With all the setbacks of recent years, Vanuatu’s citizenship sale schemes should be dead in the water — instead they are thriving, and geopolitical chaos is playing a part.

The citizenship-by-investment sector is the biggest single revenue earner for Vanuatu’s government, but lingering issues of integrity cast a shadow over it.

In 2024, when Vanuatu became the first country to lose its European Union visa-free access over concerns about its golden passport scheme, there were fears it would be a huge blow to the sector.

• READ MORE: Other Vanuatu passport sale reports

But designated agents for Vanuatu’s citizenship programmes have told RNZ Pacific this has not necessarily hurt them much, as their product has other benefits and passport holders can still apply to access Europe.

However, Vanuatu’s continued inclusion on an EU anti-money laundering blacklist hurts more, Francesca Grillon of approved agent Yawha & Associates said.

Currency hassles
Grillon said the decision to stop visa-free entry was not a major downfall for the citizenship programme.

“I think the main issue we are having is the blacklisting from Europe, because that that is an obstacle for receiving funds in foreign currency,” she said.

This issue came to a head last September when the Commonwealth Bank of Australia — which served as the correspondent bank for the National Bank of Vanuatu — advised it would no longer facilitate transfers for certified agents in the citizenship programmes

Melten Menauke of Smart Citizenship Vanuatu explained that this left the government in a bind over how it collects the donations and fees that foreign applicants pay.

“The National Bank is still looking for a correspondent bank to accept US dollars. I don’t know what is happening with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

“US currency was the first one they blocked, and now they are no longer accepting [Australian dollars]. They’re only accepting Japanese yen,” he said, adding that this created costly hurdles for agents and applicants alike.

But integrity issues are not just creating pressure on Vanuatu’s citizenship sector internationally.

‘Nobody trusts anyone’
A Commission of Inquiry into the citizenship programmes was initiated by Vanuatu’s government in 2024 following concerns about corrupt practices involving the sale of citizenship and misuse of the programmes for personal and political gain.

But the inquiry report has still not been made public, eight months after it was officially handed to the government. As calls for its release continue, Jenny Ligo, the chairperson of Women Against Crime and Corruption in Vanuatu, said citizenship schemes had been misled by political interests.

“That programme needs to be taken out totally. Because most of the projects under programmes in Vanuatu, it always ties in with pollitics and politicians,” Ligo said.

“This is all wrong. We need neutral people to run these programmes. But at the moment nobody trusts anyone.”

Vanuatu’s government has had a lot to contend with in the last few years, including responding to major disasters — earthquakes and cyclones — and the challenge of creating much-needed political reform. However, addressing the integrity problems of the citizenship-by-investment schemes is high on its priotiy list

Grillon said the government had been taking the right steps to improve compliance with regulations and rules, including strengthening the Financial Intelligence Unit which screens applicants.

“There’s a lot of effort, both from the high level government and directorship and public servants, in trying to really follow the international advice, and the newly introduced laws and doing everything properly.”

In demand
Overall, the sector is doing well. According to the Vanuatu Daily Post, citizenship sale receipts made up the bulk of the US$31 million in revenue in the past year — 24.3 percent more than what was forecast, with around 2000 foreigners granted citizenship last year.

Interest remains strong in several foreign markets, Norman Joseph of JG Marketing, Consulting and Recruitment Agency said.

“We have Chinese, we have Indonesians, we have Russians. Most of them are from different countries but they also have passports from different countries,” Joseph said.

“So they come in, for example, some might be Chinese but they also have a Mexican passport, so they apply from a Mexican passport.”

Ros Stanford of designated agent Stanford Knight said the Vanuatu passport was attractive for a variety of reasons.

“So, either for visa free travel — so global mobility is one option; for those that actually physically want to reside for tax benefits; and then we have a lot of clients currently who just want a safe like a Plan B, a safe alternative residence, in case things turn to custard globally.”

On the latter reason, Stanford said they had seen an uptick in the last couple of years, a reflection of ongoing ruptures in the global geopolitical order.

Even without visa-free access to Europe, and despite the concerns of ni-Vanuatu about its commodification, Vanuatu Citizenship is in demand — and agents tout it as one of the fastest citizenships to get any where in the world.

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

For Doddy Morris, a journalist with the Vanuatu Daily Post, the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Vanuatu last month on December 17, 2024, was more than just a story — it was a personal tragedy.

Amid the chaos, Morris learned his brother, an Anglican priest, had died.

“My mom called me crying and asked, ‘Did your brother die?’. I wasn’t sure and told her I was heading to Vila Central Hospital right away,” he recalled.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu election 2025: Earthquake aftershocks expose high cost of democracy
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

Morris arrived at the hospital to confirm the worst. “My heart sank when I confirmed that my brother had indeed passed away. At that moment, I forgot about my job.”

Despite his grief, Morris joined his remaining brothers at the hospital mortuary that night, staying by their deceased sibling’s side and mourning together. “We were the only ones there. We spent the whole night drinking kava outside while he lay in the cool room,” he said.

The quake — which claimed 14 lives, injured more than 265 people, and displaced more than 1000 — left an indelible mark on Port Vila and its residents. Infrastructure damage was extensive, with schools, homes, and water reserves destroyed, and the Central Business District (CBD) heavily impacted.

In the days following the earthquake, Morris returned to his role as a reporter, capturing the unfolding crisis despite the emotional toll. “When the earthquake struck, I thought I was going to die myself,” he said. Yet, minutes after the tremor subsided, he grabbed his camera and rushed to the CBD.

At the heart of the destruction, he witnessed harrowing scenes. “I was shocked to see the collapsed Billabong building. A body lay covered with a blue tarpaulin, and Pro Rescue teams were trying to save others who were trapped inside,” Morris recounted.

The lack of a network connection frustrated his efforts to report live, but he pressed on, documenting the damage.

A month after the disaster, Morris continues to cover the aftermath as Vanuatu transitions from emergency response to recovery. “A month has passed since the earthquake, but the memories remain fresh. We don’t know when Port Vila will return to normal,” he said.

His photojournalism has been demonstrating the true impact of the earthquake as he continues to capture the mourning of a nation after such a tragic event.

The earthquake left deep scars, not only on the nation’s infrastructure but also on its people. “Unlike cyclones, which we can predict, prepare for, and survive, earthquakes strike without warning and show no mercy,” Morris said.

Through grief and uncertainty, Morris remains committed to his work, documenting the resilience of his community and the challenges they face as they rebuild. His reporting serves as a testament to the strength of both the people of Vanuatu and a journalist who continues to bear witness, even in the face of personal loss.

Reporting on his own community while grappling with personal loss is a reality for many Pacific Island journalists who cover disasters. For Doddy Morris, reporting on the traumatic events of the earthquake meant confronting his own grief while documenting the grief of others.

Dr Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson is a Pacific journalism trainer with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. She expresses her support for Morris and his colleagues in showing “extraordinary courage and resilience”. This article was first published by The New Atoll and is republished with permission.

New Zealand’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) says impending bad weather for Port Vila is now the most significant post-quake hazard.

A tropical low in the Coral Sea is expected to move into Vanuatu waters, bringing heavy rainfall.

Authorities have issued warnings to people living near landslide-prone areas around the Vanuatu capital.

• READ MORE: Quake-shocked New Caledonian children repatriated from Vanuatu
• Vanuatu snap election pushed back after earthquake
• Vanuatu earthquake: Last repatriation from Port Vila, water in short supply
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

People living near low lying areas or rivers have also been told to move, should water levels rise.

The heavy rain may also cause flash flooding.

USAR team leader Ken Cooper said last Tuesday’s 7.3 earthquake caused significant landslides.

“With the weather system that’s coming in, there is a high likelihood that the landslides continue and we need to ensure that there’s no life risks if those landslides should move further,” Cooper said.

Death toll now 12
Aftershocks have continued, and early this morning, the US Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 6.1 quake, at a depth of 40km west of Port Vila.

New Zealand and Vanuatu engineers were assessing prioritised areas in the capital, and a decision would then be made as to whether a community needed to be evacuated, Cooper said.

Since the team had been in Vanuatu, it had taken damage assessments of buildings and infrastructure, with the Vanuatu government, allowing them to prioritise the biggest risks and to assist the community in recovering more quickly, he said.

The official death toll from Vanuatu’s 7.3 magnitude quake is now 12 according to the Vanuatu Disaster Management office.

This has been confirmed by the Vila Central Hospital.

Earlier unofficial reports had placed the death toll at 16.

The team had completed almost 1000 assessments, alongside the Australia USAR team, which was a significant task, Cooper said.

Both teams shared common tools and practices, which had allowed them to work simultaneously and helped the teams to quickly carry out the assessments, he said.

“When we undertake the assessments that really gives us a clear picture of what should be prioritised and we work with the [Vanuatu] government and their infrastructure cluster, and some of the priorities we have looked at are bridges, [the] airport, the port, and also landslides,” he said.

Resilience shown by locals
The deployment lead for New Zealand in Vanuatu praised the resilience of the Ni-Vanuatu people following the 7.3 earthquake.

Thousands of people had been affected by the disaster but the response effort was being hampered by damage to core infrastructure including the country’s telecommunications network.

Emma Dunlop-Bennett said the New Zealand teams on the ground were working in partnership with the Vanuatu government.

She said she was in awe of the strength of locals after the disaster.

“As we go out into communities, working . . .  with the government, people are out there, getting up and doing what they can to get themselves into business as usual, life as usual. I am really in awe and humbled.

The purpose of the New Zealand team being in Vanuatu was three-fold: To provide urgent and critical humanitarian assistance, a response for consular need to New Zealanders, and to support a smooth transition from relief, response to recovery, Dunlop-Bennett said.

Then to business as usual, working along side the priority need identified by the Vanuatu government, she added.

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

Twenty New Caledonian children who suffered the shock of Port Vila’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake have been repatriated from Vanuatu on board a French military CASA aircraft.

The special operation was conducted on Thursday, as part of relief operations conducted by the Nouméa-based French Armed Forces in New Caledonia in response to the destructive quake that shook the Vanuatu capital, where several buildings have collapsed.

The group of children, from northern New Caledonia (Népoui, Koné, Pouembout, and Poia), are aged between 8 and 14.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu snap election pushed back after earthquake
• Vanuatu earthquake: Last repatriation from Port Vila, water in short supply
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

They were visiting Vanuatu as part of a holiday camp organised by their sports association.

They were supervised by four adults.

One of them, Melissa Rangassamy, told local Radio Rythme Bleu upon arrival in Nouméa that the group was having a picnic on a Port Vila beach when the ground started to shake violently.

“Children were falling to the ground, everyone was falling all around, it was panic. We told the children not to move. At the time, they were in shock.

“We gathered them all, put them on the buses, and went straight up to a higher place,” she said.

“It’s so good to come back home.”

More evacuation flights
The French High Commission in New Caledonia said a special psychological assistance unit was available to anyone who should need help.

More flights to evacuate French nationals would be carried out of Port Vila to New Caledonia, French Ambassador to Vanuatu Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer said.

Vanuatu hosts a significant French community, estimated at more than 3300 French citizens, including from New Caledonia.

New Caledonia is also home to a strong ni-Vanuatu community of about 5000.

One French national confirmed among fatalities
A Vanuatu-born French citizen has been confirmed dead.

He was found under the rubble of one of the hardest-hit buildings in central Port Vila.

He has been identified as Vincent Goiset, who belongs to a long-established, affluent Vanuatu family of Vietnamese origin.

The total death toll from the December 17 earthquake stood at 15 on Friday, but was still likely to rise.

France, Australia and New Zealand: 100 percent ‘FRANZ’
Both Australia and New Zealand, through their armed forces, have deployed relief — including urban search and rescue teams — in a bid to find survivors under the collapsed buildings.

The two countries are part of a tripartite set-up called “FRANZ” (France, Australia, New Zealand).

Signed in 1992, the agreement enforces a policy of systematic coordination between the three armed forces when they operate to bring assistance to Pacific island countries affected by a natural disaster.

As part of the FRANZ set-up, the French contribution included an initial reconnaissance flight from its Nouméa-based Falcon-200 jet (known as the Gardian) at daybreak on Wednesday, mostly to assess the Bauerfield airport.

Port Vila is only 500km away from Nouméa.

Later that day, a French PUMA helicopter transported emergency relief and personnel (including experts in buildings structural assessment, telecom and essential supplies such as water and electricity) to Port Vila to further assess the situation.

The small military CASA aircraft also operated a number of rotations between Nouméa and Port Vila, bringing more relief supplies (including food rations, water, and IT equipment) and returning with evacuees.

The French High Commission also said if needed, a Nouméa-based surveillance frigate Vendémiaire and the overseas assistance vessel d’Entrecasteaux were placed on stand-by mode “ready to set sail from Nouméa to Vanuatu within 72 and 96 hours, respectively”.

Embassies ‘flattened’
Following the Tuesday quake, four embassies in Port Vila (New Zealand, United Kingdom, the United States and France), all under the same roof, had been temporarily relocated to their respective chiefs of mission.

Their offices, once located in a three-storey building, collapsed and were “flattened”, the French ambassador said.

Vanuatu’s caretaker Prime Minister Charlot Salwaï has announced a state of emergency at least until Christmas and the Vanuatu snap election has been postponed from January 14 to 16.

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

Vanuatu is taking stock of damage from a powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake that has killed at least 14 people and collapsed buildings in the capital Port Vila, as the first trickle of international assistance began arriving in the disaster-prone Pacific nation.

The quake rattled the island nation, located about 1900km northeast of the Australian city of Brisbane, not long after midday on Tuesday, sending people in restaurants and shops running into the streets of Port Vila.

The National Disaster Management office said in a report that 14 people had been confirmed dead and 200 treated for injuries, with the numbers expected to increase.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu quake: Services still down nearly 24 hours after Port Vila hit
• Vanuatu quake: Death toll rises – 14 dead, hundreds hurt in 7.3 disaster
• NZ rescue teams head for Vanuatu

Of those killed, six died in a landslide, four at the Vila Central Hospital and four in the Billabong building, which collapsed in downtown Port Vila.

Two Chinese nationals were among the dead, Chinese Ambassador to Vanuatu Li Minggang told state media yesterday.

On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Charlot Salwai declared a week-long state of emergency and set a curfew of 6 pm to 6 am.

Rescue efforts are focused on downtown Port Vila on the main island Efate, where the NDMO said at least 10 buildings, including one housing multiple diplomatic missions, suffered major structural damage.

Survivors trapped
Emergency teams worked through the night in a bid to find survivors trapped in the rubble, using heavy machinery such as excavators and cranes, along with shovels and hand grinders, videos posted to social media showed.

Two major commercial buildings, the Wong store and the Billabong shop, collapsed in the quake, according to Basil Leodoro, a surgeon and director of Helpr-1 Operations at Respond Global in Vanuatu.

“Vanuatu Mobile Force, ProRescue and ambulance teams are helping to remove casualties from the wreckage. So far they’ve been able to pull two,” said Leodoro in a social post yesterday morning, citing official reports.

“There are several others reported to be missing, still under the wreckage, coming to a total of about seven.”

People wounded in the disaster are being treated at two health facilities, the Vila Central Hospital and a second health clinic opened at the Vanuatu Mobile Force (VMF) base at Cooks Barracks, he said.

“From the initial reports at Vila Central Hospital, we know the hospital is overrun with casualties being brought in,” Leodoro said.

“The emergency team at the hospital have been working overnight to try to handle the number of casualties and walking wounded that are coming in, with triage being performed outside.”

“There are 14 confirmed deaths, and that number is likely to rise.”

‘Ring of Fire’
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update that there was damage to the hospital and the “operating theatre is non-functional, and overall healthcare capacity is overwhelmed.”

Vanuatu, an archipelago that straddles the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire,” is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world and is frequently hit by cyclones, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The UN agency estimated 116,000 people could be affected by this earthquake.

The government reported damage to power lines and water supplies in urban areas, while telecommunications were down, with Starlink providing the main form of connectivity to the outside world.

“Two major water reserves in the Ohlen area which supplies water to Port Vila are totally destroyed and will need reconstruction,” the NDMO said on Tuesday.

The Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation (VBTC) said in a statement that its facilities were damaged in the quake and it was operating only a limited radio service.

Australia, New Zealand and France said they had dispatched aid and emergency response teams to Vanuatu and were helping to assess the extent of damage.

Airport closed
Airports Vanuatu CEO Jason Rakau said the airport was closed for commercial airplanes for 72 hours to allow humanitarian flights to land, VBTC reported.

A post on X from France’s ambassador to Vanuatu, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, showed that three military engineers with satellite communications equipment had arrived by helicopter from the French territory of New Caledonia.

Aid supplies are already stationed in locations across Vanuatu as part of their disaster preparations, Katie Greenwood, head of the Pacific delegation at the Red Cross, said in another post to X.

Glen Craig, the chairman of the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council, said most damage was centered within 5km of Port Vila’s central business district.

“In terms of residential housing, it is far, far less significant than a cyclone,” he told BenarNews.

Most damage to businesses would be insurable, but of more concern would be a loss of income from tourism, he said.

“If tourists keep coming, we’re going to be okay,” he said. “If tourists just suddenly decide it’s all too hard, we’re in a bit of trouble.”

Vanuatu is home to about 300,000 on its 13 main islands and many smaller ones.

Its government declared a six-month national emergency early last year after it was hit by back-to-back tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin and a 6.5 magnitude earthquake within several days.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

World Vision’s Vanuatu country director says electricity and water are still affected in the capital Port Vila and strategic bridges connecting the city are damaged, nearly 24 hours after a 7.3 earthquake just before 1pm on Tuesday afternoon.

The city has had multiple aftershocks since, with the strongest this morning reaching a magnitude 5.5.

At least 14 people are confirmed to have been killed and more than 200 people are injured.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu quake: Death toll rises – 14 dead, hundreds hurt in 7.3 disaster
• Buildings ‘pancaked’ in Vanuatu as 7.3 magnitude quake strikes off capital Port Vila
• Powerful 7.3 magnitude quake strikes Vanuatu – serious damage in Vila
• Violent’ earthquake strikes Vanuatu — at least one reported dead
• RNZ live news: Vanuatu earthquake updates
• ABC: Why earthquakes are more common in places such as Vanuatu

World Vision’s Clement Chipokolo said the aftershocks are making everyone more vulnerable.

“We’re still out of electricity; we’re out of water as well and most of the stores are closed,” Chipokolo said.

“We have queues that are forming in the stores that are open for people to get essentials, especially water.”

He said the main priority is to recover those buried under rubble and recover bodies, while service providers were frantically trying to restore water and power.

He said the public was starting to come to grips with what had happened.

“I think we did not really gauge the scale of the impact yesterday, but now the public are sucking it in — how much we went through yesterday and by extension today.”

Vanuatu is one of the most natural disaster-prone countries in the world. It was hit by three severe tropical cyclones last year.

“We are a country that’s quite resilient to disasters but this was not a disaster that we anticipated or probably prepared for,” Chipokolo said.

However, he said the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO). which is the government arm that manages disasters, were on standby to support because of the cyclone season.

RNZ News also reports that help is slowly arriving, with incoming support from New Zealand, Australia and France. The airport in Port Vila is not operational other than for humanitarian assistance.

There are concerns about a lack of safe drinking water and Unicef Vanuatu Field Office Eric Durpaire told RNZ Midday Report there had been an increase in cases of diarrhoea.

Two Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff previously unaccounted for have been found safe.

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

My friend Jamie just shared this video of the moment the earthquake struck his home. Amazing. pic.twitter.com/FaR24r2DeJ

— Dan McGarry (@VanuatuDan) December 18, 2024

Vanuatu is now in a state of emergency with at least 14 confirmed deaths following a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck the capital Port Vila yesterday, followed by
a 6.1 quake and other after shocks today.

According to the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) in Vanuatu, more than 200 people were injured, with the numbers expected to rise.

The NDMO also reported that 10 buildings were damaged, included a building that housed the embassies of the United States and the United Kingdom, and the New Zealand High Commission.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu quake: Death toll rises – 14 dead, hundreds hurt in 7.3 disaster
• Buildings ‘pancaked’ in Vanuatu as 7.3 magnitude quake strikes off capital Port Vila
• Powerful 7.3 magnitude quake strikes Vanuatu – serious damage in Vila
• Violent’ earthquake strikes Vanuatu — at least one reported dead
• RNZ live news: Vanuatu earthquake updates
• ABC: Why earthquakes are more common in places such as Vanuatu

The Joint Police Operation Centre is assisting with search and rescue operations, including the planned deployment of medical teams equipped with heavy machinery. Efforts to restore power and water supplies are also ongoing, the NDMO added.

Meanwhile, Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said in a statement that his country stood ready to help in any way it could.

“I extend my sincere condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones, and I wish those injured a quick recovery,” said Rabuka.

Although Port Vila airport remained closed to commercial flights, aerial assessments were underway.

The Head of Delegation for the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) Pacific, Katie Greenwood, shared in a post on X that their Emergency Operations Centre was now active, with staff and volunteers working tirelessly to assist those affected by the earthquake.

The University of the South Pacific (USP) has also expressed its sympathies to Vanuatu.

In an advisory, USP stated that its Emalus Campus would remain closed, following advice from the Campus DISMAC Committee. The closure would enable essential teams to assess and repair damage while national authorities address public infrastructure concerns.

Rescue operation continue in Port Vila, Vanuatu (it is 3:45am)
3 people have been pulled out of rubble alive, with one of them in serious condition.
All the staff from American Embassy is safe. #earthquake #sismo #Vanuatu #terremoto pic.twitter.com/oDVUjvJYci

— Disasters Daily (@DisastersAndI) December 17, 2024

Personnel from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Pacific are on the ground in Vanuatu and are collaborating with the government, civil society organisations, and development partners to support immediate response efforts.

UNICEF, in a social media update, said it has already dispatched first aid kits and Interagency Emergency Health Kits (IEHK) to health facilities. It added that prepositioned supplies, including WASH, child protection, health, ECD, nutrition, and education kits, along with tents and first aid kits, are ready for distribution to reach at least 3000 people.

The UNICEF Vanuatu field office, comprising 19 staff and consultants, was working with local authorities and partners to assess the extent of the damage and determine response needs.

Published in partnership with the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme’s Wansolwara News.

The death toll from Vanuatu’s 7.3 earthquake is expected to rise because concrete buildings have collapsed with people inside in the capital Port Vila.

International Federation of Red Cross Pacific head of delegation Katie Greenwood posted on X that the Vanuatu government was reporting 14 confirmed fatalities and 200 people were treated for injuries at the main hospital in Port Vila.

Rescue efforts to retrieve people trapped by fallen buildings and rubble have continued overnight.

• READ MORE: Buildings ‘pancaked’ in Vanuatu as 7.3 magnitude quake strikes off capital Port Vila
• Powerful 7.3 magnitude quake strikes Vanuatu – serious damage in Vila
• Violent’ earthquake strikes Vanuatu — at least one reported dead
• RNZ live news: Vanuatu earthquake updates
• ABC: Why earthquakes are more common in places such as Vanuatu

Vanuatu Government is reporting 14 confirmed fatalities and 200 treated for injuries at main hospital in Port Vila. Local humanitarian network activated and @vanuaturedcross leads the Shelter response with Government and support from @ifrc

— Katie Greenwood (@KatiegIFRC) December 17, 2024

In a press conference, caretaker Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai said a State of Emergency and curfew were in place in the worst affected areas.

“Urgently request international assistance,” he said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated 116,000 people had been affected by the quake and earlier said there were six unconfirmed deaths.

Vanuatu has been experiencing aftershocks following Tuesday’s quake, the ABC reports.

The New Zealand High Commission was among buildings that have been damaged.

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

• Follow RNZ News live blog for updates

Rescue operation continue in Port Vila, Vanuatu (it is 3:45am)
3 people have been pulled out of rubble alive, with one of them in serious condition.
All the staff from American Embassy is safe. #earthquake #sismo #Vanuatu #terremoto pic.twitter.com/oDVUjvJYci

— Disasters Daily (@DisastersAndI) December 17, 2024

A strong 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Vanuatu today, US geologists said, severely damaging a number of buildings in the capital, crushing cars and briefly triggering a tsunami warning.

Witnesses described a “violent shake” and widespread damage to Port Vila, located about 1900km northeast of the Australian city of Brisbane.

The Pacific island nation is ranked as one of the world’s most at-risk countries from natural disasters and extreme weather events, including cyclones and volcanic eruptions.

• READ MORE: Powerful 7.3 magnitude quake strikes Vanuatu – serious damage in Vila
• Violent’ earthquake strikes Vanuatu — at least one reported dead
• RNZ live news: Large 7.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near Vanuatu
• ABC: Why earthquakes are more common in places such as Vanuatu

Michael Thompson, an adventure tour operator based in the capital, said the quake was “bigger than anything” he had felt in his 20 years living in Vanuatu.

“I was caught in the office with my colleague,” he told BenarNews. “When we came outside, it was just chaos everywhere. There have been a couple of buildings that have pancaked.

“You can hear noises and kind of muffled screams inside.”

Video footage taken by Thompson outside the US embassy showed the bottom floor of the building in downtown Port Vila had partially collapsed. Its windows are buckled and the foundations have been turned to rubble.

“It looks dangerous’
“We stood there yelling out to see if there was anyone inside the building,” Thompson said. “It looks really dangerous.”

The building also hosts the British, French and New Zealand missions.

Just down the main road from the embassy building, search and rescue teams were trying to force their way into a commercial building through the tin roof, Thompson said, but at the pace they were going it would be a “24 hour operation”.

Bottom line: It’s bad. People died, and many more were hurt. Some have lost their home, and many will find it hard to get back to work. Repairs will likely stretch for years, as they always do in the wake of disaster.

— Dan McGarry (@VanuatuDan) December 17, 2024

“We need help. We need medical evacuation and we need qualified rescue personnel. That’s the message,” he said.

The quake was recorded at a depth of 43km and centered 30km west of the capital Port-Vila, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The US Tsunami Warning System cancelled an initial tsunami warning for coastal communities in Vanuatu within 300km of the epicenter.

The quake hit the island nation not long after midday, coming into peak tourist season, when the streets of Port Vila were packed with people shopping and eating in restaurants, Thompson said.

One dead body
He had seen at least one dead body among the rubble.

“The police are out trying to keep people back,” he said. “But it’s a pretty big situation here.”

In other videos posted online people can be seen running through the streets of the capital past shop fronts that had fallen onto cars. Elsewhere, a cliff behind the container port in Port Vila appears to have collapsed.

Dan McGarry, a Port Vila-based journalist, described the earthquake on social platform X as a “violent, high frequency vertical shake” that lasted about 30 seconds, adding the power was out around the city.

Vanuatu, home to about 300,000 on its 13 main islands and many smaller ones, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it straddles the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

Vanuatu’s government declared a six-month national emergency early last year after it was hit by back-to-back tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin and a 6.5 magnitude earthquake within several days.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

A Pacific leader in New Zealand’s South Island wants the future government to prioritise bridging the Pacific pay-gap.

Reverend Alofa Lale said her church community in Dunedin struggled to afford basic needs and said people needed higher wages to survive.

“There is a big Pacific pay gap that needs to be bridged and bring wages up to parity with non-Pacific.”

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Bridging the Pacific pay gap
• Other Pacific pay gap reports

A Pacific Pay Gap Inquiry found that in 2021, for every dollar earned by a Pākehā man, Pacific men were paid 81 cents and Pacific women 75 cents, making them the lowest on the pay scale.

The call for better working conditions and equal pay for Pacific workers dates back to the 1970s, led by the Polynesian Panthers, and still continues today.

The demand comes as Pacific community leaders in the South Island have weighed in on the political debate as New Zealand heads for an election on October 14.

The South Island has one of the fastest-growing Pacific populations in the country.

Thriving Pacific community
The town of Oamaru has a thriving Pacific community, which makes up 20 percent of the town’s population of 14,000.

The largest town in the Waitaki District boasts a large Tongan community followed by the second largest Tuvalu and then Fijian and Samoan.

Hana Halalele, Waitaki District’s first Pasifika deputy mayor, said the Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group is the go-to hub for many Pasifika there.

Many of those families have come from Auckland for work, with many taking up jobs in the dairy and horticulture sector.

Halalele said people were asking for a government that could provide meaningful relief to address the cost of living crisis.

“Groceries are really expensive… there’s increases with interest rates and rental payments are more for a lot of families.”

She said it was also a challenging time for RSE workers especially during the current off season.

Away from families
Many Pacific workers were away from their families and were “not eligible for any support from Work and Income.”

In Christchurch, many young Pasifika faced their own set of challenges. Twelve years on, many were still dealing with long-term impacts and trauma from the February 2011, Christchurch earthquakes.

The University of Canterbury director of Māori, Pacific and Rainbow Student Services, Riki Welsh, said future governments must “prioritise more Pacific-based research” and focus on the “mental health impacts of the Christchurch earthquakes.”

He said, overall, the Ministry of Pacific Peoples (MPP) under Labour had been fruitful for Pasifika in the South Island.

He was pleased about the introduction of language weeks and the benefit of Pacific celebrations which reinforced cultural identity and united communities.

The ACT party which could form a government with the National Party, planned to disestablish MPP, something Welsh said would be harmful for Pacific progress.

“I do worry about a government that may remove some of the agencies that have helped increase cultural identity . . . I think the South Island would suffer worse than the North Island because there are fewer of us here.”

‘Still have faith’ in Labour
Reverend Alofa Lale said people had a lot to consider come this election, but usually “align themselves with Labour”.

Although people “still have faith” in the party, people questioned whether it was still the best choice.

“It is the party that looks after you but I think people are lacking a bit of confidence.”

Unlike Auckland and Wellington, people living in rural South Island and small towns experienced their own set of health challenges.

Invercargill-based surgeon Dr George Ngai was concerned about the government’s debt and ability to focus on people’s health needs.

He said, he felt let down that “many of the government policies had not turned into action”.

Accessibility to GPs and hospitals was a major barrier, Dr Ngai said.

“The main need is to have medical care. This is a widespread problem but it is more acute with more serious problems in the Pasifika community.”

Pacific community leaders will be visiting hotspots around the South Island in the coming weeks to provide civic education for eligible voters ahead of the October poll.

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

Vanuatu has been under a state of emergency, after two earthquakes and two cyclones hit in as many days, reports ABC News.

Hundreds of people remained in emergency evacuation centres in the capital Port Vila as Tropical Cyclone Kevin brought destructive winds and heavy rainfall.

The Fiji Meteorology Service said wind gusts reached up to 230km an hour in the early morning hours on Saturday.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu residents ‘exhausted’ after two wild cyclones in three days
• PM Kalsakau in cyclone-ravaged Vanuatu declares emergency as new storm bears down
• Other Vanuatu storm reports

No casualties were immediately reported but a number of properties were flattened and many homes and businesses reported power outages, said ABC.

The cyclone built to a category four on Saturday as it passed the capital and travelled south-east.

Port Vila-based journalist Dan McGarry tweeted updates as both cyclones hit.

“Port Vila has properly woken up now. Fuel is in short supply, power is out everywhere, and a boil-water order is in effect,” he tweeted early on Saturday.

“Lots of people at the few hardware stores that were able to open. Some with rather disturbing stories.”

The country’s main newspaper, Vanuatu Daily Post, did not publish on Saturday due to the cyclone, but will publish a special edition tomorrow.

Journalist Witnol Benko has forwarded what might be the first images from the southern island of Erromango. Doesn’t look good. pic.twitter.com/c8SIA1jTL4

— Dan McGarry (@dailypostdan) March 5, 2023

A national state of emergency has been declared today after Cyclone Gabrielle unleashed fury across the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand.

There has been widespread power outages, flooding, slips and damage to properties.

Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty said both the prime minister, and the Opposition spokesperson for emergency management were supportive of the move.

• READ MORE:  Cyclone Gabrielle lashes NZ’s North Island – Whāngarei basin residents told to evacuate
• Cyclone Gabrielle: Flooding and land slips isolate some Auckland regions
• Firefighters trapped, injured in Auckland’s Muriwai house collapse
• By the numbers: Cyclone Gabrielle’s impact
• Cyclone Gabrielle: Who to call, what to do if the roof comes off or windows smash
• Follow RNZ’s live news blog

He said this was an unprecedented weather event impacting on much of the North Island.

This is only the third time in New Zealand history a national state of emergency has been declared — the other two being the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes and the covid-19 pandemic.

The national state of emergency is declared.     Video: RNZ News

The declaration, signed at 8.43am, will apply to the six regions that have already declared a local State of Emergency — Northland, Auckland, Tairāwhiti, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, and Hawkes Bay.

A national state of emergency gives the National Controller legal authority to apply further resources across the country and set priorities in support of a national level response.

Speaking to media at the Beehive, McAnulty said Tararua District had also declared a state of emergency.

‘Significant disaster’
“This is a significant disaster with a real threat to the lives of New Zealanders,” he said.

“Today we are expecting to see more rain and high winds. We are through the worst of the storm itself but we know we are facing extensive flooding, slips, damaged roads and infrastructure.

“This is absolutely not a reflection on the outstanding work being done by emergency responders who have been working tirelessly, local leadership, or civil defence teams in the affected areas.

“It is simply that NEMA’s advice is that we can better support those affected regions through a nationally coordinated approach.”

He said the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) met with local civil defence teams early this morning and heard that a national state of emergency would be beneficial for them.

It allowed the government to support affected regions, coordinate additional resources as they are needed across multiple regions and help set the priorities across the country for the response, he said.

“Our message to everyone affected is: safety first. Look after each other, your family and your neighbours. Please continue to follow local civil defence advice and please minimise travel in affected areas.

‘Don’t wait for services’
“If you are worried about your safety — particularly because of the threat of flooding or slips — then don’t wait for emergency services to contact you.

“Leave, and seek safety either with family, friends, or at one of the many civil defence centres that have been opened.”

He said iwi, community groups and many others had opened up shelters and were offering food and support to those in need.

“I also want to acknowledge that there have been reports of a missing firefighter – a volunteer firefighter — who is a professional and highly trained but left their family to work for their communities and the search continues.

“Our thoughts are with the FENZ staff and their families.”

Acting Civil Defence Director Roger Ball said we have had multiple weather warnings and watches in place and the effects of the cyclone will continue to be felt across the country today.

He said that if other regions or areas declared local states of emergency, they would be added to the national declaration.

“Under a state of national emergency, myself as the director and my national controller have authority to direct and control the response under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act, including allocation of resources and setting priorities.”

He said no effort would be spared.

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

Images of Hikuwai River bridge north of Tolaga Bay with the water level at more than 14m. Source: Manu Caddie FB

The Kingdom of Tonga exploded into global news on January 15 last year with one of the most spectacular and violent volcanic eruptions ever seen.

Remarkably, it was caused by a volcano that lies under hundreds of metres of seawater. The event shocked the public and volcano scientists alike.

Was this a new type of eruption we’ve never seen before? Was it a wake-up call to pay more attention to threats from submarine volcanoes around the world?

• READ MORE: Why the volcanic eruption in Tonga was so violent, and what to expect next
• Tonga eruption was so intense, it caused the atmosphere to ring like a bell
• Tonga volcano eruption: PM reflects ahead of one-year anniversary of disaster
• Other Tongan eruption reports

The answer is yes to both questions.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano was a little-known seamount along a chain of 20 similar volcanoes that make up the Tongan part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.

We know a lot about surface volcanoes along this ring, including Mount St Helens in the US, Mount Fuji in Japan and Gunung Merapi of Indonesia. But we know very little about the hundreds of submarine volcanoes around it.

It is difficult, expensive and time-consuming to study submarine volcanoes, but out of sight is no longer out of mind.

Tongan eruption breaks records
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption has firmly established itself in the record books with the highest ash plume ever measured and a 58km aerosol cloud “overshoot” that touched space beyond the mesosphere. It also triggered the largest number of lightning bolts recorded for any type of natural event.

The injection of large amounts of water vapour into the outer atmosphere, along with “sonic booms” (atmospheric pressure waves) and tsunami that travelled the entire world, set new benchmarks for volcanic phenomena.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption has firmly established itself in the record books with the highest ash plume ever measured.

Covid hampered access to Tonga during the eruption and its aftermath, but local scientists and an international scientific collaborative effort helped us discover what drove its extreme violence.

Eruption creates a giant hole
A team from the Tongan Geological Services and the University of Auckland used a multi-beam sonar mapping system to precisely measure the shape of the volcano, just three months after the January blast.

We were astonished to find the rim of the vast submarine volcano was intact, but the formerly 6km diameter flat top of the submarine cone was rent by a hole 4km wide and almost 1km deep.

This is known as a “caldera” and happens when the central part of the volcano collapses in on itself after magma is rapidly “pumped out”. We calculate over 7.1 cubic kilometres of magma was ejected. It is almost impossible to envisage, but if we wanted to refill the caldera, it would take one billion truck loads.

It is hard to explain the physics of the Hunga eruption, even with the large magma volume and its interaction with seawater. We need other driving forces to explain especially the climactic first hour of the eruption.

Mixed magmas lead to chain reaction
Only when we examined the texture and chemistry of the erupted particles (volcanic ash) did we see clues about the event’s violence. Different magmas were intimately mixed and mingled before the eruption, with contrasts visible at a micron to centimetre scale.

Isotopic “fingerprinting” using lead, neodymium, uranium and strontium shows at least three different magma sources were involved. Radium isotope analysis shows two magma bodies were older and resident in the middle of the Earth’s crust, before being joined by a new, younger one shortly before the eruption.

The mingling of magmas caused a strong reaction, driving water and other so-called “volatile elements” out of solution and into gas. This creates bubbles and an expanding magma foam, pushing the magma out vigorously at the onset of eruption.

This intermediate or “andesite” composition has low viscosity. It means magma can be rapidly forced out through narrow cracks in the rock. Hence, there was an extremely rapid tapping of magma from 5-10km below the volcano, leading to sudden step-wise collapses of the caldera.

The caldera collapse led to a chain reaction because seawater suddenly drained through cracks and faults and encountered magma rising from depth in the volcano. The resulting high-pressure direct contact of water with magma at more than 1150℃ caused two high-intensity explosions around 30 and 45 minutes into the eruption. Each explosion further decompressed the magma below, continuing the chain reaction by amplifying bubble growth and magma rise.

After about an hour, the central eruption plume lost energy and the eruption moved to a lower-elevation ejection of particles in a concentric curtain-like pattern around the volcano.

This less focused phase of eruption led to widespread pyroclastic flows – hot and fast-flowing clouds of gas, ash and fragments of rock – that collapsed into the ocean and caused submarine density currents. These damaged vast lengths of the international and domestic data cables, cutting Tonga off from the rest of the world.

Unanswered questions and challenges
Even after long analysis of a growing body of eyewitness accounts, there are still major unanswered questions about this eruption.

The most important is what led to the largest local tsunami — an 18-20m-high wave that struck most of the central Tongan islands around an hour into the eruption. Earlier tsunami are well linked to the two large explosions at around 30 and 45 minutes into the eruption. Currently, the best candidate for the largest tsunami is the collapse of the caldera itself, which caused seawater to rush back into the new cavity.

This event has parallels only to the great 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia and has changed our perspective of the potential hazards from shallow submarine volcanoes. Work has begun on improving volcanic monitoring in Tonga using onshore and offshore seismic sensors along with infrasound sensors and a range of satellite observation tools.

All of these monitoring methods are expensive and difficult compared to land-based volcanoes. Despite the enormous expense of submarine research vessels, intensive efforts are underway to identify other volcanoes around the world that pose Hunga-like threats.

Dr Shane Cronin is professor of earth sciences, University of Auckland.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Three alluvial miners were buried alive at Koranga mining area in Papua New Guinea following the earthquake which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale which hit Morobe province on Sunday morning.

The PNG Post-Courier today reports a death toll of seven after the devastation from the quake in the Morobe, Madang and the Highlands region.

The three miners — all from one family — who died were working inside a tunnel at the mine site at Koranga Creek when the earthquake hit the area about 11.30am.

• READ MORE: Other PNG earthquake reports

The miners felt the earthquake and made their way out of the tunnel but they were too late and were buried alive.

A small girl who accompanied them to the mine site was sitting outside the tunnel. She felt the earth shaking and ran to the safety of higher ground and alerted the community.

The community went to the disaster area and retrieved the three bodies from beneath the rubble. They took the bodies to their house at Koranga compound.

Wau-Waria police station commander Senior Inspector Leo Kaikas confirmed the death of the family members and said their bodies would be transported by road to Lae to be placed at the Angau Memorial Hospital in Lae.

“The miners should take extra care when engaged in alluvial mining activities near the steep areas along Koranga creek and Mt Kaindi areas,” Kaikas said.

“I’m still carrying out assessment on the extent of the damage around Wau Waria district to confirm the number of people who were affected by the landslip following the earthquake.”

Wau Urban Ward 11 Member Rumie Giribo said arrangements had been made to transport the bodies to Lae to be placed at the morgue at the Angau Memorial Hospital.

Republished with permission.

In the wake of a violent volcanic eruption in Tonga, much of the communication with residents on the islands remains at a standstill. In our modern, highly-connected world, more than 95 percent of global data transfer occurs along fibre-optic cables that criss-cross through the world’s oceans.

Breakage or interruption to this critical infrastructure can have catastrophic local, regional and even global consequences.

This is exactly what has happened in Tonga following Saturday’s volcano-tsunami disaster. But this isn’t the first time a natural disaster has cut off critical submarine cables, and it won’t be the last.

• READ MORE: Tonga’s undersea communications cable could take weeks to repair
• Why the volcanic eruption in Tonga was so violent, and what to expect next
• Other APR reports on the tsunami

The video below shows the incredible spread of submarine cables around the planet – with more than 885,000 km of cable laid down since 1989. These cables cluster in narrow corridors and pass between so-called critical “choke points” which leave them vulnerable to a number of natural hazards including volcanic eruptions, underwater landslides, earthquakes and tsunamis.

Animation of spread of global submarine cable network between 1989 and 2023. Video: ESRI

What exactly has happened in Tonga?
Tonga was only connected to the global submarine telecommunication network in the last decade. Its islands have been heavily reliant on this system as it is more stable than other technologies such as satellite and fixed infrastructure.

The situation in Tonga right now is still fluid, and certain details have yet to be confirmed — but it seems one or more volcanic processes (such as the tsunami, submarine landslide or other underwater currents) have snapped the 872km long fibreoptic cable connecting Tonga to the rest of the world.

The cable system was not switched off or disconnected by the authorities.

This has had a massive impact. Tongans living in Australia and New Zealand cannot contact their loved ones to check on them. It has also made it difficult for Tongan government officials and emergency services to communicate with each other, and for local communities to determine aid and recovery needs.

Thank you all for the messages. No word from my Father or Family in Haapai. All communication in Tonga is out.
I have setup a fundraiser, link in bio for anyone wanting to help. Whilst I can’t assist family at this moment I will focus on country as more Information comes out. pic.twitter.com/1MCtnH5CNw

— Pita Taufatofua (@pitaTofua) January 15, 2022

Telecommunications are down, as are regular internet functions – and outages keep disrupting online services, making things worse.

Tonga is particularly vulnerable to this type of disruption as there is only one cable connecting the capital Nuku’alofa to Fiji, which is more than 800km away. No interisland cables exist.

It could be weeks before Tonga’s crucial undersea cable – which connects it to the world – is back online.https://t.co/5FmWdfJorc

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) January 17, 2022

Risks to submarine cables elsewhere
The events in Tonga once again highlight how fragile the global undersea cable network is and how quickly it can go offline. In 2009, I coauthored a study detailing the vulnerabilities of the submarine telecommunications network to a variety of natural hazard processes.

And nothing has changed since then.

Cables are laid in the shortest (that means cheapest) distance between two points on the Earth’s surface. They also have to be laid along particular geographic locations that allow easy placement, which is why many cables are clustered in choke points.

Some good examples of choke points include the Hawai’ian islands, the Suez Canal, Guam and the Sunda Strait in Indonesia. Inconveniently, these are also locations where major natural hazards tend to occur.

Once damaged it can takes days to weeks (or even longer) to repair broken cables, depending on the cable’s depth and how easily accessible it is. At times of crisis, such outages make it much harder for governments, emergency services and charities to engage in recovery efforts.

Many of these undersea cables pass close to or directly over active volcanoes, regions impacted by tropical cyclones and/or active earthquake zones.

In many ways, Australia is also very vulnerable (as is New Zealand and the rest of the world) since we are connected to the global cable network by a very small number of connection points, from just Sydney and Perth.

In regards to Sydney and the eastern seaboard of Australia, we know large underwater landslides have occurred off the coast of Sydney in the past. Future events could damage the critical portion of the network which links to us.

How do we manage risk going forward?
Given the vulnerability of the network, the first step to mitigating risk is to undertake research to quantify and evaluate the actual risk to submarine cables in particular places on the ocean floors and to different types of natural hazards.

For example, tropical cyclones (hurricanes/typhoons) occur regularly, but other disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen less often.

Currently, there is little publicly available data on the risk to the global submarine cable network. Once we know which cables are vulnerable, and to what sorts of hazards, we can then develop plans to reduce risk.

At the same time, governments and the telecommunication companies should find ways to diversify the way we communicate, such as by using more satellite-based systems and other technologies.

Dr Dale Dominey-Howes is professor of hazards and disaster risk sciences at the University of Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

The first tranche of the New Zealand government’s $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund has been allocated – against a backdrop of criticism it could skew reporting of political issues.

Māori journalism projects and a new training initiative are the major beneficiaries of the first $10 million, but some of the money goes to things already funded from the public purse.

Last February, the Minister for Broadcasting and Media Kris Faafoi chose the premises of the Otago Daily Times — one of the country’s oldest newspapers — to announce that $55 million would be spent over the next three years to sustain local news and journalism.

• READ MORE: Major NZ media networks collaborate to develop talented Pacific journalists
• First funding injection – full list
• LISTEN: RNZ Mediawatch on the Public Interest Journalism Fund

It is the biggest single public investment in journalism for decades and takes the total annual spend on media to over $300m. (There’s another $20m up his sleeve if Cabinet thinks the media need that too.)

Media companies big and small, local and national, public and private alike can all apply to the fund – including those which have never had public money before.

Minister Kris Faafoi insisted that the fund would be dispensed at arm’s-length from all politicians. The government’s broadcasting funding agency NZ On Air has that job, though its board members are appointed by the Minister of Broadcasting.

NZ On Air previously announced there would be “three pillars” for the fund: specific content to be delivered to a deadline; employing staff in newsrooms around the country and “industry development” projects such as cadetships and training.

Partnership guidelines
Guidelines issued in April also said the fund “must actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

“NZ On Air intends to work with the Māori and Iwi journalism sector to ensure parity of need and interests within the sector,” the guidelines said.

The guidelines also invited proposals that “report from perspectives including Pacific, pan-Asian, women, youth, children, persons with disabilities [and] other ethnic communities” — as well as those “made by Māori about Māori perspectives, issues and interests prioritising the needs of Māori .”

This was a change of focus for NZ On Air, whose website says:

“Because of the significant public funding available for Māori content provided through Māori  Television and Te Māngai Pāho, we allocate funding for Māori programmes as a relatively modest proportion, given our other statutory requirements.”

At a NZ on Air summit in June, NZ on Air’s recently appointed head of journalism Raewyn Rasch told media representatives she was disappointed by some of the applications.

“Whether (they) provided public interest journalism, not just business-as-usual journalism, was in question,” she told online service BusinessDesk.

Rasch said she had been in touch with the shortlisted news organisations to “fine-tune ideas”.

Need for more diversity
“We are also particularly conscious of the need for more diversity, and Māori, Pacific, and Asian journalism,” she told BusinessDesk in June.

Participants were also told they had failed to fully grasp the need to collaborate.

“I know it caused a lot of grinding of teeth in the industry and there was pushback. But the conversations wouldn’t have happened in any other situation,” Rasch told Mediawatch.

Where the money will go
On Thursday, NZOA announced where the first $9.6m was going (see full list here).

Around 40 percent has gone to projects benefiting Māori journalism.

A training programme called Te Rito aims to train and hire 25 journalists and cadets to inject more Māori and “diverse voices” into the news media. Te Rito is a collaboration between Māori Television, Newshub, NZME, and Pacific Media Network and others media organisations in support.

Other funded projects include a boost in funding for Auckland urban Māori station Radio Waatea to deliver programmes and news to 20 Iwi stations around the country, and The Rotorua Weekender will print a weekly bilingual section.

Non-Māori-specific projects include a BusinessDesk series on how our public service measures up and a follow-up to the Inside Child Poverty documentary which screened 10 years ago. (The funding of that created a political interference controversy when a National-led government was in charge.)

Programmes and investigations on what will happen when the Alpine fault ruptures, the spread of type 2 diabetes and how to fight public health misinformation have also been funded on a range of platforms — many of them not run by the big names in local media.

Rasch said journalism in the regions been “particularly hard-hit” and must also be a priority.

But a separate currently publicly funded initiative – the Local Democracy Reporting Service – is already up and running and being expanded.

“That is working and providing news to local and regional areas that probably wouldn’t have been there otherwise. We are very careful about duplication. The LDRS is very focused on local government reporting and the Local Focus videos are a broader look at community news,” Rasch told Mediawatch.

Political project?
Opposition politicians have complained that the media would be reluctant to bite the government hand that’s feeding them more in future.

“$50 million paid to the media last year; another $55 million this year. Does that buy compliance?” asked National Party leader Judith Collins in an interview on Facebook this week.

“You have the government helping out the media because they say it’s good to have the media but: ‘You have to say what we think’? I don’t buy it. And I don’t think the media should buy it, but obviously some have completely drunk the Kool Aid,” she said.

“Why is it part of the conditions that you have to promote the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi? What the hell’s this got to do with a free media and free speech?” she asked.

Some commentators see fish-hooks in it too.

“Any news outlet that seeks money from the fund is signing up to a politicised project whose rules are fundamentally incompatible with free and independent journalism,” former editor Karl du Fresne said in a recent letter to the Dominion Post.

Writing about “the dangers of putting media on the government’s payroll,” Graham Adams said the role that the Treaty should play in our constitutional and political arrangements is a hot issue at the moment.

“But any journalist who wanted to revisit dissenting views on the Treaty as a partnership — as former PMs David Lange and Geoffrey Palmer had done — would be out of luck,” he said.

Would proposals wanting to explore – say – He Puapua be considered  – or deemed out of sync with Te Tiriti principles?

“We absolutely want to encourage conversation but we want to ensure that it is fair and that it is coming from an understanding of what Te Tiriti is actually about – so we are not just getting into a polarised debate. We want to make sure both sides of the story can be told. I don’t see why that would be bad,“ she said.

“I take offence at some of those comments. I do not see how encouraging and incentivising our media to understand our founding document and provide better engagement with all New Zealanders is a bad thing,“ Raewyn Rasch told Mediawatch. 

“They are confusing two things. The fund does not editorialise on how they cover issues or what they say in their coverage. But it does require that they understand Te Tiriti principles. So if you understand those and you want to be critical of those, then all well and good,” Rasch said.

“But many media organisations do not understand Te Tiriti and the conversations they are curating run the risk of being biased, racist and not delivering to the Te Tiriti partner – Māori or tangata whenua,” she said.

Business as usual?
Some of the things bankrolled by the new fund were already funded by New Zealand On Air, such as RNZ and Newsroom’s daily podcast The Detail, the Local Focus regional news videos hosted by NZHerald.co.nz and the TV news for Dunedin-based Channel39, The South Tonight.

Radio Waatea’s current affairs show Paakiwaha, which receives $430,000 from the new fund, has been on air for years.

Is that “business as usual,” which Rasch said the fund was not for?

“Because those things were already funded it makes sense for them to come into the journalism fund. It’s basically tidying things up and putting them all in context with all the other journalism projects. But they still had to compete against other projects and they all met the requirements of the PIJF,” Rasch said.

“Paakiwaha will turn into a morning current affairs show that is essentially a Māori ‘Morning Report’. At the moment it’s interview-based but we are beefing it up with journalists so it will actually be able to go out and cover news and events,” Rasch said.

There are several journalism training schools and tertiary courses available around the country –- as well as internship programmes at media companies. Is the Te Rito training programme a declaration that these have failed to deliver Māori  and Pasifika journalists to the media?

“There is a huge need. At the moment no institution is training Māori journalists and the training has been funneled into three-year degrees. The number of applications we have from the industry shows the need to bring more into the journalism sector and train them with hands-on skills they feel they need in the newsroom,” she said.

“In particular Māori journalism is at a crisis stage because what tends to happen is that at the moment the only training is by Māori Television who identify some stars from kura, bring them in and then they are poached,” Rasch said.

For some projects, the relevance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles may not be obvious.

For example, Fault Lines, billed as “explanatory journalism looking at the science behind, and the communities at risk of, the rupture of the Alpine Fault.”

“Te Tiriti actually comes into everything, When we first looked at that proposal, we noted that there was no Māori content in their proposal at all. So we went back to the proposers and had a chat. They have come back with the project that’s stronger because now they’ve had some engagement with Ngai Tahu who have lots of experience on earthquakes and how it affects the community,” said Rasch.

“I think we have strengthened their proposal because now it has an element that will actually provide for Māori audiences and also a viewpoint other audiences may not have seen before. It wasn’t a requirement that was onerous and I think they would say themselves that it’s a good thing,” Rasch said

“I’m not sure why in 2021 I need to explain to media that actually it’s important that Māori voices are seen and heard,” Rasch told Mediawatch.

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

What have we lost because of the pandemic? According to our calculations, a lot — and many of the worst hit countries and regions are far from world media attention.

Typically, damage from any disaster is measured in separate categories: the number of fatalities and injuries it caused, and the financial damage it led to (directly or indirectly).

Only by aggregating these various measures into a comprehensive total can we begin to formulate a fuller picture of the burden of disasters, including pandemics.

• READ MORE: How would digital covid vaccine passports work? And what’s stopping people from faking them?
• Covid lockdowns have human costs as well as benefits. It’s time to consider both
• Global obsession with economic growth will increase risk of deadly pandemics in future

The usual approach has been to attach a price tag to death and illness. Many governments calculate this “value of statistical life”.

They do this based on surveys asking people how much they are willing to pay to reduce some risk (for example, improve a road they often use), or by calculating the additional compensation people demand when they take on high-risk occupations (for example, as a diver on an oil rig).

By observing the amount of money people associate with small changes in mortality risk, one can then calculate the overall price of a “statistical life” as valued by the average person.

By adding the dollar value of asset damage to the “priced” value of life lost (or injured), the overall cost of an adverse event (such as an earthquake or an epidemic) can be calculated.

Calculating ‘lost life years’
But “value of life” prices can vary a lot between and even within countries. There is also an understandable public distaste for putting a price tag on human life. Governments typically do not openly discuss these calculations, making it difficult to assess their legitimacy.

An alternative is a “life years lost index”. It is based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) measure of “disability-adjusted life years” (DALY), calculated for a long list of diseases and published in a yearly account of the associated human costs.

In conventional measurements of the impact of disaster risk, the unit used is dollars. For this alternative index, the unit of measurement is “lost life years” — the loss of the equivalent of one year of full health.

This is a sum of three key measures of the pandemic’s impact: lost life years because of death and sickness from the disease, and the equivalent lost years due to decline in economic activity. The map below presents these figures per person, in order to enable the relevant comparison across countries.

For example, in the map above we see Australia has a life-years-lost figure of 0.02. This means, on average, every person in Australia lost just over seven life days from the pandemic. In New Zealand, where fewer people died and there have been only a few thousand cases, the figure is 0.01, meaning each person lost fewer than four life days.

In India, by contrast, the average person lost nearly 15 days and in Peru the equivalent figure is 25 days. That loss is based on a combination of the precipitous recession and the death and sickness caused by the virus directly.

So, how do we put this in context? Is losing 25 days a catastrophic loss that justifies the kinds of public actions we have observed around the world? We can answer that question by comparing the impact of COVID-19 to other disasters.

The price of a pandemic
When we compare the total aggregate costs of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with the average annual costs associated with all other disasters in the previous 20 years, we find the pandemic has indeed been extremely costly (in terms of lost life years).

This is despite those past two decades having seen many catastrophic events: horrific tsunamis in Indonesia (2004) and Japan (2011), very damaging hurricanes in the US (2005 and 2017), a high-mortality cyclone in Myanmar (2008), deadly earthquakes in India (2001), Pakistan (2005), China (2008), Haiti (2010) and Nepal (2015), and others.

The graph below shows the life years lost in 2020 by continent, per person, from COVID-19 compared to the average annual cost of all other disasters 2000-2019. As we can see, the costs of the pandemic are much higher — more than three times higher in Asia and more than 30 times higher in Europe.

The most vulnerable countries have been small, open economies such as Fiji, Maldives and Belize, which rely heavily on the export of services, especially tourism.

These are not necessarily countries that have experienced a high number of deaths from the pandemic, but their overall loss is staggering.

More generally, the per-capita loss associated with COVID-19 is particularly high in most of Latin America, southern Africa, southern Europe, India and some of the Pacific Islands. This is in stark contrast to where the global media’s attention has been directed (the US, UK and EU).

Costs will continue to rise
These measures are for 2020 only. Obviously, the pandemic is continuing to rage, and will most likely continue to have an impact on the global economy well into 2022. Many of the adverse economic impacts will still be felt years from now.

Worryingly, some of the countries that have already suffered the greatest economic impact have also been slow to secure enough vaccine doses for their populations. They may well see their economic slumps carry on into next year, especially with larger, richer countries having the resources to buy vaccines first.

Much public and media attention has focused on the death toll and immediate economic impact from COVID-19. But the human and social costs associated with that economic loss are potentially much greater, particularly in poorer countries.

The heavy burden many small countries have borne has, to some extent, been overlooked. Countries such as Lebanon and the Maldives are experiencing dramatic and painful crises, largely under the radar of world attention.

However, our conclusion that the human cost of the economic loss is possibly much higher than the cost associated with health loss does not imply public policies such as lockdowns, border restrictions and quarantines have been unwarranted.

If anything, countries that experienced a deeper health crisis also experienced a deeper economic crisis. There has been no effective trade-off between saving lives and saving livelihoods.

This story is part of a series The Conversation is running on the nexus between disaster, disadvantage and resilience. You can read the rest of the stories here.

Dr Ilan Noy, chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Nguyen Doan, doctoral student in economics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

There is no question that we must act, and act fast, on climate change. This week’s climate emergency declaration by the New Zealand government acknowledges the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to collectively confront it.

But a declaration is not the same as action. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been frank that the declaration is a symbolic gesture: “It’s what we invest in and it’s the laws that we pass that make the big difference.”

• READ MORE: NZ climate change declaration – ‘nothing token about it’
• Climate change emergency declaration by NZ government includes commitment to 2025 targets

In saying this, she echoes the sentiments of some local councils during the first wave of climate emergency declarations in mid-2019.

For all that, it is wrong to imagine a declaration will make no difference at all. Language has power. Words like “emergency” have an impact in the real world, especially when endorsed by political leaders.

Political language frames how we interact with one another and the planet, and how we imagine our collective future. In that respect, the consequences of such emergency declarations — with their attendant sense of panic and fear — remain unsettlingly vague.

What does ’emergency’ mean?
On one hand, a declaration is a way for campaigners to hold the government to account. For the young people in the School Strike 4 Climate movement who made an emergency declaration a key demand, it may prove a moment of inspiration and empowerment.

If it is taken as a sign that social movements can effect political change, reset the agenda and compel governments to listen, the declaration could embolden efforts to hold the government to its word — and to implement the laws and investments that will deliver emission reductions and adaptation to climate risks.

On the other hand, the politics of emergency come with baggage, established in precedent and law, by which ordinary political processes are suspended to expand state power.

An unsettling legacy
It is important to recognise that this notion of emergency politics, like the idea of climate emergency declarations, was imported to Aotearoa New Zealand. It is another example of New Zealand’s “fast follower” approach to climate policy.

The low-emissions transition has accelerated under Ardern, but largely by way of policy transfer from the UK and EU, not by homegrown innovation. The climate emergency concept made a parallel journey via social movements such as Extinction Rebellion.

Yet the state’s emergency footing, where ends justify extraordinary means, is inherently problematic in the context of recent colonial history. Legislation such as the Public Works Act , for example, empowered the Crown to compulsorily acquire land for infrastructure development — land often owned by Māori.

A climate emergency might only be symbolic, but its language carries this legacy of alienation and disenfranchisement. Moreover, it risks reviving those imperialist tendencies, by treating processes of consultation and consent as impediments to urgent action.

Where does democracy fit?
Emergency is also risky to democracy, especially when the crisis is not temporary but long-lasting, as the climate crisis is. Although many climate campaigners prioritise justice and equity as essential to the low-emissions transition, others treat democracy as a barrier to climate action rather than a vehicle for it.

The emergency response to the Christchurch earthquakes is a case in point. Limiting civic participation in the rebuild led to public ambivalence over the results, which were too often determined by the interests of the state rather than the aspirations of local communities.

Of course, it isn’t inevitable any tyrannical urges will be unleashed. Arguably, the meaning of climate emergency is still to be determined. From one angle, it is a blank page, an empty signifier, which means nothing in particular.

But the flipside is that the term has a surplus of meaning — that is, it means many things to many people. Some of these meanings are not easily dismissed, including those that conflict with justice.

The long emergency
Campaigners for a climate emergency will continue to use this language to ratchet up ambition, but they should be aware of these tensions. If a climate emergency is to be compatible with other ideals like democracy and decolonisation, then it must be fought for on those terms.

For example, the School Strike 4 Climate demands a climate emergency declaration must “uphold our democratic values and obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.

If climate change is an emergency, it is a “long emergency”. It has taken decades, even centuries, to create — and will take comparable timeframes to undo. It requires us to reimagine the structures of our societies, cities, economies and our politics.

If Aotearoa New Zealand is to shift from being a follower to a leader or pioneer in climate governance, it must involve local knowledge, especially Māori knowledge and leadership, to respond in ways that reflect our local circumstances.

If action is to be sustained over years and decades, it requires behaviour that springs from hope, not fear.

By Dr David Hall, a senior researcher in politics, Auckland University of Technology; Dr Raven Cretney, a postdoctoral fellow, University of Waikato; and Dr Sylvia Nissen, a senior lecturer in Environmental Policy, Lincoln University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Warning: This story discusses details of the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre.

At what point in time does an atrocity have a beginning? Is it when the first gunshot is fired? When the first victim is killed? When a killer first submits to thoughts of hatred, alienation, blame and decides to apply those emotions into physical action? Or, is it when racism is justified, when killing is considered defensible by those in whom one chooses to associate with, to support, to impress? Is it when one subscribes to another’s ideology of hate? Or when silence is a protector – chosen by reasonable people – when those around us speak of inhuman things?

“Ok lads, enough talking, it’s time for action.” With those words early on 15 March 2019, and expressed to his dark-net acquaintances, Brenton Harrison Tarrant initiated his plan to murder as many people of the Muslim faith as was possible.

Tarrant then packed six firearms into his vehicle, including two military-styled assault rifles (AR-15 .223 calibre) and semi-automatic shotguns. He added 7000 rounds of ammunition, a bayonet-styled knife, and four IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

Wrapped within a bulletproof-vest he reversed from the driveway of his rented Dunedin home and self-drove 361km northward to New Zealand’s largest South Island city, Christchurch.

Reconnaissance
Christchurch is known for its gardens, parks, sport, English-Victorian-styled architecture, earthquakes, parochialism, a modest inter-faith Muslim community; and, paradoxically, its white extremist gangs.

Two months earlier, in January 2019, Tarrant visited Christchurch. The purpose: reconnaissance of Al Noor Mosque – a place of prayer and worship for hundreds of the city’s Muslim people.

In January, Tarrant parked his vehicle adjacent to Al Noor Mosque, unpacked a drone and flew it above and over the facility. He recorded an aerial view video of the grounds, noting points of entry, exits, corridors where people could escape, where they could hide.

Tarrant observed how hundreds of people would attend Friday prayers. He decided Al Noor was the location, and, Friday was to be the day of the week which provided him an opportunity to kill as many people as possible on one single afternoon.

Christchurch is also a city built on a plane. Geographically it rests on a flat ancient seabed – framed only by the Port Hills to the south and the towering Southern Alps to the west. The city’s traffic is characteristically light (compared to other cities) and the route from Al Noor Mosque to nearby Linwood Islamic Centre is a short drive. Tarrant fathomed that even with news of a mass killer in the area, traffic would most likely be light.

Tarrant quietly, and unobserved, took notes. Once satisfied, he returned to Dunedin where he determinedly, and with precision, planned mass murder.

At no time during the reconnaissance, nor the planning phase, did New Zealand police nor Australia’s police, the Security Intelligence Services, the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau notice what was being planned and expressed online. Brenton Tarrant’s intensifying hatred grew, undeterred, against those who were not white. As is the case of many Western nations, New Zealand, along with its Five Eyes intelligence partners, Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States of America, had appeared more preoccupied with surveillance of those of Muslim and Islamic origins than they were of disarming an intensifying white extremist threat.

• VIEW: A video discussion on this security intelligence element – A View from Afar with Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning, 27 March 2020.

Alpha and Omega
In the early afternoon of 15 March 2019, Tarrant arrived at his first waypoint. He parked his vehicle in a neighbouring driveway. Around 190 worshippers (children, women, men) had already arrived at Al Noor Mosque and others were still making their way there for Friday Prayers.

It was a warm late Summers day. In a nearby park, people were playing. School children were enjoying the peace and fun that the garden city offered.

Inside his vehicle, Tarrant strapped his bulletproof vest tightly to his body. He put on a helmet. Earlier, he had fixed a video camera and a strobe light to the helmet – the latter was designed to confuse his intended victims; the camera was connected to the internet via a cellphone device so as to provide Tarrant the opportunity to livestream his intended atrocity to a Facebook audience.

Tarrant then sent a “Manifesto” to a white extremist website. He also emailed his intentions (with Manifesto attached) to the New Zealand Government, to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and to national and international media.

Minutes later, Tarrant weaponed up, stepping from his vehicle he carried two semi-automatic firearms (including a shotgun) with multiple magazines, and approached the entrance to Al Noor Mosque.

“At that time four worshippers, Mounir Soliman, Syed Ali, Amjad Hamid and Hussein Moustafa, were at the mosque’s front entrance. Without warning you discharged the shotgun multiple times in quick succession, killing each of them. A wounded Mr Moustafa was despatched by you at point-blank range with shots to his back and head.” [New Zealand High Court ruling, Justice Mander, August 27, 2020].

That was just the beginning, the moment Brenton Tarrant decided to open fire, ultimately putting his plan into action. His hateful journey, once conceived in his past, had been nurtured by those with whom he chose to associate with. His racist views had become darker by the month. His decision to become a mass murderer, a terrorist by his own definition and admission, was now a reality.

Catharsis from horror
Throughout the week of August 24-27, New Zealanders discovered how detailed Tarrant’s plan was. There was a risk, due to Tarrant’s guilty plea (lodged some months earlier) and his decision to refuse legal assistance, that details of his crimes – forensically applied to a timeline by detectives, scientists and prosecutors – would be sealed beyond the reach and rightful consideration of survivors. New Zealanders of all ethnicities, colour and religions too, needed to hear detail of how this monstrous act of terrorism could have occurred in this relatively peaceful land.

Officially, the High Court summarised the charges:

“The Offender pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of committing a terrorist act after shooting worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch. Court held that no minimum period of imprisonment would be sufficient to satisfy the purpose of sentencing. Offender sentenced to life imprisonment without parole under s 103 (2A) Sentencing Act 2002.”

There was also a concern, that Tarrant, who had the legal right to address the High Court, would use that opportunity to express his white extremist ideology. As a preventive measure, the High Court’s Justice Mander applied tight controls on media, and insisted Tarrant would be withdrawn from the Court should he begin such a tirade.

Victims and survivors were offered the right to speak their impact statements to the court and, significantly to tell Tarrant what they thought of him, and of the true consequences his actions had had on their lives.

Initially, 60 people wished to read their statements to the court and to the killer. Others, after observing how their fellow Muslims accounts somehow were beneficial, also wished to have their experiences told.

Some spoke of how Tarrant had failed in his purpose, as their faith had strengthened since the murders, that they as a community had become stronger, and how loved they had felt when New Zealanders of all colours embraced them as valued members of the nation’s family. A common account reiterated how ‘you sought to divide us, to alienate us. You failed’.

While in court, Tarrant’s deportment was passive, absolutely. Whenever he was ushered into the court, his hands and legs bound in shackles, he was assisted by officers to sit before the packed public gallery. When the judge addressed him, he was respectfully at full attention. When addressed by his victims’ loved ones and survivors, he was attentive, although without emotion.

At one point, a murdered victims’ mother addressed Tarrant. She stated she had “no hate for him” as a person, that she forgave him. Tarrant acknowledged her with a nod. Began to blink rapidly and appeared to wipe a tear from his eye. Shortly after, New Zealanders learned that the killer had withdrawn his intention to address the court.

A total of 98 victims and loved ones read their impact statements to the court and to Tarrant. Some expressing distress and some anger. The killer was referred to as a “coward” by a school teacher, whose brother was murdered in cold blood. Another man, the son of a middle aged worshipper addressed Tarrant as a “maggot”. Another, that Tarrant was nothing but “rotten meat” to him. Three men concluded their account with a Muslim prayer and chanted Allahu Akbar while pointing defiantly at Tarrant.

The court observed in silence, noting the tragic recount of events told by those who suffer injuries from the bullet, the experience leaving physical, mental, emotional, social wounds as a consequence of Tarrant’s crimes – but none expressed a loss of faith in Islam nor of New Zealand as a community.

As Radio New Zealand reports: “One survivor, Dr Hamimah Tuyan left her two sons in Singapore to travel to the High Court in Christchurch to speak and honour her late husband, Zekeriya – the 51st victim to die.”

She told Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report she wrestled for some time if she should write a statement. Once she came back to Christchurch she decided she would listen to every victim statement delivered in court: “I was just so inspired by the brave brothers and sisters – their words, their feelings. I’m just so glad that I actually wrote it and opted to read it. That was the only way I could represent my husband and my boys,” she said on live radio.

Dr Hamimah Tuyan said she felt a weight lift from her shoulders and then left everything in the hands of God and the judge.

“We were all calm after the last session and basically waited … listening to each and every word of Judge Mander’s sentence until the end – two hours.” [Radio New Zealand].

She, and many others, spoke of catharsis in having had the courage to speak of their experience and their strength, and of the bravery of their loved ones who died on 15 March 2019.

Cold blooded reality
Then came the judge’s ruling. For four hours, Justice Mander read a precise account of what happened that day. In a move that was welcomed by the victims and New Zealanders, Justice Mander spoke of each victim and of their character, of the circumstances of how each person died.

For the first time, New Zealanders learned of the cold blooded reality of the consequences of hate that tore at the heart of the Muslim community that day.

Accounts like:

“As you made your way down the hallway of the mosque to the main prayer area, you shot Ata Mohammad Ata Elayyan and Ali Elmadani, murdering both men. You then entered the main prayer room at the rear of the building. There were over 120 worshippers present. They had heard the gunfire. Appreciating that something was very wrong, they moved to each side of the large open prayer area to where there were single exits in each corner.

“When you entered the main prayer room you initially fired at worshippers who were lying on the ground. You shot Ziyaad Shah. You then turned to the two large groups gathered on each side of the prayer area. There was little chance of escape. You fired your semi-automatic firearm into the mass of people on one side of the room. The rate of fire was extremely rapid. You repeatedly moved your weapon across that side of the room before turning to the other group of trapped people on the opposite side.

“As you turned your semi-automatic weapon on these worshippers, Naeem Rashid ran at you. Despite being shot, he crashed into you, forcing you down on one knee and dislodging a magazine from your vest. Mr Rashid had been hit in the shoulder and, as he lay on his back, you fired further shots at him. Mr Rashid died but his bravery allowed a number of his fellow worshippers to escape.

“By this stage you had emptied a 60-round magazine. You replaced that with another. Standing in the middle of the room, you fired rapid bursts towards each side of the prayer room where people were trying to hide or were attempting to escape. After reloading yet again, you continued to shoot at persons lying prone or trying to escape. You discharged rapid bursts across both sides of the room before approaching individual victims and shooting them. As Ashraf Ragheb sought to escape from a side room down the hallway to the main entrance, you shot and killed him. Already there were many dead.

“You moved closer to each now piled group of people lying deceased, wounded or feigning death on each side of the main prayer room. Worshippers, who were either crying out for help or who appeared to be alive, were systematically shot in the head. One of those was a three-year-old child, Mucaad Ibrahim. He was clinging to his father’s leg and you murdered him with two aimed shots.”

The judge continued, detailing how Brenton Tarrant then made his way outside Al Noor Mosque.

“Outside you shot at people attempting to flee. You shot Mohammad Faruk in the back, killing him. Wasseim Daragmih and his four-year-old daughter received life-threatening wounds. You fired in the opposite direction, hitting Sazada Akhter in the spine. She will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

“Tarrant then returned to his vehicle. Quickly he rearmed himself with an assault rifle fitted with two 40 round magazines.

“You fired this weapon down a side driveway towards the back of the Mosque, murdering Muse Awale and Hamza Alhaj Mustafa, a 16-year-old boy who had escaped from the main prayer room and was sheltering behind vehicles. Another man, Mohammad Shamim Siddiqui, was critically wounded.

“You then returned to the main prayer room. As you entered you saw Md Hoq, who was wounded,sitting up against a window. You aimed one shot at Mr Hoq, killing him instantly, before firing further shots at a group of people lying in one corner. There were some 30 deceased or critically wounded worshippers in this mass of people. You delivered fatal shots to those who were still alive.

“You then reloaded your weapon and walked over to the group of people lying in the opposite corner and fired into them. You noticed Haji Nabi attempting to shelter behind a small wall. With two carefully aimed shots you murdered Mr Nabi before walking to within a metre of the piled group and firing further shots into those who were either deceased or mortally wounded. Any persons who showed signs of life were shot.”

The judge’s ruling continued on, every precise detail that the police, scientists, and prosecutors had discovered was read to Tarrant. The killer’s gaze remained attentive. Silently, he sat, emotionless, listening to every word.

Observers reflected on how Brenton Tarrant appeared a hollow shell of a human being. Immediately after his arrest, Tarrant presented as arrogant, remorseless, complaining to police that he was disappointed that he didn’t kill more people. He was then in peak physical condition, clearly having been working out regularly. But this week, he appeared without emotion, without purpose, passively listening to the accounts of victims and that of the judge detailing the facts of what he had done. He did not challenge the facts, rather he had accepted them as accurate, a true account of his crimes.

Justice Mander continued:

“After exiting the mosque for the second time you saw two women attempting to escape. You shot Ansi Karippakulam Alibava and Husna Ahmed. Ms Ahmed was killed. Ms Karippakulam Alibava was wounded. While she lay on the street, pleading for help, you murdered this defenceless young woman, firing two shots at her from point-blank range. You then returned to your vehicle and inflicted the indignity of driving over her body as she lay in front of the driveway from which you exited.”

Still, Tarrant remained emotionless, leaving some to ponder whether he was intent to create an enigma of himself, a mysterious figure who refused to offer any words or emotion upon which others may define him. Rather, he had earlier defined himself to appointed psychiatrists and psychologists as a “terrorist” and a “fascist”. He had stated to the clinicians, appointed to assess his personality and condition, that in the months leading up to the killings, he had sunken into despair, into a depression. That he was angry at the world and wanted to hurt it, damage it.

The child, the man:
Radio New Zealand investigated Brenton Tarrant’s background. The following segment is a paraphrase of that investigation.

Brenton Tarrant’s life experience was unremarkable, at least in the beginning. He was born on October 27, 1990 and raised in rural Australia, in a town called Grafton some 500km north of Sydney. He was the youngest of three siblings. His parents separated while he was still at school. He played sport (rugby league) but was overweight and was bullied, to a degree, by others of his age. His father worked as a rubbish collector, and his family was respected in the general Clarence Valley area.

One of Tarrant’s cousins told Australia’s 7News, there was little in his background that would have indicated problems ahead. But, when his father died of cancer when Tarrant was 20 years of age, he was crushed by the loss. He inherited A$500,000 from his fathers estate. Dabbled in investments. Then travelled extensively. It was during his overseas experience abroad, particularly in Europe, that he was radicalised.

Details are vague, but court accounts place him in France where he was attracted to white extremist groups with which he increasingly shared commonly held racist views. He continued to travel around Europe, and developed an interest in the countries that were once ruled by the Ottoman Empire, visiting historic battle sites. He travelled through greater Asia, visiting Pakistan and the border areas of Afghanistan.

Then, in August 2017 he emigrated to Dunedin, New Zealand. He joined a rifle club, acquired a firearms licence from the New Zealand Police, and joined a South Dunedin gym.

He kept largely to himself, isolating his ideas, his anger, his purpose from those around him.

Brenton Tarrant never sought to work in New Zealand and showed no intention to get a job.

Wider family members visited Tarrant while he lived in Dunedin. They returned to Australia, noting concerns to his immediate family that he was not in a good state of mind, and had shown them that he had many guns.

Then, as Radio New Zealand reported, Tarrant’s last message to the white extremist group on 8Chan came on 15 March 2019:

“’It’s been a long ride and … you are all top blokes and the best bunch of cobbers a man could ask for,”’Tarrant posted.

“Radio New Zealand noted: ‘His friends were faceless, his interactions existent only in cyberspace.’” [Radio New Zealand]

The courtroom account continued
Justice Mander:

“As you drove away from the Al Noor Mosque you continued to shoot at anyone who you considered should be the target of your hate. You discharged a shotgun at two men who appeared to be of African descent. A short distance on you saw Muhammad Nasir and his son walking towards the mosque dressed in traditional clothing. You again discharged the shotgun, seriously wounding Mr Nasir, before actioning the weapon again and pointing it directly at the boy who was trying to hide behind a wall. You pulled the trigger but it failed to fire.

“You then sped away, driving directly to the Linwood Islamic Centre. On the way you came abreast of another vehicle being driven by a Fijian man. You pointed your shotgun at him. Despite repeated attempts to discharge the shotgun it failed to fire.

“When you got to Linwood you approached the mosque on foot down a long driveway, armed with yet another firearm. You saw three people in and around a car. You shot Ghulam Hussain in the head, killing him, before firing at and wounding Muhammad Raza, who had got out of the other side of the vehicle. You shot another occupant of the car, Karam Bibi, before advancing up the driveway, where you saw Mr Raza attempting to find cover behind a fence. He attempted to retreat from you. Despite his pleas to spare him, you murdered him. A wounded Ms Bibi sought to hide in front of the vehicle. You walked to within metres of her as she lay prone with her head buried in her hands, stood over her, and killed her.”

Tarrant approached the mosque, passing a window. He saw a silhouette of a man. He shot him with a single shot to the head. The man’s name was Mohammed Khan.

With your weapon now empty, you ran down the driveway back to your vehicle. As you reached the car, Abdul Aziz Wahabazadah, who had courageously followed you down the driveway, challenged you. You retrieved another semi-automatic rifle from your vehicle and fired at him. He dived between some parked cars, before you walked back up the driveway to the main entrance to the mosque.

[Selwyn Manning’s author’s note: I wrote about this moment, in the German magazine Cicero.de in March 2019, shortly after the murders:]

“Inside Linwood Mosque was Abdul Aziz, a man who had gathered with his Muslim brothers. He had just begun his second prayer when he heard gunshots outside. At first he thought it was someone playing with firecrackers (fireworks). But then, within seconds, he heard people screaming.

“Mr Aziz picked up an EFTPOS (electronic funds transaction) machine from a table inside the mosque. He ran outside. He saw a man he describes as looking like a soldier. He said to the man: ‘Who are you?’ Mr Aziz then saw three people lying on the ground dead from shotgun blasts. He realised the man was the killer. He approached the attacker, threw the EFTPOS machine, hitting the killer, who in turn took from his vehicle a second firearm (a military style semi-automatic assault rifle) and fired four to five shots at Abdul Aziz, missing him. Then, in an attempt to lure the killer away from other people, Mr Aziz shouted at the killer from behind a car: ‘Come, I’m here. Come I’m here!’

“Mr Aziz said he didn’t want the killer to go inside the mosque and kill more people. But the killer remained focused. He walked directly to the entrance, once inside the mosque he continued his killing spree. Survivors speak of the killer wearing ‘army clothes’, dressed in ‘SWAT combat clothing’, helmeted, wearing a vest and a balaclava… Written on the rifle were the words, ‘Welcome to hell’.” [Attentat in Christchurch – Willkommen in der Hölle]

In the High Court this week, Justice Mander continued:

“There were several people standing inside the entranceway and further into the building at whom you repeatedly fired. You killed Musa Patel. Walking further into the mosque, you shot and killed Linda Armstrong. People were huddled in corners of the room or trying to escape as you fired your weapon, killing Mohamad Mohamedhosen. You continued to fire the semi-automatic rifle until it ran out of ammunition, at which point you dropped it and ran back to your vehicle.

“Mr Wahabazadah chased you down the driveway, yelling at you. You removed the bayonet from your vest but retreated in the face of his advance. As you began driving away, Mr Wahabazadah got close enough to throw one of your discarded weapons at your vehicle.

“After leaving the Linwood Mosque, your intention was to drive to Ashburton to attack another mosque, but your vehicle was rammed off the road by a police car and you were apprehended by two armed police officers. You were anxious not to be shot and offered no resistance,” Justice Mander read.

The judge then spoke about the character of each of those who were murdered, about people like:

“Haji Mohemmed Daoud Nabi was a 71-year-old who had been married to his wife for 46 years. He was a role model and leader to his family; a best friend to his children and to his wife. For them the pain and anguish never goes away. Mrs Nabi describes herself as ‘alive, but not living’.”

And…

“Ansi Karippakulam Alibava’s husband found her lying on the road. He sat down beside her until police told him it was not safe. He knew when ambulance staff were not treating her that she had died. He is devastated. He finds himself constantly reminded of the events of that day and the loss of his dear wife. He can find no solace.”

And…

“Ozair Kadir was training to be an airline pilot like his big brother. His death has left a scar on the hearts of his proud parents. His murder haunts his father.”

And…

“Sayyad Ahmad Milne was a precious 14-year-old boy with his whole life before him. His murder has left a huge hole in his parents’ hearts. Despite his father’s resilience and forgiveness, they grieve for him deeply.”

And… …

“Mucaad Aden Ibrahim was younger still — a three-year-old infant. His father described him as ‘the happiness of the household’ — a vibrant young boy who made friends with everyone he met. No family can recover from the murder of such a small child.”

In the end, Justice Mander considered what sentence is permitted under New Zealand law. As a liberal social democratic country, New Zealand repealed the death penalty for murder at the end of the 1950s.

After consideration, the judge sentenced Brenton Harrison Tarrant to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – which means, he will die in prison. This is the first time any accused has received this sentence in New Zealand.

Officially, the judge delivered his order:

“On each of the 51 charges of murder (charges 1-51) you are sentenced to life imprisonment. I order that you serve the sentences without parole.

“On each of the 40 charges of attempted murder (charges 52-91) you are sentenced to concurrent terms of 12 years’ imprisonment.

“On the charge of committing a terrorist act (charge 92) you are sentenced to life imprisonment.

“I also direct that the four psychiatric and psychological reports prepared for this proceeding be made available to the Department of Corrections.”

And then came the judge’s final order:

“Stand down.”

On writing this account, I am mindful that we cannot republish a summary of each of the victims when 91 people have been either killed or maimed by one man’s actions. It feels terribly selective when choosing who to include, and who to exclude from this report. How can one apply news values to people who have had their present and future stolen from them? One cannot.

Therefore, I encourage you, readers, to read the unabridged ruling from the New Zealand High Court. While upsetting, it will offer a sober account of what occurs when hatred is left to grow inside us, when others do not know how to react or challenge when hatred is expressed: https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases/R-v-Tarrant-sentencing-remarks-20200827.pdf

Also, there is this awful thing, this contemplation, this series of unanswered questions which remain after the killing ceases, well after the victims’ faces become one. Answers remain elusive even after the verdict is read, the sentence is delivered, and the survivors have been ushered home to pick up the pieces of their lives. We are left to wonder, why? That question, that one word, will haunt us for the rest of our days.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s reaction

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern:

“I want to acknowledge the strength of our Muslim community who shared their words in court over the past few days.

“You relived the horrific events of March 15 to chronicle what happened that day and the pain it has left behind.

“Nothing will take the pain away but I hope you felt the arms of New Zealand around you through this whole process, and I hope you continue to feel that through all the days that follow.

“The trauma of March 15 is not easily healed but today I hope is the last where we have any cause to hear or utter the name of the terrorist behind it. His deserves to be a lifetime of complete and utter silence.”

Alpha and Omega, as we began, so we close
At what point in time does an atrocity have a beginning? Is it when the first gunshot is fired? When the first victim is killed? When a killer first submits to thoughts of hatred, alienation, blame and decides to apply those emotions into physical action? Or, is it when racism is justified, when killing is considered defensible by those in whom one chooses to associate with, to support, to impress? Is it when one subscribes to another’s ideology of hate? Or when silence is a protector – chosen by reasonable people – when those around us speak of inhuman things?

Selwyn Manning is editor of Evening Report. A German language version of this article was published by Cicero.de magazine in Germany. We also invite you to view this week’s episode of A View from Afar with Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning where they discuss, in depth, the causes, impact and possible solutions when dealing with white extremism.

• Willkommen in der Hölle, Cicero.de, March 2019
• Christchurch Terror Attacks – New Zealand’s Darkest Hour

Most people think or at least hope their government is doing a good job in the face of covid-19, according to the polls. But there can be no doubt that governments around the world were ill-prepared for this pandemic.

Country after country has been locking their citizens in their homes to slow the spread of the virus for fear that their health systems get overwhelmed, as has happened in Italy. The lack of ventilators and protective equipment are a particular problem, despite the fact that scientists have called for years for governments to stockpile these life-saving machines and protective equipment.

How is it possible that we were not ready? Not only had Bill Gates been banging on about this for a long time, but pandemics also featured strongly on regional and national risk registers produced by governments and bureaucrats, as well as international registers from non-governmental organisations.

READ MORE: ‘If you want to die, don’t come to Papua,’ warns response team doctor

These administrative tools, highlight the most likely and impactful events that could befall societies, from earthquakes to terrorism, and including influenza and novel pandemics.

Reasons for failure to act
Despite all the effort that has gone into developing these tools, governments around the world have been bad at acting on their warnings about a pandemic. We see at least six possible reasons for this.

First, some policymakers, at least in the west, did not believe the magnitude of the problem. This was because comparable events were beyond memory, like the 1918 “Spanish” flu; or were not that severe, like Sars, bird flu and swine flu.

Even Ebola was contained and subdued with relative ease, other than in west Africa where it originated. There was a sense that modern medicine, at least in advanced countries, could cope with anything the microbiotic world threw at it.

Second, some sceptical politicians and the commentators they listen to thought that risk analysts and scientists cried wolf over past viral threats like swine flu and bird flu, and thought some of the risks seemed overstated or even incredible. It does not help that pandemics often appear on the same graphs as issues like space weather, which, while a real and pressing issue, is not widely understood and sounds like something out of a Star Trek episode.

Third, because electoral cycles are short, politicians tend to focus more on the short term. This is a common human trait, but the ramifications are more severe for politicians. Areas of public policy that require long-term investment, especially intangibles such as disaster planning, tend to be lower priority. Politicians either think that the public does not know about the risks or that they do not care.

Fourth, as a species we are good at rewarding people who fix problems, but terrible at acknowledging a problem averted. For example, former US Transport Secretary Norm Mineta received much praise for insisting that cockpit doors should be bulletproof after 9/11. How much praise would he have received if he had done it before 9/11? Consequently, government interest tends to focus on events that have already occurred such as floods or earthquakes.

Fifth, risk registers are confusing. They can feature an overwhelming amount of information, including long lists of many hazards and risks, and large scatter graphs like the one below linking the likelihood of an event with its impact.

The illusions of comprehensiveness, precision and control can lull readers into a false sense of security. But given that the registers are calculated using many assumptions, they can also be seen as inherently speculative, hypothetical and even discountable to politicians.

Global risks in 2020

Sixth, risk registers, if taken as providing guidance and accountability, can become politically risky if an event happens and governments have not been prepared. This is why some countries, for example New Zealand, have not published their risk registers despite the obvious value of developing a common understanding about risks and helping various societal sectors to prepare for them.

Those that don’t publish their registers come under less pressure to act on them.

What to do next time
Given all these problems, what could be done differently to make sure we are better prepared for such crises in future?

To start with, risk registers need to be produced largely outside the political process through a partnership between experts and policymakers. But they should also involve input from a diverse range of groups, for example indigenous people or key workers, so their interests are included in both identifying risks and planning responses.

Each country needs to understand and learn from how others are analysing, planning and have dealt with similar emergencies in the past. It is worth noting that parts of the world most affected by Sars appear to have handled the current pandemic with more urgency and success.

Risk registers should also be published to build trust and consensus in government preparations. This would also allow sections of society, including local government, businesses, charities and individuals, to take their own appropriate actions.

However, registers should not be seen as an end in themselves but rather as live documents against which governments and agencies constantly test themselves to make sure that they are doing enough.

Practice trials, as happen in the UK, are essential but need to be followed up with action to improve future responses. Simply acknowledging that we are not prepared for a pandemic is not enough.

Dr Chris Tyler is associate professor in Science Policy and Knowledge Infrastructure, UCL and Dr Peter Gluckman is director of Koi Tū, the Centre for Informed Futures, and former Chief Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of New Zealand. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

In 2017, the New Zealand media featured 14,349 stories that included the word Islam – nearly 13,000 of those stories mentioned either terrorism or Islamic Jihad.

The stats are from an academic article in Pacific Journalism Review by Auckland University of Technology’s senior lecturer and Pacific Media Centre board member Khairiah Rahman and Azadeh Emadi of Glasgow University:

READ MORE: Representation of Islam and Muslims in New Zealand media

LISTEN TO MEDIAWATCH

The pair wrote that the paper was necessary because:

“there appears to be a growing misconceived hatred for a faith supported by 1.5 billion of the world’s population, but more importantly, this destructive trend is promoted by the media, consciously or not, and has the potential to ultimately cause an unnecessary and irreparable rift in civil society.”

And they wrote:

“The media can rectify their misrepresentations of Muslims by adopting intercultural dialogue. The outcome would present a holistic story that uses the voices of those involved respectfully.”

In the days since the mass murder at the mosques in Christchurch Muslim voices are finally being heard. It’s beyond tragic that it’s taken an act of such murderous evil to bring that about.

Unsurprising to Muslims
If there’s been a unifying theme among many of the op-eds published in recent days it’s that as shocking as the white supremacist attack was – it wasn’t surprising to Muslims.

Waleed Aly, a co-host of the Australian version of The Project, began last Friday’s programme with an editorial. He said:

“Of all the things I could say tonight, that I’m gutted and I’m scared and I feel overcome with utter hopelessness, the most dishonest thing, the most dishonest thing would be to say that I’m shocked. I’m simply not. There’s nothing about what happened in Christchurch today that shocked me. I wasn’t shocked when six people were shot to death at a mosque in Quebec City two years ago. I wasn’t shocked when a man drove a van into Finsbury Park mosque in London about six months later and I wasn’t shocked when 11 Jews were shot dead in a Pittsburgh synagogue late last year or when nine Christians were killed at a church in Charleston. If we’re honest, we’ll know this has been coming.”

The video has been shared 12 million times and seen Prime Minister Scott Morrison threaten Network 10 with a defamation case.

Writing on the Vice website lawyer and chairperson of the Khadija Leadership Network Pakeeza Rasheed wrote:

“I am sad that this happened but I am equally angry that little had been done to address the issues leading up to this event. As Muslims we have been told our anger is dangerous, our anger is unacceptable. … For so long we have been told to be quiet, to be invisible, to know our place and apologise for our very existence. To be grateful that we were allowed to be a part of a utopian paradise. But let’s not fool ourselves. We have never really been a part of New Zealand. We have merely been allowed to exist—never embraced, never included, never accepted. Muslims have been in New Zealand since the 1800s but we are still treated as outsiders.”

‘We ignored it’
Donna Miles-Mohab writing on Newsroom said:

“Islamophobia: you cannot tackle it if you don’t acknowledge it exists. Let’s face it; we ignored it. We chose to look away. We chose to refuse to acknowledge that Islamophobia is a problem in New Zealand. It’s a hard pill to swallow, I know – especially now that most of us feel so devastated by the news and feel so shocked that such an evil act can happen in a country full of love and tolerance. But to many Muslims, especially hijabi Muslim women, the hate that gave rise to this evil act is not entirely unfamiliar.”

And she noted: “An informal survey of 100 young Muslim women conducted by the Islamic Women Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) showed 80 percent were harassed or discriminated within the previous year.”

On RNZ’s website Saziah Bashir wrote:

“Muslims have been dehumanised and demonised in the media the world over since 9/11. The failure to include Muslim voices in this narrative has left unchallenged the stereotypes painted of us, as if we are a two-dimensional monolith, a single monstrous Other.”

And she had some suggestions…

“Share on social media the commentary from Muslims who are sharing their thoughts and experiences and if you are white then share the immense platform you are often privileged to occupy.”

Plenty of sharing
There’s been plenty of sharing going on. The Manukau Police posted a video on Facebook of Inspector Naila Hassan – New Zealand’s highest ranked Muslim police officer – addressing a vigil marking the tragedy.

In a profile of Inspector Hassan published by Stuff last year, she revealed that it had taken her 20 years to admit to her colleagues she was Muslim – clearly it’s not just the media that at times has felt less than welcoming to Muslim views.

Green MP Chloe Swarbrick used her Facebook page to let her friend Mukseet to tell his story. The post has been shared 10,000 times.

Mukseet writes candidly about growing up in a racist country and then shares this anecdote: .

“I watched my mum bursting with pride as she recounted to my aunty in Bangladesh the story of how she went for a walk this morning, and a white woman came up to her, greeted her as a friend, took her hands and said ‘I’m so sorry for your loss’.”

He continued: “Your messages mean a lot. Your support means a lot. They have brought me to tears, helped to keep me grounded, and brought me back from some really dark places. But if I’m to be honest; they’re not enough. Action is so much harder than apathy. But look where apathy and complacency got us.

“In these times when hate and bigotry no longer have to hide in the shadows; listen to minorities, talk to those around you, if you hear someone spouting hate, call that shit out.”

Earthquake shelter
Dr Anwar Ghani of the Federation of Islamic Societies was asked on TVNZ’s Marae on Sunday about that lack of surprise at the attacks but he had other things he wanted to say first:

“This particular mosque at Deans Avenue was a place for shelter when we had the earthquakes and they used to serve meal to three to four hundred people every day. And the community made a point of going the provide at least whatever they could. That was their sense of doing community good.”

And then Dr Ghani answered the question about why the attack hadn’t come as a complete surprise to Muslims.

“While we are not surprised but we are certainly shocked that it could happen at this level, this magnitude. We are lost for words. We also know that New Zealand stands together. We have seen at the vigil in Hamilton – such a small community but six seven thousand people came and showed solidarity.”.

One of the biggest challenges coming up for the media is how to deal with the upcoming trial of the man responsible this crime. Anjum Rahman, of the Islamic Woman’s Council, was asked on TVNZ’s Q and A programme about the accused mass murderer’s plan to represent himself in court.

She replied that he would represent himself and like all New Zealanders he had that right but the media had a responsibility not to report everything just for the sake of it. “I would be asking all media to show extreme restraint in terms of which of his messages they choose to put out to the public. Don’t let him play the game.”

If Anjum Rahman was looking forward to the media reporting responsibility, the Spinoff’s Duncan Grieve was looking at how the media was handling some of its less edifying efforts from the past. In an article titled: ‘The quiet deletion of the Islamophobic archives,’ Grieves pointed out that a photo Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking holding up a tee-shirt with the Okay symbol that is popular with white supremacists had been removed (Hosking has said he was unaware of the symbol’s associations with the alt-right); and that an article by fellow ZB host Chris Lynch that asked “Does Islam have any place in public swimming pools?” had also been removed.

On-air apology
Mediawatch hasn’t read the the scrubbed op-ed but presumably it objected to women only hours – often popular with non Muslim women as well – on the grounds it was buckling to Islamic demands.

Lynch made an on-air apology.

Newsroom’s Thomas Coughlan took a look at the recent history of politicians criticising Islam and Muslim immigration to New Zealand. (He spoke to Bryan Crump about it on Monday night on Lately.)

He pointed our current foreign and deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is a repeat offender. Peters is quoted as saying: “They say – ah yes – but New Zealand has always been a nation of immigrants. They miss a crucial point. New Zealand has never been a nation of Islamic immigrants…” .

Coughlan’s list was far from comprehensive. In 2002 Richard Prebble – then the leader of the ACT Party – warned of the dangers of people from desert cultures and advocated taking in white farmers from Southern Africa instead – who he described as real refugees.

The comments barely rated a mention with Scoop and Australia’s Green Left Weekly being the only places online with articles mentioning the press release.

Didn’t rate a mention
And in his self-published 2014 autobiography Don Brash dedicated a whole chapter to the question fundamentalist religion.

Most of the chapter is made of an article that Brash wrote while he was the leader of the National Party but was never published because his colleagues at the time warned him that it would confirm people’s impression that he was a racist.

In it he quotes approvingly from a paper by a former Australian Treasury secretary – “not some kind of extreme right-wing nutter,” according to Brash – which advocated bringing Muslim immigration to a virtual halt because, he claimed, Islam was a culture that “for the past 500 years or so failed its adherents as its inward-looking theocracy has resulted in it falling further and further behind the West”.

Brash’s book was the subject of quite a few interviews but as far as Mediawatch is aware his support for massively restricting Muslim immigration didn’t rate a mention.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

New Zealand police continued today to respond to events following shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch yesterday.

The national security threat level has been lifted to high. Mosques across New Zealand have been closed and police are asking people to refrain from visiting.

So far, 49 people have been killed. According to media reports, 41 people were fatally shot at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue; others died at a second mosque nearby.

READ MORE: 36 minutes to catch the accused killer

Four people, three men and a woman, were taken into custody yesterday in connection with the shootings. One person was released.

A 28-year-old Australia-born man, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, was today charged with murder.

In the hours after the attacks, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern made it clear this was a terrorist attack of “extraordinary and unprecedented violence” that had no place in New Zealand.

She said extremist views were not welcome and contrary to New Zealand values, and did not reflect New Zealand as a nation.

It is one of New Zealand’s darkest days. Many of the people affected by this act of extreme violence will be from our refugee and migrant communities. New Zealand is their home. They are us.

She is right. Public opinion surveys such as the Asia New Zealand Foundation annual surveys of attitudes tend to show that a majority of New Zealanders are in favour of diversity and see immigration, in this case from Asia, as providing various benefits for the country.

But extremist politics, including the extreme nationalist and white supremacist politics that appear to be at the core of this attack on Muslims, have been part of the New Zealand community for a long time.

History of white supremacy
I completed research in the UK on the National Front and British National Party in the late 1970s. When I returned to New Zealand, I was told explicitly, including by authorities that were charged with monitoring extremism, that we did not have similar groups here.

But it did not take me long to discover quite the opposite.

Through the 1980s, I looked at more than 70 local groups that met the definition of being extreme right wing. The city that hosted many of these groups was Christchurch.

They were a mixture of skinhead, neo-Nazi and extreme nationalist groups. Some were traditional in their ideology, with a strong underpinning of anti-Semitism and a belief in the supremacy of the “British race”.

Others inverted the arguments of Māori nationalism to argue for separatism to keep the “white race pure”.

And yes, there was violence. The 1989 shooting of an innocent bystander, Wayne Motz, in Christchurch by a skinhead who then walked to a local police kiosk and shot himself.

The pictures of the internment showed his friends giving Nazi salutes. In separate incidents, a Korean backpacker and a gay man were killed for ideological reasons.

Things have changed. The 1990s provided the internet and then social media. And events such as the September 11 terror attacks shifted the focus – anti-Semitism was now supplemented by Islamophobia.

Hate speech online
The earthquakes and subsequent rebuild have significantly transformed the ethnic demography of Christchurch and made it much more multicultural – and more positive about that diversity.

It is ironic that this terrorism should take place in this city, despite its history of earlier far right extremism.

We tend not to think too much about the presence of racist and white supremacist groups, until there is some public incident like the desecration of Jewish graves or a march of black-shirted men (they are mostly men) asserting their “right to be white”.

Perhaps, we are comfortable in thinking, as the prime minister has said, they are not part of our nation.

Last year, as part of a project to look at hate speech, I looked at what some New Zealanders were saying online. It did not take long to discover the presence of hateful and anti-Muslim comments.

It would be wrong to characterise these views and comments as widespread, but New Zealand was certainly not exempt from Islamophobia.

Every so often, it surfaced, such as in the attack on a Muslim woman in a Huntly carpark.

An end to collective innocence
It became even more obvious during 2018. The Canadian YouTuber Stefan Molyneux sparked a public debate (along with Lauren Southern) about his right to free speech. Much of the public comment seemed to either overlook or condone his extreme views on what he regards as the threat posed by Islam.

And then there was the public protest in favour of free speech that occurred at the same time, and the signs warning us about the arrival of Sharia law or “Free Tommy” signs. The latter refers to Tommy Robinson, a long-time activist (cf English Defence League leader) who was sentenced to prison – and then released on appeal – for contempt of court, essentially by targeting Muslims before the courts.

There is plenty of evidence of local Islamophobic views, especially online. There are, and have been for a long time, individuals and groups who hold white supremacist views.

They tend to threaten violence; seldom have they acted on those views. There is also a naivety among New Zealanders, including the media, about the need to be tolerant towards the intolerant.

There is not necessarily a direct causation between the presence of Islamophobia and what has happened in Christchurch. But this attack must end our collective innocence.

No matter the size of these extremist communities, they always represent a threat to our collective well-being. Social cohesion and mutual respect need to be asserted and continually worked on.

Professor Paul Spoonley is pro vice-chancellor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University in Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.

• Massacre accused appears in court
• Suspected white supremacist charged
• Del Abcede’s PMC images of the Auckland vigil

The magnitude 7.5 earthquake, and subsequent tsunami, that struck Indonesia days ago has resulted in at least 1,200 deaths.

Authorities are still gauging the extent of the damage, but it is clear the earthquake and tsunami had a devastating effect on the Sulawesi region, particularly the city of Palu.

It’s not the first time earthquakes have caused mass destruction and death in Indonesia. The tsunamis that follow are particularly damaging. But why?

READ MORE: Would a better tsunami warning system have saved lives in Sulawesi?

A combination of plate tectonic in the region, the shape of the coastline, vulnerable communities and a less-than-robust early warning system all combine to make Indonesian tsunamis especially dangerous.

Poorly understood
Indonesia covers many complex tectonic environments. Many details of these are still poorly understood, which hampers our ability to predict earthquake and tsunami risks.

The biggest earthquakes on Earth are “subduction zone” earthquakes, which occur where two tectonic plates meet.

In December 2004 and March 2005, there were a pair of subduction zone earthquakes along the Sunda Trench offshore of the west coast of Sumatra. In particular, the magnitude-9.1 quake in December 2004 generated a devastating tsunami that killed almost a quarter of a million people in countries and islands surrounding the Indian Ocean.

But only looking out for these kinds of earthquakes can blind us to other dangers. Eastern Indonesia has many small microplates, which are jostled around by the motion of the large Australia, Sunda, Pacific and Philippine Sea plates.

The September quake was caused by what’s called a “strike-slip” fault in the interior of one of these small plates. It is rare – although not unknown – for these kinds of quakes to create tsunamis.

The fault systems are rather large, and through erosion processes have created broad river valleys and estuaries. The valley of the Palu river, and its estuary in which the regional capital Palu is located, have been formed by this complex fault system.

Studies of prehistoric earthquakes along this fault system suggests this fault produces magnitude 7-8 earthquakes roughly every 700 years.

Sea floor shapes wave
Another important factor for tsunamis is the depth and shape of the sea floor. This determines the speed of the initial waves. Strong subduction zone earthquakes on the ocean floor can cause the entire ocean water column to lift, then plunge back down.

As the water has momentum, it may fall below sea level and create strong oscillations.

The bulge of water moving outward from the centre of a earthquake maybe of limited height (rarely much more than a metre), but the mass of water is extremely large (depending on the surface area moved by the earthquake).

Tsunami waves can travel very fast, reaching the speed of a jet. In water 2km deep they can travel at 700k/hour, and over very deep ocean can hit 1000km per hour.

When the wave approaches the shallower coast, its speed decreases and the height increases. A tsunami may be 1m high in the open ocean, but rise to 5-10m at the coast. If the approach to the shoreline is steep, this effect is exaggerated and can create waves tens of metres high.

Despite the fact that the waves slow down near the coast, their immense starting speeds mean flat areas can be inundated for kilometres inland.

The ocean floor topography affects the speed of tsunami waves, meaning they move faster over deep areas and slow down over submarine banks. Very steep land, above or below water, can even bend and reflect waves.

More intense, deadly
The coastlines of the Indonesian archipelago are accentuated, in particular in the eastern part and especially at Sulawesi. Palu has a narrow, deep and long bay: perfectly designed to make tsunamis more intense, and more deadly.

This complex configuration also makes it very difficult to model potential tsunamis, so it’s hard to issue timely and accurate warnings to people who may be affected.

The safest and simplest advice for people in coastal areas that have been affected by an earthquake is to get to higher ground immediately, and stay there for a couple of hours. In reality, this is a rather complex problem.

Hawaii and Japan have sophisticated and efficient early warning systems. Replicating these in Indonesia is challenging, given the lack of communications infrastructure and the wide variety of languages spoken throughout the vast island archipelago.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster, international efforts were made to improve tsunami warning networks in the region. Today, Indonesia’s tsunami warning system operates a network of 134 tidal gauge stations, 22 buoys connected to seafloor sensors to transmit advance warnings, land-based seismographs, sirens in about 55 locations, and a system to disseminate warnings by text message.

However, financing and supporting the early warning system in the long term is a considerable problem. The buoys alone cost around US$250,000 each to install and US$50,000 annually for maintenance.

The three major Indonesian agencies for responsible for earthquake and tsunami disaster mitigation have suffered from budget cuts and internal struggles to define roles and responsibilities.

Models insufficient
Lastly, the Palu tsunami event has highlighted that our current tsunami models are insufficient. They do not properly consider multiple earthquake events, or the underwater landslides potentially caused by such quakes.

No early warning system can prevent strong earthquakes. Tsunamis, and the resulting infrastructure damage and fatalities, will most certainly occur in the future. But with a well-developed and reliable early warning system, and better communication and public awareness, we can minimise the tragic consequences.

With earthquakes that occur very close to the beach – often the case in Indonesia – even an ideal system could not disseminate the necessary information quickly enough. Indonesia’s geography and vulnerable coastal settlements makes tsunamis more dangerous, so we need more and concerted efforts to create earthquake and tsunami resilient communities.

This article is republished from The Conversation through a Creative Commons licence.

• Chaos in Palu after quake and tsunami

Dr Anja Scheffers is a professor at Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales.

An estimated more than 4000 strong crowd threatened to spill over into the parade grounds at Independence Park during the 38th Independence Anniversary Ceremony yesterday.

Police had to be posted to keep excited adults and children within their space.

Planeloads of celebrants from Noumea were flown in to be part of the celebrations too.

People from the islands also arrived to also share in the festivities.

Prime Minister Charlot Salwai’s address was welcomed as “to the point and short” because formalities ended about 10.30am.

The Prime Minister specifically mentioned Ambae’s volcanic ash eruption aas one of the challenges facing the country at present.

He thanked the government for its stability and solidarity.

Infrastructure resilience
He underlined infrastructure resilience as everyone’s business and listed the following examples of positive impact:

• Infrastructure resilience is an opportunity to create employment;
• Infrastructure resilience boosts economic development as it opens economic opportunities, it increases productivity, it improves accessibility and services;
• Infrastructure resilience is a preparedness for disasters, including cyclones, strong winds, heavy rain, earthquakes or flooding;
• This means feeder roads, wharves and airports such as Norsup, Motalava, North Ambrym and extensions to existing airports and classrooms, health units, health centres, hospitals and laboratories, infrastructures of national security and justice including court houses, National and Provincial Government buildings and structures of telecommunications, which include radio and television as they connect local farms with market access and water supply and energy.
• Infrastructure resilience has a strong link with sustaining the productive sector through an easy access to the market place;
• Infrastructure resilience also promotes the movement of tourists to the islands.

Prime Minister Salwai named Korman Sports Facilities, Lapetasi Wharf, Port Vila Urban Road Infrastructure, Bauerfield International Airport, Pekoa International Airport, Whitegrass International Airport and road developments on Tanna and Malekula and submarine cable as classic examples of infrastructure resilience.

“We must change our traditional approach to doing things. It means we must improve our designs to allow the new buildings to withstand stress and disaster and respect the environment,” he said.

Prime Minister Salwai said the government was aware of the different challenges and needs of the business communities and infant industries and medium size industries (SMEs) as the drivers of the economy and job creation and would continue to address them.

He said the financial inclusion policy he launched this year was aimed at improving access and services for the infant industries and SMEs.

Enriching livelihood
“The Vanuatu government has the duties and responsibilities to create a conducive environment for business investment and an enabling and secure environment for enriching the livelihood for all citizens,” he said.

“Vanuatu must remain the better place in which to live and work and share equal benefits,”

The Prime Minister reminded the nation that celebrating independence was a unique moment to unite everyone.

“It is a special occasion for us to celebrate together as one people, one nation and one family sharing the same values of custom and Christianity. We must unite at all times to build a better Vanuatu for future generations – the children of tomorrow,” he said.

“To conclude, may I remind all of us that we belong to a united and free country founded on traditional Melanesian values, faith in God and Christian principles, in line with our motto of “Long God Yumi Stanap”.

Despite the current challenges, he called on the nation to have confidence that “with God nothing is impossible”.

“Be proud of yourselves!”, Prime Minister Salwai added.

Asia Pacific Report republishes Vanuatu Daily Post news items with permission.

INTERVIEW: Lars Ursin of 2°C talks to Elisabeth Holland

The Pacific Islands are already struggling with the consequences of climate change. But they are not giving in. Instead, they have become a force to be reckoned with in international climate diplomacy. How did that happen?

2°C: How are the Pacific Islands experiencing the effects of global warming today?

Elisabeth Holland: Tropical cyclone Winston’s 40-metre waves, that is one thing. The devastating peak winds of both tropical cyclones Pam and Winston, and the destructive storm surges they brought. The fact that recovery after Winston amounted to 30 percent of Fiji’s GDP. Also in Fiji, 676 of around 1800 villages have already said they need to move. Not just from storm surges, but from repeated inundation due to rising sea level or changing storm patterns. Or coastal erosion generated by storm surges and rising sea levels.

In Fiji, we now recommend that all newly married couples move to higher ground. This is because it is tradition to build new housing for newlyweds to give the communities a head start on the inevitable transition. The transitions needs to happen in a methodical, well-organised way with community buy-in.

What areas of the Pacific Islands are most vulnerable to further climate change?

That would be Tuvalu, Kiribati, The Republic of the Marshall Islands and Tokelau. What they have in common, is a maximum elevation of 3 metres. They are along with the Maldives part of what is called the Coalition of Low Lying Atoll Nations on Climate Change.

What is the outlook for the people living on these islands?

The new government of New Zealand is considering setting new immigration policy for their Pacific Island neighbours. Fiji is the only country which has said it would receive climate displaced refugees from the Pacific. Three countries, The Federated States of Micronesia, The Marshall Islands and Palau are part of the Compact of Free Association with the United States and eligible for US passports giving them the right to live, work and study in the USA. Migration, already underway, is to Hawai’i where the provision of some basic services can discriminate against people from these areas.

What practical measures are taken to prevent escalating damage?

There are several issues. Most important is what communities need today to be vibrant and healthy: Fresh water. So, for example, we have provided water tanks and reticulated water systems for more than 12.000 people, funded by the EU. Many of the Pacific Island countries have just begun to access the Green Climate Fund. Tuvalu residents refuse to leave, they say they will adapt. Their funds will be focused on coastal stabilisation, such as sea walls. Marshall Islands are considering which islands to sacrifice to protect the remaining islands. Tokelau has just gotten green climate funding. They are making similar decisions.

‘Migration with dignity’
And Kiribati, under president Anote Tong, a vocal climate spokesperson, has advocated “migration with dignity”. He is focused on ensuring that his population is as well-educated as possible, while at same time taking adaptative measures. Tokelau, by the way, claims to be the first 100 percent renewable energy country, under a project funded by New Zealand.

At the Paris negotiations, you were ringside when the Pacific Islands announced an the High Ambition Coalition with the US and EU, that eventually paved the way for the Paris Agreement. Can you explain what happened?

First, when the High Ambition Coaltion was made public on Tuesday of the second week of negotiations, it was actually forged – in secrecy – during the Cartagena-dialogue earlier in the year. That strategy came about as a result of having learned the lessons of the failed Copenhagen negotiations when no developing country partners were part of the coalition.

That all changed in Paris. First of all, we were better prepared. We had worked with the French Embassy in preparing for the Paris COP. We had worked with the Fijian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Pacific leaders to draft the Suva declaration on Climate Change. The Pacific leaders drafted more than 10 declarations in the lead up to Paris. And still, we were plagued with self-doubt. I remember I met the Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Dame Meg Taylor, on the airport on the way to Paris. She said: “I am afraid we haven’t done our strategic homework”. My reply was “I hope you are wrong”. And in the end, it took a lot of patience and persistence, and the determination of Pacific leaders.

In the Paris COP, I was a delegate for the Solomon Islands. My job was to make sure they had the best science available. So on Monday of the second week, during the high-level negotiations, I sat all night doing calculations for 1.5°C. And the results were upsetting, because it showed that we had less than 10 years before the 1.5 C goal was unattainable. Our press conference on the 1.5°C target was held at the same time as the Minister Tony deBrum’s announcement of the High Ambition Coalition.

However, in addition to representing the Solomon Islands, I was also informing the rest of the Pacific delegations. Also, a lot of my former students were now delegates – 20 in total – both for the Solomon Islands, but also with various other states. In addition, twice a year, I am invited by the secretariat of the ACP – a group of 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states – to present the science to the ACP ambassadors in Brussels.

So, when I was approached by Pendo Maro, the climate coordinator for the EU ACP secretariat, we marched across the Paris campus, I knew we had 79 countries in my pocket. By the end of Wednesday, 100 countries had signed onto the High Ambition Coation.

Imagine: After all the drafting had been done in Paris, Tony deBrum walked into the room, flanked by the EU and US lead climate negotiators, and they were given a standing ovation. That is the level of support they enjoyed. Because each of the Pacific countries had done their best in pulling in their respective coalitions. And I had no idea what I was doing at the time. I Just knew that when I was invited by the ACP to present the science, I had to do the best I could to deliver the message as clearly as I could.

This time around, all were committed to stand together. There were no breakaways.
Generally, in diplomatic negotiations like this, big countries like China or India will try to divide one Pacific Island off. But this time around, all were committed to stand together, to stand with the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). There were no breakaways. We had the leadership of Fiji in the Subsidiary Body for Implementation. Three vocal spokespersons in addition. Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga of Tuvalu. Minister deBrum of the Marshall Islands. President Anote Tong of Kiribati. Because they were most vulnerable countries, the rest of the Pacific let them carry the torch and word out to the rest of the world. But every other Pacific country was behind them, doing their negotiations, backing the high points.

What role have the nations of the South Pacific played since?

In Morocco, Fiji was given the COP23 presidency, and there have been a number of accomplishments under that presidency. One is the Indigenous Peoples’ Platform. A second one was the Gender Action Plan. And, finally, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance. But in addition to all of this, oceans are now being included in the climate negotiations.

What do you mean by that?

If you look in the text of the Paris Agreement, the word “oceans” is named only once. And yet, we all know how important oceans are in the global climate system. Therefore, we have worked to ensure that there is an Ocean Pathway, to make sure the ocean is featured more prominently in the negotiations to come. Diplomacy is never fast, but because Fiji was also president of the UN in 2017, and we had the UN Oceans Conference in 2017, this was a unique opportunity.

This is of course important to the island states of the South Pacific, whose very livelihood depends on the ocean. But it is also a point of confluence with Norway’s positions. Norway has oceans and climate as a priority as well.

And finally, the COP presidency will be handed over to Poland at COP24 in Katowice. However, Poland has asked Fiji to play a role going forwards, to help see the Talanoa facilitative dialogue through.

Speaking of which: Can you briefly explain the Talanoa dialogue and what it is meant to achieve?

There is a great description of it at the COP23 website. But essentially it is this: When people in a Fijian community want to come to a resolution, they convene a meeting. That meeting is called a Talanoa. Everybody comes as equal partners, respected, and in anticipation of being heard. It is done in a circle, generally kava is served to honour everybody. All participants’ views and perspectives are put on the table. And together, participants weave the cloth of the way forward.

This is an idealised description, of course. But it comes from the principle that we are all in the same canoe. And it is the Talanoa that will lay the foundation for the Paris rulebook, and the process called the global stock take. That is a key part in the five-year review process: Taking stock of emissions and comparing them to the temperature targets. And then, based on that, deciding on commitments and the way forward.

But can you actually produce results through that type of process?

Remember, Fiji is a country of less than 850,000 people. And yet, it is by way of the principles of participating in Talanoa that they achieved their role as both president of the UN and COP-president at the same time. So, does that mean that they have a better long term strategic focus?

In the year before, in 2016, Fiji also won an Olympic gold for rugby. Rugby is a strategic game. But so is Pacific diplomacy. Because it always puts the collective first. It is a way of thinking – not about one, but about all.

Is it also about shaking up the rules of the diplomacy game, to allow countries to approach the negotiations in new ways?

The Pacific Islands rank among the very top of disaster prone countries. But they also rank with the highest happiness indices.

Absolutely. Because they know they can trust one another. There is an interesting contrast: The Pacific Islands rank among the very top of disaster prone countries, because of tropical cyclones, earthquakes and tsunamis. But they also rank with the highest happiness indices. And it is not because we are rich. And definitely not because we see ourselves as victims.

Going forward from Paris, what are the greatest obstacles facing the negotiations?

The unravelling of the commitment to high ambition. That is the biggest obstacle.

How can that be overcome?

By leading by example. Whether it is us as individuals, companies, cities or nations, the principle to begin with is leading by example. When the Copenhagen negotiations fell apart, Tony deBrum walked out, and he was wearing a flowered shirt. So the press could immediately identify him as being a Pacific Islander. A reporter asked him: “Minister deBrum, are you here to save your island?” to which he responded: “No, I’m here to save the world”.

That is the thinking we need. That we as small Pacific islands can become champions, not just for ourselves, but for the planet. And that we can achieve that through leading by example. And this is also why we through generations have set aside marine protected areas. It is part of our tradition. We are truly ocean stewards.

What role has scientists such as yourself played in the actual climate negotiations up until now?

Science without strategy, without key countries committed to it, and without good legal thinking, gets you nowhere. No matter how compelling.

The science come into the negotiations in in a couple of different ways. One is through the IPCC. That is a completely separate process, and not formally connected to UNFCCC. But the UNFCCC was formulated to include science perspectives. And it does so through the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice, or SBSTA.

But science without strategy, without key countries committed to it, and without good legal thinking, gets you nowhere. No matter how compelling. That part is hard for scientists to swallow. Because diplomatic negotiations are more about relationships than they are about science.

Leading up to Paris, we had something called the Structured Expert Dialogue, and the 2013-2015 Review. The 2013-2015 Review was a compelling report. That was where they asked the scientific community to take a look at the IPCC and all the available evidence to provide guidance on things like long term temperature goals. Like 1.5°C or 2°C warming. That we did, and in the intersessional between Lima and Paris, we got 1.5°C into the formal text of the Research and Systematic Observation report. And that then became the platform by which we could push through the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) and into the Paris Agreement. You can’t just ask for goals like that in a plenary session during negotiations, you need to work it into the other framework first.

However, the Saudis – and others – blocked the SED 2013-2015 Review report. By the end of the first week, we had no formal consensus that could have informed the Paris negotiations. But we had to close the two subsidiary bodies, SBSTA and SBI – the Subsidiary body for Implementation – to go to the second week, the high-level negotiations.

And it was not until Saturday night that first week that Amena Yauvoli, Fiji, gavelled the Structured Expert Dialogue. With that gavelling, there was a formal legal obligation for science to inform the negotiations. The text of the Paris agreement calls for for a global stocktake to be informed by “the best available science”.

So in the end science prevailed, but only because of good diplomacy and skilful negotiations. And that is something a lot of scientists find difficult to come to terms with. Which is understandable. After all, many of us were attracted to science to begin with because we are attracted to a world defined by black and white rather than grey. However, diplomacy is an exploration of the grey.

How can climate scientists contribute constructively in shaping climate policy in the future?

First, ensure the integrity of science and scientific processes. Second, participate fully in the IPCC processes. Third, make sure that the science can be “translated” and communicated so others can use it for evidence-based decision making.

And finally, understand that the science-policy interface requires time. And is challenging. And requires a lot of dialogue. That may sometimes be frustrating to scientists.

INTERVIEW FACT FILE:
Name: Elisabeth Holland
Position: Professor, University of the South Pacific, Fiji
Why: Holland is a renowned climate scientist. She has been a central figure in the international climate negotiations and has been a visiting scholar at the Bjerknes Center for Climate Research this year.

This article has been republished from the Norwegian ezine 2°C with permission.

This week a disaster relief team operating out of Mougulu in Western Province demonstrated how key partnerships can lead directly to efficient outcomes.

As the largest earthquake in more than 100 years rocked the centre of New Guinea in the early hours of February 26, I lay petrified in my bed, listening as things fell all through the house.

As the shock waves subsided, I flipped on my phone and checked in with my friends in Mt Hagen, Goroka, Lae. They were shaken, but ok. But we were the fortunate ones.

Days passed and every day we learned more of what had befallen the people nearer the epicentre. I knew I had to do something to help the people most affected. I contacted Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) and my longtime friend Sally Lloyd, a woman who not only grew up in Mougulu where her parents have served the Biami people for 50 years, but who has devoted much of her adult life to continuing that legacy and selflessly serving her people in that area.

“I want to help. Is there anything you think I can help with?” I asked. “Yes!” was the reply.

Preparing for the journey to Mougulu
By the time March 4 came around, I was in Hagen coming up to speed on the information that was coming in on the HF radio network and through the MAF pilots who were working in the affected areas southwest of the earthquake.

Following meetings with MAF and the PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) and their Australian Defence Force(ADF) counterparts on March 5, a plan was formed that Sally and I would go to Mougulu in Western Province and form part of a forward operating base to help MAF and MAF’s partners facilitate the disaster relief work.

I bought some tinfish and rice and charged up my phone.

That night, Sally told me the good news that Ok Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML) was working with the office of the MP for North Fly, James Donald, and that a helicopter and pilot would be ready to assist our work the next morning.

On March 6, we were picked up by a helicopter in Hagen and taken to Huya and Dodomona, two of the worst affected places on this side of Mt Sisa. Sally wanted to stay overnight with the people at Huya so that she could get a good sense of what was happening there.

I reckoned I could do a night with the refugees at Dodomona; after all, what’s the worst that could happen?

Earthquake strikes
Our assessment process involved meeting with the ward councillors and pastors, the village recorders and the local leaders. We did earthquake education, listened, prayed with them and asked about health problems, displaced persons, damages to houses and gardens, injured and missing persons, deaths.

By the time midnight struck, I was fast asleep, but only just.

Just in time to be lifted out of bed by a 6.7M earthquake detonating under Dodomona like a nuclear bomb.

By the time I got out of the house, part of it had fallen. The aid post which had stood for 38 years had fallen to the ground. People had minor injuries and were standing in the dark, afraid to go near the houses that they’d been sleeping in moments before.

A pile of mumu stones that I’d stood on to take a photo six hours earlier had vibrated so fiercely that the stones were now spread out all over the village. But we had it easy.

Over at Huya, Sally and the refugees huddled on the airstrip as the cliffs in the distance gave way, weakened a week earlier by the 7.5M, and huge landslides now fell, one after the other, for hours. The noise of a rushing howling wind thundered down on them.

People cried out in fear. The slopes below the airstrip fell away into the river. Cracks opened in the airstrip as the shock waves went on and on.

At dawn we surveyed the damage. We cared for those we could and arranged for medevacs for those who needed more than first aid.

Later that day we met up in Mougulu with team volunteer Samson Suale, MP James Donald, North Fly Project Officer Larry Franklin and officers from the Western Province Disaster Office and the North Fly District Disaster Office.

As a matter of high priority, even before coffee, I related my findings from Dodomona to the group. People were missing and presumed dead. Others were believed to be trapped and dying on the other side of a treacherous, mud-choked river.

We looked at each other. “Let’s go!” several of us said at once.

The clean-up begins
That was nearly three weeks ago. Every day since has been that intense, that focused, that full-on.

We found the “dead” people. They weren’t dead. We found the missing people. We conducted our community assessments in 26 locations from Tinahae in the north to Fogomaiyu in the south, carefully identifying and communicating which locations which will need ongoing aid and which will not.

We learned which people were displaced, where they were moving, and what they were fleeing.

We moved patients who needed help to the health center at Mougulu. Nearly 20 of them. We rescued a woman with cerebral palsy who had been abandoned by her community as they fled. She was alone for nearly four days before I came in the helicopter to take her back to where her community had fled.

We’ve dismantled the fallen aid post at Dodomona and rebuilt it in three days. Take what is fallen, make something useful out of it, get on with life.

Two newly graduated community health workers volunteered to treat patients there with medicines that we got out of Hagen. They’re there now, treating yaws, grille, diarrhea and so many sores.

We’ve installed water tanks at Dodomona, Adumari and Huya. We’ve helped the Rural Airstrip Agency conduct a two-day technical assessment of the fractures in the airstrip at Huya which will allow a plan to be put in place for its repair and re-opening.

We’ve given people the tools they’ll need to rebuild houses, gardens, lives. Hundreds of tools, thousands of packets of nails.

And, of course, we’ve delivered aid. Food aid. Water. Tarpaulins, tents, pots and blankets. Family hygiene kits. All donated by individuals, churches, business houses, CARE International, the North Fly MP’s Office, OTML. All of it flown by Adventist Aviation Services, MAF, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SI), and the ADF Chinooks.

This natural disaster has highlighted what many of us have known all along, that there are people living on the outer edges of Papua New Guinea. People like you and me.

People, however, who do not have soap or salt, a school or an aid post. People whose lives have been shattered by the mountain collapsing beneath them and who must now survive long enough to rebuild.

For the people gathered now at Adumari, Dodomona, Huya and Walagu, perhaps their greatest need now is that their plight is not politicised nor impeded by infighting among the aid groups.

They have a long road ahead of them as they decide whether or not to permanently abandon their damaged homes and villages, and if so, how to build new lives that are full of meaning and possibility.

Our small team here at Mougulu has shown how cooperation and transparency can achieve significant outcomes and I, for one, am proud that I was part of that.

Anton Lutz is an American missionary living in Papua New Guinea. This article was first published on Scott Waide’s blog My Land, My Country and has been republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

• More PNG earthquake stories

Vanuatu sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and though it is accustomed to being hit by cyclones and volcanoes, it does not have clear guidelines or policies ready to respond to major emergencies.

Prime Minister Charlot Salwai stressed these concerns when he was briefing journalists at the weekend on the government order’s for a mandatory evacuation of the entire Ambae Island following the Lombenben volcano crisis.

READ MORE: RNZI reporter Koroi Hawkins in Vanuatu on strained resources for the evacuees

He said there needs to be clear policies to address disaster situations.

While Salwai said the government – through the Ministry of Climate Change and Disaster Management – was responsible to protect and save lives in emergencies, the prime minister admitted the country did not have clear plans in place to respond to specific disasters.

“We are not ready for disasters,” Salwai said.

“We have evacuation centers standby for cyclones that serves no purpose during volcano eruptions and tsunamis.

“In Vanuatu, many settlements are exposed to the coast. This is why we need a separate disaster plan for tsunamis,” he said

“With seven active volcanoes, and earthquakes occurring frequently, Vanuatu is at risk.”

‘Drowning’ islands fears
The prime minister has stressed fears about the possibility of islands in Vanuatu “drowning” due to the looming effects of climate change in the future.

“We must have our own national policies in place before we call for international help or while we continue to address climate change abroad, both regionally and internationally,” he said.

Prime Minister Salwai said the government did not want to get blamed for a large scale disaster, therefore it had issued the order for the Ambae evacuation so that it could provide mass care.

“It is better to evacuate than leave lives at risk,” he said.

“The government will extend the state of emergency period if the volcano activity remains in this stage.

“The affected families from Ambae rescued to neighboring islands will remain in temporary shelters until such time the state of emergency be lifted.”

Remain calm appeal
The President, Obed Moses, said the Lombenben volcano crisis must be considered a priority by the government, and every effort must be taken to move people to safety immediately.

The Head of State called on all citizens to remain calm and not to interfere with authorities handling the situation.

Director of the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), Shadrack Welegtabit, said efforts were underway to evacuate people quickly to safety from the volcano affected island before next Friday, October 6.

An order was issued for all ships to standby on nearby shores for any request of assistance on evacuating 11,600 people to safety. Evacuation from Ambae officially started on Saturday but people were already voluntarily moving out.

According to the Director, 400 people had alread moved at their own cost.

Schools, community halls and churches on neighboring islands of Pentecost, Maewo and Santo were opening up to accommodate evacuees until the government found proper safe places and set up shelters and facilities, said Director Welegtabit.

A reported 283 final year students in schools on Ambae were given priority to be evacuated before mock examinations this week.

The Ministry of Education will waive school fees for third term this year and first term of 2018 for parents living on Ambae, according to an agency order.

Discounted airfares
The order, which was signed by the Minister of Climate Change and Disaster Management, Ham Lini, on the advice of the National Disaster Committee, provided for government shareholders to allow a discount of 50 percent on air fares on all Air Vanuatu flights from Ambae Island.

“Also, all government vehicles under the possession of government on Ambae be used to evacuate people from villages.”

Meanwhile, conditions remained difficult in evacuation centers with overcrowding on Ambae.

In Port Vila, business people, communities, churches,non-government organisations, international partners, including students offered humanitarian assistance.

The patrol boats LC Urata and LC Mahalia departed for Ambae with relief items, including water, hygiene kits, kitchen kits, tarpaulins, fuel and two lorries to assist with the transportation of people to ports.

Anita Roberts is a Vanuatu Daily Post reporter. Asia Pacific Report has permission to republish articles.

• Volcano cater lakes serious threat to Vanuatu
• More Vanuatu volcano stories

John Miller (1929-2016) died in Christchurch in November, aged 87. John and Leonida (Leony) have been members of the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA) since 1994 (PSNA hasn’t published a newsletter since 2009, so we count anyone who was a member in 2009 as being a current member).

As Jim Consedine explained in his obituary for the Catholic Worker publication The Common Good, John Miller visited the Philippines in 1983, when it was being ground under the heel of the Marcos martial law dictatorship.

He married Leony, returned to New Zealand, and their daughter Cory was named after Cory Aquino, who became President when the world famous People Power movement swept the Marcos regime out of power and out of the country in 1986.

John remained passionately interested in the Philippines for the rest of his life and he always attended Christchurch public meetings addressed by Filipino speakers that PSNA toured through NZ on a regular basis.

The photo of John that accompanies this obituary was on his funeral programme. He was wearing a “Free All Political Prisoners” T shirt and it bore the names of the major human rights group Karapatan, and of SELDA, the group representing the victims and families of the Marcos martial law dictatorship.

I suspect he probably got it during PSNA’s 2004 NZ speaking tour by Marie Hilao-Enriquez, a leader of both Karapatan and SELDA and herself a martial law detainee.

Political prisoners
Unfortunately, neither political prisoners nor the vile Marcos family are consigned to the past in today’s Philippines.

They are both very much front and centre under the new President, Rodrigo Duterte.

This other photo was taken just last weekend by my wife Becky, who is currently in Manila on her annual Christmas visit to her family. It was taken at a rally to protest against this month’s burial of Ferdinand Marcos (who has been dead since 1989) in the National Heroes Cemetery in Manila.

The shirtless young man (a stranger to Becky, who took the photo) has names written on his back. They are of victims of the Marcos martial law dictatorship.

The top one says “Liliosa” – Liliosa Hilao, who was the most high profile female murder victim of that regime (in the early 1970s).

Liliosa was Becky’s maternal aunt and Marie Hilao-Enriquez’s sister. This stuff is still very current in the Philippines – it has never been resolved.

Anti-Bases Campaign
I also knew John in another capacity. Although he was never a member of the Anti-Bases Campaign, he came on ABC’s Waihopai spy base protests more than once.

He came with the Christchurch Catholic Worker contingent. ABC, although an avowedly secular group, has had a long and productive working relationship with Catholic Worker.

Three of its North Island members – Adrian Leason, Peter Murnane and Sam Land – were the famous Domebusters, who deflated one of the spy base’s domes in 2008 and were acquitted of all charges by a jury.

They are the stars of the excellent current documentary The 5th Eye. (If you haven’t seen it yet, join us at the upcoming Waihopai spy base protest. We’re showing it in Blenheim on January 28).

John was already an old man when he came on the Waihopai protests but he burned with youthful passion whenever he spoke there and even more so when he recited one of his own poems (Jim Consedine, who co-presided at John’s ecumenical funeral, jokingly said: “John had 400,000 poems”).

His whole demeanour and tone of voice changed when he launched forth – he became an orator, with a declamatory tone.

To mention John without mentioning religion is like mentioning Christchurch without mentioning earthquakes. It was central to his being.

Evangelical enthusiasm
His funeral was a Catholic/Methodist joint production (definitely a first for Becky and me and, I suspect, for a lot of the others attending). In her eulogy, Cory said she asked him once: “Dad, what do you do for fun? Dad replied “I go to church”.

“But what do you for fun, Dad?” Dad replied: “I pray”. At that point, Cory said, she gave up.

John was a passionate Christian pacifist and a man with great evangelical enthusiasm.

He was a neighbour of ours, living in the next street, and would regularly turn up unannounced (his record was five times in one day) to tell me about something he’d just read in the radical Christian press or to generally share the Good News.

As a friend said: “John doesn’t do small talk”. He regularly tried, and failed, to get me along to one of the various churches he regularly attended. (I’m a long lapsed Anglican and Presbyterian, married to a long lapsed Catholic).

At times he could be a nuisance (it is not an easy road being an unapologetically public religious practitioner in a heavily secular society), but his motives and commitment to peace and a truly radical Christianity could never be doubted.

I’ve met plenty of other Biblebashers, too many of them on my own doorstep, but John was one with a difference, he was a progressive Biblebasher, albeit one with a striking resemblance to an Old Testament prophet.

He and I were on the same side.

Rest in peace, you zealot for peace. My deepest condolences to Leony and Cory (whom I’ve known since she was a child).

Murray Horton is a social justice campaigner, organiser of the Anti-Bases Coalition (ABC) and Campaign Against Foreign Control (CAFCA), and a stalwart of the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa.

By Odile Guiomar in Lenakel, Tanna

Tanna Island has hosted the first Slow Food festival in Vanuatu – Tupunis Slow Food Festival – and it was a resounding success.

Tupunis, in Tannese language, is a term used for the people in charge of taking care of the land and sea resources.

Tupunis Slow Food festival on Tanna Island last week promoted and highlighted Melanesian traditional food and preservation methods that have been used for years by the ancestors, which ensures Melanesian people live a good healthy life in their islands.

Local food crops play a huge part in times of disaster that are part of every day life in Vanuatu such as cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, and a “modern” danger — non communicable diseases such as diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure and obesity.

Everybody knows “fast food” — processed food, genetically modified seeds that resist bugs and pests, but never germinate, industrial farms and slaughter, loss of old crops, overuse of processed food wrapped under plastic, overuse of preservatives, colorants, chemicals and other additives.

Fast Food plays an important place in our diet, even if it is not healthy and the traditional and local recipes are lost.

Tupunis Food festival, organised by the Slow Food committee in Vanuatu, and funded by Christensen Fund gave a wonderful opportunity to gather some representative foods from different Melanesian countries – Kanaky, Solomon Islands, PNG and Bougainville, and Fiji with the aim to showcase local crops and local recipes and talk about tradition, culture and resilience in their own culture.

Representatives of Minister of Agriculture and Bio-security, Minister of Climate Change, Health, and a panel of specialists and fieldworkers shared their knowledge, while Torba, Penama, Shefa, Tafea, Sanma and Malampa participants showcased their local recipes, local crops and traditional preservation methods, in the purpose to revive and highlight their ability to face climate disaster – cyclone, drought, or heavy rains.

Tupunis Slow Food festival re-enforces the benefit to keep Melanesian traditions alive.

Odile Guiomar is a Vanuatu Daily Post reporter.

The global private prisons operator Serco won second “prize” and third was Bunnings, said the watchdog Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa/New Zealand (CAFCA).

The winners were announced at an award “ceremony” in Palmerston North at the weekend.

CAFCA noted that IAG/State Insurance had been a finalist for the fourth consecutive year, “which will be no surprise to anybody who has lived in Christchurch since 2010”.

CAFCA said this time the insurance corporation had been nominated for two major reasons:

“To quote the nominator: ‘Economic dominance (specifically insurance market dominance). I draw your attention to the detail hidden in this Press article (19/2/15) which reveals that IAG discloses “a significant portion” of its Canterbury quake costs in “the lower tax jurisdiction of Singapore” and thus paid “an unusually low tax rate of 10 percent in the first half of 2015”.’

“Note also that IAG’s chief executive officer (CEO) was the highest paid CEO in NZ in the 2014/15 financial year, on $4.59 million. There’s money to be made from other people’s misery.”

“And impact on people. Five years after the Christchurch earthquakes started the insurance transnationals (of which IAG/State is by far the biggest) are still making life hell for thousands of Christchurch people. IAG/State is far from alone in this but it is the biggest and some of its practices are the worst.”

‘Too hard cases’
In 2015, noted the adjudication, State had pressurised its “too hard cases” in Christchurch to accept a cash settlement and become responsible for their own repairs or rebuilds.

“This means State wants to walk away from its contractual obligations to those customers. There are still State customers living in caravans and garages,” said CAFCA.

Second-placed Serco was a “new entrant but a thoroughly worthy one”.

The report said: “One of its nominators wrote: ‘Serco has a global reputation for dishonesty, corruption and poor human rights. That tendency has been very clearly demonstrated in their time in New Zealand. Serco’s Fight Club mentality is a real response to a culture created from the top’.”

A “close” third-placed Bunnings also made its first appearance in the Roger Award.

“The grounds for its nomination were “displaying contempt for its workers and their rights”.

“This year (2015) it has demonstrated its’ contempt for workers by seeking the casualisation of workers’ hours. Under Bunning’s proposed hours of work clause, the company is seeking the power to change workers’ rosters every four weeks, subject to a two-week notice period.”

Other companies
Three other shortlisted companies in the “worst transnational” competition were: information technology company Apple, TV3 owner MediaWorks and banking group Westpac.

Award judges this year were lawyer and academic Dr David Small, Auckland writer Dean Parker, unionist and Migrante founder Dennis Marga, Auckland Action Against Poverty activist and former Green MP Sue Bradford, and feminist social and political commentator Deborah Russell.

Judging criteria, says CAFCA, are by assessing the transnational (a corporation with 25 percent or more foreign ownership) that has the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories in Aotearoa/New Zealand: economic dominance – monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism; people – unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public; environment – environmental damage, abuse of animals; and political interference – interference in democratic processes, running an ideological crusade.

Radio New Zealand reported that IAG said it was disappointed to have been named New Zealand’s worst transnational corporation.

IAG’s head of corporate affairs, Craig Dowling, said the award showed a tragic lack of understanding of earthquake issues, and the insurance sector’s role in helping tens of thousands of families.

• Insurer gets gong for bad behaviour
• Full Roger Award report

By Carole Landry in New York

With their very existence under threat from climate change, the world’s island states came to the United Nations this week not only to sign the Paris climate deal but to be first in line to make sure it goes into force.

“We are gradually being sidelined, everyone is now claiming that they are the most vulnerable” – Ambassador Feturi Elisaia, Samoa

Although the special circumstances of the Small Islands Developing States was reinforced by the United Nations at the Third UN Conference on SIDS in Samoa last year, the challenge now for the Pacific Islands is to make sure this recognition is clearly spelled out in the new Climate Change Agreement being negotiated in Paris these two weeks.

The 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, also known as COP21 is underway in Paris, France.  By December 11, a new global climate change agreement should be finalised and as those on the frontlines of climate change, the island states are calling for the text to include the wording – Small Islands Developing States” where applicable, throughout the negotiated text.

“The special characteristic that members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) under the UNFCCC process share in common is our vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. It makes no sense therefore to have a new climate change agreement that doesn’t reflect the special realities for SIDS,” said Ambassador Feturi Elisaia, Samoa’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Samoa, host of the Third UNSIDS Conference is also the birthplace of the SAMOA Pathway – the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action Pathway which reaffirms that the Small Islands Developing States remain a special case for sustainable development in view of their unique and particular vulnerabilities.

“If SIDS are not captured as the most vulnerable group in the Paris agreement that we are negotiating, then something is wrong, somewhere. After all, this is meant to be a climate change agreement, not an economic or investment agreement,” said Ambassador Feturi.

“Years ago when we said that we were vulnerable because we saw our coastlines were being eroded, we were told to provide the scientific evidence for that. Now that the scientists have spoken that there is such a phenomenon as climate change which is largely caused by manmade actions, we are gradually being sidelined. Everyone is now claiming that they are the most vulnerable.”

Flooded islands
At one metre of sea level rise, 90 percent of Tuvalu will be inundated with similar flooding projected for Kiribati and the Marshall Islands.

El Nino events will increase the risks posed to Pacific Islands of coral bleaching, tropical cyclones and other extreme weather events such as droughts across the Western Pacific and heavy rains and flooding over a narrow band around the equator.

Economic losses by tropical cyclones in the Pacific islands translate to losses in GDP of 15 – 25 percent, hampering economic development.  The island region is also home to the second most at risk country in the world, Tonga, which facesconstant threats of tropical cyclones and other related climatic hazards, as well as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions.

“While everyone is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, no one is more vulnerable than the Small Island Developing States. We contain three of the five world’s lowest lying islands and the Pacific Islands is also home to Tuvalu, the first island forecast to disappear due to the impacts of climate change,” said David Sheppard, Director-General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

“The impacts are being felt by SIDS now – financially, culturally, physically and environmentally.  The new global climate change agreement must reflect and acknowledge the importance of this document to the SIDS.”

Coming close to the end of week one of the UN Climate Negotiations, AOSIS including the Pacific Islands, are negotiating hard to ensure the recognition of their special vulnerability is particularly recognised in the new text.

As Pepetua Latasi, a Chief Negotiator for Tuvalu said:

“We have a big role to play here in Paris, to ensure that SIDS language is included in all parts of the text that comes out.  We have to follow this ongoing discussion that seems to be redefining what vulnerability is here.

“At the UNSIDS Conference in Samoa, world leaders and international organisations all recognised the special circumstances of Small Island Developing States, so to be excluded from this historical climate change agreement is a shame.

“We cannot leave Paris without having SIDS reflected in the new agreement.”

#4PacIslands

SPREP website

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9500

By Belen Fernandez

AS NEWS arrived of terror attacks in Paris that ultimately left more than 120 people dead, US President Barack Obama characterised the situation as “heartbreaking” and an assault “on all of humanity.”

But his presidential sympathy was conspicuously absent the previous day when terror attacks in Beirut left more than 40 dead. Predictably, Western media and social media were much less vocal about the slaughter in Lebanon.

And while many of us are presumably aware, to some degree, of the discrepancy in value assigned to people’s lives on the basis of nationality and other factors, the back-to-back massacres in Beirut and Paris served to illustrate without a doubt the fact that, when it comes down to it, “all of humanity” doesn’t necessarily qualify as human.

Of course, there’s more to the story than the relative dehumanisation of the Lebanese as compared with their French counterparts. There’s also the prevailing notion in the West that — as far as bombs, explosions, and killings go — Lebanon is simply One of Those Places Where Such Things Happen.

The same goes for places like Iraq, to an even greater extent, which is part of the reason we don’t see Obama mourning attacks on all of humanity every time he reads the news out of Baghdad.

The situation in Iraq is also obviously more complicated — not to mention the ones in Afghanistan, Yemen, and other locations on the receiving end of US military atrocities. Why doesn’t it break the president’s heart to order drone attacks and other life-extinguishing maneuvers?

Short answer: because it’s not the job of superpowers to engage in self-reflection. Thus, Obama’s selective vision enables him to observe in the case of Paris: “We’ve seen an outrageous attempt to terrorise innocent civilians.”

Superficial Western media
It bears mentioning that, in the case of Beirut, the city’s multi-sectarian composition has allowed for varying intra-metropolitan gradations of humanity, available for detection by the Orientalist eye. It’s safe to surmise that, had the recent suicide bombings taken place in, say, an upscale Beirut nightclub, beach resort, or other Lebanese venue about which the superficial Western media love to exclaim, the human fallout may have aroused more audience interest.

Indeed, had the victims been more “like us” than the otherised, eerie and criminal-sounding inhabitants of Beirut’s southern suburbs where the bombings occurred — incessantly described by the sheeplike media as a “Hezbollah stronghold” or “Hezbollah bastion” — they’d have stood a much greater chance of breaking our hearts.

Hell, we might have even seen references to Beirut’s romanticised former identity as the “Paris of the Middle East.”

Following Friday’s attacks in the Paris of Europe, meanwhile, Facebook users in the vicinity of the city were encouraged to check in as “safe” — an option not made available the previous day to Facebook users in Beirut.

In her own Facebook status today, Professor Laleh Khalili of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London noted that, while the online social networking service had also offered the safety check-in after this year’s earthquakes in Nepal, Chile, and Afghanistan/Pakistan, the same “button is not offered to people in Palestine or Syria or Iraq or Lebanon and countless other zones of destruction”.

Stripping of politics
Khalili added: “What might including Paris in the rank of ‘natural’ disasters mean other than a stripping of its politics, a kind of anti-politics that sees this as a story of good vs. evil or of suffering but without a history? Those other places are ‘political’ and their victims cannot be invoked in [Facebook’s] supposedly ‘neutral’ milieu.”

As for the clearly political repercussions of the Paris massacre, which French President François Hollande has blamed on the Islamic State group, persecuted refugees and minorities naturally stand to bear the brunt of the inevitable racist and xenophobic backlash — a godsend for right-wing European politicians and organisations, keen to exploit the bloodshed to the max in the service of their own sociopathic visions.

In its live updates on the aftermath, the British Guardian reported today that “Poland has announced it will no longer take refugees via an EU programme, in a deeply controversial statement which linked the [refugee] crisis to the killings in Paris.”

Obstacles multiply
Unfortunately, however, there are a whole lot of people who won’t see such a move as controversial at all. And as the obstacles to refugee existence multiply, what’s often forgotten is that events like the Paris massacre pale quantitatively in comparison to the situations many refugees are fleeing — ones in which the West itself is often implicated.

In a world far superior to the one we have, the scenario might qualify as an assault on all humanity.

The fact that it doesn’t is truly heartbreaking.

Reprinted from Green Left magazine and TeleSUR English. Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine.

—