The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to condemn Israel’s desecration of its war graves in Gaza.

Israeli bulldozing of the graves – including two Cook Islander ones – was confirmed last week but the New Zealand government has not responded with any comment.

Palestinian Essam Jaradah, who has tended the New Zealand graves for 45 years, confirmed their destruction in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

• READ MORE: Revealed: Israel bulldozed part of Gaza war cemetery containing allied graves
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“Common decency demands we condemn Israel for this abuse of our war dead,” PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement.

“If it happened anywhere else in the world the government would register shock and be appalled.

“Australia has spoken out but nothing from New Zealand. No protest expressed, no demand Israel apologise, no request for access to inspect the damage.  Nothing.”

Minto said there had also been no response from the New Zealand Returned Services Association.

Minto said Israel relied on what he called huge and sympathetic media attention for more than two years, demanding the return of the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza.

“It seems the only human remains which matter are Israeli ones. Over a period, Israel has systematically destroyed Palestinian cemeteries and now the war graves of our soldiers.”

There were 23 graves of NZ World War I soldiers in the Commonwealth War Cemetery, plus another two from the 280-strong Rarotongan Company from the Cook Islands, which also fought for Britain to capture Palestine from the Turkish Ottomans.

“The families of these soldiers deserve to hear their government speak out,” Minto said in the statement.

Earlier reports show appalling and deliberate damage and bodies desecrated in at least 16 other cemeteries across Gaza and Canada reported damage to the war cemetery where Canadian soldiers lie alongside New Zealanders.

According to a CNN report:

Cemeteries are given protections as “civilian objects” under international law and are afforded special protections, with limited exceptions.

“Israel has always flouted international law, and the desecration of cemeteries adds to the long list of its war crimes in Gaza,” said Minto.

“There might be some people who believe Israeli excuses that there are tunnels under everything in Gaza, so everything should be bombed or bulldozed flat.”

“But Israel has no right to be there. It is in illegal occupation of Gaza and the other Palestinian Territory of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

“If Israel respected international law, and withdrew its military occupation, the graves would not have been desecrated,” Minto said.

The land for the cemetery was gifted by the people of Palestine.

“We are not aware that any New Zealand politician has ever visited these graves in Gaza so probably the Prime Minister will turn his back on Israeli desecration of our history as he has on the mass killing, starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.”

The political superpowers of the world have been gently reminded this week of Fiji’s intention to turn the Pacific islands region into a zone of peace and not be pawns in geopolitics.

In his address at a Lowy Institute event in Canberra on Tuesday afternoon, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka emphasised the Pacific’s peace stand in a world that has become riddled with volatile conflicts.

Referring to the US-China rivalry as “very evident” in the Blue Pacific, Rabuka said Fiji did not want to be caught in the middle.

• READ MORE: Fiji PM Sitiveni Rabuka calls for ‘Zone of Peace’ in the Pacific in Canberra speech

“Fiji’s position is very clear. We’re friendly with China now. And with the US — always. And we do not want to be caught in the struggle between the superpowers,” he said.

The Pacific region has become known as a contested region, with interest from the two conflicting superpowers increasing in recent times.

University of the South Pacific academic Professor Sandra Tarte said in an earlier interview with this newspaper that Fiji and other Pacific countries could turn the increased engagement from these countries into economic opportunities to benefit them.

“I think certainly countries want to retain their independence to do what they want and who they deal with,” she said.

‘We don’t want to provoke’
“I think while you can applaud that, there is also the question: how can our countries actually work more collectively on this sort of thing? And we don’t want to provoke any anything.

“We don’t want to create more tension. We are a region of peace or zone of peace, as our prime minister said, so how can we as a Pacific Island region actually work together to make that happen?”

Rabuka said this would be discussed at the next Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leader’s meeting in Cook Islands next month.

“I envisage the basic foundation built on refraining from actions that may jeorpadise regional order and stability. And maintaining respects for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.

“There will be continued emphasis on the Pacific way of dialogue, diplomacy and consensus. We will continue to promote our concept of the vuvale cooperation and our vuvale way of resolving our differences,” Rabuka said.

After bilateral talks in Canberra on Wednesday, Rabuka and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a “renewed and elevated Vuvale Partnership, with a pledge of A$68 million (F$98 million) in budgetary support to Fiji.

Dionisia Tabureguci is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

The 51st Pacific Forum Leaders (PIF) Meeting starting today has been dealt a major blow after the Kiribati government confirmed it has withdrawn from the forum “with immediate effect”.

RNZ Pacific has seen a copy of a leaked letter, dated July 9, from Kiribati President Taneti Maamau to the forum’s Secretary-General Henry Puna, in which he expresses concerns over the regional body’s leadership, as well as the Suva Agreement signed last month.

According to the leaked communication, Kiribati did not sign up to the now-controversial deal, which was touted to mend the leadership rift and prevent the Micronesian subregion to split from the region’s premier political institution.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Islands Forum reports

“We established a reform package that contains commitments that deepen trust and political cohesion across our region,” Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama had said after the conclusion of a special two-day meeting with three Micronesian leaders and the leaders of Cook Islands and Samoa in June.

“Fiji fully supports its [Suva Agreement] adoption at the next Pacific Islands Forum,” Bainimarama, also forum chair, said.

But in the letter to Puna, President Maamau states: “There was never a Micronesian Presidents’ Summit (MPS) caucus decision on the PIF reform packages that Kiribati was part of, and particularly an MPS collective decision to return to the PIF.”

The Kiribati president also requested for the forum to push out the date of the leaders convening so it would not coincide with their National Day celebrations. However, this was not considered.

RNZ Pacific understands forum officials are now working behind the scenes to convince the Kiribati government to reconsider its decision and urgently fly them over for the high-level meeting in Fiji’s capital.

RNZ has contacted the Forum Secretariat for comment.

Bringing the ‘family together’
Pacific leaders have attempted to bring the “family together” and resolve the political impasse for months, but there appears to be an apparent fracture within the forum.

Last week, New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, who is confirmed to be attending the meeting in Suva headed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, said the forum was “at the heart of our engagement with the region”.

Mahuta welcomed the Suva Agreement and calling it “the Pacific-led solution that will see Micronesian states represented at the forum this year.”

But the latest turn of events indicates Pacific Forum leaders are scrambling to find a swift resolution ahead of the opening of one of the most significant leaders’ meetings in recent history starting tomorrow.

A diplomatic source close to RNZ Pacific said Puna must address the issues raised by Kiribati as there were concerns about the role of the secretary-general being a matter of “pride”.

The Suva Agreement
Tension between the Micronesian states and the office of the secretary-general of the PIF has been high since the Micronesian candidate for the top job narrowly missed out to Puna.

But the situation had been improving following the High-Level Political Dialogue which resulted in the Suva Agreement on June 6.

The agreement engineered by forum chair Bainimarama was tweaked by PIFS senior officials meeting earlier last week and approved by the Forum Foreign Ministers on Friday to be tabled for sign off at the Leaders Retreat on Thursday.

In the Suva Agreement, the secretary-general’s term is to be extended from three to five years and Puna would continue till 2024.

Then, unlike every other previous secretary-general in recent times, he is to step down without seeking re-election to make way for a Micronesian candidate.

Current Marshallese Ambassador to the United States and dual Palauan citizen Gerald Zackios was the Micronesian state’s nominee to the position of the forum secretary-general at the last vote of the Leaders Retreat in Tuvalu in 2019.

Also in the agreement is the induction of recruitment procedures for the top job to formalise the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” so the job rotates among the three sub-regions.

To ensure equal representation, an additional deputy secretary-general position is to be created and filled by other candidates to ensure each region can be represented all the time in the Forum Secretariat.

Additionally, Micronesia has asked that the Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC), a position also held by the PIFS secretary-general and housed in Suva, is to be moved to a Micronesian state along with a new forum sub regional office.

The other major CROP agency, the Pacific Community, has a Micronesian regional office in Pohnpei.

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

Some fans have sparked outrage after throwing what appeared to be glass bottles and chairs during the Mate Ma’a Tonga–Kiwi clash at Mt Smart Stadium last night, won by New Zealand 26-6.

An eyewitness alleged some Mate Ma’a Tonga fans hurled bottles at the Kiwi supporters.

Tongan broadcaster and journalist Kite Tu’akalau said he was right there when some fans hurled bottles “tolo hina” at others.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific rugby league reports

“Shame on you,” he wrote on Facebook, describing the encounter in Tongan as “embarrassing, ill-disciplined and nonsense”.

A video posted on social media, seen by Kaniva News, showed three men with Tongan flags climbing from the stands towards a corporate box.

Some men attempted to force their way inside the box before another threw a chair at one of the glass windows, causing it to crack.

A person was hospitalised while a police investigation was underway, police reportedly said.

Commenters on Tu’akalau’s posts criticised the incident as “unsportsmanlike conduct” and “low life”.

One said “that’s disgusting” while another said, “Ban him from all League game(s) … What a retard”.

Some said these unacceptable and unprofessional actions brought a bad image to hundreds of thousands of supporters of the Mate Ma’a Tonga team.

Kiwis beat Tonga
However, it failed to mar the colourful international double header match-up in which the Kiwis defeated Mate Ma’a Tonga 26-6 in front of a sellout 26,000 crowd, a sea of red shirts and flags.

Kiwis 26: Hughes, Rapana, Mulitalo, Papali’i tries; Rapana conversion, 4 x penalty.

Tonga 6: Katoa try; Staggs conversion.

Earlier, a world record was broken as the Kiwi Ferns beat the Tongan women 50-12.

The crowd of 18,364 was the biggest ever for a women’s rugby league match.

Later, at Campbelltown Stadium in New South Wales, the Papau New Guinea Kumuls stunned a star-studded Fiji side to win 24-14.

PNG were $4 outsiders at kick-off and Fiji struck first through Kevin Naiqama but Storm star Justin Olam and Roosters young gun Lachlan Lam took control from there.

Both teams were stacked with NRL stars and the opening 40 minutes proved a free-flowing contest.

In the earlier game in a double header, Samoa thrashed Cook Islands 42-12.

Republished with permission.

Experts are warning that development gains across the Pacific region over the past 10 years could be undone due to the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic.

The aid organisation World Vision wants a once in a life time multinational effort to rebuild Pacific livelihoods that have been shattered by the pandemic.

In the Pacific Aftershocks report, World Vision reveals the results of a survey of households across the region.

• READ MORE: The World Vision Pacific Aftershocks report
• Other reports on Pacific covid-19

It said while much of the Pacific had not had local cases of covid-19 there had been a tragic human cost due to the economic fallout.

World Vision New Zealand’s TJ Grant said the economic devastation could take a greater toll than the virus itself.

Grant said that while many Pacific nations managed to keep infections and transmissions at bay, vulnerable people were now facing the huge cost of closed borders and isolation.

“Almost two-thirds of households have either lost jobs or lost income and have had to resort to other alternative sources of income.

‘One in five houses skip meals’
“Related to that one in five houses is having to skip meals or having cheaper meals because they can’t afford to have a healthy diet. One of the compounding factors here is that through the covid pandemic food prices have risen significantly in many Pacific countries,” Grant said.

One of the nations worst hit by the economic downturn caused by the pandemic is Vanuatu.

World Vision’s country director in Vanuatu, Kendra Gates Derousseau, said Vanuatu had managed to keep covid out yet its food prices had soared by 30.6 percent.

She said this put healthy food out of reach for countless urban ni-Vanuatu.

“Vanuatu is quite dependent on imports, particularly for urban households that work and cannot spend their time doing agricultural gardening and featuring fresh food. And also the price of transport has gone up significantly because the importation of petrol has slowed down,” she said.

World Vision wants Australia and New Zealand to lead a once in a generation step up to help these developing nations overcome the devastating impacts of covid.

It is looking for a comprehensive international programme of support for economic recovery and to address key economic, health and child welfare issues.

Stunted growth exacerbated
Grant said stunted growth, as a result of poor nutrition, was a perennial Pacific problem, and occurrence like the virus and its aftershocks exacerbated it.

Derousseau said New Zealand and Australia and other donor nations could not abandon the Pacific when they were most needed.

“The covid-19 pandemic is a global phenomenon as well as climate change and we know that the Pacific Island nations are extraordinarily affected — even more so than other regions of the world, and so a regional crisis like this requires a regional response.”

Roland Rajah is a development economist with Australian think tank, the Lowy Institute. He has written that the Pacific will be economically put back 10 years by the pandemic.

Rajah told RNZ Pacific it was definitely among the worst affected by the lockdowns.

“Already other parts of the world, South East Asia, even sub-Saharan Africa, Latin American, the Caribbean, they are all on the rebound already,” he said.

“Their prospects for recovery are much stronger than for the Pacific. And there are a variety of reasons for that, but it’s fair to say that it’s amongst the worst affected anywhere in the world.”

He said the Pacific nations typically can’t follow the path of the developed nations and provide stimulis packages because they don’t have the funds.

But he suggests properly targetted infrastructure investment — that that is aimed at also addressing climate change — assisted by the metropolitan powers, may go some way to providing employment and incomes boosts.

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

The collapse of tourism across the world in the face of the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic could plunge thousands of people into poverty in the Pacific, predicts a new International Labour Organisation report.

Thousands of jobs in countries like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are dependent on visitor numbers, which have fallen to zero.

READ MORE: Trump resumes attack on China over coronavirus

The crash will have serious impacts on many island economies.

“Economies such as Fiji, the Maldives and Tonga are heavily dependent on tourism, with shares of tourism in total exports reaching 52, 84 or 47 percent respectively,” the report says.

“In many Asia and Pacific countries, more than three in four workers in the tourism sector are informal jobs, leaving them especially vulnerable to the negative impacts of the covid-19 crisis.

“Informal sector jobs are characterised by a lack of basic protection, including social protection coverage.”

Thousands of jobs lost
Thousands of jobs have already been lost, with resorts and hotels closing in Fiji, the Cook Islands and Samoa, countries where tourism makes up more than half the economy, reports RNZ News.

And the ILO says that with the pain brought by the pandemic expected to be long-lasting, workers with previously stable incomes are sliding into poverty.

Many of these people are also informal workers, with few protections if their jobs fall through.

They don’t have a social welfare system to fall back on, unlike New Zealand or Australia.

The ILO says few Pacific countries have the money to fully cope with the coronavirus response, and solidarity from the likes of Australia, New Zealand and the World Bank will be vital.

The economies of the Cook Islands, Fiji, Palau, Samoa, and Vanuatu are the Pacific countries likely to feel the brunt of the covid-19 pandemic most, according to a separate new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) earlier this month.

Assuming even just a three-month interruption in travel and trade, the tourism-based economies are all expected to contract this year, with Tonga forecast for zero growth, according to the latest  Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2020, ADB’s flagship economic publication.

Pacific contraction
Growth of ADB’s Pacific developing member countries (DMCs) in 2020 is forecast to contract by 0.3 percent, as the covid-19 pandemic directly impacts on tourism and trade flows, while also affecting construction activity.

The recovery in 2021, at 2.7 percent, will rely on improvements in tourism numbers, the commencement of delayed construction projects, and the resumption of labour mobility and cross-border trade

“While most Pacific countries moved quickly and decisively to restrict travel from a fast-growing list of COVID-19 affected countries, such restrictions can come with a high economic cost,” says ADB director-general for the Pacific Leah Gutierrez in a statement.

“ADB is committed to supporting the Pacific cope with the covid-19 pandemic and help address immediate needs.

“We are providing grant financing and support to procure needed medical goods and equipment in selected countries.

“We are also working with Ministries of Finance to assess their budget support needs and coordinating on these closely with other development partners. Strengthening social protection will be key to safeguarding vulnerable groups during this downturn and will also help support the eventual recovery process.”

Economic growth in Papua New Guinea in 2019 was 4.8 percent, tempered by the deferral of large investment projects.

Construction decline
Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries continued to expand, but construction is estimated to have declined. The  ADO 2020 says the government faces important challenges in managing public debt.

The covid-19 pandemic is an added shock for the PNG economy and is already negatively affecting commodity prices. Growth in PNG is expected to remain weak at about 0.8 percent in 2020, rising to 2.8 percent in 2021, it said in its statement.

After uninterrupted growth for the past nine years, growth in Fiji is estimated to have slowed to 0.7 percent in 2019, a hangover from the effects of cyclones Winston and Harold.

Fiji’s economy is projected to further decline by 4.9 percent in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The tourism and air transport sectors are expected to be the worst hit. The report suggests the government must strengthen and empower the private sector to innovate, diversify, and drive the economic recovery after covid-19, while finding the right balance between investing in climate resilient

infrastructure, limiting debt exposure, and building fiscal buffers. As a priority, Fiji needs to improve its business and investment climate, while encouraging business innovation. The report says growth will improve in 2021 and reach about 3.0 percent.

Economic growth in Solomon Islands is expected to slow to 1.5 percent in 2020, slightly down from 2.6 percent in 2019, as exports fall because of the covid-19 pandemic.

Continuing logging decline
Growth is expected to recover to 2.7 percent in 2021 as construction on large infrastructure projects offsets a continuing decline in logging.  ADO 2020  says that with the logging sector contributing less to growth over the longer term, reforming the tax system will become critically important to ensure that it supports broad-based growth in other areas.

Vanuatu’s economic growth is forecast to contract from 2.8 percent in 2019 to -1.0 percent in 2020 as travel restrictions arising from covid-19 undermine tourism. Growth should recover and reach 2.5 percent in 2021. The report notes that with more workers accessing labour mobility schemes, policies must ensure that the benefits are both broadly enjoyed and sustainable.

The covid-19 pandemic will severely hit tourism, with the South Pacific economies the most affected.

Growth and fiscal outcomes will be undermined in the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tonga. The Cook Islands’ economy is expected to contract from 5.3 percent in 2019 to -2.2 percent in 2020 due to a collapse in tourist arrivals.

Growth is forecast to recover in 2021 to 1.0 percent. Samoa’s economy is expected to contract from 3.5 percent in 2019 to -3.0 percent, before slightly rebounding to 0.8 percent in 2021.

Tonga, where economic growth was 3.0 percent in 2019, will see zero growth in 2020 due partly to a plunge in visitor arrivals. Growth will likely reach 2.5 percent in 2021, buoyed by tourism recovery and faster government implementation of rehabilitation and recovery from Cyclone Gita, says the ADB report said.

More covid-19 cases
Meanwhile, Guam has recorded more positive covid-19 results, taking cases there to 144 and five people have died from the virus in the US territory.

In the curious case of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, now docked in Guam there were 840 cases, but the origins of covid-19 remain a mystery.

In New Zealand, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced today that there were three new cases, two confirmed and one probable.

The new national total of confirmed and probable cases is 1472.

And, as New Zealand moved to alert level 3, the queues at MacDonalds and other takeaway sites after four weeks of lockdown were something to behold.

In the Northern Marianas they had 14 cases and two deaths, New Caledonia 18 cases, French Polynesia 58 cases, Timor-Leste 24 cases and Hawai’i has 607 cases with 16 deaths.