency of the New Zealand government.

I also spoke on the issues raised in Phil Taylor’s report, on Radio New Zealand’s The Panel with Jim Mora.

Phil Taylor’s latest report (in what is shaping up to be a series) is titled ‘Witness said no to video link‘. It is about the New Zealand Defence Force and its attempt to avoid paying damages to a journalist, Jon Stephenson, who claimed it defamed him after his Metro magazine expose titled Eyes Wide Shut was published.

The Herald began digging into this issue after the National-led government was forced by the court to pay Jon Stephenson an undisclosed sum. The settlement came with conditions where both parties were not to discuss the proportioned values of that settlement.

It is important to point out, those conditions do not prevent the government from facing up to its public interest responsibilities, to enquire and speak out on what went on up in Afghanistan and why it attempted to shut this issue down through shoot-the-messenger tactics.

Phil Taylor’s reportage shows the stonewalling continues and details how:

When Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee was asked by Phil Taylor:

Would there be an inquiry into whether or not the commander committed perjury, and whether the Defence Force was gamed?

Gerry Brownlee answered “no”.

Frankly, such a response fails to serve the public interest, and leaves one wondering: what has the government got to hide.

This is serious stuff.

The public deserves to know:

This sordid affair underscores how, under recent governments, how difficult it is to advance or compel our elected representatives to initiate a thorough formal inquiry on any matter that may be contrary to their political interests.

Considering how this government’s politicians appear determined to keep the facts hidden, in my view, it is now reasonable to question their motives.

This opinion article by Selwyn Manning was published as Evening Report’s editorial on 4 March 2016 and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Defence debacle: Afghan witness still in New Zealand

AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and Evening Report editor Selwyn Manning have teamed up to launch Asia Pacific Report, a news website that will provide a fresh “Pacific” voice to bolster Asia Pacific news and analysis in New Zealand.

PMC director Professor David Robie says the collaboration is a result of a gap in the media market for an independent Asia-Pacific voice that addressed issues of equity and justice.

“AsiaPacificReport.nz will feature in-depth current affairs news stories focused on telling the ‘untold stories’. It will be a public space for no-froth journalism examining real pressing issues,” he says.

Postgraduate student journalists, academics and journalists around the region will contribute to news reports and features on the website which was launched today at AUT’s City Campus.

The idea for Asia Pacific Report was birthed from Professor Robie and Manning’s desire to bring the Pacific Media Centre’s work beyond the university, to serve a greater global audience.

Asia Pacific Report will work closely with Manning’s company Multimedia Investments to enable the publishing of content into other global media outlets such as Dow Jones Factiva, Lexis Nexis, Moreover and Acquire media.

“Multimedia Investments will provide significant reach for the PMC’s reportage and analysis,” explains Manning. “We are confident Asia Pacific Report will be a significant outlet and a reliable source for public discourse and debate within the region.”

Pacific Cooperation Foundation CEO Laulu Mac Leauanae did the honours of launching the site, and a 15 minute documentary, The PMC Project, by Pacific Media Watch journalist Alistar Kata was also screened at the launch. She has just joined the Tagata Pasifika team this week.

The documentary was about the work of the Pacific Media Centre, including interviews with staff, student journalists and their projects.

The news at AUT

David Robie’s comment on Cafe Pacific

PMC launches new website – ‘fresh “Pacific” voice

Watch the documentary

By Selwyn Manning in Auckland

New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay yesterday released the National Interest Analysis (NIA), a document tasked to examine the pros and cons of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

McClay said on releasing the document that it “comprehensively analyses what TPP means for New Zealand, across the entire agreement”. He added: “It finds that entering TPP would be in New Zealand’s national interest, adding an estimated $2.7 billion to GDP by 2030.”

However, TPPA critics suggest the National Interest Analysis document is far from an independent analysis and is designed to spin the National-led Government’s (and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s) view.

University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey said the formal National Interest Analysis (NIA) on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) released by Trade Minister Todd McClay was simply an expanded version of the so-called “fact sheets” prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), which sought to justify the deal that officials and the National government have negotiated.

“The NIA is a totally predictable cheerleading exercise that talks up the supposed gains and largely ignores the huge downsides of the TPPA,” Professor Kelsey said.

She added an Australian Senate Inquiry into the treaty making process last year dismissed similar exercises produced by MFAT’s counterparts in Australia as totally inadequate, and called for a genuine independent, in-depth study before as well as after the conclusion of negotiations, including the TPPA.

“The flimsy NIA contrasts to the careful and detailed analysis in five peer reviewed expert papers on the implications of the TPPA that have been produced so far as part of a series supported by funding from the New Zealand Law Foundation,” Professor Kelsey said.  

These expert papers examined the impacts on New Zealand’s regulatory sovereignty, the investment chapter, climate change and the environment, the economics of the TPPA, and the Treaty of Waitangi and are available at tpplegal.wordpress.com. More papers are to come on financial regulation, public services, and IT and innovation.

“If the government wants its assessment of the national interest of the TPPA to be taken seriously it needs to engage with these independent expert papers and attempt to rebut the analyses by which the authors conclude that the deal is not of net benefit to New Zealand, now or in the future,” Professor Kelsey said.

McClay insisted New Zealand has published an “unprecedented amount of information” on TPP.

In a statement yesterday, he said, released information included 10 fact sheets released following the conclusion of negotiations on 5 October. The TPP text was first made public on 5 November, together with additional information on the estimated economic benefit and details of potential costs.

“The government will also be running roadshows for the public to learn more about TPP, and to help businesses prepare for the economic opportunities will bring,” says McClay.

Professor Kelsey, international TPPA expert Lori Wallach of the USA’s Public Citizen and other key public figures talked about the TPPA, the latest research, politics, analysis and actions at a public meeting in the Auckland Town Hall last night.

More information: ItsOurFuture.org.nz

Rousing, inspirational public challenge to the ‘no way’ TPPA deal

Interview: With Dr David Robie
Interviewer: Selwyn Manning
Date: July 8, 2015

Subject: 30 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and

Launch of David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire (fifth edition)

Eyes of Fire publisher Little Island Press: littleisland.co.nz/books/eyes-fire

Eyes of Fire microsite: eyes-of-fire.littleisland.co.nz

EveningReport.nz run sheet and programme:
http://eveningreport.nz/2015/07/08/evening-report-rainbow-warrior-series-video-interview-with-david-robie-on-book-launch-eyes-of-fire/

Welcome to Evening Report. This Friday, July 10 marks 30 years since French DGSE operatives exploded two bombs destroying the Greenpeace flagship…. the Rainbow Warrior at Marsden Wharf in Auckland harbour. And on Friday July 10, journalist and academic Dr David Robie will launch the fifth edition of his book, Eyes of Fire.

The book is a rich account of the events surrounding the Rainbow Warrior affair.

And earlier today he joined me to discuss Eyes of Fire… why he was onboard the vessel on its last journey through the Pacific, his enduring memories of the time, and what lessons the Rainbow Warrior affair offers us now and in the future.

Transcript summary

“HOT AIR – Climate Change Politics In NZ” – the award-winning feature length documentary which reveals how big business stopped NZ Government action on climate change – is being launched for on-demand free viewing today.

The film’s on-demand release is being promoted via an advertising campaign on the leading NZ political news website Scoop.co.nz.

After a sellout Wellington premiere at the International Film Festival, and nomination as finalist in NZ Film Awards Best Documentary and Best Editing, HOT AIR won the 2013 Bruce Jesson Senior Journalism Award.

Describing its strong use of dramatic news archive and interviews as ‘riveting and compelling’ judges and critics praised its detailed coverage of conflict and intrigue between Government and powerful business players.

HOT AIR chronicles the expensive campaigns mounted by business leaders to delay and obstruct the efforts of National and Labour governments to slow down global warming.

Fearful that carbon tax and similar proposals would cut their profits, the men in charge of some of New Zealand’s biggest businesses hired local and foreign propagandists and climate-change deniers to discredit scientific reports and reverse growing popular and political support for action to reduce global warming.

Their corrosive undermining of the work of three Cabinet Ministers (National’s Simon Upton & Labour’s Pete Hodgson and David Parker) and scientific advisers has proved effective.

Since 2008 the Key government has taken no new action to curb climate change.

HOT AIR tells the full and alarming story of this contest between elected governments and wealthy business and it is now available for free on-demand viewing via Youtube.

Disappointed by the apparent official failure to engage the public on climate change issues, producer and co-director Alister Barry hopes free Youtube access to HOT AIR will help New Zealanders understand how lobbying by business interests have inhibited positive action by successive New Zealand Governments to address climate change,

Barry also hopes his decision to release the film for free viewing will promote discussion about practical steps to deal with the most urgent issue of our times.

“The December 2015 UN conference on climate change in Paris is very important; our Government said it would set a target for reduced greenhouse gas emissions in preparation for the conference, but that has not yet happened.

“Once again, our country is being very slow to act and it seems most likely that our national target will be decided behind closed doors after consultation with the big industrial emitters. Who is in charge here ?”

“Yesterday the Government launched a consultation round on the target that New Zealand ought to take to the Paris Climate Change meeting. Public Meetings begin next Wednesday and run for a week – submissions can be made till June 3rd.

“I hope that by releasing this documentary now for free public access via Youtube (it has been screened twice by Maori TV) it will provide useful context for the discussion around what NZ’s target ought to be for reducing its emissions.”

The free on-demand on-line launch of HOT AIR is something of an experiment. With DVDs predicted soon to go the way of VHS, and more and more use of mobile devices to view films and video, putting a feature documentary online is logical.

Barry’s last production, The Hollow Men, has had over 170,000 You Tube visits over two years – but Barry stresses this doesn’t mean everyone watched the documentary right through. He hopes free viewing will simplify and maximise access to HOT AIR and above all he wants young people to watch the film because,“It’s about their future more than mine”.

His recent approach to TVNZ asking if they would be interested in screening the film has had no response.

“Thankfully, Maori Television has once again stepped in as our default public broadcaster and screened HOT AIR twice. When I was young, a documentary like this would have been made and aired by our state owned broadcaster as a matter of course. Perhaps this on-line experiment will help prove to NZ On Air that there are other ways for them to support local documentary makers”.

Watch the film at at www.hotairfilm.co.nz

—

Documentary: Morality of Argument – sustaining a state of being nuclear free

Duration: 1:39 Director/Producer: Selwyn Manning

Produced in association: with Dr David Robie and the Pacific Media Centre.

Copyright 2010: Selwyn Manning and Multimedia Investments Ltd.

In his documentary Morality of Argument, journalist Selwyn Manning analyses what remains of New Zealand’s nuclear free policy that was so central to the Labour Party of the 1980s, and indeed whether the policy’s ethos and application is as relevant today and into the millennium as it was on its ascendancy into law as the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987.

The documentary conveys its discoveries by structuring argument emanating from four key interviewees who choose to stand apart from political party influence and seek value in subscribing to an independent position when analysing the nuclear free issue.

Interviewees include:

Bunny McDiarmid, Commander Robert Green, Dr Kate Dewes, Dr Paul Buchanan.

Footage includes previously unreleased recordings of an interview between Selwyn Manning and former New Zealand prime minister David Lange on the nuclear free policy and the Pacific.

—

COMMENTARY: Suicide is increasing at a rate that most Pacific Islanders can no longer chose to ignore.

Atypically the act of intentionally taking one’s own life is brought about as a result of  depression usually accompanied with mental disorders, alcohol, financial and interrelationship problems.

Although an alarm will surface in news headlines – an alarm that is only raised at the expense of someone’s life – this is just like all the other news – there one day, gone the next .

Without being melodramatic, it leaves me frustrated when issues like suicide aren’t follow up on beyond occasional headlines. I mean, what’s happening between times, or more specifically “what has been done since the last incident?”

Behind the scenes how much of a struggle is it for the organisations and government ministries in charge of this issue to push for a reduction in the suicide statistics?        

As a person who has lost both a friend and relative to suicide, I would say my own labelling of suicide victims was naive and ignorant. Seldom would I have ever thought of suicide as the only way to end a victim’s suffering.

WHO estimated that over 800,000 people die due to suicide every year.

Fiji suicides
Fiji recorded 89 suicides from January to September this year, with 10 involving children under the age of 16 and a total of 30 people below the age of 25 taking their lives during the past eight months.

On Friday, September 18, classes for secondary, primary and pre-schools in Fiji were put on hold for a day as it was declared  “Suicide Prevention Day” soon after the death of three primary school students who were said to have taken their lives due to academic reasons by drinking a formula used for killing weeds.

For that week,  the spotlight was on the:

Any likelihood that such an incident might be repeated made every parent, school and government ministry worry. Everyone was talking about “suicide” whether to a relative or friend; or even posting on social media sites. No matter what medium was being used, “Suicide Awareness” (a topic usually considered as taboo) was finally out there in the open.

Right up until the Rugby World Cup 2015 hit… and just like that… suicide was a topic tucked away only to be brought up as statistics for the next kava session.

Who is at risk?
While the link between suicide and mental disorders – in particular, depression and alcohol use disorders – is well established in high-income countries, many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship break-up or chronic pain and illness.

In addition, experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse, or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour. Suicide rates are also high amongst vulnerable groups who experience discrimination, such as refugees and migrants; indigenous peoples; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) persons; and prisoners. By far the strongest risk factor for suicide is a previous suicide attempt.

Methods of suicide
It is estimated that around 30 percent of global suicides are due to pesticide self-poisoning, most of which occur in rural agricultural areas in low and middle-income countries. Other common methods of suicide are hanging and firearms.

Knowledge of the most commonly used suicide methods is important to devise prevention strategies which have shown to be effective, such as restriction of access to means of suicide.

Prevention and control
Suicides are preventable. There are a number of measures that can be taken at population, sub-population and individual levels to prevent suicide and suicide attempts. These include:

• reducing access to the means of suicide (e.g. pesticides, firearms, certain medications);
• reporting by media in a responsible way;
• introducing alcohol policies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol;
• early identification, treatment and care of people with mental and substance use disorders, chronic pain and acute emotional distress;
• training of non-specialised health workers in the assessment and management of suicidal behaviour;
• follow-up care for people who attempted suicide and provision of community support.

Suicide is a complex issue and therefore suicide prevention efforts require coordination and collaboration among multiple sectors of society, including the health sector and other sectors such as education, labour, agriculture, business, justice, law, defense, politics, and the media.

These efforts must be comprehensive and integrated as no single approach alone can make an impact on an issue as complex as suicide.

Rupeni Vatubuli of Newsroom filed this commentary for Pacific Report. It was first published by EveningReport.nz and is republished by PMC Online with permission.

Links:

1. http://www.who.int/gho/mental_health/suicide_rates/en/
2. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs398/en/
3. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/131056/1/9789241564779_eng.pdf?u
4. http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=320881
5. http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=321289
6. http://www.consumersfiji.org/media-center/press-releases/trader-responsibility-is-vital
7. http://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Center/Press-Releases/FIJIANS-ENCOURAGED-TO-PARTICIPATE-AT-SUICIDE-PREVE.aspx?feed=news

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Suicide is increasing at a rate that most Pacific Islanders can no longer chose to ignore.

Atypically the act of intentionally taking one’s own life is brought about as a result of  depression usually accompanied with mental disorders, alcohol, financial and interrelationship problems.

Although an alarm will surface in news headlines – an alarm that is only raised at the expense of someone’s life – this is just like all the other news – there one day, gone the next .

Without being melodramatic, it leaves me frustrated when issues like suicide aren’t follow up on beyond occasional headlines. I mean, what’s happening between times, or more specifically “what has been done since the last incident?”

Behind the scenes how much of a struggle is it for the organisations and government ministries in charge of this issue to push for a reduction in the suicide statistics?        

As a person who has lost both a friend and relative to suicide, I would say my own labelling of suicide victims was naive and ignorant. Seldom would I have ever thought of suicide as the only way to end a victim’s suffering.

WHO estimated that over 800 000 people die due to suicide every year.

Fiji recorded 89 suicides from January to September this year, with 10 involving children under the age of 16 and a total of 30 people below the age of 25 taking their lives during the past eight months.

Last month, on Friday 18 September, classes for Secondary, Primary and pre-schools in Fiji were put on hold for a day as it was declared  “Suicide Prevention Day” soon after the death of three primary school students who were said to have taken their lives due to academic reasons by drinking a formula used for killing weeds.

For that week,  the spotlight was on the:

• Schools…for putting too much pressure on school students
• Ministry of Education…for not making it clear to students that regardless of academic performance they would still be promoted to the next level
• Students…for not discussing issues they faced
• Parents…for not speaking to their children
• And businesses…for selling hazardous products that could be easily purchased by anyone.

Any likelihood that such an incident might be repeated made every parent, school and Government ministry worry. Everyone was talking about “Suicide” whether to a relative or friend; or even posting on social media sites. No matter what medium was being used, “Suicide Awareness” (a topic usually considered as taboo) was finally out there in the open.

Right up till the Rugby World Cup 2015 hit… and just like that… suicide was a topic tucked away only to be brought up as statistics for the next kava session.

Who is at risk?

While the link between suicide and mental disorders – in particular, depression and alcohol use disorders – is well established in high-income countries, many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship break-up or chronic pain and illness.

In addition, experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse, or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour. Suicide rates are also high amongst vulnerable groups who experience discrimination, such as refugees and migrants; indigenous peoples; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) persons; and prisoners. By far the strongest risk factor for suicide is a previous suicide attempt.

Methods of suicide

It is estimated that around 30% of global suicides are due to pesticide self-poisoning, most of which occur in rural agricultural areas in low- and middle-income countries. Other common methods of suicide are hanging and firearms.

Knowledge of the most commonly used suicide methods is important to devise prevention strategies which have shown to be effective, such as restriction of access to means of suicide.

Prevention and control

Suicides are preventable. There are a number of measures that can be taken at population, sub-population and individual levels to prevent suicide and suicide attempts. These include:

• reducing access to the means of suicide (e.g. pesticides, firearms, certain medications);
• reporting by media in a responsible way;
• introducing alcohol policies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol;
• early identification, treatment and care of people with mental and substance use disorders, chronic pain and acute emotional distress;
• training of non-specialized health workers in the assessment and management of suicidal behaviour;
• follow-up care for people who attempted suicide and provision of community support.

Suicide is a complex issue and therefore suicide prevention efforts require coordination and collaboration among multiple sectors of society, including the health sector and other sectors such as education, labour, agriculture, business, justice, law, defense, politics, and the media.

These efforts must be comprehensive and integrated as no single approach alone can make an impact on an issue as complex as suicide.

Links:

1. http://www.who.int/gho/mental_health/suicide_rates/en/
2. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs398/en/
3. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/131056/1/9789241564779_eng.pdf?u
4. http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=320881
5. http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=321289
6. http://www.consumersfiji.org/media-center/press-releases/trader-responsibility-is-vital
7. http://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Center/Press-Releases/FIJIANS-ENCOURAGED-TO-PARTICIPATE-AT-SUICIDE-PREVE.aspx?feed=news

The survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings have borne the legacy of terrible injuries and scars on top of the cataclysmic trauma of what they witnessed, writes Tilman Ruff. They have also faced discrimination and ostracism, reduced opportunities for employment and marriage, and increased risks of cancer and chronic disease, which stalk them, even 70 years later, for the rest of their days.

ANALYSIS: On this day 70 years ago, the world and the preconditions for its health and survival changed forever. A crude bomb containing 60 kilograms of highly enriched uranium exploded 580 metres above Hiroshima. Equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT, it was 2000 times more powerful than the British Grand Slam bomb, the largest produced until then.

The moral threshold of catastrophic attacks with indiscriminate weapons had already been crossed, with poison gas killing 90,000 and maiming or blinding one million men in the European killing fields of the first world war. This was followed by indiscriminate aerial bombing of cities during the Second World War.

Nowhere was the bombing more extensive than in Japan. Between March and August 1945, 66 Japanese cities, with populations down to 30,000 inhabitants, were systematically bombed by an average of 500 bombers carrying 4000-5000 tons of bombs per city. In Tokyo on March 9-10, an estimated 120,000 civilians died in the bombing and subsequent fires.

Rumours had been circulating in Hiroshima that the city was being saved for something special. It was. The burst of ionising radiation, blast, heat and subsequent firestorm that engulfed the city on August 6 killed 140,000 people by the end of 1945.

Many were incinerated or dismembered instantly; others succumbed over hours, days, weeks and months from cruel combinations of traumatic injury, burns and radiation sickness.

Three days later, another B-29 carrying a bomb equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT headed for Kokura. Because of clouds blocking visibility, its cargo was dropped over Nagasaki instead, raining similar radioactive ruin and killing 90,000 people by the end of 1945.

In both cities, ground temperatures reached about 7000° Celsius. Radioactive black rain poured down after the explosions.

Not tested
In both weapons, less than one kilogram of material was fissioned. The physics of the Hiroshima bomb were so simple and predictable that the bomb was not tested prior to use.

The Nagasaki plutonium bomb required a more sophisticated design. A prototype was exploded at Alamogordo in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, detonated by Australian nuclear physicist Ernest Titterton.

The survivors of the two bombings bore the legacy of terrible injuries and scars on top of the cataclysmic trauma of what they witnessed. They also faced discrimination and ostracism, reduced opportunities for employment and marriage, and increased risks of cancer and chronic disease, which stalk them, even 70 years later, for the rest of their days.

Over the past 30 years I have had the privilege of visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a number of occasions. What never ceases to amaze me is the extraordinary compassion, wisdom and humbling humanity of hibakusha. Never have I heard even the slightest hint of an understandable desire for revenge or retribution.
An unfulfilled quest

The constant yearning of hibakusha is that no-one else should ever suffer as they have suffered: nuclear weapons must be removed from the face of the earth.

In the newly established United Nations, there was the same understanding. The first resolution passed at the first meeting of the UN General Assembly in London in January 1946 established a commission to draw up a plan “for the elimination of national armaments of atomic weapons”.

Today, there is ample cause for existential despair and a poor prognosis for human custodianship of the biosphere. No nuclear disarmament negotiations are in train. Even reduced from their Cold War peak, massively bloated nuclear arsenals of 15,650 weapons jeopardise not only the living but those yet to be born.

Global arsenal
Were one Hiroshima bomb to be detonated every two hours from the end of 1945, the global arsenal would not yet be consumed. All the nuclear-armed states continue to invest massively in development and modernisation of their arsenals. In the Conference on Disarmament, it has not been possible to agree even on an agenda for 19 years.

The five-yearly review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the principal treaty regulating nuclear weapons and legally binding nuclear-armed states to disarm, recently ended in failure. Britain, Canada and the US (acting for Israel, not even a party to the treaty), refused to accept a March 2016 deadline for a conference, promised for 20 years, to discuss a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, conflict in Ukraine and Crimea has re-inflamed Cold War risks of armed confrontation and nuclear war between NATO and Russia.

However, there are grounds to be hopeful about decisive progress on a circuit-breaker. The first ever intergovernmental conferences on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons have been held – three in the past two years. These have led to 113 nations signing a humanitarian pledge committing them to work to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

In a welcome development, the recent ALP national conference adopted a policy that recognises that eliminating nuclear weapons is a humanitarian imperative. The policy commits Labor to support negotiation of a global treaty banning nuclear weapons.

Other treaties
States without nuclear weapons cannot eliminate them. But the dictates of common humanity, democracy, common interest and common sense, based on all people everywhere being vulnerable to the catastrophic impacts of nuclear weapons, can lead to disarmament.

As happened with landmines and cluster munitions, like biological and chemical weapons before them, unacceptable weapons can be prohibited as a necessary condition for their elimination. In the face of recalcitrant nuclear-armed states claiming a unique right to cling determinedly to their weapons of terror, concluding a ban treaty is the most practical next step the rest of the world can take.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon surprised many when he ordered an end to the US biological weapons program. The US Defence Department, which had previously declared that biological weapons lacked military usefulness, supported this.

As the then-UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Angela Kane, said last year:

How many states today boast that they are “biological-weapon states” or “chemical-weapon states”? Who is arguing now that bubonic plague or polio are legitimate to use as weapons under any circumstance, whether in an attack or in retaliation? Who speaks of a bioweapon umbrella?

Then UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane discusses the challenges of eliminating nuclear weapons.

Yet all these things and more are claimed regarding nuclear weapons, far more destructive and indiscriminate than these other weapons.

In appealing to the 1982 UN Second Special Session on Disarmament, Hiroshima Mayor Takeshi Araki said:

“Hiroshima is not merely a witness of history. Hiroshima is an endless warning for the future of humankind. If Hiroshima is ever forgotten, it is evident that the mistake will be repeated and bring human history to an end.”

Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima added:

“Nagasaki has to be forever the last city in the world bombed by nuclear weapons!”

On the 70th anniversary of the bombings, banning nuclear weapons is long overdue. The remaining survivors should see negotiations on a ban treaty underway by the time a new year dawns.

Dr Tilman Ruff is associate professor, International Education and Learning Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. This article was first published by The Conversation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

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