Opposition New Zealand MPs say former TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman was “hounded” into resigning, after a “witch hunt” while public broadcasters are under “immense pressure” from the governing coalition.

There has also been an outpouring of reaction from other broadcasters and commentators.

Many were grieving over the loss to political journalism, some questioning the support TVNZ gave its reporter and others stating it should not have been a sackable offence.

• READ MORE: TVNZ’s ‘first wahine Māori’ political editor Maiki Sherman resigns
• The Maiki Sherman saga: What actually happened — Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
• ACT leader David Seymour is seeking to undermine public broadcasting — Steven Cowan
• Oceania and global media freedom reports
• Other Maiki Sherman reports

Others have argued the scrutiny and pressure applied by the media should also apply to its own reporters.

Sherman resigned last Friday following a period of scrutiny over an incident during pre-Budget drinks in Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ office a year ago.

She had used a homophobic slur against Stuff journalist Lloyd Burr in response to “deeply personal and inappropriate remarks,” she said. She apologised at the time and informed her manager.

The resignation also came after a suspension from Parliament due to breaching parliamentary rules by pursuing an interview with National’s chief whip Stuart Smith, during a period of scrutiny on Luxon’s leadership.

Written in support
Prior to her resignation, veteran political journalists Richard Harman and Audrey Young had both written in support.

Harman told The Post there was a “bit of a public beat-up of Maiki going on at the moment” and that TVNZ should back its reporter.

Young wrote in her column in The New Zealand Herald at the end of April the level of hate against Sherman was “just incredible” and “clearly goes well beyond journalistic critique”.

The day the story about the incident in Willis’ office broke in a blog written by Ani O’Brien, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour told reporters if the content was accurately reported, “it’s absolutely disgraceful”.

“But the fact that it hasn’t been a story for nearly a year is in itself a disgraceful double standard, and I think we should all just be glad that one woman with a substack actually made it a story, because we all know that in the same circumstances, a member of Parliament would have got wall-to-wall coverage night after night after night, don’t we?”

At the time, he suggested Parliament’s speaker should consider Sherman’s access to Parliament.

Opposition politicians speak out
Labour MP Willie Jackson said Sherman had been “hounded” into resignation after she “made a mistake”.

He acknowledged her as a “trailblazing” wahine Māori broadcaster, and despite a “number of run-ins with her over the years” was very proud of her.

“It’s a shame TVNZ let her down so badly, deciding obviously with pressure from this government, that her position was untenable.”

Green MPs Hūhana Lyndon and Steve Abel also spoke out.

Lyndon said the right “came out hard to hunt her down” and suggested considering the context where public broadcasters under “immense pressure and threats” from ministers of the coalition government created a “chilling effect”.

Abel called it a “witch-hunt” and said something was “rotten” in New Zealand with right wing politicians targeting journalists.

He also said TVNZ bosses needed to be questioned, because Sherman’s statement implied she no longer had the backing of her employer.

“Why would the bosses in a public media institution whose duty is upholding the principle of free and independent media not be backing a journalist who has clearly been targeted for political reasons.”

‘Deeply upsetting to witness’
Te Pāti Māori MP, and former broadcaster, Oriini Kaipara also took to social media, calling Sherman’s treatment “deeply upsetting to witness”.

“Maiki is one of the sharpest political journalists in the country. Intelligent, fearless, composed, and uncompromising in holding power to account.

“Her rise mattered. Not just professionally, but culturally.

“So many Māori, especially wāhine and rangatahi, saw themselves in her. Many only turned the news on or anticipated any political story because of Maiki.”

Kaipara said it felt “personal” and reeked of “foul play”.

Voices from outside Parliament
There had also been an outpouring of support, including from Māori broadcasters, and questions about double standards.

Scotty Morrison gave a mihi during Te Karere’s show the day the news broke, acknowledging the loss for TVNZ and the brilliance of Sherman’s work.

Miriama Kamo wrote on social media, acknowledging the pressure of the high-profile job while Sherman juggled being a mother to six kids as well. Kamo also questioned how TVNZ had supported its reporter, and how it planned to “address the vacuum her departure has left”.

Broadcaster Moana Maniapoto said “somewhere someone is raising a glass,” and the resignation was not good news for the public in election year.

Former Māori Party chief-of-staff Helen Leahy wrote the relationship between the press gallery and politicians was never an easy one.

“But you don’t get the breaking news by sitting noho puku [sitting still]. You don’t get a leader opening up and being vulnerable without mutual respect. Maiki would persevere.”

Political commentator Liam Hehir queried a double standard, asking why comments of a prominent journalist at a work-function were “inherently off limits”.

On X, pollster David Farrar wrote the resignation was “sad”.

“I don’t think one regrettable moment should cost you your job. We need less cancel culture, not more.”

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark wrote that at a party in the Minister of Finance’s office, “where one assumes alcohol flowed”, there was an exchange between journalists.

“The aftermath — one was later hounded from her job. The other wasn’t. All in the context of public media being undermined. Shameful.”

‘Rules broken all the time’
Former political editor Duncan Garner wrote that after nearly 20 years inside Parliament, he knew how the place worked.

“The rules were broken all the time. By journalists. By MPs. By ministers. By people who later got promoted, protected, forgiven, knighted and sent off to cushy jobs.

“So why Maiki?”

And blogger O’Brien — who posted the original blog breaking the story — said for years journalists and commentators, including Sherman, had “enthusiastically participated in a culture where politicians and public figures were subjected to career-ending moral scrutiny for comments or conduct less severe than this”.

“The modern media class has normalised the idea that professional ruin is an acceptable and even righteous outcome for personal failings.

“It is difficult now to object when that same standard is turned inward.”

Politik blog political writer Richard Harman posted online saying this was the “most hostile environment within which to be a political journalist I have known in my 55 years as a journo”.

“The mob is ruling at the moment. They have tasted blood. Who will they turn on next?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Whoever uses a citizen ill, indirectly offends the state, which is bound to protect this citizen; and the sovereign should avenge his wrongs, punish the aggressor, and, if possible, oblige him to make full reparation; since otherwise the citizen would not obtain the great end of the civil association, which is, safety.”

Swiss jurist Emmerich Vattel expounded this principle in his landmark The Law of Nations, 1758. It is universally accepted today that every State has an obligation to protect its nationals when they are overseas.

As Vattel explained back in the day: this is a duty arising from the bond of nationality. A leader who betrays this principle of citizenship is unworthy of high office. Such a man is New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Late in the night of April 29, a large Israeli force made up of several warships, a prison ship, aircraft, and drones attacked the Global Sumud Flotilla, a fleet of over 60 humanitarian vessels drawn from dozens of nations across the globe.

• READ MORE: Why the Global Sumud Flotilla hasn’t given up in spite of the Israeli attacks
• Gaza Freedom Flotilla Tracker
• Eyes Of Fire Rainbow Warrior educational resource

The Sumud flotilla, in international waters near the Greek island of Crete, was Gaza-bound. The plan was to open a humanitarian aid corridor to the enclave that is suffering genocide at the hands of Israel and its Western allies.

Over 20 vessels were boarded, many dozens of activists beaten, some later requiring hospitalisation. Once the crews were transferred to the prison ship, the vessels were sabotaged and abandoned in international waters.

For the next three days the Israelis beat dozens of the Sumud crew, tortured some, terrorised others with threats of murder, guns in their faces, and performed other unlawful acts including denying essential medication, forcing hostages into stress positions, forcing others to hug the Israeli flag, flooding decks to make sleep impossible, and many other sadistic acts. Several Kiwis were among those who were savagely kicked and punched in the head, back and ribs.

Like many Western governments, New Zealand leaders did absolutely nothing to condemn the attack, nor initiate action against Israel. They did not even offer material support to their citizen-victims once they had been dumped onto Crete without money, adequate clothing or phones.

Rainbow Warrior attack
Let’s be clear: according to international law, sovereignty does not end at the borders of a country. New Zealand suffered the most serious state terrorist attack on its own citizens since the French government bombed and sank Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985. This time the state was Israel. Both events bear uncanny resemblances and disturbing differences that are immensely consequential.

The similarity: a state terrorist attack on vessels on peaceful humanitarian missions.

The difference: the response to the two events by both the New Zealand governments and media of the day.

In 1985, when news that terrorists had infiltrated New Zealand and attached limpet mines to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior, blasting a hole below the waterline, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, the government, the media and the population of New Zealand went into a frenzy.

I will never forget those momentous times. Within days the culprits had been identified: they were agents of the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), the French equivalent of the CIA. Two of the large squad of French agents, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were caught. It eventually emerged that this terror plot — which the French impudently codenamed “Opération Satanique” — reached all the way to President François Mitterrand.

The story riveted and animated New Zealand for months. The government relentlessly pursued the villains, eventually forcing the resignation of high officials including defence minister Charles Hernu and the head of the DGSE, Pierre Lacoste. As part of the settlement the French had to pay for a replacement vessel for Greenpeace and the two spies were sentenced to 10 years prison, part of which were spent in New Zealand jails before they were transferred to internment on Hao Atoll. Within two years the French welched on the terms and let their agents return to France for awards and promotions.

Eugene Doyle comments on the flotilla outrage on Neutrality Studies.

The consequences for New Zealand were enormous. New Zealanders were shocked when they learnt Australia helped some of the attackers to escape, and the country’s other closest allies, the UK and USA, uttered not a single word of condemnation to the French. This betrayal and the terror attack itself fundamentally altered New Zealand’s relationship with its Western allies and set it on a path towards an independent foreign policy, the high-points of which was the Nuclear Free Zone Act 1987 and New Zealand’s expulsion from the ANZUS security pact with the US and Australia, both within two years of the attack. It was a time when many felt proud to be New Zealanders.

Shame of reporters
Fast forward 41 years and we have the most serious state terror attack on New Zealand since the Rainbow Warrior bombing. The media, to the shame of reporters I have spoken to off the record, treated it as a minor story and quickly moved on. The government told the victims of this terrorist attack they had to fend for themselves and offered not a breath of condemnation.

No mainstream reporter grilled the government over this inaction.

Prime Minister Luxon’s conduct is reprehensible on so many fronts. Prioritising “strategic alignment” with Israel and the US over the physical safety of New Zealanders is a betrayal of his most fundamental duty.

Even a neo-con like US President Ronald Reagan got the memo: “A government’s first duty is to protect the people,” he said in 1981. Luxon’s failure to defend his citizens — however contemptible it may be — probably does not reach the threshold of “treason” under the Crimes Act 1961 definition (lawyers may disagree) but it does confirm that the man has no place as the leader of a sovereign and democratic nation.

The Prime Minister constantly refers to himself as a “chief executive” or CEO, so I appreciate politics isn’t his strong card. Political philosophy is clearly a weakness too. So permit me, Christopher, a few observations.

Among my first lessons as a tender-faced youth attending political science classes at Victoria University was Thomes Hobbes’s principle that the only reason individuals surrender their liberty to a sovereign is for protection. If certain categories of citizens come to realise the state is willing to see them beaten and abused to please a foreign state, it breaks all sorts of bonds that should not be broken.

In other words, the litmus test for a sovereign democracy is not how the state treats docile citizens and its buddies but how it protects even vociferous dissenters when they are in the hands of a foreign power. The Sumud flotilla crew are anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-genocide; in other words, the opposite side to the Prime Minister and the New Zealand government. They deserve protection and medals not boots in the head and abandonment.

Breaches torture convention
The mistreatment of the Sumud prisoners also breaches the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and meets the threshold for cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The Kiwis are free now and I know from speaking to some of them that they are shell-shocked and traumatised but also mindful that their ordeal was short and less than the medieval mistreatment of thousands of Palestinian hostages in Israeli concentration camps today.

As a minimum the New Zealand government should confront the Israelis and demand two things: Non-repetition and Reparations.

Non-repetition is a commitment that such wrongful acts won’t happen again. The government should issue a “Note Verbale” — a formal warning to Israel of real consequences if citizens are in any way abused. They — and all governments — should have done so before the Sumud flotilla sailed.

Secondly, the government should demand Full Reparations — payment for medical bills, evacuation costs, trauma, and damage to property, including the millions of dollars in damage to all the vessels sabotaged, and return of stolen property (including Sean Janssen’s pounamu pendant, a Māori taonga (treasure) that was ripped from his neck by an Israeli stormtrooper).

I was proud to be a New Zealander when our government stood with Greenpeace following the French state terrorist attack in 1985.

Today, I am proud of the men and women of the Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation, including Hāhona Ormsby, Julien Blondel, Jay O’Connor, Samuel Leason, Mousa Taher, Sean Janssen and Rana Hamida. They keep alive the flame of hope that one day New Zealand will again stand for humanity, international law, peace and an independent foreign policy.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and hosts solidarity.co.nz

The political activist suing major New Zealand emitters over climate change damage says a law change blocking his case and others like it is “an affront to democracy”.

The government announced yesterday it would amend climate laws to prevent companies from being sued over damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The change will prevent findings of liability in torts — a type of civil case where one person or entity claims another has caused them harm.

• READ MORE: Other climate change law reports

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said it would apply to current and future cases — stopping a landmark case against Fonterra and five other major emitters in its tracks.

In 2024, iwi leader and activist Mike Smith was granted permission by the Supreme Court to sue Fonterra and other major dairy and fossil fuel companies.

He argued the companies, which collectively contributed about a third of New Zealand’s emissions, had a legal duty to him and others in communities that are being damaged by the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

The hearing, which was sent back to the High Court, was due to start in April next year.

‘Creating uncertainty’
Dr Goldsmith said Smith’s case was “creating uncertainty in business confidence and investments that the government must address”.

The law change would “remove the possible development of a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted to respond to climate change”.

New Zealand already had a legal framework to manage emissions, through the Climate Change Response Act and the Emissions Trading Scheme, he said.

“Our response to climate change is best managed by the government at a national level and not through piecemeal litigation in the courts.”

Smith told RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme the government’s decision was unprecedented and outrageous.

“It’s an affront to democracy,” he said.

“If Parliament can cancel a live court case, then no legal claim is secure at all, once it becomes politically inconvenient.”

‘Public interest case’
The legal case was asking the court to decide whether the companies involved could be held responsible for their emissions, he said.

He said they were not seeking costs or damages and it was instead a “public interest case” to establish that the companies were liable. They hoped to prompt the companies to take action to reduce greenhouse emissions.

“These companies are not fools. They’ve got some of the best science available to them … All we’re asking is that they act responsibly, and if they can’t decide that themselves then they need to be nudged along.”

He countered Dr Goldsmith’s claims that the case was undermining business confidence.

“Real business confidence comes from predictable law — not from government intervention in active court cases.”

What the big emitters should really worry about were the effects of climate change itself, Smith said.

“If the farmers are feeling nervous about [the case] and lobbying the government to have these cases struck out, if I were them I’d be more nervous about the the droughts that are pending… That’s the real threat to their model.”

‘Shocking abuse of power’
Greenpeace labelled the change a “shocking abuse of power” that would protect climate polluters from paying for the damage they had caused.

Greenpeace executive director Russel Norman, told RNZ Midday Report, it was “outrageous” and he believed it was being done to protect large corporations.

“People will have their right to go to court removed.

“They intervened mid-case. It is an outrageous overreach.”

Lawyers for Climate Action president Jenny Cooper KC said the decision was shortsighted.

“What it looks like is a kneejerk reaction to legislate over the top of the unanimous Supreme Court decision in Smith and Fonterra before that’s gone to trial.”

That would leave New Zealanders with no avenue to claim damages or compensation against emitters in future, she said.

“It’s really hard to understand why we would want to legislate now to say we could never bring claims against emitters for the harms and losses we’ve suffered.

“If they are not responsible for paying then who does? Well, everybody, basically.”

Climate ‘wrecking ball’
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the goverment was using its “dying breaths” to remove New Zealanders’ right to hold emitters accountable.

“They’ve spent two and a half years taking a wrecking ball to climate laws and, at the 11th hour, they’re now ripping away New Zealanders’ and the courts’ ability to do what this government lacks the spine to do.”

The minister’s claims that common law could cut across the government’s climate change framework made no sense, she said.

“The Climate Change Response Act and the ETS do not deal with this issue at all — there is no framework or mechanism for any type of compensation for climate related harm.”

Instead, the change “appears to be cutting off the only potential mechanism we have at the moment before we are anywhere near having legislation that would address these issues.”

The law change would not alter the government’s responsibilities under the Act, and businesses that had obligations under the ETS would still be required to meet them, Dr Goldsmith said.

Another landmark climate case, taken against Climate Change Minister Simon Watts over the government’s plan to tackle climate change, is also unaffected.

That case was heard in March and a reserved decision is expected later this year.

The case against Watts was taken jointly by the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) and Lawyers for Climate Action.

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

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

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

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

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

• READ MORE: Other Fiji military reports

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Despite a trade-related controversy that erupted last week between the governments of Vanuatu and New Caledonia, the French territory’s freight vessel MV Karaka began a new service to Port Vila and Luganville.

Last week, New Caledonia’s territorial government announced it had suspended all trade cooperation with Vanuatu after Port Vila hosted the leader of New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS group — a move seen as a lack of respect by the government in Nouméa.

It followed with the top French diplomat in Port Vila, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, making multiple Facebook posts on the issue, including his meeting with Vanuatu Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Ati to clear misunderstanding and promote the notion of “constructive dialogue”.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia and Vanuatu reports

However, the Vanuatu’s Foreign Affairs Ministry described Vilmer’s decision “to go public through social media platforms” as “extremely unfortunate”.

“The Ambassador’s posts on social media have unnecessarily provoked public misunderstanding and divided national opinions on the actual state of play,” it said in a statement on Friday.

It added that “matters relating to sovereignty and bilateral relations are best addressed through established diplomatic channels”.

But despite the diplomatic spat, the Nouméa-based vessel MV Karaka, which is normally dedicated to a connection between Nouméa and New Caledonia’s Loyalty Islands group (north-east of the main Island, Grande Terre), made its maiden voyage to Vanuatu.

Port Vila service
The MV Karaka is now starting to service the capital Port Vila, as well as Luganville, on the northern island of Espiritu Santo.

Vanuatu authorities held official welcoming ceremonies on Friday to launch the service in Port Vila in presence of French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer.

The ceremony was also attended by Vanuatu ministers Samson Samsen (Trade) and Johnny Koanapo Rasou (Finance), the Vanuatu Daily Post reports.

They were quoted as stressing that even though “issues remained” between France and Vanuatu, they “do not affect “friendship, partnership and diplomatic ties” between the two countries.

The new maritime service, operated by French company CMI (Compagnie Maritime des Îles), is transporting close to 300 tonnes of freight from New Caledonia for export to Vanuatu.

On the way back to Nouméa, it is expected to carry a freight of products for sale in the French Pacific territory, CMI general manager Thomas Quiros told media earlier last week.

The MV Karaka is planning to operate the Vanuatu route once a month.

The service was described by Samsen as “an important connection” to develop new opportunities on both sides in terms of investment, trade and even tourism developments.

Generally, it is also perceived as an instrument to boost the volume of trade between New Caledonia and Vanuatu, an aim that was perceived as shared by both countries.

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

A community leader from a tiny island says preserving her native tongue is more important than ever, as schools on the island itself have stopped teaching it.

Rotuma is an island about 650km north of Fiji and is a dependency of Fiji.

UNESCO lists Rotuman as definitely endangered and says there has been a sharp decline in fluent speakers.

• READ MORE: Other Language Week reports: NZ celebrates Rotuman language as part of Pacific Language Week series
• Solomon Islands elder in Wellington helping preserve Pijin language for the future
• Papua New Guinean woman says indigenous language ‘so important to hold on to’
• ‘Preserve, revitalise, and promote’ PNG language

Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group chair Rachel Mario, who also manages the NZ Rotuman Community Centre in Mt Roskill, said that made it even more important for the community here in New Zealand to keep learning and speaking it.

“If we don’t revive the language or don’t do enough about it, we’ll lose it forever, so it’s quite important that anyone with Rotuman blood out there adhere to that,” she said.

“If you don’t teach your kids and you don’t learn it, or you don’t speak it at home, it’s going to be lost forever.”

According to the 2023 census, 1323 Rotumans live in New Zealand, though Rachel Mario said the number could be higher depending on how the ethnicity question was framed.

‘Also empowering’
“It’s their identity, it’s their culture. It’ll also empower them once they know who they are.”

Rotuman Language Week started on Sunday, something Mario fought for two years to have recognised.

“They kept saying no, because they think we’re Fijian and our culture is totally different. We speak different languages, we’re totally different from the Fijians.”

The Rotuman Community Centre will be running activities throughout the week, including a church service, a decolonisation symposium and a seniors day.

The Rotuman people are a distinct ethnic group, with their own Polynesian language culture and identity.

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

• Today’s event – “Let’s Talk: Decolonisation and safeguarding our Rotuman language” — 6.30pm, NZ Rotuman Community Centre, 165 Stoddard Rd, Mt Roskill

One of the biggest electricity increases in the history of the Marshalls Energy Company was implemented last week — the first of a two-step tariff increase.

Power charges rose by 6c per kWh across the board for government, business and residential.

On May 18, the price will rise another 5c per kWh, to put in place an 11-cent increase this month, according to a “tariff rate adjustment” announcement posted by the government utility company to its website earlier in the week.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific war on Iran fallout reports

The power rate increases are expected to result in local businesses passing on the costs of the 21 percent electricity rate hike to consumers.

This is the latest economic shock, following skyrocketing gas and diesel prices that have seen gas prices at the pump soar to US$8.40 per gallon, and diesel hit the US$10.35 mark. These led the local taxi industry to implement a 50 percent hike in taxi fares.

While these fuel shocks continue to cascade in this small island nation, the government has responded in an unprecedented way, with more initiatives that put money into the hands of Marshallese citizens.

The Marshall Islands government delayed the power company’s need to raise rates by providing a US$4 million subsidy for its power plant fuel purchase in early April.

Postponed tariff
The aim, said Finance Minister David Paul, was to postpone the power company’s tariff increase to allow time for a new tax break to take effect, putting additional money into the every-two-week paychecks of local workers.

In late April, a few days before the power rates increased, the government’s unprecedented tax cut went into force, giving all workers paid on a biweekly basis US$25.60 more net income per paycheck.

This plan was initiated over a year ago as part of a major revamp of the tax system and was supposed to go into effect next year.

But when the US and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February, the measure that exempts the first US$8,320 from eight percent income tax was fast-tracked to go into effect at the end of April.

Finance Minister David Paul said in an interview this week that workers in Marshall Islands will take home an additional US$665.60 on an annual basis from this initiative. It is the latest demonstration of President Hilda Heine’s government putting money into the hands of individual citizens.

During her first term in office, from 2016-2020, Heine negotiated with the World Bank to support an Early Childhood Development programme to focus on cash transfers to mothers of children from birth to five years of age to counteract severe malnutrition in this age group.

Since its inception in 2019, the World Bank-funded programme is now in its second phase and has injected US$40 million into the project. Mothers receive debit cards associated with their bank accounts at Bank of Marshall Islands and the programme provides regular conditional cash transfers to the mothers to help with needs of their young children.

‘Individual Support Distribution’
As a result of a proposal pushed by Paul when he was an opposition member of Parliament in the 2022-23 period, United States and Marshall Islands negotiators included an “Individual Support Distribution” provision in the Compact of Free Association treaty between the two countries.

This set the stage for the Marshall Islands to become the first nation ever to provide universal basic income quarterly payments to every citizen when the program started last November with a payment of $203 to 33,000 citizens.

Since then, an additional 7000 signed up so the universal basic income programme is paying 40,000 people per quarter at a rate of about $160.

The third quarterly payment for universal basic income recipients is expected to be released at the end of May.

A new social support system that pays a $100 per month stipend to people with disabilities of any age and retirees who are not otherwise eligible for retiree payments was rolled out in April. This is putting cash into the hands of over 1000 Marshallese citizens each month.

The tax reduction for workers, the universal basic income programme, the social support system monthly stipends, and the Early Childhood Development programme are all putting money into the hands of citizens in the Marshall Islands.

Whether these cash programmes are enough to mitigate the inflation caused by the attack on Iran remains to be seen. On top of this, a $9 million grant from the World Bank, negotiated over a week ago, is now pending final board approval, said Paul.

Budgetary support
“This will be a grant for government “budgetary support,” meaning it is to “help us navigate through this crisis,” he said.

The Marshalls Energy Company’s rate hike means that the cash power charges will increase twice in two weeks. The following shows the previous rate compared to what the rate will be per kWh from May 18 once the entire 11 cent increase is factored in.

• Government from 52¢ to 63¢
• Commercial from 51.6¢ to 62.6¢
• Residential from 43.2¢ to 54.2¢

“The $4 million subsidy in April bought some time to allow the tax cut to go into effect,” said Paul. “Any increase is hard for families, but MEC (Marshalls Energy Company) is giving it incrementally.”

Paul added: “There are no easy answers (and) we don’t know how long this (high prices) will go on. Everything is aimed for MEC to land on firm footing and avoid insolvency.”

The Finance Minister said the next universal basic income payment will be out at the end of May, providing $6.5 million to 40,000 Marshallese.

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

Why is US President Donald Trump carrying on with his State visit to Beijing this week on May 14? I wouldn’t if I were him.

It also shows that he is surrounded by incompetent officials. Any competent advisor would advise him against undertaking this trip.

He goes as the leader of a “defeated” nation, against a foe on which the United States has imposed the stiffest sanctions for 47 years. He will be viewed by the Chinese as the President that ended the American empire.

• READ MORE: Iran warns of attacks on US bases; Kuwait intercepts ‘hostile drones’
• Other Palestine, attacks on Iran reports

He thinks he is going as a conquering hero and can wow the Chinese with his empty boasts that America won a huge victory and destroyed Iran. He will be met by President Xi and the Chinese leadership with polite smiles and smirks of the greatest disrespect.

If he has any EQ, he will know that his treatment in Beijing is going to be brutal. The Chinese may even gift him the symbolic white flag of surrender. You will see that in this summit, the US will be very much the junior partner.

Iran will never give this defeated President the satisfaction of a peace agreement which he so desperately needs, and is begging for, before his trip to Beijing. They will make sure he goes to Beijing as a defeated man.

Iran is not after a peace deal, but the total and comprehensive defeat of America as the global hegemon. Iran will see to it that the US gets out of the Middle East totally so that Israel is isolated and the Greater Israel project totally destroyed.

Security architecture shifting
Even as I write, the security architecture of the Middle East is shifting rapidly. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman are shifting their allegiances increasingly toward Iran, Russia and China.

Fifty-five years of being America’s poodles are coming to an end. These countries have realised that the US is an unreliable partner and cannot guarantee their security.

The stupid countries are the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, which still hitch their wagons to the Americans and Israel. They have dug their own graves.

History has never witnessed another event as dramatic as the Iran war, where a global power has lost power and prestige in such a short period of 4 months.

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.

ANALYSIS: By Stephanie Tran

The first block of public hearings for the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion began last week, focusing on the prevalence and key drivers of antisemitism in Australia.

Questions about representation and balance have already emerged, with critics arguing that the hearings are dominated by established, pro-Israel Jewish organisations, while progressive and non-Zionist voices remain marginal.

A number of peak Jewish bodies giving evidence, including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, Jewish Community Council of Victoria, Zionist Federation of Australia, National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council and the Dor Foundation, are being represented by the same barristers and solicitors, Arnold Bloch Leibler.

• READ MORE: Australian antisemitism or anti-Zionism?
• Other Stephanie Tran reports

In her opening remarks on Monday, Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell said she was “satisfied that these organisations represent the majority of Australian Jews”.

The hearings will also include evidence from senior community figures, with counsel assisting Zelie Heger noting that they will provide a “bird’s-eye overview” of antisemitism in Australia.

They include Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal and Jeremy Leibler, partner at Arnold Bloch Leibler and president of the Zionist Federation of Australia.

Conflating Jewish identity with Israel
Peter Wertheim, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told the Royal Commission on Tuesday that the pro-Palestine protests in the wake of October 7 were “shocking” and called the “endless repetition of the genocide charge” an attempt to “re-stigmatise Jews collectively”.

Commissioner Bell granted limited leave to the Jewish Council of Australia to examine expert witnesses on the IHRA definition and survey data relating to antisemitic attitudes, describing it as representing “a distinct but much smaller section of the Jewish community”.

That characterisation has been contested by some Jewish academics and advocates, who argue that the Jewish community is far more politically and ideologically diverse.

Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist, filmmaker and author of The Palestine Laboratory, and an advisory committee member of the Jewish Council of Australia, said it was “highly questionable” whether the organisations appearing before the commission reflected the breadth of Jewish opinion in Australia.

“The Australian Jewish community is culturally, politically and religiously diverse, and

it’s highly questionable if the most pro-Netanyahu, pro-Israel lobby groups represent the majority of Jews in the country.”

Loewenstein criticised the tendency among these organisations to conflate Jewish identity with the actions of the Israeli state.

“Conflating Israel and Judaism, pursued by the so-called mainstream Jewish groups in Australia, is both historically inaccurate and dangerous, tying Jews to the actions of a genocidal Jewish state.”

Professor Linda Briskman, the Margaret Whitlam Chair of Social Work at Western Sydney University and also on the advisory committee of the Jewish Council of Australia, said her research into Jewish Australians critical of Israeli government policies pointed to a different picture from that presented by peak bodies.

Briskman co-authored Not in Our Name: Jewish Australians Speak Out, a report examining the experiences of Australian Jews who oppose Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

“What we’ve found is that opposition to Israel’s actions is grounded not in the rejection of Jewish identity but in deeply held ethical commitments rooted in Jewish traditions of justice,” she said.

She added that Jews expressing dissenting views often face “significant personal and social consequences”, and said that

antisemitism should be addressed alongside other forms of racism.

“We should be concerned about all forms of racism,” she said. “Racism against Jewish people shouldn’t be treated as the exception. We know that Islamophobia has risen greatly since October 7, but that doesn’t get nearly as much publicity or attention.”

Jewish Council of Australia
The Jewish Council of Australia, which represents Jewish Australians and supports Palestinian rights while opposing antisemitism and racism, was granted leave on Friday to cross-examine expert witnesses on the IHRA definition and data relating to antisemitism.

In a letter to supporters, executive director Sarah Schwartz said the group was seeking to raise funds to cover legal representation at the hearing.

“Pro-Israel legacy organisations, who receive significant public funding, have already formed a conglomerate and briefed a large team of barristers and lawyers,” she wrote.

Schwartz said the balance of representation would shape how the hearings are understood publicly, telling Michael West Media:

“If the only Jewish groups represented in these hearings are Israel-aligned, it will have a significant impact on the narrative.”

“Having us in the room will be the single most effective way we can ensure these hearings are not exploited to pursue a right-wing agenda and demonise Palestinians, Muslims, immigrants and those speaking out against Israel’s genocide.”

IHRA definition
The hearings will scrutinise the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

In opening remarks, Commissioner Bell acknowledged divisions within the Jewish community over the definition, noting concerns that it could be used to suppress criticism of Israel.

“The Jewish community is not monolithic, and there exist divisions of view amongst them about matters that include the politics of the Middle East,” she said.

“I’m conscious that some Jews and other members of the Australian community believe that the IHRA working definition of antisemitism can be weaponised in order to suppress criticism of Israel.”

However, Commissioner Bell defended its use, arguing that conduct must be assessed in context.

“I consider that some of the criticisms of the IHRA definition proceed on a misconception,” she said. “The examples of conduct under that working definition that may constitute antisemitism are just that.

“In every case, the question of whether the conduct is to be assessed as antisemitic is considered in its overall context.

“I expect the application of the IHRA definition will be fleshed out in the course of the evidence of witnesses in this first block of hearings by witnesses who have appropriate expertise.”

‘When anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism’
Counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Richard Lancaster SC, said a key task for the inquiry “is to identify when anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism”.

He described Zionism as “the belief in the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral and biblical homeland of Israel”, which he said is a “core value” for many Australian Jews.

Lancaster said that some examples within the IHRA definition suggest that, depending on context, “it could be antisemitic to deny that right to self-determination,” attribute collective responsibility to Jews for the actions of the Israeli state, or express hatred on the basis of perceived loyalty to Israel.

“A further aspect of this is that current Australian political and social commentary undoubtedly displays many instances of very strongly expressed criticism of the polarising actions of Israel’s current government,” he added, stating that expert witnesses would be asked to help distinguish between legitimate political criticism and antisemitic rhetoric.

“One of the experts to be called is Dr Dave Rich, who is the director of policy at the Community Security Trust in London, as research fellow at the London Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism,” Lancaster said.

Rich “is a leading expert on left-wing antisemitism”. He has rejected the UN’s finding that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, stating that UN’s finding “has put the final nail in the coffin of Israel’s reputation, but it is as shoddy and partisan as every other attempt to pin the genocide label onto the Jewish State”.

In March, Rich delivered a keynote at a conference launching a new national approach to addressing antisemitism in Australian schools, developed by UNESCO and implemented by the Office of the Special Envoy on Combating Antisemitism.

A New Zealander who took part in the global flotilla trying to break the illegal Gaza siege and who was abducted by Israel returned home this week and gave a searing speech in Auckland today condemning the abuses he and others suffered.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted,” said Sean Janssen.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.”

• READ MORE:  Israel deports two abducted Gaza aid flotilla activists
• Israeli weapon fires tiny metal cubes into people in Lebanon, like Gaza
• ‘We’re under attack!’ – the night the Israelis struck the Global Sumud Flotilla
• The two decade illegal Israeli siege of Gaza
• Global Sumud Flotilla

Janssen was one of more than 170 people who were illegally abducted by Israeli military forces on board Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters for 48 hours and given restricted access to food and water.

He said flotilla participants were beaten and 34 people needed immediate medical attention when they were dumped ashore in Greece.

Three other abducted New Zealanders — Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher and Julien Blondel — were taken ashore as well while at least two others are continuing on with the flotilla that has now reached Turkïye.

Two high-profile flotilla leaders who were kidnapped and taken illegally to Israel were set to be released after more than a week of torture allegations and diplomatic efforts to seek their freedom.

Abukeshek, Ávila being freed
Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish-Palestinian, and Brazilian Thiago Ávila were being freed, according to a statement from the rights group Adalah, which was representing the two men.

“I believe in a Free Palestine and that this isn’t a radical belief,” Sean Janssen told the cheering crowd. “Yet for almost 80 years, this belief and having the conviction to say it publicly has been met with harassment, suppression and violence.

“Leaders who preach of freedom, justice and equality have done nothing or actively contributed to the destruction of those things for Palestinians.

“For almost 80 years the world has watched as Israel has strengthened its capacity to inflict suffering and death against the people of Palestine, yet done nothing because it was only inflicted on Palestinians.”

Janssen said that for 20 years Israel had restricted the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, blocked by a military siege.

“They impose this blockade on Gaza because starvation is one of their tools of extermination,” he said.

“In the last 3 years, Israel has attacked more than 200 schools in Gaza. They have murdered more than 300 journalists.”

36 hospitals destroyed
Since October 2023, the occupation forces had destroyed 36 hospitals.

“They have bombed the sick and slaughtered new born babies in their incubators.”

Janssen said that there was no course too extreme and no action too radical that Israel would not take to ensure the genocide was completed.

“When Palestinians did what all people have a right to do — defend themselves — they were condemned,” he said.

“Palestinians have been condemned for demanding the most basic of rights and for following the most fundamental of human instincts — to survive.

“They were condemned for refusing to accept violence and barbarism forced upon them.

“They refused to do nothing as their culture, their history and their people were erased.”

Brutal Israeli treatment
Moving on to the brutal treatment by Israeli forces against the Gaza flotilla humanitarian activists on April 30, Janssen said:

“The Israeli occupation forces abducted myself, 4 other citizens of New Zealand, and in total almost 200 people from nations around the world.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.

“As people slept outside in freezing temperatures they had cold water poured onto them.

“We were denied access to life saving medicine. For refusing to stand when ordered I was held by the neck face down on concrete and bashed across the head.

“My treatment was far from the worst. My friend and fellow New Zealander, Julien Blondel, the man who taught me to tie a bowline knot  — with incredible patience — and is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met, was beaten bloody and shot with crowd suppressing rounds at point blank range.

“This still is far from all of the violence and cruelty done to us by these [Israeli state] terrorists.”

Appeal for protest letters
Janssen stressed community empowerment, appealing to the protesters to call and write to their MPs and ministers — “remember that for 2 of our comrades that violence and cruelty is not over.”

He was referring to Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila, who have since his speech been freed by the Israeli authorities under global pressure and “deported”.

Saif Abukeshek was a man who had dedicated his life to supporting his people to freedom, Janssen said.

“He spoke of his love for his family every single time I heard him speak.”

“Thiago Ávila, who after being beaten by the Israelis, stood for hours by the entrance to the prison yard and greeted all of us, to make sure that a smile was the first thing all of his comrades saw, so we knew we were still in this together.

“Thiago Ávila, whose mother died with her son in Israeli custody.”

Janssen said these men were “as I speak held hostage by Israel, subject to torture and indefinite detention, and for Saif being Palestinian, potentially execution as well“.

‘Not radical’ to be humanitarian
“The President of the United States called us terrorists. The Israeli press labeled us as
radicals and extremists for what we aimed to do.

“But is it radical for starving people to be able to eat? Is it radical that people who are sick be able to access healthcare?

“These things are what the flotilla aims deliver to Gaza. Are these things radical or are they what is needed for people to live?

“What is radical, what is extreme, are the lengths that Zionism and its allies will go to refuse these things to Palestinians.”

The violence of Israel was not just happening to Palestinians anymore, Janssen said.

“The violence of Zionism is growing bolder and it is spreading across the world with the backing of the United States.

“It is a disgrace that our [New Zealand] leaders did nothing for Palestinians, but for anyone who believed they would keep you safe when violence came to our shores, I have seen first hand that they will not.

NZ ‘silent, no sanctions’
“They have imposed no sanctions. They have not expelled the Israeli ambassador. They have not even publicly denounced this blatant act of terrorism.

“Their value for your lives and your safety only exists so long as it works for their benefit.”

Janssen said that until New Zealand had leaders who would take action to uphold international law, “we are all of us — like I was — all five million of us hostages of Israel.”

He added that even if Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour and Foreign Minister Winston Peters were “scared of Israel, I am not afraid”.

“Even if they are backed by the United States, I am not afraid of these terrorists.”

Devonport naval base protest
The protest crowd warmly applauded Janssen for his courage and conviction throughout the speech. Then they marched across Te Komititanga Square and caught the ferry to Devonport.

The protesters marched peacefully to the Devonport Naval Base, chanting “No money for bombs and occupation, money for books and education” and other calls in support for Palestinian freedom and against war on Iran and Lebanon.

Stop Wars Aotearoa organiser Joe Carolan addressed the crowd beside the naval base, saying “Christopher Luxon wants to send these sailors, and our soldiers, to die for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. No!”

“The people of New Zealand are quite clearly against this war. Seventy percent of them are against this war. And the people of United States are against this war, and the people of Britain are against this war.

“But all of this is happening because of Netanyahu’s desire for a Greater Israel.”

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

Indonesian authorities say investigations are underway into an incident in West Papua when a number of people were allegedly injured after police fired shots amid a student graduation event.

Reports from West Papua say seven people suffered injuries when tensions flared at a parade by senior high school graduates through the town of Kobakma in Mamberamo Tengah Regency of Papua’s central highlands on Tuesday, May 5.

The situation reportedly escalated after local people watching the parade, objected to attempts by police officers to stop graduates displaying the West Papuan nationalist Morning Star flag.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

Brandishing the flag, or painting school uniforms and personal accessories with a Morning Star symbol, is relatively common across West Papua on graduation day — despite the flag being effectively outlawed by Indonesia.

Video footage obtained by human rights researchers shows a crowd of angry Papuans throwing stones towards police infrastructure. The sound of gunshots follows.

According to Human Rights Monitor, seven West Papuans — including some students — were injured from being shot. The seven were aged between 17 and 24 years old.

Local police said their officers tried to persuade the students not to display the Morning Star, but they were ignored and the situation developed into unrest. Police said that in response they dispersed the crowd using tear gas and fired warning shots into the air.

Security forces on patrol
According to police, a number of people were injured, including police personnel. Security forces, including military, are patrolling the area after the melee briefly descended into rioting and looting at the at Kobakma’s central market.

A spokesperson at the Indonesian Embassy in New Zealand told RNZ Pacific that information it had gathered about the incident indicated the students’ parade had been “infiltrated by another group that provoked to create discord related to an unfortunate incident that happened in the area on the previous day”.

“Local authorities in close relations with civic groups, including church authorities and traditional leaders, are currently trying to conduct a thorough investigation regarding the incident that happens.”

The spokesperson said national and local authorities would focus their efforts to avoid any further “unfortunate similar incidents” happening in the future.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vanuatu’s government has urged the French ambassador in Port Vila to use established diplomatic channels rather than social media to communicate his concerns about state-to-state relations.

It is the latest development in a diplomatic spat that emerged this week when New Caledonia’s territorial government took umbrage at Vanuatu for hosting the leadership of the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) group as part of a trade forum earlier this week in Port Vila.

The ambassador, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, has made multiple Facebook posts in the past few days explaining his concerns. But he also found time to hit out at Vanuatu’s main daily newspaper Daily Post over its reporting of the dispute between the Melanesian country and France over the Matthew and Hunter (Umaenupne and Umaeneag/Leka) islets.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia suspends trade cooperation with Vanuatu in row over FLNKS meeting
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

In a statement, Vanuatu’s government noted “with unreserved interest”, the ambassador’s “extraordinary decision” to go public through social media.

Vanuatu hosted a series of talks under the theme “VOICE 2030” (Vanuatu Opportunities for Investment and Caledonian Enterprises) dedicated to exploring the strengthening of trade relations with the neighbouring French Pacific territory of New Caledonia.

The FLNKS delegation attending was led by its president Christian Téin — who until recently was held in pre-trial custody in France on charges relating to independence unrest in New Caledonia in 2024.

The delegation also included government minister, Mickaël Forrest, who holds the Youth and Sports portfolio, but is not in charge of trade.

New Caledonia’s government issued a statement on Tuesday, May 5 — before the Ambassador’s comments on social media — stating that the delegation in Port Vila could not be regarded as an official delegation of the government and that those attending were not acting in any official governmental capacity.

That same day, Christopher Gygès, the member of New Caledonia’s government who is responsible for trade, announced that he was suspending work relating to the proposed trade cooperation agreement currently under negotiation between New Caledonia and Vanuatu.

The ambassador then made a series of posts on Facebook attempting to explain the crux of the problem from the French viewpoint.

“It was the president of the FLNKS — an opposition political party with no jurisdiction in this matter — who was presented as head of the delegation and officially welcomed at the airport by the head of protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the chief-of-staff to the Minister of Trade,” Vilmer said.

In another post he explained he had met with Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister Marc Ati to give him a better understanding of France’s position “so that it is properly understood”.

‘Extremely unfortunate’
However, Vanuatu’s government said the delegation from New Caledonia “participated with the full approval of the Government of New Caledonia to engage with the Government of Vanuatu on opportunities relating to trade, investment, and broader economic cooperation”.

“It is therefore extremely unfortunate that the Ambassador’s posts on social media have unnecessarily provoked public misunderstanding and divided national opinions on the actual state of play.”

In its statement, the government of Prime Minister Jotham Napat also explained that the FLNKS’ attendance was part of Vanuatu’s “longstanding engagement with stakeholders involved in the New Caledonia decolonization process”, consistent with established foreign policy principles as well as the deep links between ni-Vanuatu and the indigenous Kanak people of New Caledonia.

The government said this did not diminish the importance Vanuatu placed on its “longstanding and constructive relationship” with France.

While Vilmer has insisted he was attempting “constructive dialogue”, his social media posts have been anything but that in the eyes of Vanuatu’s government.

Matthew and Hunter
The relations between the ambassador and Vanuatu further deteriorated today with a Facebook post indicating that the Vanuatu Daily Post had quoted him out of context in a recent article on the Kanak position regarding Matthew and Hunter.

Vilmer’s post noted that he had not made any “press statement” about this issue, as claimed in the article.

In a subsequent Daily Post piece today, encompassing the ambassador’s claim, Vilmer is further quoted as suggesting changes of leadership in Vanuatu’s government in recent years coincided with a stalling of negotiations on the disputed islets, suggesting it was not a priority for Vanuatu.

This drew a stern rebuke from former prime minister, Charlot Salwai, who is the leader of the Reunification of Movements for Change party, one of the parties in Vanuatu’s coalition government.

Salwai described Vilmer’s remark as misleading, and said Vanuatu always discussed Matthew and Hunter at every bilateral meeting with France or New Caledonia.

The next meeting between French and Vanuatu officials in which the dispute would be discussed is expected in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, the disagreements this week have not prevented the broader economic relationship continuing, nor the ambassador continuing to work constructively on other matters with the government in Vila.

Yesterday, Vilmer joined the Deputy Prime Minister, Johnny Koanapo, to inaugurate a new maritime freight service linking Nouméa, Port Vila and Luganville, operated by the Compagnie Maritime des Îles’ vessel Karaka, with a capacity of 1700 tonnes of cargo and 80 containers — the first such maritime freight link in about 15 years.

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

The treatment of Maiki Sherman has been deeply upsetting to witness.

To see the first wahine Māori ever rise to the role of political editor at 1News — only to now resign under such intense public and political pressure — is heartbreaking.

Maiki is one of the sharpest political journalists in the country. Intelligent, fearless, composed, and uncompromising in holding power to account.

• READ MORE: TVNZ’s ‘first wahine Māori’ political editor Maiki Sherman resigns
• TVNZ’s political editor Maiki Sherman resigns after two weeks of making headlines — Catrin Owen
• ACT leader David Seymour is seeking to undermine public broadcasting — Steven Cowan
• Maiki Sherman had no choice but to resign — Ani O’Brien gets 2 for 4 as rightwing political assassin — Martyn Bradbury
• Oceania and global media freedom reports

There are only a handful of Maiki’s calibre, political sharpness, and ability to move between te ao Māori, media, and the political establishment so effortlessly and powerfully.

Her rise mattered. Not just professionally, but culturally. So many Māori, especially wāhine and rangatahi, saw themselves in her.

Many only turned the news on or anticipated any political story because of Maiki. Because Maiki spoke truth. She was and is a trusted source of truth.

Which is why this feels bigger than one resignation. This feels very personal. If anything, this reeks of foul play, driven by a government failing miserably to earn public trust and confidence.

Maiki had already faced consequences publicly and professionally. Yet the continued targeting, commentary, and political pressure surrounding her has felt excessive and deeply uncomfortable to watch unfold.

Trailblazer . . . a force
Too often, wāhine Māori who rise into positions of influence are subjected to a level of scrutiny and hostility far beyond what others endure. Parliament and political culture in this country have long struggled with this.

Regardless of where people sit politically, Maiki changed the landscape forever. She opened doors that had never been opened before and represented Māori with immense strength and mana.

As Māori, we should be incredibly proud of what she has achieved — and stand beside her now.

Maiki is a trailblazer. A force. This moment does not diminish her legacy. Not even close.

Kia kaha tonu koe, Maiki. Ko te whakaaro nui ki a koutou ko tō whānau.

Oriini Kaipara (Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Rangitihi) is the Te Pāti Māori elected MP for Tāmaki Makaurau. An acclaimed journalist and news presenter, Kaipara has championed Māori news in Māori and English across all major television channels in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has advanced indigenous representation by becoming the first person in the world to anchor mainstream, primetime television news, and often injecting te reo and tikanga Māori into her presentations. This commentary was first published on her Facebook page.

TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman has resigned, posting on social media that today, Friday, was her last day at TVNZ.

The broadcaster confirmed Maiki Sherman had resigned from her role.

“As the first wahine Māori to lead 1News’ political team, Maiki has made a significant contribution to our journalism,” TVNZ said in a statement.

• READ MORE: TVNZ’s political editor Maiki Sherman resigns after two weeks of making headlines — Catrin Owen
• ACT leader David Seymour is seeking to undermine public broadcasting — Steven Cowan
• Oceania and global media freedom reports

“Her reporting – from presenting our polls, to covering general elections and bringing breaking news out of the Beehive — has helped keep audiences across Aotearoa informed and engaged with the decisions being made on their behalf.

A statement from me… pic.twitter.com/yUdOKWEqqM

— Maiki Sherman (@MaikiSherman) May 8, 2026

“Maiki’s nomination in this year’s media awards for Political Journalist of the Year is a testament to the calibre of her work. Today, Friday 8 May is Maiki’s last day.”

She confirmed Friday was her last day at TVNZ in a post on social media, saying her position had become “untenable”.

“The level of scrutiny on me this past week has been unprecedented, and this has placed enormous pressure on me. My role has become untenable and so I am finishing up with TVNZ today. I wish the team well,” she said.

Sherman had used a homophobic slur against Stuff journalist Lloyd Burr during pre-Budget drinks in Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ office last May.

Offensive comment
In her post, Sherman acknowledged the offensive comment had been made and said there was “no excuse for the language I used,” but went on to say she had apologised to Burr and Willis the next morning, and informed her manager.

“From my own perspective and for context, my comment was made in response to deeply personal and inappropriate remarks made to me that evening.

“This does not excuse my actions, I took responsibility for that a year ago, it is merely to help others understand why I reacted in the way that I did.”

The event had come to public attention in a column by right-leaning political commentator Ani O’Brien last Tuesday.

In a statement, Stuff said the company “stands by its previous comments on the matter”, which included saying it would respect Burr’s wishes not to comment further.

She was also suspended from Parliament last week for five days for breaching parliamentary rules by pursuing an interview with National’s chief whip Stuart Smith.

National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown had complained about TVNZ’s pursuit of Smith, saying the team had followed Smith into his corridor, “aggressively” banged on his door for several minutes, refused to accept Smith declining to comment further, and pressured Smith about how his refusal would be portrayed the following morning if he did not speak.

Publicised complaint
Brown publicised his complaint on social media, but TVNZ disputed the details of his account and said the appropriate place for such complaints was with Parliament’s Speaker.

Brown’s subsequent complaint to Speaker Gerry Brownlee resulted in the suspension.

Smith had been a central figure in speculation about a potential spill in National, with several MPs having leaked anonymously to the media — including questioning the leadership of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in the wake of poor polling and ahead of a reshuffle of Cabinet.

Reports suggested Smith had sought to speak to Luxon over Easter weekend about MPs’ concerns about his leadership, and Smith had largely refused to comment on the story for four days, finally denying it in a written statement sent by the prime minister’s office.

That denial followed Luxon calling a vote of confidence in himself at a caucus meeting, after which Luxon was heavily critical of the media, saying he would not engage “if the media want to keep focusing on speculation and rumour”.

He subsequently cancelled his weekly slot on TVNZ’s Breakfast with host Tova O’Brien, who was one of those who broke the story about Smith.

Luxon had faced criticism over his three interviews with O’Brien who started as host in late March. He said his job was “the CEO” in their first face-off – with O’Brien interrupting to say his job was prime minister – and the following week he struggled to name a Māori MP in his Cabinet.

Challenging few weeks
In a message to staff, TVNZ’s chief news and content officer Nadia Tolich said the past few weeks had been challenging for Sherman, and she respected the decision to resign.

She thanked staff for supporting each other and “keeping the mahi front of mind”, saying she wished Sherman well in what she chose to do next.

Tolich noted Sherman was a nominee in this year’s media awards for Political Journalist of the Year and said this was a “testament to the calibre of her work”.

Plans for who would fill the role would be shared to staff in due course, the message said.

• Pacific Media Watch reports: In the latest 2026 World Press Freedom Index released last week, New Zealand ranked 22nd, a further decline of six places, behind South Africa (21st) but ahead of Australia (33rd).

New Caledonia’s crucial provincial elections will be held next month on Sunday, June 28, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced.

Lecornu’s announcement was widely relayed by New Caledonian politicians who have just participated in a video conference meeting yesterday.

The announcement also came with a condition: that the current restrictions on voter eligibility will be relaxed and that people born in New Caledonia and their spouses should now be allowed to cast their votes.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Even though the partial reopening of the electoral roll is reported to have been agreed by politicians from across the political spectrum during the same meeting with Lecornu, both pro-independence and pro-France have reacted expressing dissatisfaction on the compromise.

This concerns about 10,000 voters who will be allowed to vote and could not under the current restrictions as part of the “freeze” imposed by the 1998 Nouméa Accord.

The new conditions, however, remain to be enacted by an organic law yet to be endorsed by French lawmakers.

“It’s obviously not the ‘unfrozen’ electoral that we were calling for,” pro-France Rassemblement party leader Virginie Ruffenach reacted on social media.

“But this is a way forward,” she commented.

Broader political pact
Ruffenach said political stakeholders in New Caledonia had pledged to resume talks in July 2023 regarding a broader political agreement on New Caledonia’s future status after the much-awaited provincial elections.

Any modification to the French Pacific territory’s status would then be subjected to a Constitutional Amendment, which has so far failed to be endorsed by French lawmakers.

The latest setback to a Constitutional Amendment Bill was on 2 April 2026 as a result of unlikely alliances and convergences between left and far-left parties (such as La France Insoumise — LFI) and the far-right Rassemblement National.

Another prominent pro-France leader, Sonia Backès, commenting on this partial “opening” of the restrictions, said this was “insufficient” and “democratically unacceptable”.

She also mentioned local moves to bring the matter before the European Court of Human Rights “to have other excluded” voter categories re-included in New Caledonia’s “special electoral list”.

Altogether, the “special list” excluded about 37,000 voters(about 17 percent of the “general” list of 218,000 registered voters in New Caledonia), who are otherwise allowed to vote at other elections (such as French national polls), but do not meet the requirement for provincial elections (including being born outside New Caledonia or having arrived after November 1998).

The pro-independence FLNKS party, who also took part in the video talks on Thursday at the French High Commission in Nouméa, also reacted saying it “takes note” of the date announced by Lecornu and that the polls would be now open to “natives” and their spouses.

‘Heart of the Nouméa Accord’
But it added that the electoral provisions and conditions are “at the heart of the Nouméa Accord” and are “not negotiable”.

“They are at the heart of the Nouméa Accord and of the decolonisation process”, the pro-independence party pointed out in a release on Thursday.

“There should be no passage en force and unilateral decision,” it stressed.

New Caledonia’s provincial elections are crucial because their results determine not only the members of New Caledonia’s three provincial assemblies (North, South and the Loyalty Islands), but also the members of the Congress (New Caledonia’s Parliament), the members of its “collegial” government and its future president.

The last time provincial elections were held in New Caledonia was in 2019.

They were then supposed to have been held in 2024, but since then, the poll has been postponed three times.

The last time it was re-scheduled to be held no later than Sunday, 28 June 2026, France’s Constitutional Council warned it would no longer tolerate more postponements.

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

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has been ousted following a no-confidence vote in Honiara.

Manele was voted out by 26 votes to 22 in Parliament yesterday. There were two absentees.

Manele will remain in office and perform his normal duties until he is officially removed by the Governor-General Sir David Tiva Kapu.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands reports

Parliament has been adjourned sine die to allow time for Sir David and parliament to organise the election of the new prime minister.

Manele, who previously served as the country’s foreign minister, was elected prime minister on 2 May 2024.

It was the third challenge against Manele’s leadership — he had previously survived a motion of no confidence in April 2025 after six ministers and five government backbenchers walked away.

It brings to an end a series of events that began on 15 March, with mass resignations from one of the key coalition parties in Manele’s Government of National Unity (GNUT).

New opposition group
Those members who defected from the coalition formed a new opposition group of 28 MPs in the 50-seat House. The defectors included 10 Cabinet ministers.

Peoples First Party leader Frederick Kologeto told RNZ Pacific at the time that they had lost “trust within the government”.

Manele had refused to convene Parliament for weeks, stating that he would do so only when the time was right, frustrating the opposition who said they had the numerical superiority to oust him.

However, an Appeal Court ruling last Friday ended the political back-and-forth, handing the prime minister a deadline to call Parliament and face a leadership challenge.

Before moving the no-confidence motion, MP for South Vella La Vella, Frederick Kologeto, called on the Prime Minister to resign immediately, citing the opposition’s numerical strength.

But Manele responded by refusing by calling Kologeto “scared”, declaring he would resign but only after stating the reasons for the no-confidence motion against him.

“I have accepted this responsibility not out of personal ambition, but on behalf of a majority of members who stand united with me today,” Kologeto said.

“Party room negotiations and dialogues … proved to be futile. They were not only unhelpful, they were strategically unproductive.”

Manele concedes
In his final statement responding to fiery arguments made for and against the no-confidence motion, Manele warned the opposition leader to “be very careful of who you are dealing with and sitting next to” — a pointed shot at the defectors.

He also claimed that the Appeal Court order raises serious questions about judicial overreach into that timing and management of parliamentary business.

“[The Court of Appeal] decision, with the greatest respect to the court, risks cementing instability into our constitutional arrangements. It creates a pathway where any group of members who are unhappy with the government of the day can combine a motion of no confidence with court proceedings and then ask the judiciary to intervene in the timing and programme of Parliament.”

Manele also made a last ditch attempt to woo opposition MPs to switch sides, saying his government was “willing to accommodate any political party in forming a new government”.

“We are willing to work with their party leaders, including on the issue, on the matter of leadership,” he said.

“We are willing to make that sacrifice so that the work that we have done over the past two years can continue our people and their needs.”

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

I was reluctant to enter into journalism because I valued the research and skills attached to the profession, particularly given it’s responsibility to hold the powerful to account.

I was lucky enough to have the legendary Colin McRae as my producer.

He said there are basically three rules. You must be fair, balanced and accurate.

• READ MORE:  Does abolishing the BSA mean the end of NZ’s enforceable media standards in general? — Peter Thompson
• Back to the old Wild West with no media standards? — The Daily Blog
• Open letter sent to Prime Minister and leaders of political parties one week before the decision to abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority — Gavin Ellis
• World’s most powerful are suing media outlets before stories are even published, says editor — Michael Savage
• Broadcasting Standards Authority to be scrapped
• Other NZ media regulation and self-regulation reports

We did have some wonderful exchanges where I queried how you can be all those things in a blatantly unfair, unbalanced and inaccurate world (you know, one where the dominant lens is rarely Indigenous?).

Sometimes we made slight adjustments to ensure that voices with lived experience or expertise come through. But always — fair, balanced and accurate was the goal. On the odd occasion when I got it wrong, I would be mortified.

I watch aghast at all the people across social media speaking into their microphones and talking absolute rubbish, no restraints or repercussions whatsoever — to get views. Often journalists have to clean up that mess by countering it with facts on their own platforms where we are held to account.

The wholesale ditching of the Broadcast Standards Authority (BSA) probably doesn’t mean anything to anybody struggling to pay their rent. But it is a sign.

Instead of adjusting it to a changing environment, the New Zealand government decided to get rid of the whole thing and let the sector and media companies “self-regulate”. Why not do the same when it comes to health and safety, or dealing with waste?

It is a big deal. So is what’s happening elsewhere to journalism. Actively targeted by hostile military groups and by those who have plenty of money, constantly derided and undermined by those in power.

This is not about me or we journos. It’s about ALL of us.

Anyway, off for a hikoi and a coffee.

Moana Maniapoto MNZM (Ngāti Tūwharetoa/Tūhourangi/Ngāti Pikiao) is an Aotearoa New Zealand singer, songwriter, storyteller, documentary maker, and presenter of Te Ao With Moana. This article was first published on her personal FB page and is republished with permission.

New Zealander Jay O’Connor had finished a long but satisfying day as a crew member aboard Eros 1, one of dozens of vessels that formed the Global Sumud Flotilla that was heading to besieged Gaza to open a humanitarian aid corridor.

What Jay wanted was a well-deserved rest, not a kick in the head from a jack-booted Israeli soldier. But that’s what he got.

Late in the night of April 29, just as he was lying down for some rest, the Israelis struck.

• READ MORE: After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• UN demands Israel immediately releases flotilla activists
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports

One of the crew ripped open the hatch, “We’re under attack!” Everyone was taken by surprise because the flotilla was nearly 1000 km out from Israel, near Greek territorial waters.

“We saw a couple of military RHIBS (rigid-hulled inflatables) sitting behind us. They had laser sights from rifles pointed in our eyes. They identified themselves as the Israeli Navy.”

The Israelis seized control of the boat, ferried the Sumud crew onto a nearby prison ship — an amphibious assault vessel converted to hold four shipping containers for the hostages.

As they did this, the Israelis sabotaged the Eros 1 and other intercepted vessels, cutting fuel lines, interfering with the engines, slashing sails, destroying navigation and comms equipment, and so on. All this happened in international waters, blatantly illegal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

‘Sticking guns in our faces’
Inside the shipping containers, the 180 captives realised things were going to get worse.

“They were holding us in stress positions for ages, yelling at us, making us touch the Israeli flag, firing flash bangs, sticking guns in our faces, all that kind of bullshit,” Jay O’Connor said.

The raiders stripped Jay of his wet weather overalls and left him with no shoes, a t-shirt and the skirt he slept in. The nights were very cold and there was no bedding or mattresses inside the shipping containers.

“Occasionally they’d toss a bit of water or some really stale bread for us to eat. They were constantly pointing guns at us. They were constantly yelling at us and then they would fuck with us for no reason — get us to line up and be counted, make us sit in stress positions and occasionally grab someone, drag him out and beat them up.”

This went on for three days.

“About a quarter of us had to sleep outside on the deck. And just for shits and giggles, they would flood the deck with sea water just to make sleeping impossible.”

An activist talks to Dawn News about the illegal, brutal Israeli attack from on board the flotilla.

Diabetic crew member prevented taking insulin
Moussa Taher, another New Zealander, sailing on the Saf Saf, said the Israelis even refused to let a diabetic crew member take his insulin. Taher said one of his comrades turned 75 years old inside that shipping container prison.

On the morning of the third day the captives were told they were being transferred to another ship.

“At this point, we stopped complying,” Jay said, “Because they had six of us in solitary. We hadn’t any confirmation that they were even alive. So we basically sat down.

“They came in and grabbed us one by one, dragged us into the fourth container.” This is where dozens were severely beaten.

“I got a few punches to the head, a kick to the head, and a couple of really nasty kicks to my ribs and right kidney. After that, they were twisting our arms and dragging us out. Then all of a sudden, we’re on a Greek Coast Guard vessel!”

Transferred by the Greeks to Crete, the most seriously injured Sumud crew were taken to a local hospital. Later that day Jay and others were released and unceremoniously dropped off in a town square to fend for themselves. No phones, no money, no support.

NZ officials’ contact ‘limited, unhelpful’
Contact with New Zealand officials was limited and unhelpful. Citizens of other Western nations were treated in the same way by their pro-Israeli governments. These heroic activists were on their own.

“We couldn’t pay for a hotel. We couldn’t pay for a coffee, we couldn’t do anything. And then we see this line of local anarchists marching towards us, chanting! It was such a wonderful moment.”

While NZ Foreign Affairs were drafting press releases making hollow declarations such as “The safety of New Zealanders involved is paramount”, the Kiwis had to rely on the kindness of strangers who took care of them, fed them, clothed them and organised places for them to sleep.

The New Zealand government refuses to condemn the attack on Kiwi citizens.

Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto) was on one of the boats that escaped the raiders. In all, the Israelis attacked 22 of the more than 60 boats in the flotilla.

“This is a humanitarian flotilla,” he told Radio New Zealand. “The only thing we are armed with is aroha (love) in our hearts. The intention is to definitely keep going.

“As tangata whenua, Māori have lived through colonisation, land being taken, and cultural suppression, so that creates a natural solidarity with the Palestinians.”

Undaunted in spite of trauma
Mousa Taher says he is undaunted despite the traumatic experience. He is now in Turkïye, linking up with others preparing to restart the journey to Gaza.

“So please keep us in your prayers, and please keep the Palestinians in your thoughts and your prayers. Our silence is helping the occupation forces to systematically destroy them and dismantle them.”

A month earlier, back in Wellington Jay O’Connor said this:

“I will be traveling from Te Whanganui a Tara [Wellington] to join the Global Sumud Flotilla. I’m doing this because I can’t just stay at this side of the world watching this genocide unfold.

“I want to be able to look my kids in the eyes and tell them that I did something to try and alleviate the suffering of children just like them who are being victimised every day by Israel. So, Free Palestine!”

Now, after the horror of what he has been subjected to by the Israelis, how does Jay feel?

“Personally, any uncertainty about whether I wanted to continue or not has been burned out of me by my experience at the hands of the Israelis. I am so incredibly angry. I’ve never been this angry in my life. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Kiwi heroes of our time
Jay O’Connor, Hāhona Ormsby, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel, Sean Janssen and all the Kiwis onboard the Sumud Flotilla and within the Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation represent the very best of the New Zealand spirit. They are the Kiwi heroes of our time.

Our government, sadly, stands with the villains and their names should live in infamy for not supporting their own people.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and hosts solidarity.co.nz

The signals are now coming from both sides of the negotiating table. American sources confirm it. Pakistani mediators confirm it.

The end of the US-Iran war is near, and the terms of that ending will echo across the international order for decades.

Let us be precise about what has happened here.

• READ MORE: Trump says Iran agreement ‘very possible’; Israeli forces bomb Beirut
• Iran’s Foreign Ministry says US proposal to end the war still ‘under review’
• In rare push, US lawmakers demand transparency on Israel nuclear capability
• Other US-Israel war/ceasefire reports

Iran, a nation under sanctions for more than four decades, subjected to assassinations, sabotage, proxy warfare — and finally direct military assault by the most expensively armed forces in human history, backed by a nuclear-armed Israel — has not been defeated.

It has not collapsed. It has not surrendered its sovereignty, its nuclear programme, or its dignity. It stood, absorbed the blows, struck back with precision, and forced Washington to the negotiating table.

That is not a stalemate. That is a victory.

Trump’s 10-day ceasefire declaration in April initially appeared like a pause. However, as days went by, it became clearer it was an exit strategy in search of a face-saving wrapper.

Silence terminal, not tactical
The Americans have not fired a significant shot since. The silence was not tactical. It was terminal.

Consider what Iran has demonstrated to the watching world. It faced two nuclear powers simultaneously, America and Israel, with all the military technology, intelligence infrastructure, and political backing that entails.

Strangely, Iran depleted American missile stockpiles to the point of a three-to-five-year restocking timeline. It struck American bases across seven countries.

It collected tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. It watched its adversary’s approval ratings collapse domestically while its own national resolve hardened.

Trump, the self-proclaimed dealmaker, cannot exit fast enough.

The man who launched this war with the language of dominance is now scrambling for the language of diplomacy, mediated by Pakistan, concluded on terms nobody in Washington would have accepted 12 weeks ago.

History will record this clearly. A civilisation several thousand years old, armed with ingenuity, patience, and righteous resistance, outlasted the last empire’s appetite for a fight it should never have started.

The war is ending. Iran is standing. The world has been watching, and the world has learned something.

Prince Taofeek Ajibade is an educator and digital creator from Ibadan, Nigeria.

The announcement by New Zealand’s Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith that the government was abolishing the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) came as no real surprise.

But it leaves a big question hanging: will the news media still be held accountable to basic standards which protect the public interest and the core functions of the Fourth Estate?

Dr Goldsmith has said the Media Council, the industry body dealing with news and online content, “will become the primary regulator for journalism”.

• READ MORE:  Open letter sent to Prime Minister and leaders of political parties one week before the decision to abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority — Gavin Ellis
• Broadcasting Standards Authority to be scrapped
• Other NZ media regulation and self-regulation reports

That only raises more questions. The council primarily oversees standards in print and digital journalism. But unlike the BSA, it has no legal powers of enforcement, and its rulings cannot be appealed through the courts.

Goldsmith rightly points out the digital media environment has “changed dramatically, but our regulatory settings have not kept up”. But that is not the BSA’s fault.

Governments over the past two decades have proposed regulatory updates, but delivered nothing concrete.

Indeed, the Broadcasting Act dates back to 1989. Its definition of “broadcasting” excludes on-demand services but includes “any transmission of programmes […] by radio waves or other means of telecommunication”.

This became the focus of a heated dispute when the BSA signalled it was prepared to hear a complaint about online comments made on independent digital media site The Platform.

Reactions from the political right included accusations of bureaucratic overreach by the BSA, which allegedly was acting “like some Soviet-era Stasi” and making a “secret power grab”.

This significantly misrepresented the complexity of the issues at stake. For some years the BSA has openly advanced the case for regulatory reform — including whether that meant retaining the BSA itself in its current form.

No public consultation
The more fundamental question is whether any standards regime should apply to online media. That was a key issue raised in the media reform proposals put out for public consultation by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage in 2025.

These included a proposal to:

modernise the broadcasting standards regime to cover all professional media operating in New Zealand, not just broadcasters. The role of the regulator […] would be revised, with more of a focus on ensuring positive system-level outcomes and less of a role in resolving audience complaints about media content.

This would have entailed a two-tier model: an industry regulator responsible for handling day-to-day complaints about breaches of content standards; and a statutory regulator to oversee systemic issues, with powers to ensure the overall standards regime remained robust.

Even if the BSA were restructured, there was no proposal to simply dispense with it and replace it with an industry self-regulator.

There were a range of responses to the proposal, but policy development certainly appeared to be progressing on the basis that some form of statutory regulator would be retained.

The decision to scrap the BSA may be a politically populist tactic to leverage the case of The Platform in an election year. But it is also democratically indefensible because it has not been subject to any meaningful form of public consultation.

Can the industry self-regulate?
There is no disputing that the regulatory frameworks need to be updated, given the current patchwork quilt of regulations that is full of digital holes. But applying basic standards such as accuracy, balance and fairness on a platform-neutral basis should not be contentious.

These principles are not, as some have claimed, an affront to free speech. They are the basis for upholding freedom of expression in a democracy.

Goldsmith explained the decision to abolish the BSA on the grounds that:

Greater industry self-regulation is the most practical way to level the playing field across platforms, and can provide an appropriate level of oversight to maintain ethical journalistic standards and audience trust.

But eschewing enforceable standards that apply to all media places too much faith in deregulated markets and the industry’s willingness to police itself in the public interest.

It is a regulatory model based on best-case scenarios, where all media players can be trusted to behave professionally, ethically and take their public obligations seriously.

The media system in general is facing unprecedented pressures from audience fragmentation, failing business models, lost advertising revenues and declining public trust.

The opportunity costs of adhering to standards are starting to collide with commercial shareholder imperatives.

That is probably an argument in favour of government funding to support public interest media. But it also demands a regulatory model fit for the digital age, with sufficient power to encourage compliance with basic standards.

Without that, any media operator deciding its commercial interests outweigh the cost of complying could choose to ignore the standards with impunity.

In a media environment where disinformation, fake news and polarising propaganda are already permitted to proliferate, this represents a real risk to democratic processes.

Dr Peter Thompson is an associate professor in media and communication at Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article was originally published on The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned Israel, saying it has no right to detain Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila and demanding his “immediate and unconditional” release.

In a statement on Tuesday, Thameen Al-Kheeta, spokesperson for the United Nations entity, said:

“Israel must immediately and unconditionally release Saif Abukeshek and Thiago de Ávila, members of the Sumud Global Flotilla, detained in international waters and taken to Israel, where they remain held without a formal charge.

• READ MORE: Israel court extends Gaza flotilla activists’ detention by six days
• Israel’s kidnapping of two important pro-Palestine global activists reaffirms persecution
• Other Gaza Freedom Flotilla reports

“It is not a crime to show solidarity and attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population in Gaza, which urgently needs it.”

This is the first official statement from the UN since the activists’ kidnapping and detention last Thursday.

The statement came on the day that Israel’s courts ruled to extend their detention for another six days without formal charge.

Pacific Media Watch reports: The Israeli authorities have been accused over the torture and beatings of the two protest hostages.

The pair are accused of several offences, including “assisting the enemy during wartime” and “membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation”.

Translated from the Portuguese in ICL Notíceas.

New Caledonia’s government says it has suspended all trade cooperation with Vanuatu after the Vanuatu government hosted the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) in Port Vila.

Vanuatu is hosting a series of talks under the theme “VOICE 2030” (Vanuatu Opportunities for Investment and Caledonian Enterprises) dedicated to exploring the strengthening of trade relations with the French Pacific territory.

However, New Caledonia’s government has taken offence at Vanuatu for meeting with — alongside business and economic stakeholders — a strong delegation from the FLNKS party.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The FLNKS arrived in Port Vila with a group led by its president, Christian Téin, and several prominent members, including government minister Mickaël Forrest, who holds the Youth and Sports portfolio, but is not in charge of trade.

New Caledonia’s government claims it was not invited and its Economy and External Trade Minister Christopher Gygès has described it as a “lack of respect that cannot remain unanswered”.

“The Vanuatu government seems to have considered it was preferable to talk with the FLNKS instead of the government of New Caledonia,” Gygès reacted on social media.

“As a result, as [Minister] in charge of Economy and External Trade, I am suspending all works between New Caledonia and Vanuatu, in relation to trade cooperation,” he wrote.

Lack of ‘joint preparation’
In a communiqué released on Tuesday, New Caledonia’s government President Alcide Ponga deplored the lack of a “joint preparation” of the event “in respect for regional and economic frameworks”.

Ponga said the delegation currently present in Port Vila “cannot be regarded as an official delegation of [his] government”.

According to New Caledonia’s organic law, the president is the only qualified authority to represent New Caledonia for its external relations.

“No official invitation was conveyed, neither to the President nor to its government member in charge of Economy and External Trade,” Ponga said.

French Ambassador pulled out of talks
The French High Commission in New Caledonia also reacted, saying the French ambassador based in Port Vila would not attend any of the scheduled business-related meetings in Port Vila.

It also stated it had tasked its Vanuatu-based diplomat, Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, to remind Vanuatu authorities of “the need to formally convey a request to New Caledonia’s government so that an official delegation can be formed”.

Referring to their presence in Vanuatu on social media, the FLNKS mentioned a “diplomatic tour” by a “political delegation… on the margins of an economic forum in Port Vila”.

It said one of the aims was to “hold a series of meetings” to “reinforce FLNKS links with its Melanesian region”.

In the wake of their arrival on Monday evening, Téin and his delegation met Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat.

Napat said was to “reaffirm the deep and historic bonds between Vanuatu and the Kanak people of New Caledonia”.

‘Shared Melanesian heritage’
“After exchanging gifts, the Prime Minister spoke passionately about the two countries’ shared Melanesian heritage and their commitment to closer collaboration into the future.”

Among the irate reactions, one came from pro-France MP Nicolas Metzdorf of the French National Assembly.

In a critical statement, he wrote: “When you want to negotiate trade agreements with a country, you don’t invite a political party, you invite its government (Minister) for Economy”.

Several business leaders from New Caledonia, who had also travelled to Vanuatu this week, upon the invitation of the Vanuatu government, said they were surprised and “fooled” to find the FLNKS and not New Caledonia’s government was represented in Port Vila.

“We’re going back home as soon as possible,” New Caledonian businessman Xavier Cévaër wrote on social networks.

On the margins of the series of meetings this week, a maritime shipping service is supposed to be restored between Nouméa, Port Vila and Luganville (Espiritu Santo Island).

The inter-island freight connection is operated by CMI (Compagnie maritime des Iles) and its freighter vessel, the Karaka.

Its inaugural voyage is supposed to reach Port Vila today and Luganville (Santo) tomorrow.

CMI general manager Thomas Quiros said the reintroduction of the shipping service came in response to “a strong will” expressed by both the New Caledonian and Vanuatu governments.

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

Nothing illustrates the inversion of the international and moral order more than the genocide in Gaza and the shipment of tens of billions of dollars of weapons to Israel by Western nations — especially the United States — to sustain it.

Part of this inversion is the unrelenting persecution of those who denounce the genocide — especially those who risk their lives to halt it and demand the rule of law.

But the rule of law, it appears, is buried under the rubble in Gaza.

• READ MORE: NZ govt must rebuke Israeli envoy over beating of citizens, says PSNA
• Other Gaza genocide and War on Iran reports

And because of that Israel is able, with barely a word of protest by Western nations — Spain being one of the few exceptions — to abduct 175 activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla 500 nautical miles from Gaza and 80 nautical miles west of the Greek island of Crete.

This violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was accompanied by the usual Israeli brutality. Flotilla members from the 22 vessels that were intercepted and then transferred to the Israeli vessel Nahshon were denied food, forced to sleep on the floor as it was flooded “repeatedly” with water, punched, kicked, dragged across decks with their hands tied and shot at with rubber bullets and live ammunition.

Kidnapped by Israel                                   Video: The Chris Hedges Report

Eventually, all but two flotilla members were transferred to Crete, with 36 requiring medical attention.

Two of the leading activists on the flotilla, the Brazilian organiser of the flotilla, Thiago Ávila, and the Spaniard Saif Abukeshek, who is of Palestinian descent and who has organised Palestinian solidarity movements across Europe for more than two decades, were not allowed to disembark when the vessel reached Ierapetra Port in southern Crete, although the ship was in Greek territorial waters.

They were kidnapped and taken to Israel.

“Participant eyewitnesses provided harrowing testimony of Abukeshek’s screams echoing throughout the ship as he was subjected to systematic torture, after being separated from the others,” read a communique issued by the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Abukeshek was blindfolded, forced to lie on his stomach “since the moment of his seizure until this morning” which resulted in “bruising to his face and hands”.

Ávila was “dragged face-down across the floor” and beaten so severely that he passed out twice.

When the two activists appeared in an Israeli court there were visible bruises on their faces. Ávila had trouble lifting his right hand.

Since their kidnapping, the two men have been on hunger strike. They are accused of “assisting the enemy during wartime” and “membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation”.

This is the world we now live in. The moral and the courageous are criminalised. The ruling class weaponises the law to justify the abuse and atrocities of the lawless.

Here is a link to an interview I did in Italy with Ávila.

Here is a link to the documentary we made in Italy where Ávila, along with Francesca Albanese, Greta Thunberg, Yanis Varoufakis and the striking Italian dock workers, who refuse to load weapons onto ships bound for Israels, are featured.

We must contact the Israeli Embassy in Washington. We must protest in front of the embassy, as well as the Israeli consulate in New York, to demand the release of Thiago and Saif.

They are the best among us.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report”. This commentary was first published on the Chris Hedges X page and is republished with permission.

• The Chris Hedges Report

The Solomon Islands Parliament will convene tomorrow — Thursday, May 7 — to consider a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele.

Parliament House has confirmed to RNZ Pacific that the Clerk to Parliament Jefferson Hallu has issued advisory letters to all MPs that the sitting will begin at 9:30am local time to deal with the motion.

It follows a political saga that culminated in a court ruling that Manele needed to call Parliament to face the motion of no confidence in his leadership.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands politics reports

The Court of Appeal dismissed Manele’s appeal against Chief Justice Sir Albert Palmer’s earlier ruling to that effect.

A drawn-out political impasse began in March after a mass resignation of government ministers and MPs.

The opposition and the defectors formed a new coalition and said they had the numbers for a majority of MPs in the 50-seat House, but have not been able to show that in Parliament because Manele refused to call a sitting.

The opposition coalition then took the matter to the High Court to try and force Manele to call Parliament and face their no-confidence motion.

Police call for public calm
Chief Justice Palmer ruled in their favour and ordered Manele to convene Parliament, and at the same time instructed the Governor-General to do so if he did not.

But the government appealed the ruling and the order to call Parliament was stayed — put on hold — until the appeal could be heard, and the appellate court gave their decision on Friday, May 1.

Police have called for public calm while the democratic process runs its course.

Police Commissioner Ian Vaevaso said police do not take sides in political matters but remain independent and committed to serving the people of the nation while upholding law at all times.

“Police will maintain high visibility presence to ensure the safety of all citizens and will respond to any incidents that may arise. Any unlawful activities will be dealt with accordingly.”

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

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to follow through on its demands that Israel complies with international law following the abduction and beating of citizens by the Israeli military in international waters in the Mediterranean last week.

PSNA national spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said the government had been “very explicit” in its recent warnings to Israel that New Zealand did not expect a repeat of Israeli forces “brutally capturing New Zealanders” while they were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza enclave.

“Anyone who has seen the pictures of Invercargill resident Julien Blondel’s face or the reports of Jay O’Connor suffering from concussion and a likely broken rib will know that once more Israel has called the New Zealand government’s bluff,” she said in a statement.

• READ MORE: After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• Gaza flotilla organisers subjected to ‘extreme brutality’ in illegal Israeli detention
• Global Sumud Flotilla calls on NZ govt to intervene after Israeli interception
• Former Greek minister slams ‘Western complicity’ over brutal Israeli kidnap of Gaza flotilla leaders
• Kia Ora Gaza website

“The Global Sumud Aid Flotilla’s sole intention is to deliver aid to Palestinians still under Israeli attack and starvation in Gaza.

“The world is looking at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran. But the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is no less dire than when the ceasefire there was meant to have started last October but Israel continues its daily killing of mainly women and children.

“The volume of food is insufficient and lacking nutrition. It is incredibly expensive. Promised tents haven’t arrived.

“Medicine has run out. Reconstruction hasn’t started. Israel is still expanding its yellow-line ‘no-go’ zone.”

Tamimi, who was elected at the PSNA annual general meeting in Rotorua last weekend, said she knew the New Zealand government had already proved it “doesn’t care about Palestinians in Gaza”.

But she added that the government could not avoid its responsibility to protect New Zealanders going about lawful business.

“The government can’t simply opt out of its duties to its citizens by telling them it’s too dangerous to try helping Palestinians in Gaza.

“Israel has killed people on flotillas before. It has captured New Zealanders and brutalised them previously. Now it has done it again.”

Tamimi said the least New Zealand could do was to issue a formal rebuke by calling-in the Israeli ambassador.

“The ambassador should be expelled as far as I’m concerned. But if it was good enough for John Key’s government to reprimand Israel through a formal rebuke, then why can’t [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters do at least the same?”

The University of the South Pacific (USP) Journalism Programme has marked the 2026 World Press Freedom Day this year in partnership with the Fiji National University (FNU) School of Language, Communication and Literature.

A successful collaboration between two universities, the event highlighted a strong partnership focused on advancing journalism education in the Pacific.

A panel discussion was moderated by the head of USP Journalism, Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, on the theme “Exploring media’s role in divided societies: can media be both peacemaker and watchdog?”

The panelists were:
· Dorinda Mabon – media and communications student, Fiji National University
· Iva Nataro – editor, Fiji Sun
· Vahefonua Tupola – Journalism Students Association representative, USP
· Nilesh Lal – executive director, Dialogue Fiji
· Alifereti Sakiasi – journalist, The Fiji Times

The Assistant Minister for Multi-Ethnic Affairs, Culture, Heritage and Arts, Shalen Kumar, was chief guest while the Pacific Representative of the UN Human Rights Pacific, Heike Alefsen was keynote speaker.

The collaboration highlighted a shared commitment to tackling key challenges such as misinformation, digital disruption, and ethical reporting, while preparing the next generation of journalists.

Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch collaborate with the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RNZ Pacific has contacted police for comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fiji has shot up the world rankings for press freedom but the victory feels hollow as journalists across the Pacific face a wave of court battles, police raids, and vicious online abuse.

The 2026 World Press Freedom Index, released last Thursday by Reporters Without Borders, shows Fiji climbing to a record 24th in the world.

But the celebration is being cut short. In Sāmoa, the media has plummeted to its lowest ranking ever (59th), and in Fiji, despite the “freedom”, reporters are still being summoned to court and having their phones seized by police.

• READ MORE: Fiji jumps, Samoa plunges in World Press Freedom Index
• Political cartooning and media freedom — Campion Ohasio
• Press freedom: Israel’s diabolical killing machine and how it targets journalists — David Robie
• FMA praises Fiji media workers for press freedom climb but warns it is ‘tenuous’
• Fiji climbs to 24th in World Press Freedom Index, biggest gain in the Pacific
• Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

The Paris-based global watchdog warns journalism is at a 25-year low. From AI-generated “fake news’” on Facebook to politicians bullying reporters, the job of telling the truth in the Pacific has never been more dangerous.

Sāmoa falls to lowest ranking after election fallout
The biggest shock in the report is Sāmoa’s collapse. After a messy 2025 election cycle, the island nation — once the “gold standard” for Pacific media — has seen its ranking fall off a cliff.

It isn’t only about politics, it’s about safety. Women journalists are being targeted with threats for simply doing their jobs.

Rula Sua Vaa, head editor of TV1 Sāmoa News, told the ABC she received threats against her and her family while covering the fallout between the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Sāmoa ua Tai (FAST) party and former Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa.

The UN Women Asia and the Pacific project reports that 45 percent of women in Pacific media now self-censor online just to avoid the abuse.

As the UN stated on social media: “Behind every silenced voice is a growing crisis of digital violence, weak accountability, and threats to press freedom,” it says in a social media post.

Kalafi Moala, president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), said the biggest threat might actually be “free” money being offered by foreign powers.

He said Pacific journalists were operating under dual pressures of political control and digital disinformation.

“In small island states, where information ecosystems are fragile and resources are limited, the impact can be immediate and damaging, undermining public trust, fueling division, and threatening social cohesion,” he said in a statement.

Kalafi Moala’s full interview with PMN News.

Fiji gains overshadowed by legal scrutiny
Fiji’s rise to 24th is a big win following the repeal of the old, “draconian” 2010 Media Industry Development Act in 2023.

But the Fijian Media Association warns these gains are “tenuous”.

This year alone, senior reporters Lavenia Lativerata (Mai TV) and Jake Wise (The Fiji Times) were summoned to testify in court while Meri Radinibaravi, an investigative journalist, had her phone seized by police over a Facebook post earlier this week.

Clayton Weimers, Reporters Without Borders North America executive director, said the global situation was critical.

“Journalists continue to be killed and jailed, but journalism itself is now threatened by economic headwinds, the criminalisation of reporting, and a hostile political climate. There is no freedom without press freedom,” he said in a social media post.

Across the region, the 2026 Index shows a Pacific moving in two directions.

While the laws are getting better in some countries, the digital and financial pressure on journalists is reaching a breaking point.

For Moala, the mission remains simple but difficult: “Tell the stories that’s right there in front of us… and somehow, we’ll get there.”

• New Zealand was ranked 22nd, ahead of Australia at 33rd in the 2026 Index.

Press freedom at its lowest point in 25 years                Video: RSF

Republished from PMN News with permission.

Forough Amin in her opinion piece “The consequences of selective morality” (The Press, 28 April 2026) argues that the Palestine solidarity movement’s call for sanctions against Israel is “selective morality”. She says we should be calling out all human rights abuses everywhere — which in her case means Iran.

We agree with Amin’s basic premise that calls for action against countries abusing human rights should be consistent and comprehensive.

Our focus, given our organisations’ title, is however on Palestine. Israel’s genocide in Gaza is objectively the worst atrocity this century and one which all Western governments, such as ours, support. That genocide is in our name.

• READ MORE: Amnesty International calls on governments to stop predatory, anti-rights order from taking hold in pivotal moment for humanity
• Other reports in the Gaza genocide and US-Israel attacks on Iran

It is precisely because our government refuses to sanction Israel for the mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and the pogroms conducted by Israeli settlers, with the support of the Israeli military, throughout the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory) that we must all speak up and demand accountability for Israel and from our government.

The complete avoidance of accountability by Israel is the single most important reason that it continues its brutal occupation in the OPT, its daily theft of Palestinian land and its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to land from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israeli militias in 1948.

Our government operates a simple, easy to understand, double standard — it calls out and acts on human rights abuses in countries that the US sees as enemies, but refuses to call out or act on human rights abuses in countries the US sees as friends.

That is why the government has enacted comprehensive sanctions against Iran and Russia, but miserly measures against a small handful of racist Israeli settlers for the most egregious of war crimes.

Tight business restrictions
Regarding Iran, for example, our government has imposed tight business restrictions, targeted travel bans, asset freezes, import/export bans and suspension of bilateral engagements.

in October last year the government even re-imposed UN sanctions following Iran’s non-compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on nuclear technology, ignoring the fact that the US pulled out of the JCPOA eight years ago.

New Zealand expects Iran, yet not the US, to keep following the trashed agreement.

So comprehensive and pervasive are the sanctions against Iran that the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) advises that “given the wide scope of the Regulations, and the penalties for non-compliance, it is recommended that anyone contemplating doing business with Iran obtain independent legal advice before engaging in business with people in Iran, or with entities that are incorporated in Iran or subject to its jurisdiction”.

The sanctions regime against Russia is similar in scope and designed to hold Russia to account for its invasion of Ukraine.

So, what did we do when the US and Israel twice launched massive air attacks against Iran, both times while the US was in negotiations with the Iranian leadership? Nothing.

Our Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, not condemning the US and Israel, but condemning Iran for retaliating against US bases in the Gulf states. It would make great satire in a TV comedy but unfortunately its real.

No coup condemnation
Amin does not condemn the US-orchestrated overthrow of the first democratically-elected government in Iran in 1953 when Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was deposed in a coup to make way for the US-installed Shah of Iran — a lineage Amin wants to reinstate, albeit temporarily.

Needless to say, calls for democracy under the Shah were met with hideous brutality and widespread oppression of Iranian human rights activists.

It’s important to consider the feelings of New Zealanders who have community connections to overseas conflicts. It’s also important not to blame any community here for war crimes committed on the other side of the world.

Palestinian New Zealanders in particular deserve our support and empathy as they watch tens of thousands of their kinfolk, mostly women and children, being killed in Gaza — actions driven by the most hideous, genocidal rhetoric from Israeli political and military leaders.

The situation with Israel is similar to apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

Western governments, especially New Zealand, stood with apartheid South Africa and resisted black South African calls for sanctions, until international civil society groups (including HART and CARE here) mobilised public opinion to demand action against that apartheid state.

All major human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with human rights groups in Israel, describe the regime there as an apartheid state. It has a whole host of laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel as well as Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

Two to one back sanctions
The government’s selective morality is in our sights. Already public surveys show that of New Zealanders who give an opinion, they are two to one supporting sanctions against Israel.

Let’s hope Auckland City Council votes to end procurement of goods and services from companies identified by the UN Human Rights Council as supporting Illegal Israeli settlements in the OPT. These settlements constitute a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

And if Amin can find any comparable human-rights-abusing companies the Auckland City Council is working with, then she should take that up with the council and would be guaranteed backing from our supporters.

John Minto was national co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Press and is republished with permission.

My name is Campion Ohasio, and I am currently the only political cartoonist in Solomon Islands.

In recent weeks, I have received many questions and comments from people across the country about my cartoons.

Some ask why I draw our national leaders in certain ways. Others wonder whether my caricatures are personal attacks or whether they violate the leaders’ rights.

• READ MORE: Other Campion Ohasio political cartoons and commentary
• Campion Ohasio artwork and cartoons

A few have even suggested that I should stop drawing critical cartoons.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain my work clearly and honestly.

As the only political cartoonist in our nation today, my job is simple: I use drawings to comment on the decisions, actions, policies, and laws made by our leaders.

My cartoons are not meant to attack any leader as a person or as a human being. Instead, they highlight issues that affect ordinary Solomon Islanders — issues such as corruption, poor governance, broken promises, and policies that may not serve the public interest.

Public figures hold power
In a democracy like ours, national leaders are public figures. They hold power on behalf of the people, and the people have every right to question how that power is used.

Political cartoons are one peaceful and creative way for citizens to express their views and hold leaders accountable.

As response to the many questions I have received. I believe healthy criticism is not an insult; it is an important part of democracy. Through my cartoons, I hope to encourage Solomon Islanders to think critically, ask questions, and stay engaged in the affairs of our country.

I remain committed to drawing honest cartoons that reflect the realities facing our people, always with the hope that our leaders will listen, improve, and serve the public interest better.

Thank you for your interest in my work.

A political caricature (also called a political cartoon) is a funny or exaggerated drawing that comments on a leader’s decisions, policies, or actions. It uses humour, symbols, and exaggeration to make a point about what the leader is doing in his public role.

Many people mistakenly think that a caricature is a personal attack on the leader as a human being. This is not true.

Eight reasons why leaders’ human rights are not violated
Here are eight reasons why cartoons and caricatures are not a violation of the leader’s human rights:

1 What a political caricature actually does: It criticises the actions, decisions, or policies of the leader.

It does not attack the leader’s basic human rights (such as the right to life, dignity, safety, or personal freedom). It focuses on the leader’s public role, not his private life as a father, husband, or ordinary person.

2 Why it isn’t a personal attack on human rights: Leaders are public figures. When someone becomes a president, prime minister, or national leader, they voluntarily step into the public spotlight. Their decisions affect thousands of citizens. Because of this, they must accept public criticism, including through cartoons and satire.

3 Criticism targets power, not the person: A caricature usually mocks a bad policy, a broken promise, corruption, or a harmful decision: not the leader’s race, family, or basic humanity. For example, drawing a leader as a big balloon floating away from reality is criticising his disconnection from people’s problems, not denying his right to exist.

4 Satire and humour are protected forms of free speech: In a democracy, freedom of expression includes the right to use humour and exaggeration to comment on those in power. Political caricatures have a long history of helping people understand and question government actions.

5 It doesn’t take away basic rights: Drawing a funny or critical cartoon does not stop the leader from: Living safely, having a family, practicing his religion, speaking freely, receiving fair treatment in court. These are real human rights. A caricature does not remove any of them.

6 Public accountability requires public criticism: Leaders exercise public power using taxpayers’ money. Citizens have the legitimate right to comment on how that power is used. Caricatures are one peaceful, creative way to do this.

7 Confusion between criticism and hate: Some leaders or supporters claim any negative drawing is “hate speech” or a human rights violation. This is usually an attempt to avoid accountability. Legitimate political satire is very different from threats, violence, or calls for harm.

8 Thin-skinned leaders weaken democracy: If leaders cannot handle a simple drawing or joke about their policies, it shows they may not be ready for the public scrutiny that comes with power. Strong leaders accept criticism; weak ones try to ban it.

For example: If a cartoon shows a leader pouring money into his own pocket while the people are hungry, it is highlighting possible corruption or bad priorities. It is not saying the leader has no right to live or be treated with dignity. It is saying: “Your policy or action is wrong.”

A political caricature is a form of peaceful criticism, not a personal attack. It doesn’t remove or violate any of the leader’s fundamental human rights. Instead, it exercises the public’s right to question those who hold power.

In a true democracy, leaders must learn to live with satire and criticism. Their job is to serve the people: and the people have the right to laugh, question, and point out when the leader is failing in that duty.

Criticising a leader’s actions through a caricature is about holding power accountable, not denying the leader’s humanity or human rights.

Campion Ohasio is a Solomon Islands-based self-taught visual artist, graphic designer, and prominent political cartoonist known for capturing South Pacific social issues. He gained early recognition in the 1990s for his work on Uni Tavur at the University of Papua New Guinea and later as a editor for the Solomons Voice. This commentary is republished with the author’s permission.

Kiwi Julien Blondel’s face may be bloodied but it is unbowed. So far the New Zealand government has done nothing after Blondel and other New Zealand peace activists were savagely beaten by Israeli soldiers who attacked the Global Sumud flotilla near the Greek Island of Crete on April 30.

The flotilla was Gaza-bound and seeking to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza to bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and apply pressure to the Israelis to halt the genocide.

New Zealanders Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel and Sean Janssen were among 176 people who were captured in international waters, subjected to vicious mistreatment then dropped onto Crete.

• READ MORE: Gaza flotilla organisers subjected to ‘extreme brutality’ in illegal Israeli detention
• Global Sumud Flotilla calls on NZ govt to intervene after Israeli interception
• Former Greek minister slams ‘Western complicity’ over brutal Israeli kidnap of Gaza flotilla leaders
• NZer Rana Hamida reports
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports
• Kia Ora Gaza website

O’Connor and Blondel were immediately transferred to hospital on arrival in Greece.

Several days after the Israeli attack, I spoke with Samuel Leason, another Kiwi who was on a boat that evaded the Israelis and made it to Crete. He told me that several people were still in hospital.

Our government has so far offered no consular support and the Kiwis, like their comrades, have had to rely on the kindness of strangers and local peace activists.

Samuel said it was really hard to see what Julien Blondel had been through.

‘Brutalised state’
“I spent the last week with him, preparing in Barcelona. He’s just the most lovely man. It was very difficult to see him in such a brutalised state.

“Despite what happened to him, he is steadfast in the movement, and he is steadfast for Palestine. We all are. We’re all fuming. We’re all fuming that our government can let Israel get away with something so blatantly illegal.”

At least four Israeli warships, overhead surveillance planes, drones and sophisticated jamming technology (to shut down the flotilla’s Starlink comms) were deployed against the humanitarian activists.

The Israeli raiders systematically destroyed communications, navigation and other equipment on the ships they captured. They tampered with engines, cut fuel lines and shredded sails.

Once they transferred the abductees onto warships, they abandoned the Sumud vessels in open seas.

Members of the Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation who I talked with today said the beatings of dozens of activists was systematic. It started when flotilla members protested when two of the Steering Committee members, Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila, were isolated and then subjected to violence (they heard their screams).

The IOF soldiers dragged dozens of Sumud members, one after another, into a separate area where they were repeatedly kicked and punched.

Among many beaten
New Zealander Blondel (pictured) was one of many to be savagely beaten. Several were hospitalised when the Israelis, coordinating with allies in the Greek military, transferred them to Crete.

It is worth noting the attack happened within Greece’s Search And Rescue zone and yet the Greek Navy ignored SOS calls from the flotilla.

Such is the loyalty to Israel of New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters that there has been no immediate condemnation of either the violence meted out to New Zealand citizens or the fact that this violence was part of an act of piracy in international waters hundreds of kilometres from Israel.

The NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the standard mumble: “The safety of New Zealanders involved [is] paramount and international law must be upheld.”

Will the Minister of Foreign Affairs haul the Israeli ambassador in for a dressing down? Will the government publicly and forcefully rebuke Israel for its criminal behaviour? Will the government seek reparations for the damage done to the Sumud vessels?

Unlikely, as it was revealed last week that the New Zealand prime minister wanted to even more strongly support the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran but was blocked by the minister of foreign affairs. (Imagine if Luxon had been our prime minister when the Rainbow Warrior was sunk).

With leaders like these across the Western world the Israelis have learnt that they can act with impunity.

‘Imagine the Palestinian hostages’
Eloiza Montana, comms lead for the Global Sumud Aotearoa delegation said: “What our people suffered is terrible but it is tiny compared to what Palestinians go through.

“Imagine: if the Israelis are allowed to do this to international activists who are sailing in the middle of the Mediterranean — imagine what is going on inside Israeli prisons to the Palestinian hostages.”

I have written a series of articles over the past few years highlighting the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners. I have had the grim experience of watching footage of the rape-murder of a Palestinian prisoner by Israeli soliders at Sde Teiman prison and seen one of the perpetrators blessed a few days later on-camera by Netanyahu’s rabbi, who praised him for his work.

The only person punished for these sordid events was Israel’s top military prosecutor Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi who, disgusted by the impunity, leaked the footage.

Israel’s outstanding human rights organisation B’tselem has done the world a great service by documenting the physical, sexual and psychological abuse that is standard practice within Israel’s prison system. For those who can handle the truth, I highly recommend B’tselem’s site “Welcome to Hell – The Israeli Prison Camps as a network of Torture Camps.”

New Zealand has maintained virtually total silence over this criminality in order to provide assistance to its close friend and ally Israel.

Our leaders tell us we share values with the Israelis. The New Zealand government may; I do not.

Speaking from Türkiye, Rana Hamida from Sumud’s Aotearoa New Zealand delegation told me: “We need to hold the criminals accountable, so we can move to restorative justice. Free Saif. Free Thiago. Free yourself!”

Olivia Coote, also a member of the delegation said: “Palestine activated for me a realisation that the society I was a part of is an absolute farce and that we are not the good guys.”

Last word on the attack
I’ll give the last word to Samuel Leason who told me from his ship moored off Crete this week:

“What this attack reveals is the true nature of the Israeli Occupation Force. There are 70 different nationalities on these boats — we represent the international community. For them to be able to come out here, brutalise us, steal our things and imprison us for days and then take some of our comrades to be questioned and tortured back in Israel just shows how much regard they have for people around the world.

“It shows how little regard they have for international law, and just how morally messed up they are.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region and is a frequent contributor to Asia Pacific Report. He hosts solidarity.co.nz

Fiji has recorded a dramatic jump in its media freedom rating to be in the top 25 nations globally while Samoan government press restrictions have seen its rating plummet in the latest World Press Freedom Index.

Advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said globally it was the first time since the index was first compiled in 2001 that more than half of the world’s countries fell into the “difficult” or “very serious” press freedom categories.

The index released annually for World Press Freedom Day covers 180 countries but reports on only four of two dozen Pacific island nations and territories, including Tonga and the lowest ranked in the region Papua New Guinea.

• READ MORE: FMA praises Fiji media workers for press freedom climb but warns it is ‘tenuous’
• Fiji climbs to 24th in World Press Freedom Index, biggest gain in the Pacific
• Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

Three years after Fiji repealed its draconian media laws, it has climbed into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media, recording a steep 15-point increase, the index’s second highest annual move globally after Syria.

Fiji has now risen from a low of 89 in 2023 to the 24th position in the 2026 index — which covers 2025 — reflecting the change in government after coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama lost power in the 2022 election.

Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of journalism at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, told Pasifika TV the ranking is a reflection of a freer media environment but there is no room for complacency.

“There is the growing tension between the media and the government, and the bolder the media becomes, the more they test the government tolerance for scrutiny and criticism,” he said, highlighting accusations of misinformation levelled at the media by Fiji’s Information Minister Lynda Tabuya last week.

‘Criticised doorstopping’
“She criticised the doorstopping by a Fijian journalist and stated that this type of practice should be banned.

“This is a reminder that the fight for media freedom never ends and there are always new challenges cropping up, we can never let our guard down and any ethical breaches on our part makes for a stronger case for greater controls on the media.”

Fiji’s improved ranking was in contrast to the global trend for erosion of media independence, which also saw Samoa lead the way down for other Pacific nations surveyed.

Samoa posted the largest fall in the Pacific, plunging 15 points to 59th place, and the second greatest decline globally after Niger.

An acrimonious relationship between Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt and local journalists, particularly the Samoa Observer newspaper which he has banned from government press conferences, has been a major factor.

Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) last November issued a statement of “deep concern” saying that it represents “a serious threat to media freedom, public access to information, and democratic accountability in Samoa and the wider Pacific region.”

La’aulialemalietoa rejected PINA’s position saying the government had “documented evidence of unprofessional reporting and breach of media ethical standards that led to this action”.

PINA president Kalafi Moala talking to Pasifika TV.

Samoan government ‘must improve’
PINA president Kalafi Moala told Pasifika TV the Samoan government must improve its approach.

“The Samoa Observer has for decades followed the tradition of holding power to account and they’ll be the first one in trouble if there’s an issue there,” he said.

Overall Moala said he sensed the political mood toward media freedom in the Pacific had shifted.

“Throughout the Pacific, the governments are trying to learn from the past and that freedom of the press goes in hand-in-hand with democracy,” he told Pasifika TV at the Media Council of PNG’s (MCPNG) annual summit in Port Moresby.

“These are not the governments of the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, these are new governments with a whole new crop [of politicians] coming up and they’re far more aware of the fact they’ve got to be more democratic.”

Papua New Guinea is the lowest ranked Pacific island nation at 73rd place, but is up five points, and slowly climbing.

Its rating dropped 32 points in 2024 to 91st place after Prime Minister James Marape’s Government announced plans to tighten the media laws and proposed registering journalists.

Extensive lobbying efforts by the MCPNG has seen the government moderate its position.

‘Really proud’ of MCPNG
“I’m really, really proud of being part of the Media Council of Papua New Guinea,” said MCPNG secretary Belinda Kora.

“We realised that when we went to sit down with authorities responsible for communication and technology, and our prime minister, the lack of understanding they have of our roles, which led to a parliamentary inquiry and for the first time in the history of this country, the recommendations of that inquiry were actually adopted by the Parliament.

“So, when we’re sitting down with them, we’re making them aware and also educating them about why it is important to protect our rights.”

Tonga slipped five points to 51st position in the rankings but Moala, founder and editor of Talanoa ‘o Tonga and who was imprisoned in 1996 for contempt of parliament, said he could not fathom why.

“Right now, with a new government and new prime minister elected, I’m just absolutely amazed,” he said.

“We’ve never had a government like that for the last 20 years, he [Prime Minister Lord Fatafehi Fakafānua] is having regular press conferences every week, is open for interviews with media, he personally and his government actively want information to come out of every department.

“We’re going in a direction and moving at a speed in terms of media freedom I’ve never seen before.”

Pacific countries not ranked
Not ranked by RSF are Pacific island nations like Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu with little or no independent media, nor those with dynamic media environments like Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

None of the territories or colonies of France and the United States are separately monitored or mentioned in the report.

“It is very sad that they [RSF] only concentrate on these four nations because it’s probably convenient to them,” he said.

“The whole Pacific is much bigger than that and our concern at PINA is there’s no coverage of any Micronesian country or territory.

“You’ve got Palau, you’ve got issues in the Marshall Islands, the American territories like Guam and so on.”

Only Australia and New Zealand were specifically mentioned in RSF’s Asia-Pacific annual regional report, despite the very significant gain made by Fiji and fall by Samoa by international standards.

Reporters Sans Frontières did not respond to Pasifika TV questions on why it does not cover all of the Pacific along with the 180 other nations.

West Papua not mentioned
Its report for Indonesia also does not mention West Papua where some of its harshest media restrictions are imposed, including bans of foreign media and regular internet blackouts during times of conflict, and where local journalists face intimidation.

Press freedom in the Pacific’s main donor partners — Australia, China, New Zealand and United States — continues to fall despite their provision of journalism training in the region.

New Zealand remains the highest ranked Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member country at 22nd place but has fallen six points since last year, while Australia continues its decline, falling a further four points to sit at 33rd place.

The United States also continued its downward slide, falling seven points to 64th position, which RSF said was due to “President Donald Trump’s systematic weaponisation of state institutions, including funding cuts to public broadcasters”.

In April 2024, the Trump administration cut funding to Radio Free Asia, and its BenarNews Pacific service, ending coverage of the region, though it has now resumed with an almost exclusive focus on China-related stories.

Other media initiatives impacted by the US cuts included Internews and OCCRP.

China at 178th sits third from the bottom of the index, just above North Korea and Eritrea.

Reporters Sans Frontières said “the government has dramatically expanded its repressive toolkit in recent years, including a raft of national security laws that are regularly invoked to imprison journalists”.

“With 121 media professionals currently behind bars, China is the world’s largest jailer of journalists.”

Republished from Pasifika TV. Stefan Armbruster is regional news development lead.

Israeli soldiers beat and tortured flotilla organisers Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila after abducting them in international waters near Greece in the early hours of Thursday morning, allege lawyers and diplomats.

After illegally intercepting 22 boats and kidnapping around 200 activists hundreds of miles from Gaza, Israel transferred the majority to Greek authorities, but refused to release Abukeshek and Avila.

Instead, it transported them back to an Israeli desert prison, where Palestinians are routinely tortured.

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

Brazilian activist Ávila was dragged face down across the floor and beaten so badly he passed out twice, lawyers said, after they were finally able to visit him on Saturday.

His wife, Lara Souza, said in a video that a Brazilian embassy official told her he had been temporarily blinded by his injuries, with his left eye remaining swollen shut, but he was being denied medical treatment.

Why Israel’s interception of the Gaza flotilla is illegal          Video: TRT News

In a brief visit, where he was separated from the consul by a glass screen and not able to speak freely, he reported pain all over his body, especially in his hand and shoulder. He said soldiers had threatened to throw him overboard and target his wife and two-year-old daughter.

Abukeshek, who had been sailing on an observer boat and did not intend to go to Gaza, was “in shock”, his wife Sally Issa said. He was forced to lie face-down on the floor of an Israeli warship for two days, lawyers said, blindfolded and with his hands bound behind his back.

Spain demands Abukeshek release
Spain has demanded Israel release Abukeshek, who is Palestinian but has Spanish and Swedish citizenship.

On Friday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he had been “illegally abducted by the Netanyahu government”.

Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares later told a radio station the arrest was made “outside the jurisdiction of Israel”.

“Of course, it is a kidnapping,” he said.

Hannah Smith, who runs the Global Sumud Flotilla’s media operation, said in a video that Abukeshek had Palestinian identity documents, “putting him in a legal context that we’ve never seen with participants before”.

“We do not know how the Israeli regime will handle his case,” she said. “They can try him just as they would any Palestinian.”

Adalah, the law firm supporting the two men, said they had reported being interrogated by Israel’s Shin Bet security service.

Interrogation by Mossad
Ávila said he had been told he would also be interrogated by Mossad, on suspicion of “affiliation with a terrorist organisation”.

On Sunday, both activists appeared in Ashkelon Magistrates’ Court, where a judge extended their detention by a further two days.

Adalah said the Israeli state attorney presented a list of suspected offences, including “assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation, and the transfer of property for a terrorist organisation”.

No formal charges have yet been filed against either Ávila or Abukeshek, and Adalah said Israeli authorities had refused to provide details of any of the offences they are being interrogated over.

Lawyers demanded both men be immediately and unconditionally released, telling the court the entire process was “fundamentally flawed and illegal”, and describing Israel’s actions as a “retaliatory measure against humanitarian activist leaders”.

They challenged the state’s jurisdiction, arguing that there is “no legal basis for the extraterritorial application of offences to the actions of foreign nationals in international waters”.

In a statement, Adalah said: “The treatment of the two activists, including the use of isolation, prolonged blindfolding, and physical beatings, constitutes a grave violation of international law.”

Call for mobilisation
Meanwhile, Smith, who was on one of the boats that was intercepted on Wednesday night, urged people to “mobilise” for Ávila and Abukeshek.

“As someone who was thrown around, who was threatened to be killed, as someone who has seen two of my best friends taken, I ask the world: what kind of world do you want to live in?” she said.

“And if you want to live in a better one than this one, you need to act, you need to mobilise.”

Ávila and Abukeshek have now been transferred back to solitary confinement in Shikma prison, where they are being held in windowless cells.

Both are on hunger strike, with Avila saying he will not accept release without Abukeshek.

Republished from Novara Media. Charlotte England is a journalist and director of Novara Media.

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

Fiji has recorded the biggest improvement in the Pacific in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, rising to 24th out of 180 countries.

The index has been compiled and published by global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) since 2002.

Papua New Guinea moved up slightly on the index to 73rd.

• READ MORE: FMA praises Fiji media workers for press freedom climb but warns it is ‘tenuous’
• Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

But Samoa recorded the biggest drop in the region, falling to 59th — its lowest ranking.

Tonga also slipped this year to 51st, down from 46th in 2025.

New Zealand is ranked 22nd, ahead of Australia at 33rd.

Reporters Without Borders said for the first time in the Index’s history, more than half of the world’s countries now fall into the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom.

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

Three years after the lifting of draconian media laws under which Fiji’s media industry operated, and even with significant improvements in the country’s media freedom rankings, the gains from the return of media freedom remain tenuous.

This World Press Freedom Day, the Fijian Media Association is heartened by the country’s remarkable progress on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom index for 2026.

Fiji improved in ranking by 16 places, now standing at 24th globally, up from 40th last year and 84th in 2023.

• READ MORE: Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

The global picture revealed by the RSF World Press Freedom Index shows over half of the world’s countries now fall into the “difficult” or “very difficult” categories for press freedom, the lowest in the 25 years since the index was first published.

This achievement for Fiji should be attributed not only to the media workers continuing to uphold the values of independent journalism to keep communities informed, but to everybody in this country who recognise and defend the importance of a free media for a healthy democracy.

While it is a moment to be celebrated, we are acutely aware of the various threats to individual media workers and the wider industry that continue to overshadow media development in Fiji.

In recent months, there have been several separate developments that have the potential to influence and shape how the media works and serves the community.

Summonsing of journalists
The summonsing of journalists to testify in court cases has been a particularly pointed moment, and its ramifications of this judicial action on the industry and the sources it depends on is something the FMA is acutely aware of.

More recently, the statement by the Minister for Information Lynda Tabuya in Parliament regarding what she referred to as “mal-information” and “misinformation” by the reporting on the broken-down lift at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.

“This was followed by a public call for an end to “doorstop-style” interviews by local media.

Such a method of newsgathering is well-established in healthy democracies as a necessary part of holding officials accountable.

These developments signal the kinds of pressures the media continues to be subjected to.

Apart from the systemic issues the media and the people who work in the industry continue to contend with, the growing problem of the hard-drugs crisis and its impacts are also being felt in professional and personal ways.

Layer of complexity
This adds a layer of complexity that journalists need to navigate, while continuing to uphold the values and ethics the industry aspires to.

As we commemorate World Press Freedom Day 2026, the Fijian Media Association reaffirms our commitment to advocating for press freedom and the protection of journalists’ rights in Fiji.

We call on all stakeholders, including government officials and civil society, to work collaboratively to ensure a safe and supportive environment for media practitioners, allowing them to report without fear or favour.

Let us continue to champion the cause of press freedom, not only in Fiji but around the world, recognising that a free press is essential to a healthy democracy.

This World Press Freedom Day statement was republished from the Fijian Media Association.

World Press Freedom Index 2026                               Video: RSF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fiji’s rise in the latest global press freedom rankings is being credited to improved media conditions following key political and legal reforms in recent years.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says the country’s jump to 24th place in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index reflects a shift in the media environment after years of restrictions.

“Pressure exerted on the media by civil and military authorities has eased since the election of Sitiveni Rabuka… in 2022,” the report stated.

• READ MORE: RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

RSF highlighted the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act (MIDA) in April 2023 as a major turning point.

“The repeal of the draconian and unpopular Media Industry Development Act… is an important step forward,” it said.

World Press Freedom Index 2026                            Video: RSF

Fiji climbed from 40th place in 2025, with its overall score improving to 76.76 from 71.20, signalling progress across several indicators.

The report contrasted the current trajectory with the period from 2006 to 2022 under the previous government.

Restrictive laws
“Press freedom was directly affected by recurring attacks,” RSF said, noting that restrictive laws and enforcement created “a climate of fear and self-censorship”.

Legal provisions, including sedition laws, were frequently used against media organisations such as The Fiji Times, contributing to caution and restraint within the industry.

RSF also pointed to past economic pressures, including discriminatory advertising practices used to influence editorial positions.

“Authorities used discriminatory advertising practices to blackmail the media,” the report said.

While acknowledging the progress, RSF cautioned that challenges remained.

The report highlighted concerns over the financial sustainability of media organisations and safety issues affecting journalists, including findings that sexual harassment of women in the industry remains widespread.

Fragmented media landscape
It also noted Fiji’s diverse but fragmented media landscape, shaped by linguistic and cultural factors, with strong competition across print, television, radio and digital platforms.

Despite these challenges, RSF said the overall trend reflects a positive shift.

The report emphasised that continued reforms, protection of media independence and support for journalists will be key to sustaining the gains.

Fiji’s improved ranking signals growing confidence in the country’s media environment, but RSF warned that maintaining progress would require ongoing commitment to transparency, accountability and press freedom.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has slammed European leaders — and the West at large — for what he said is their complicity in Israel’s abduction of two leaders of the Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla seized off the coast of Greece.

In what numerous critics have called an act of “piracy”, Israeli authorities intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla on Thursday in international waters 45 nautical miles west of the Greek island Kythira and 600 nautical miles from Gaza, according to Greenpeace, whose MV Arctic Sunrise was the aid convoy’s most prominent vessel.

About 175 activists aboard 22 vessels were seized by Israeli forces. The BBC reported on Friday that most of them had been released in Greece.

• READ MORE: Israeli forces raid Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports
• Kia Ora Gaza website

Some of the flotilla members said they were beaten and dragged while handcuffed. The Washington Post reported 34 people—including citizens of Australia, Colombia, Italy, Ukraine, and the United States—required medical attention for broken ribs, noses, and other injuries.

Detained activists also said they were denied food and water and were forced to sleep on deliberately flooded floors.

Flotilla organizers said 31 of the remaining vessels will continue heading toward Palestine in a bid to “break the illegal siege of Gaza.”

Two members of the flotilla steering committee — Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila — were taken to Israel for interrogation.

Abu Keshek is a Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin. Ávila is Brazilian. Israel’s Foreign Ministry claimed that Abu Keshek is “suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organization” and Ávila is “suspected of illegal activity.”

As is very often the case with Palestinians it has killed, Israel provided no evidence to support its claims against the accused.

Spain and Brazil have been outspoken critics of Israeli human rights crimes, and both countries have formally joined the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Varoufakis noted on X that Ávila “has distinguished himself with repeated attempts to break the illegal, genocidal, Israeli blockage of Gaza.”

“Unlike the remaining abducted members of the Sumud Flotilla crew, which the Israeli navy disembarked in Crete, Saif and Thiago are detained and bound for an Israeli prison,” the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 co-founder continued.

“This is a double violation of international law: First, Israel abducted them illegally at sea. Second, Israel is now transporting them, violently, illegally, to one of its notorious prisons.”

It is not known where Israel will send the two men. Ávila was previously held at Ayalon Prison in Ramla, along with other activists seized from the Madleen last summer. Ávila reportedly refused deportation papers and launched a hunger strike, prompting prison authorities to place him in solitary confinement.

While it is not as notorious as the Sde Teiman military prison — where former inmates and Israeli staff have described torture, rape, murder, and other abuse of Palestinians — Ayalon Prison’s alleged human rights violations include torture, medical neglect, and deliberately degrading conditions.

“Meanwhile,” Varoufakis said yesterday, “the Greek government is cooperating fully in Israel’s criminal behavior, effectively surrendering its search and rescue obligations and conniving with Israel to victimise the brave crews of the Sumud Flotilla who are steadfastly, through their activism, defending international law as well as the verdict of the International Court of Justice, which has clearly and unequivocally declared Israel’s continued naval blockade of Gaza and its occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal.

“Through their complicity and their silence, the Greek government, the European Union, the mainstream media, the West more generally, are flouting, indeed they are trashing, their supposed, much publicised, ‘Western values,’” he added.

BREAKING: The Israeli naval vessel that abducted the 180 Sumud Flotilla crews off the coast of Crete (an act of piracy and a gross violation of the Law of the Sea) is intend on victimising two of them: Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish citizen of Palestinian origin, and Thiago Ávila, a…

— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) May 1, 2026

Varoufakis is calling on the world to demand:

• The immediate release of Saif and Thiago;
• An end to Israel’s criminal behavior in international waters;
• The termination of Israel’s illegal Gaza blockade; and
• That the Greek government and the European Union cease and desist from lending logistical and moral support to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ethnic cleansing campaigns in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Varoufakis’ call was echoed by the Global Sumud Flotilla, which demanded that “all governments do all they can to pressure the Israeli regime to release all the illegal abductees.”

Spanish officials including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also decried Thursday’s raid and demanded the release of the flotilla activists while calling for an end to EU-Israel Association Agreement, a bilateral trade and economic policy framework.

“Israel is once again violating international law by assaulting a civilian flotilla in waters that do not belong to it,” Sánchez said on X. “Our government is doing everything necessary to protect and assist the detained Spaniards. But that is not enough.

“The EU must suspend the association agreement NOW and demand that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu comply with the law of our seas.”

On the other hand, US State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggott condemned the flotilla as a “pro-Hamas initiative” and called on allied countries “to take decisive action against this meaningless political stunt”.

The United States provides Israel with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic support including repeated vetoes of United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions for Gaza.

Israel maintains that its actions were legal. Its officials have repeatedly invoked the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea — often shortened to the San Remo Manual — to justify the interception and seizure of flotilla vessels attempting to reach Gaza on the high seas.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of cities including Athens, Barcelona, Gaza City, Istanbul, Madrid, Milan, Naples, Paris, and Rome on Thursday as protesters showed solidarity with the flotilla members and condemned Israel’s actions.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held a phone call today with his Spanish counterpart to discuss the illegal Israeli intervention against the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters off Crete.

The intervention has endangered the lives of numerous civilians and… pic.twitter.com/ZbVlGdFYNl

— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) April 30, 2026

Meanwhile, Gazans continue to suffer from Israel’s bombing and blockade, which have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened around 2 million others.

Earlier this week, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari said that despite “some improvements in access and aid delivery… food security remains a challenge, while essential services, particularly water, sanitation, and health, are again on the brink of collapse”.

Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.

Republished from Common Dreams under a Creative Commons licence.

A leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has called on Indonesian security forces to halt their crackdown on peaceful protest in the wake of this month’s massacres in Dogiyai and Puncak.

Interim president Benny Wenda accused Indonesian authorities of suppressing peaceful action in order to “stoke a cycle of violence in West Papua in order to strengthen their colonial grip over our land”.

“intensified militarisation serves Indonesia’s economic interests,” he said in a statement.

• READ MORE: Stop selling arms to Indonesia, West Papuans urge Netherlands
• Other West papua reports

Wenda said the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) had organised “numerous peaceful demonstrations against Indonesian colonialism” since the military (TNI) had “murdered 15 West Papuans in the Puncak massacre” on April 15.

In response, the TNI and Indonesian police had launched a brutal crackdown, dispersing protesters with water cannons, tear gas, and beatings.

“The latest crackdown occurred [on April 27], after protesters gathered in front of the Mimika Dormitory in Waena, Jayapura,” Wenda said.

“They were met by a heavily armed TNI squadron, who broke up the peaceful protest by firing tear gas canisters and blasting activists with water cannons.”

Part of strategy
Wenda said violence committed against the KNPB and allied student protesters was part of Indonesia’s strategy in West Papua.

“By deploying additional troops and establishing new checkpoints, Indonesia protects their investment and creates a pretext for new destructive economic developments,” his statement said.

“Chaos and violence are good for business: this is Indonesia’s reason for keeping hold of West Papua,” he said.

This crackdown demonstrated that democracy did not exist in West Papua.

“We have never been allowed to peacefully voice our demand for self-determination, whether under the Suharto dictatorship or so-called democratic rule,” Wenda said.

“West Papuans will never achieve justice through colonial systems.”

The ULMWP appealed to solidarity groups and their parliamentary allies to apply pressure on Indonesia to “stop this crackdown, withdraw their military, and facilitate a visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights”.

“Our own actions are not enough — international pressure is the only language Indonesia understands.”

Indonesian authorities have not responded to these comments by the ULMWP.

1news tonight featured a report on the War in Ukraine. The reporter, a foreign war correspondent, explained to viewers how Ukrainian soldiers were increasingly using long-range high-tech drones to target Russian infrastructure.

Now while not explicitly stated, the narrative being delivered through our particularly “Western-centric” media lens is that Ukrainians are legitimately resisting and defending their homeland from an evil invader.

While for some this narrative may be contentious, what’s interesting is when you apply this same narrative to the people of Palestine, Lebanon and Iran. Because when we apply these same values of “legitimate resistance” and self-defence of homeland in the context of Palestine or Lebanon or Iran, we see the contradiction of Western exceptionalism.

• READ MORE: Trump says Iran requesting end to US blockade; Israel kills three medics
• Other war on Iran, Gaza and Lebanon reports

For Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranian people, the rules around what constitutes legitimate resistance — whether militarily or otherwise — do not apply. At least they do not apply within the framework of the Western narrative, the narrative that’s seemingly ever-present in our mainstream media institutions like 1news.

There is another narrative of course, one whose legitimacy is not tied to the notion of Western exceptionalism. This narrative points out the hypocrisy of a Western exceptionalism which assumes itself as the sole determinant in defining what is or isn’t “legitimate” resistance.

Many journalists from the Middle East such as the Palestinian author Mohammed El-Kurd in his recent book Perfect Victims: And The Politics Of Appeal describe this “contradiction” in great detail.

Yet his and the many other voices which could help our comprehension of what is happening in places like Palestine, Gaza, Tehran and Southern Lebanon are consistently — and some might argue deliberately — overlooked.

Jason Brooke is a New Zealand hospital worker and activist on environmental social justice issues.

A woman whose great-grandparents — all eight of them — were Girmitiya labourers has put their stories into her debut novel.

The result is Banjara, a novel partly based on what she found, which is told through the eyes of two women more than 100 years apart.

Author, Shana Chandra told RNZ Nine to Noon she knew her grandparents were Girmitiya, but nothing of their origin stories.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji literature reports

“I knew that they were part of this larger geopolitical movement under colonialism, but I didn’t have their personal stories,” she said.

“I didn’t know where they came from in India. I didn’t know what made them vulnerable to coercion. I didn’t even know their names. So really, writing the story was a way for me to write their origin story not only for me, but for them.”

Chandra said the former head of New Zealand’s Girmitiya Foundation told her that Indo-Fijians were prohibited from writing about indenture.

“It felt very important for me to write this origin story, because there was so much silence – I think, because there was so much shame over what happened.

‘Angry about the silence’
“And it was my way of saying to my ancestors, they no longer need to be silenced, and… thank you, in a way, because I used to be quite angry about the silence, but then I realized it was their gift to me, and their gift to all of us — they didn’t want us to be burdened with what they endured.”

Chandra said a lot of research went into the book, but historical records only tell so much.

“When I saw my great-grandmother’s immigration pass, she boarded the Hereford, which is actually the same boat that Avani, my character, boards in the book.

“She was only eight when she boarded, and she boarded the boat with her younger brother, her older sister and her father, and there was actually no record of her mother being on board. So because of the way indentureships were partitioned with men on one side and women and children on the other, I know that those women on board would have helped my great-grandmother and her siblings survive in a myriad of ways.

“One day, I just had this compulsion to wake up and say all of those women’s names because I knew that they would have helped them survive.”

There were shocking discoveries, too. One immigration pass was that of a 15-day-old baby who had died.

“And on the left-hand side, written in cursive writing by a colonial official, was that her mother had suffocated her. And though I know that could be true, there was something about that intuitively that just didn’t sit right in my body.”

Real oral histories
Chandra later came across a post from a site called Cutlass Magazine, featuring real oral histories.

“One about a woman who said that when her grandmother was indentured, the women on board had to hide the children because crew members would find them a nuisance and want to throw them overboard.

“And there was an actual story from an indentured man who kept on repeating the same story, how on his ship that had a particularly rough passage, the captain came, took a newborn baby and fed it to the sea as a sacrifice.

“Even just me writing the names of those women afterwards, just burst into tears… It was important to weave those other stories, those oral histories, into the book to show that other side of history.”

Chandra believes a lot of labourers were duped into signing the labour agreements, and many were promised a “paradisical island full of abundant opportunity”.

“But what they actually faced …was hard labour up to 14 hours a day or over six days a week. And a lot of them were subjected to brutal physical and sexual abuse.

“At one point, Fiji had the highest suicide rate in the world due to indenture.”

The ‘women’s gang’
Chandra said there was “amazing forms of resistance” from the women.

“There’s something known as the women’s gang.

“These women would form these gangs, and they would go to known abusers and use the only thing, only weapons they had, which was their bodies, and retaliate and beat their abusers. So my book really showcases that female solidarity.”

She said it was tough to navigate all the cultural practices and language of the time to be accurate. But what also became important was the “emotional truth”.

“That emotional honesty was almost just as important, because that’s what it’s really trying to capture, but I was lucky. When I was writing this novel, it did feel like something larger was guiding my hand. So I do partly dedicate this novel to my ancestors, who felt like they were conspiring with me from the heavens.

“I think what’s so amazing to me is that, and this is what I hoped the book would do — it would provide an emotional landscape for other Indo-Fijians to rebound off and to start talking about these stories.”

• Shana Chandra will be appearing as part of the Auckland Writers’ Festival next month.

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

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been on a strategic tour to prepare for two dramatically different paths that could unfold in the coming days — a return to diplomacy or a resumption of the war with the US and Israel.

While President Donald Trump has claimed that the Iranian government is in a state of internal chaos and his administration is waiting for Iran to capitulate, a senior Iranian official told Drop Site News that Tehran is establishing the conditions under which a new round of direct talks could take place.

“We’re currently moving forward with our own design, and we feel continuing negotiations doesn’t make sense until the US government lifts the maritime blockade,” said the official who has direct knowledge of internal diplomatic deliberations in Iran.

• READ MORE: Top US officials review Iran’s proposal to end war and open Hormuz Strait
• Other US-Israel war on Iran reports

He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to publicly discuss the negotiations.

“The scope of the conflict has expanded, and naturally the issue is no longer purely nuclear.”

Tehran, the Iranian official said, remained firm in its demand that the US naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz be lifted as a condition to move forward. If that happens, a formal second round of top level direct talks can happen.

“Araghchi is Iran’s top diplomat. So even if there’s a 1 percent chance for a breakthrough, he would embark on it,” said Hassan Ahmadian, a prominent Iranian analyst and associate professor at the University of Tehran.

A multi-phase outline
He told Drop Site that Iran has crafted a multi-phase outline for ending the war: A real ceasefire must be imposed on Israel in the region, specifically Lebanon, and a settlement must be reached in the Strait of Hormuz “without harming Iran’s national security and also regional security.”

Once these conditions are met, comprehensive negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme and a long-term non-aggression agreement could commence.

“The Iranians are saying time is working in our favor for the three Ms: munitions, markets, and the midterms. These three Ms help Iran in its position and weaken US positions,” Ahmadian said.

“Obviously in the US, they want something to say, ‘We squeezed Iran and we got this.’ My perception is that the Iranians are keen to deny the United States that — they wouldn’t give what Trump wants as a victory.”

While White House officials claim Iran presented the US with a “new” proposal over the weekend and pushed this narrative through their preferred media outlets, the Iranian official said the characterisation was false.

Trump claimed Iran softened its stance over the weekend, but not enough for a deal. Ahmadian said there has been a recent Iranian shift, but it is toward a clearer set of conditions for resuming negotiations, not acceding to American demands on its nuclear programme.

“There are changes, as I understand,” he said. “The main change is for Iran to insist on the stop of the war regionally. That’s pivotal in Iran agreeing to discuss other issues.”

Unprecedented challenge
As a practical matter, Tehran is facing an unprecedented challenge in dealing with Trump. Twice in one year, Israel and the US have bombed Iran in the middle of negotiations.

Trump is erratic and frequently contradicts himself — vascillating between expressing optimism for a deal and claiming Iran has surrendered to sweeping US demands only to turn around and threaten to destroy Iranian civilisation and to carpet bomb its civilian infrastructure.

Iran also believes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been given unprecedented influence over US intelligence estimates and White House decision-making.

“Our country has had negotiations with the Americans at various levels over the past 30 years — formal and informal, public and back-channel,” the senior Iranian official said, referencing previous US-Iran negotiations that involved months — at times years — of diplomacy and technical talks.

“It’s as if they are showing up to a football match with rugby rules.”

Iran has total disdain for Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and views him as both oblivious of diplomatic processes and totally ignorant of technical issues. Kushner is viewed by Iran as Israel’s man at the table.

Iran, the senior official said, does not see any reason to deal with these two without a figure like Vice-President JD Vance present.

Flurry of speculation
Last week, the Iranian government announced that Araghchi would be visiting Islamabad for bilateral talks with Pakistani leaders. This set off a flurry of media speculation that a new round of negotiations would happen.

Trump announced that Vance was en route to Islamabad and once again characterised Iran as pleading for new negotiations. But Vance, it turned out, was not on a plane, and Iran continued to deny it had any intention of meeting with US officials in Pakistan.

Trump then said he was dispatching Witkoff and Kushner, and the media was flooded with stories about a meeting with Iran. Some news outlets, citing White House sources, claimed that planes were en route to the meetings, and the White House suggested Iran was lying about the forthcoming talks.

“The Iranians want to talk, they want to talk in person,” said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on Friday. “Steve and Jared will be heading to Pakistan tomorrow to hear the Iranians out.”

Iran continued to reject suggestions that any talks would happen.

“No meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the US,” Iran’s Foreign Minister spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said soon after Araghchi arrived in Pakistan. Iran, he said, discussed a range of issues, including trade.

On Sunday, Islamabad announced it was expanding the transportation of third-country goods through Pakistan destined for Iran. While the transit routes had been under discussion since 2008, the timing — with Trump claiming his naval blockade was “strangling” Iran — was impossible to ignore.

Scrambled to spin
After Araghchi left Islamabad on Saturday and flew to Oman, Trump scrambled to spin the narrative and control the damage, claiming he had actually called off the planned negotiations.

“Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’ Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”

Trump then claimed that as a result of his refusal to send his emissaries, Iran had softened its stance, submitting a new proposal to the US. “They gave us a paper that should have been better. And interestingly, immediately, when I canceled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better,” Trump said.

Trump continues to claim that he extended the initial two-week ceasefire agreed on April 7 because Iran’s leadership was in a state of disarray and infighting. This narrative has been widely parrotted in Western media.

“That’s part of the cognitive warfare on Iran,” said Ahmadian. “It’s targeted at the society, the elites, and the position of the Supreme Leader. It’s not news, it’s not intel that they’re talking about.

“It’s basically an agenda to create what they are calling division. And I think the main aim within Iran is to increase mistrust and decrease trust among elites, which I think the Iranians are now very well aware of.”

Ahmadian said that Iran’s perception is that it is the US leadership that is in deep disarray, as evidenced by Trump’s flip-flops, unrealised threats and the recent chaos over which officials would be heading to Islamabad to negotiate with Iran.

Clear Tehran message
During the first round of direct talks held in Islamabad on April 11, the Iranian team arrived with “a clear message coming out of Tehran, with a team that represents all of the system, and it came with a very strong case for showing the unity within the country,” Ahmadian said.

He added that the Iranian side left the talks with the impression that there were stark differences between Vance on the one hand and Witkoff and Kushner on the other.

“The Iranians see Witkoff and Kushner as representatives of the Israeli interests, not those of the United States, as opposed to Mr Vance, who is representing the US interests in those talks,” he said.

“They were divided in their way of approaching the Iranians.”

Jeremy Scahill is a journalist at Drop Site News, author of the books Blackwater and Dirty Wars. He has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other countries.

The Fiji Prime Minister has thrown his government’s support behind a controversial waste-to-energy project at Vuda Point in the country’s Western Division despite “a delay”.

The multi-million-dollar “Fiji Energy from Waste Project”, backed by Australian billionaire Ian Malouf and Fiji-born businessman Robert Cromb’s company The Next Generation (TNG) Fiji, has been making headlines across local and Australian media.

The proposed development in the Vuda-Saweni area between Nadi International Airport and Lautoka city has sparked a major backlash from concerned Fijians about its potential to damage the environment at the mainstream tourist hotspot.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific waste reports

The project is reported to plan to burn up to 900,000 tonnes of waste a year, far exceeding Fiji’s local waste production, requiring the import of waste from across the South Pacific.

On Friday, Fiji’s Environment Ministry announced that the waste incinerator project has moved into the technical review stage.

The ministry also confirmed that it had received 875 written submissions during the public viewing period of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) review process, as well as, almost 9000 signatures — on and offline — opposing the project.

Environment Ministry Permanent Secretary Dr Sivendra Michael said no decision had been made to date.

“The decision can only be issued following the completion of the full technical and regulatory review.”

‘Remains committed’
However, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said his government “remains committed to progressing the project”, according to a report by the state broadcaster.

“There has been a delay in discussions,” Rabuka told a vernacular radio programme,” adding that “as a government, we support the project”.

“If you look at it, a waste-to-energy plant can help supply electricity to more communities, while allowing the government to redirect resources to areas that still need power,” he was quoted as saying by FBC News.

In a report on April 1, The Australian described the proposal as: “Three years after losing the battle to build a waste-to-energy incinerator in western Sydney, Australian Dial-a-Dump billionaire Ian Malouf is pushing to build one on Fiji’s prized west coast that would burn up to 700,000 tonnes of imported garbage.

“Mr Malouf said his proposal had the backing of Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and his cabinet, and that ‘just a few selfish people don’t want it in their backyard’,” The Australian reported.

Rabuka’s Environment Minister Lynda Tabuya said at the time that the claims in The Australian report were “not accurate” and that cabinet had not approved the project, according to an FBC News report.

A ‘toxic’ project
Fiji’s Ambassador to the United Nations Filipo Tarakinikini, in a social media post on 20 April 20, described the project as “a toxic one”.

“If this project could not meet Australia’s environmental and health standards — and was rejected after seven years of scrutiny by one of the most sophisticated planning systems in the world — why should Fiji, with far less regulatory infrastructure, accept it?,” he wrote.

“Fiji must not become the Pacific’s ashtray,” he said.

The Environment Ministry said the public should “respect the process” and allow it “the space to complete its work in accordance with the law”.

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

How insane is it that, a Theocracy is winning the propaganda war against a Democracy?

How badly has Trump screwed up when religious zealots are beating you in the marketing game?

It’s not just the social media meme burns where Iran is winning, they are actually winning the war strategically.

• READ MORE: ‘Vengeance for all’: How Iran’s Lego videos won narrative war against Trump

Trump’s inane decision to get conned into an illegal war against Iran by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has swiftly become the biggest geopolitical blunder since Vietnam.

By shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, Iran finally has a weapon that is forcing Trump to back down.

Here’s the future timeline:

• Late May – June 2026
  → noticeable fuel price increases globally
• July – September 2026
  → inflation spike, food costs rising
• Late 2026
  → real economic slowdown / recession risk

Causing global economic pain is the only way the Iranian regime can force Trump to stop the violence.

If this is still blocked come the midterms, Trump and the Republicans are finished and he’ll be swamped with impeachments attempts.

Iran’s information war at home and abroad  Video: Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post

There is NO WAY Iran are giving that leverage up now they have been forced to use it.

For the Theocracy, Trump’s insanity has opened an unexpected door to not only have all the damage rebuilt but the economic sanctions off as well.

Did you read that?

Trump has given the Theocracy the chance to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people they have repressed.

If the Iranians can force America and Israel to agree not to attack them again, pay for all the damage they caused and lift economic sanctions, they will gain legitimacy with the Iranian population they could never have dreamt of.

There’s no way they are handing over the Strait, so Trump either surrenders or nukes the entire Iranian coastline.

Martyn Bradbury is the editor and publisher of New Zealand’s The Daily Blog. Republished with permission.

A Papua New Guinea National Court ruling to overturn a ban on Starlink has been widely welcomed, fresh off the back of a natural disaster which highlighted the need for low-orbit satellite services in the country.

Last December, the National Information and Communications Technology Authority (NICTA) announced that the Starlink network’s parent company, SpaceX, had been instructed to cease all services in PNG due to a directive from the Ombudsman Commission.

But a court ruling on Friday quashed this, paving the way for NICTA to liaise with Starlink to approve its licence to operate in PNG.

• READ MORE: Other Starlink reports

This is good news for many Papua New Guineans in remote and rural parts of the country who struggle for reliable telecommunication services.

Earlier this month, Tropical Cyclone Maila caused major damage to various provinces in PNG. During the Category 5 storm, when VHF radio services were down, broadband internet services provided a vital communication link for some affected communities.

Disaster experience
Prime Minister James Marape said the court decision provided clarity and allows the country to move ahead with practical solutions to improve telecommunications services.

“Our recent disaster experience has shown us clearly that communication is no longer a luxury — it is a necessity,” Marape said in a statement.

“When communities are cut off during cyclones, floods, earthquakes, or other emergencies, lives can depend on real-time communication. We must ensure our people are never isolated in times of crisis.”

Jelta Wong, the MP for Gazelle Open in East New Britain, one of the parts of PNG badly affected by Cyclone Maila, said Starlink should be allowed to operate since not all of PNG can get service.

“As we have seen in the past month with Cyclone Malia causing havoc on all coastal hamlets, if we had Starlink in strategic areas in the remote parts of Papua New Guinea we could have planned a much quicker and better response,” Wong said.

Game changer
The Governor of East Sepik Province, Allan Bird, said an easily accessible and affordable service like that which Starlink provided was “absolutely indispensable” in most parts of PNG outside of the capital.

“You see, my province is bigger than Fiji. So getting access to rural communities is extremely expensive, extremely difficult. With something like Starlink, we can have things like tele medicals,” Byrd said.

He said the ratio of doctors to people in East Sepik was around 22,000 people to one doctor.

“So having things like Starlink changes the game, because you can have a doctor sitting in our provincial capital, talking to someone trying to do a delivery in a location that’s 50 minutes away by plane. So it’s absolutely critical.”

Wong also pointed out that Starlink’s services would make service delivery more accessible, helping people trade and do banking from remote locations, creating opportunities for rural people to achieve goals.

‘Coordinated rollout’
In early 2024, the commission blocked licensing efforts for Starlink, arguing that existing regulations may not be adequate to manage potential risks to public interest and safety.

But in her National Court ruling last week, Judge Susan Purdon-Sully strongly criticised the Ombudsman Commission for its move to halt Starlink’s licence process.

Finding no breach of PNG’s leadership code, nor evidence of corruption, the judge said the Ombudsman’s concerns were more administrative, meaning its directive to NICTA had been “an unconstitutional exercise of power”.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister again urged Starlink to work collaboratively with state-owned Telikom PNG to “ensure a coordinated rollout that complements national infrastructure priorities”.

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

If Iran succeeds in extracting reparations for the damage done to it in the US-Israeli war, it will be a world historic moment.

Iran may be bloodied but it remains unbowed and is seeking compensation from the Arab states over “direct involvement” in the US-Israeli war of aggression.

Iran sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this month outlining its claim against Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan. They also intend to apply a transit toll on the Strait of Hormuz as an instrument of restorative justice.

• READ MORE: Iran’s FM arrives in Russia as Strait of Hormuz remains closed
• Other US-Israel war on Iran reports

Under international law — if anyone still pays attention to such things — the Iranians have a strong case. What will determine if justice is done, however, is victory over the aggressors.

More than 100 US-based international law experts, professors, and practitioners have released a letter stating that the United States and Israel violated the UN Charter by launching strikes on Iran on February 28. The signatories include leaders of prominent international law associations and former Judge Advocates General — the top legal advisors to the US armed forces. They cite the complete lack of evidence of an imminent Iranian threat that could support a self-defence claim.

Under international law the aggressor is responsible for all the destruction that follows. The white-dominated Western countries like the US, Australia and New Zealand should stop banging on about the illegality of Iran taking control of the Strait and address the root causes of why it did so.

The case against the Arab states
In the early days of the war, radar systems operating from these countries were fully engaged in the war. Thousands of US troops were operating from 14 US bases in their territories.

Attack planes, refuelling planes and aerial surveillance planes all operated from bases like Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd Air Base, as reported by Middle East Eye. Major Western outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times documented missile launches and multiple other ways Jordan and the Gulf States were directly involved in the war despite the mainstream media portraying them as innocent bystanders and victims of Iranian aggression.

Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have both described the Gulf States as fighting “shoulder to shoulder” with the US and Israel. In filing their letter with the UN the Iranians have also provided satellite and other data to support their claim.

Iran argues that the Arab states, under international law, are co-belligerents. The UN’s International Law Commission (ILC) Articles on State Responsibility (2001) defines the concept of “Aid or Assistance” in the commission of an internationally wrongful act. It is not hard for Iran to prove that these states did not maintain neutrality.

In reality, for Iran to get justice, deterrence and reparations, there is no international body or court to turn to; it must win by making a continuation too painful for the aggressors.

There are signs it might just succeed. Iran has achieved something few on the Western side anticipated: the destruction of most of the US bases. Marc Lynch, director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University told Middle East Eye, “The bases around the region are suffering real damage, and I think it’s very unlikely that we’re ever going to go back and put our Fifth Fleet back in Bahrain. It’s too vulnerable.

“This is the physical architecture of American primacy, and Iran has essentially rendered it useless in the span of a month.”

The War on Iran is a long way from finished. Even if the ceasefire holds, the Israelis and Americans will see this only as a stage in their multi-decade project to wreck Iran as a major regional competitor.

The victims are usually the ones who must pay
At the end of imperial wars, the victims are traditionally made to pay.

In the 19th Century, the British fought the Chinese over the latter’s resistance to the British government’s lucrative opium trade into China. The imperialists won and imposed the infamous Unequal Treaties on China, including awarding to Britain the island of Hong Kong.

Queen Victoria even shamelessly named a stolen Pekingese dog “Lootie” after the British sacking of Beijing’s Summer Palace, one of the great cultural crimes of history.

When the genocidal US war on Vietnam ended, decades of harsh US sanctions on their victims began. As the US moved towards accepting it had lost the war, Nixon promised $3.3 billion in reconstruction aid under the Paris Peace Accords (1973). The Americans never paid a cent.

The US also pressured the IMF, World Bank, and UN agencies to block Hanoi’s applications for loans, seriously retarding reconstruction.

When the slave revolt in Hispaniola (present day-Haiti) drove out the French, the Western powers returned in force a few years later and imposed harsh “reparations” for being dispossessed of their “stolen” land and humans. From 1825, Haiti was forced to pay 150 million francs to France to compensate former slaveholders for their “lost property”. This debt was only fully paid off in 1947, permanently crippling the nation.

The US-Israeli war on Iran is something different. Iran, like the Vietnamese, the Algerians and the Indians may have what it takes to prevail over imperial aggression. Iran may also have something different: the power to impose reparations on the aggressor.

Across the West we are subjected to the astonishing chutzpah of Western leaders decrying the “illegality” of Iran’s declaration of sovereignty over the Hormuz Strait in response to the war launched against them. These same leaders stood silent and complicit and lifted no more than an eyebrow as hundreds of Iranian schoolchildren were killed, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure destroyed, and leader after leader were assassinated.

Cowards, all of them, they at best offered whispered rebukes when Trump threatened the destruction of Iranian civilisation in a single night. But tax a barrel of oil and “Oh my god, this is intolerable!”

Iran has every right to insist on reparations but they will only come about if Iran succeeds in imposing its position on the belligerents. The Israelis and Americans are unlikely to face justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC) or International Court of Justice (ICJ), so reparations must be extracted from the other enabling states like the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and France. It is an elegant solution.

One thing the Iranians will hopefully recover soon is their stolen money. Experts estimate more than $100 billion remains blocked in foreign banks (including in the US, Qatar, South Korea, and Iraq).

We should remember that since 1979 the Western world has grievously damaged Iran’s economy via sanctions and the weaponisation of international trading systems, as well as blocking its integration within the community of nations.

A world historic moment is possible
If Iran succeeds in extracting reparations, it will be a world historic moment. It will be an achievement that will benefit countries around the globe which are similarly assailed by major powers. Nuclear powers like the US and Israel should respect the territorial integrity of non-nuclear states. They have done the opposite — and should face consequences.

For these reasons and more, I hope the Iranian government succeeds in its historic mission to preserve the territorial integrity of the sovereign state of Iran and that they can receive just compensation for the terrible crimes committed against them.

I will give the last word to Mohaddeseh Fallahat, a mother who spoke to the UN Human Rights Council this month about losing her daughter to a US airstrike at Minab at the very start of the US-Israeli war on Iran:

“As they walked out the door, they simply said, Mum, come pick us up after school. That simple sentence now repeats in my mind a thousand times. Each time my heart burns with pain. No mother ever thinks she will send her child off to school with a smile, only to be met with silence.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and hosts solidarity.co.nz

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

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

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

• READ MORE: Other Fiji security reports

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.