I keep thinking about a talk I listened to by Julian Assange back in 2017 where he warned that one day AI could be used to facilitate the propaganda interests of the powerful by manipulating news media and information in ways that are too subtle for the human mind to notice.

Assange described a future where AI-powered algorithms serve us a customised feed of information based on data collected about our search queries and interests, calculated to appeal to our biases and construct a worldview for us which advances the agendas of those who control the machines.

He explained that sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence systems could arrange this information with more subtlety and complexity than human perception can pick up on, in much the same way a computer can outperform any human brain at a game of chess.

• LISTEN AND WATCH: A video reading by Tim Foley

Here’s an excerpt from Assange’s remarks, delivered via video chat at the Meltdown Festival in June 2017:

“What I think is probably the most important development that is happening as far as the fate of human beings is concerned is that we are getting close to the threshold where the traditional propaganda function that is employed by, you know, the BBC, the Daily Mail, etc… can be encapsulated by AI processes.

“Now, if you think about when you’re playing chess, already we’re in a situation where AI can do better than any human chess player.

“So you can see a certain number of moves ahead. And someone moves a piece onto the board and you go ‘Why did they put that knight there?’ And you start to think what is the intentionality behind it, and you try and look several steps ahead to work out what the intentionality was and then counter it: Okay, they want to manipulate me into moving here so this will happen and so I will lose.

“We take these considerations already when we’re  —  well, some of us  – when we’re reading stories in the press. What is the intentionality of this story? Why is this particular information being pushed to the public and not some other form of information? Who’s the name of the author? What publication is it appearing in? What language? Etc.

“Well, possibly the reason is because someone wanted to promote a particular agenda, therefore we should read it in a different light.

“But when you have artificial intelligence programMEs harvesting all the search queries that people have on their phones, all the YouTube videos that human beings have uploaded etc, and it starts to lay out perceptual influence campaigns 20 to 30 moves ahead, this starts to become totally beneath the levels of human perception.

“And once a computer-augmented organiSation such as Google is able to engage in influencing human beings 20 to 30 moves ahead, keeping each move beneath the level of human perception, there’s nothing we can do about it, because we can’t see it.”

I keep thinking about these remarks nearly a decade later because this does seem to be the goal. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to everyone that these new technologies are not intended to improve the lives of ordinary people, but to serve the interests of the oligarchs and empire managers who rule our world.

That’s why they’re being rammed into existence at breakneck pace despite the obvious fact that they’re making life worse for most people without advancing human quality of life in any meaningful way.

A big part of the agenda seems to be to re-centralise the control of information that was temporarily lost with the advent of the internet. Revolutionary sentiments are rumbling around the world as our species becomes increasingly discontented with the abuses of capitalism and the US-led World Order, assisted by humanity’s unprecedented ability to network and share information around the world in real time.

Artificial intelligence’s usefulness in re-centralising information in ways that can be easily manipulated has already been noted by the Israel lobby.

At an American Jewish Committee event this past June, Santa Clara University’s Maya Ackerman argued that generative AI presents an exciting new opportunity for imposing pro-Israel narratives on public consciousness, because AI companies can be lobbied directly to push pro-Israel narratives since their leaders can control what information people see.

Here’s a transcript of what she said:

“The really cool thing about AI is that while it can become a great ally for our enemies, if we act early it could be exactly the opportunity that we need after missing the boat with social media.

“AI is now becoming the dominant source of information  – the main source of information. People trust AI more than anything else. They trust AI more than social media. They turn to chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini instead of using Google.

“And young people use these bots instead of Google in very, very very large numbers. So this is becoming the main source of information.

“And so when I say this, I still find Jewish people being discouraged, they say, ‘Oh, but Wikipedia is already so antisemitic and social media is so antisemitic — why bother? The AI just learns from all of this data.’ So, you know, whatever, not much we can do.

“But that’s not true, because over the past two years the AI companies have been moving towards alignment. So instead of algorithms sort of honestly representing what’s in the data, we’re finding that these chatbots and the text to image models are increasingly showing us exactly what the companies want us to see.

“Okay, so it’s becoming intentional. Which means that instead of trying to control the whole world and trying to somehow manage what’s happening in this big blob called Wikipedia and social media, we can go directly to the companies with clear technical and advocacy solutions.

“For the first time, there is a path to correcting the digital world.”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt recently confirmed that this was the Israel lobby’s new MO, saying the ADL has been “working with” all the top AI companies and pushing them into alignment with the pro-Israel agenda.

Speaking at a Jerusalem Post conference last month, Greenblatt said the following:

“So we’ve been working with the Frontier Labs — OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet the company that runs Gemini, Google, Meta who runs Muse, and others, X, who run Grok — testing their models and using the results to push them to do better.”

“Look, we’ve had excellent collaboration with Silicon Valley. These companies want to improve ChatGPT and Claude. We’ve got to help them.

“So we’ve run the tests and seen where antisemitism shows up and helped them develop strategies to tackle it right in the source code.”

If the Israel lobby manipulators are doing this, then we can assume that all the high-level imperial narrative managers are doing it as well.

In January 2018, Assange tweeted the following:

“The future of humanity is the struggle between humans that control machines and machines that control humans.

“While the internet has brought about a revolution in our ability to educate each other, the consequent democratic explosion has shaken existing establishments to their core. Burgeoning digital super states such as Google, Facebook and their Chinese equivalents, who are integrated with the existing order, have moved to re-establish discourse control. This is not simply a corrective action. Undetectable mass social influence powered by artificial intelligence is an existential threat to humanity.

“While still in its infancy, the geometric nature of this trend is clear. The phenomenon differs from traditional attempts to shape culture and politics by operating at a scale, speed, and increasingly at a subtlety, that appears highly likely to eclipse human counter-measures.

“Nuclear war, climate change or global pandemics are existential threats that we can work through with discussion and thought. Discourse is humanity’s immune system for existential threats. Diseases that infect the immune system are usually fatal. In this case, at a planetary scale.”

Anyway, just some things we should keep in mind as we make our way into this strange new future.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

The Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize committee awarded this year’s prize to Navi Pillay for her lifelong commitment to human rights, justice and accountability.

Following a long and distinguished career as a human rights-focused jurist, South African-born Pillay was appointed chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 2021.

Quite predictably, within hours of the announcement of her award, President Trump said he should have won eight “Noble” (sic) prizes, that the decision was an indelible stain on Norway, and he would impose fresh sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) established to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

• READ MORE: Nobel Peace Prize honours Navi Pillay for lifelong commitment to human rights, justice and accountability
• A triumph for global justice – why Navi Pillay’s Nobel Peace Prize is beyond reproach

Happy to do his master’s bidding, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would punish the choice of Pillay by “dismantling the ICC brick by brick, … we will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate”.

In lockstep with his US patron, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared the choice of Pillay “a gross weaponisation of the Nobel Peace Prize…  If there was an award for lies, hatred and blood libel, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender, she’d be a front runner”.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has said nothing. Despite repeated claims to respect international law, a fearful silence is the best Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong can offer, a tactic suggesting a

cowardly sheltering behind the diatribes from Trump and Netanyahu.

A champion of human rights
In complete contrast to the Netanyahu criminality invective, Judge Pillay has promoted universal human rights, advocated respect for humanitarian law and, through her kindness and generosity, has represented the ideals of a common humanity.

Citations explaining Navi Pillay’s record explain why she is regarded as a champion of peace with justice and why so much is at stake in this controversy over her Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Committee explained their choice: “For her efforts to promote peace and international law.” … “History has shown that a world operating without the rule of law is unjust, unwise, and inhumane.”

A year earlier, Navi Pillay received the Sydney Peace Prize whose citation included reference to “a lifetime of advocating for the fundamental human rights of women”, due recognition of Judge Pillay’s campaigns to abolish female genital mutilation and forced child marriages.

Where is the gratitude?
Navi’s lifetime work has included a period as a judge on the ICC, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and chair of the UN Commission inquiring into war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Ever since her appointment as the first coloured, female judge to be appointed to the South African High Court, Navi Pillay has spoken and acted courageously.

Such a virtue has prompted ire from Israel and silence from Australia.

In her report to the UN, Judge Pillay concluded, “The State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Reference to Australian human rights abuses
Judge Pillay has also condemned Australia’s mandatory detention policy, repeatedly criticised offshore processing arrangements and the Northern Territory’s “imperialist, discriminatory attitude towards Indigenous communities”.

To tolerate criticism and still manage to act generously usually requires a touch of courage. In which case Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong still have a chance to congratulate Navi Pillay, if only because they regard themselves as champions of international humanitarian law.

Penny Wong’s silence is particularly notable, given her support for Venezuelan 2025 Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, who handed her prize to Donald Trump.

An Australian government statement of support for the UN, for the Nobel Committee and for Navi Pillay’s humanity-saving achievements would still be invaluable.

But support for the Nobel choice of Navi Pillay cannot be expressed by silence.

A South Auckland-based cultural studio founded by Fijian artist-curator Vasemaca (FKA Ema) Tavola has hit back at a spate of pro-Israeli propaganda in her homeland with a bold new banner design championing “Fijians for Palestine”.

Tavola’s practice is aligned with the “politics of decolonisation and indigenous feminisms, motherhood, and histories of BIPOC art and activism in the Global South”.

Her Vunilagi Vou studio has posted this message in response to public reactions over Israel opening its first embassy in Oceania in Fiji last week in the face of protests in three cities — Suva, Auckland and Wellington:

• READ MORE: Palestine supporters stage pickets in 3 cities in Fiji, NZ protesting against new Israeli embassy
• Rabuka rules out military involvement with Israel in Mideast conflicts
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

“The inspiration struck and this new mini banner emerged. Born from the hideous task of monitoring the Facebook comment section from people boldly declaring mis-/disinformation, Zionist propaganda and outright hate speech in my own Fijian community, I wanted to perform a creative act that could neutralise the sadness of this moment.

“The French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) famously said, ‘the act of sewing is a process of emotional repair’ and the sentiment has been the lifeblood of this ongoing series of mini banners. They are affirmations and dreaming, spells sewn with stitches, commitment captured in layers, trims, fringe and ric-rac — love letters to the future.

“Inspired and dedicated to Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network and the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre protests that have been happening in Suva to boldly and publicly declare that people in Fiji stand with Palestine, and the acts of some and the sycophancy of our government does not represent all of Fiji and all Fijians, as hard as that is to process for some Facebook users.

“The words on this mini banner are a truth that cannot be denied in a post truth era; Fijians are not a monolith and while many are spouting mind-boggling disinformation and vitriol against Palestinians and our fellow non-Indigenous Fiji people, there are many, many Fijians who stand for and with Palestine and reject the re-authoring of factual history and the monetisation of rage on platforms like Facebook.

“The social practice of this space has become a complete perversion of humanity.

The banner: Kaiviti Solidarity (2026) Cotton dobby, cotton towelling, rayon, bullion fringe trim, ric-rac and cowrie shells on 10oz canvas, 600x450mm

Fijian and Palestine flags — challenging hypocrisy
Vunilagi Vou also “reimagined” a publicity photo circulated of a photo of the Fijian and Israeli flags side by side with another image showing off the Palestinian flag.

“If the current Fiji government can make such a divisive and disturbing symbolic image using AI to announce the opening of an Israeli embassy in Suva, I’ll keep the prompts flowing and re-imagine this image.

“Fiji is a gloriously diverse, complex and resilient nation of people who are the living embodiment of a globally connected mix of cultures, histories and influences. We are not a monolith, and the current Fiji government’s relationship to Israel, engaged in the ongoing, intentional and systematic destruction of Palestinian people, is an embarrassment.

“We represent a range of views as Fiji people; many use the Christian Bible and its ideologies as a moral and ethical compass, and others who can see the hypocrisy of largely Indigenous people siding with the perpetrators of a genocide against Indigenous people.

“Trying to understand the geopolitical, historical, social, spiritual nature of South West Asia and North Africa, and our relationship with imperialism and the tools of colonisation, oil and capitalism, globalisation and climate collapse all feels like unravelling the world we know.

“So, Palestine, and our courage to learn and unlearn, critique why we know what we know, feels like a profound symbol and beacon for imagining a future that survives this current hellscape.

“A free Palestine is inextricable from a free West Papua. Systemic violence, colonial extraction, Indigenous erasure and murderous genocide, should never ever be normalised.”

Australian activist Zack Schofield says he was illegally detained by the Israeli military after the Global Sumud Flotilla was intercepted in international waters on Monday.

Now released, Schofield alleges activists were subjected to violence, tasers, beatings and deprivation while in Israeli custody.

The claims were made in an interview with Anadolu Ajansi following his release.

• WATCH: Original video with Zack Schofield from @anadoluagency
• Original IV with Patrick Kaiser
• Gaza flotilla activists allege abuse, sexual assault in Israeli detention
• Shameen Suleman: Outrage over the flotilla activists but where were they for Palestinians?
• Israel’s $700m Hasbara fiasco – how Ben-Gvir’s flotilla abuse video stirred backlash
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

“The torture is nothing compared with what happens to Palestinians in the occupied territories every single day,” he said.

“This is why we went. It is because Israel behaves worse towards Palestinians in every way imaginable.

“It rapes them systematically in their prisons. It shoots them at aid sites. It bombs them in their homes.

“And Palestinians have been at the forefront of a global war against humanity for generations. That’s why we went, and I’d do it all again.”

Global condemnation
The interception of the flotilla has sparked international condemnation and renewed scrutiny over Israel’s blockade operations and the treatment of activists attempting to reach Gaza by sea.

Schofield previously spoke to Michael West Media after an earlier detention by Israeli forces. This is now the second time he says he has been abducted while participating in flotilla actions.

I don’t mind admitting that I hope the US and Israel suffer a crushing, devastating defeat in Iran.

I hope this war collapses the entire US empire. My only loyalty is to humanity, and being on Team Human in today’s world means being against the US empire and against Israel.

I hope the empire falls. I hope the apartheid state of Israel is dismantled.

• LISTEN:  A reading by Tim Foley

I hope humanity is able to pry the steering wheel from the fingers of the ghouls who currently rule our world, so that we can create a healthy planet and a harmonious future together.

I hope the US loses and other notes              Video: Caitlin Johnstone

YouTube has banned the channel that’s been creating viral AI Lego music videos criticising the US war on Iran. The Google-owned platform claims the Lego videos somehow constituted “violent content”, but we all know it was to facilitate the US propaganda effort by shutting down effective propaganda for the other side.

Silicon Valley is a crucial arm of US imperial control.

It chooses to advance the interests of the empire at every significant juncture. It’s a branch of imperial soft power in the same way the military is a branch of imperial hard power.

Iran-linked accounts are circulating a new LEGO-style propaganda video portraying U.S. and Israeli leaders as corrupt elites tied to the “Epstein files,” part of a broader online campaign aimed at undermining support for the war.

The animation depicts President Donald Trump… pic.twitter.com/PdjcJGrjuy

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 9, 2026

❖

The US and Israel have so normalised the assassination of national leaders that the mainstream press now discuss it as a standard military tactic. The other day The Washington Post ran an article by Marc Thiessen arguing that the US should “carry out a final barrage of leadership strikes, eliminating the Iranian officials who had been spared for the purpose of negotiations”.

“Iran’s leaders must be made to understand that their lives literally depend on reaching a negotiated settlement to Trump’s liking. If they refuse to do so, they will be killed,” Thiessen writes.

At some point one of America’s enemies is going to assassinate a US official and my replies are going to be full of shrieking, outraged Americans acting like I’m the bad guy when I say Washington had it coming.

❖

Even if the US wasn’t directly responsible for the Strait of Hormuz situation, it would still be the last country on earth with any business whining about it. They’re openly imposing a fuel blockade on Cuba while complaining that nobody should be allowed to block shipping lanes, for Christ’s sake.

❖

The Democratic National Committee voted to reject a resolution denouncing the influence of AIPAC in US politics. Eighty percent of Democrats have a negative view of Israel today. The DNC’s main function is to keep the Democratic Party and its representation on the ballot from reflecting the will of the public.

❖

pic.twitter.com/K0kNiJYbKs

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 14, 2026

Dear Trump supporters, send me all of your money. I have a plan to make America great again. I will end all the wars and drain the swamp. Don’t worry if it looks like I’m not doing any of those things, I’m playing 4d chess, trust the plan. Send me your life savings right now.

❖

It’s important not to let them pin this all on Trump, in the same way it’s important not to let them pin Israel’s crimes on Netanyahu. Everything we are seeing with this disastrous Iran war is the product of the entire power structure which gave rise to it, not one guy’s dopey decisions.

The warmongers in the DC swamp have been pushing war with Iran for decades. Trump is just the guy who was chosen by Zionist oligarchs and bloodthirsty empire managers to carry out the deed. He happens to be the face on the operation, but if it wasn’t him it would have been someone else.

American warmongering insanity didn’t start with Trump, and it isn’t going to end with him either. Don’t direct your rage merely at the fleeting puppets who come and go from the imperial stage as the US murder machine trudges onward. Direct it at the empire itself.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

It was with a sense of disgust rather than despair that I read in The Jerusalem Post today [February 2024]: “‘Antisemitic’ UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese banned from Israel.” We’re being gas-lighted again and this is a chance to push back against the narrative that to support victims of Israel is to somehow be antisemitic.

Back in November 2023 as the Israeli exterminations of Palestinians were ramping up, I had the privilege to hear and speak to Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

She visited Wellington as part of a long-scheduled visit to Australia and New Zealand and spoke to government ministers, relief organisations, journalists and packed halls of citizens who shared a sense of horror at what was playing out in Gaza.

• READ MORE: UN staffers back Francesca Albanese, condemn European ministers for attacks
• French filmmaker explains why he backs Francesca Albanese amid pressure to resign
• European states must retract outrageous attacks on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
• Other Gaza reports

Her speeches were filled with knowledge and forensic clarity, only matched by her decency and sense of humanity — which extended to great courtesy shown to a lone and agitated Israeli supporter at a meeting I attended.

In issuing the banning order, two Israeli ministers stated: “The era of Jews being silent is over. If the UN wants to return to being a relevant body, its leaders must publicly disavow the antisemitic words of the special envoy.”

This is of course a vulgar lie told by ministers actively pursuing genocide. These two indeed aren’t silent: the scream, roar and boom of their shells, missiles and snipers’ bullets have shouted to the world how far the Zionist state has descended into the bowels of depravity.

The Jewish diaspora are anything but silent too — I have been immensely impressed by the courage and persistence of Jewish people worldwide who have shunned the fiction that to be anti-Zionist is to be antisemitic. I hear them loud and clear chanting with righteous indignation, “Not in our name!”

Francesca Albanese rejects false accusations            Video: Al Jazeera

Albanese’s riposte
What really steamed the ministers and momentarily deflected their attention from the slaughter of innocents was Albanese’s riposte to a casual lie by French President Emmanuel Macron: “October 7 was the largest antisemitic massacre of our century.”

Albanese responded, quite rightly, surely self-evidently: “The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism but in response to Israel’s oppression.” She also stated her respect for the victims of the attack.

When courageous people are attacked by malign and powerful actors, it takes moral clarity and steely determination to walk into a sea of troubles and oppose the true villains. We all need to do that now — and not remain silent.

In the past couple of months Israel has, with the complicity of the white-dominated Western countries, tried to destroy UNRWA, the primary UN organisation providing relief to the Palestinian people, as they endure this genocidal siege.

Because of Israel’s powerful allies, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has kept mum and ignored the vast number of human rights atrocities committed by Israel. (Editor: The ICC subsequently issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity on 21 November 2024).

The Israelis have also hoicked and spat out their contempt for the International Court of Justice. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir commented, “Hague Smague — The ICJ has only proven what everyone already knew, that it is only seeking to prosecute the Jewish nation”.

Traducing the ICJ in this way is another attempt to gaslight us all. If we can do one decent thing it would be to get our governments to raise their voices in defence of the brutalised and besieged United Nations.

Stuck in settler colonial regime
Albanese told audiences on both sides of the Tasman: “When I speak of human rights, I speak of both the Palestinians and the Israelis, who are stuck in a settler colonial regime; this is what we have to solve together.”

She went on to say, “ I will always stand with the victim.”

There is good reason to try to silence Francesca Albanese. She is an authority in the detail of the dehumanisation inflicted on the Palestinians. She has seen the daily lack of proportionality, the discourse of genocide, the military and administrative controls, the deprivation of sanitary services, food and medicine, the surveillance technology, the casual killings, the financial chocking of a people, the way the Israelis are eating up Palestine inch by inch as the West looks the other way.

In short, more than most people she understands the structural system of oppression that is denying the Palestinians the right to exist as a people — culturally, economically, politically. She is a humanist and the exact opposite of an antisemite.

Albanese is one of legions of good people besieged by Israel and its allies. The racist white elites in Europe and the USA are more than happy to adopt a definition that conflates anti-semitism with criticism of Israel, using the recently-minted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition as a tool to silence (that word again) defenders of Palestinian rights.

When the right-wing of UK Labour set to work to oust Jeremy Corbyn, they succeeded, deploying an antisemitic slur. By the time the purge had finished, thousands of Labour progressives had been eliminated from the party membership, including large numbers of Jewish progressives.

The Labour Files, a must-see Al Jazeera documentary, based on a data dump of internal Labour files, uncovered the astonishing statistic that if you were a Jewish member of the UK Labour party you were seven times more likely to be expelled for antisemitism than a non-Jew.

Dustbin of dirty tricks
It’s high time we kick this ghastly trope, this despicable manoeuvre equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism into the dustbin of dirty tricks. Jewish people have suffered persecution for their faith over the centuries. It does their memory a huge disservice — not least because now it is quite clear that genocide is the highest stage of Zionism.

For the record: I have Jewish friends who I invite to read and critique my articles before publication. They are not self-hating Jews, they are not antisemitic, and nor am I. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Jewish people worldwide who are appalled at what is being done in the name of Judaism.

Francesca Albanese said something else memorable that evening: “History is also made of watershed moments, when things change. Let’s make this one of them.”

Eugene Doyle is a community organiser based in Wellington, publisher of Solidarity and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam war. This article was first published by Scoop on 14 February 2024.

Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jamie Tahana for RNZ Pacific

Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.

It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.

The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Other climate justice reports

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.

It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.

It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.

Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.

Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.

Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.

On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.

“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”

The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.

So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.

“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.

“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?

Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.

Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.

But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.

“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”

In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.

“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.

“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”

The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.

“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.

“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.

“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”

What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.

To rally support, they decided to start close to home.

Hope and disappointment
The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.

Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.

But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.

“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”

Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But small island countries left angry after a small bloc derailed any progress, despite massive protests.

That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.

“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.

“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”

By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.

“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.

“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”

Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.

International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?

They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.

In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.

“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”

He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.

“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.

“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”

Preparing the case
If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.

But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.

“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.

On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.

“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.

“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”

They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.

Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.

“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.

“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”

By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.

“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”

They were off to The Hague.

A tense wait
Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”

Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.

In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.

It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”

The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.

The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.

“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.

“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.

“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”

Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.

“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”

He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.

When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.

“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.

“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”

Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.

“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”

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

Nobody has a bad word to say about the French Resistance in the Second World War, right?  Who would criticise a group confronting fascism, right?

Yet this month the UK group Palestine Action has been proscribed as a “terrorist” organisation by their government for their non-violent direct action against UK-based industries supplying technology to fuel Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people.

Are they terrorists or the very best of us in the West?

• READ MORE: Palestine Action: What has the group done, as it faces a ban?
• Other Israel’s Gaza genocide reports

Stéphane Hessel, a leading member of the French Resistance, survived time in Nazi concentration camps, including Buchenwald. After the war he was one of the co-authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), a pillar of international law to this day.

The Declaration affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans. In later years Hessel (d. 2013), who was Jewish, saw the treatment of the Palestinians as an affront to this and repeatedly called Israel out for crimes against humanity.

Hessel argued people needed to be outraged just as he and his fellow fighters had been during the war.

In 2010, he said: “Today, my strongest feeling of indignation is over Palestine, both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The starting point of my outrage was the appeal launched by courageous Israelis to the Diaspora: you, our older siblings, come and see where our leaders are taking this country and how they are forgetting the fundamental human values of Judaism.”

In his book Indignez-vous (Time for Outrage!) he called for a “peaceful insurrection” and pointed to some of the non-violent forms of protests Palestinians had used over the years.

“The Israeli authorities have described these marches as ‘nonviolent terrorism’. Not bad . . .  One would have to be Israeli to describe nonviolence as terrorism.”

How wrong Stéphane Hessel was on this point. The British Parliament has just proscribed Palestine Action as “terrorists” despite them having never attacked anyone, never used weapons, but only undertaken destruction of property linked to the arms industry.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament has confirmed the unprecedented punishments proposed for opposition indigenous Te Pāti Māori MPs who performed a haka in protest against the Treaty Principles Bill.

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi will be suspended for 21 days, and MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke suspended for seven days, taking effect immediately.

Opposition parties tried to reject the recommendation, but did not have the numbers to vote it down.

• READ MORE: NZ’s Treaty Principles Bill haka highlights tensions between Māori tikanga and rules of Parliament
• Other haka reports

Te Pati Maori MPs speak after being suspended.  Video: RNZ/Mark Papalii

The heated debate to consider the proposed punishment came to an end just before Parliament was due to rise.

Waititi moved to close the debate and no party disagreed, ending the possibility of it carrying on in the next sitting week.

Leader of the House Chris Bishop — the only National MP who spoke — kicked off the debate earlier in the afternoon saying it was “regrettable” some MPs did not vote on the Budget two weeks ago.

Bishop had called a vote ahead of Budget Day to suspend the privileges report debate to ensure the Te Pāti Māori MPs could take part in the Budget, but not all of them turned up.

Robust, rowdy debate
The debate was robust and rowdy with both the deputy speaker Barbara Kuriger and temporary speaker Tangi Utikare repeatedly having to ask MPs to quieten down.

Tākuta Ferris spoke first for Te Pāti Māori, saying the haka was a “signal of humanity” and a “raw human connection”.

He said Māori had faced acts of violence for too long and would not be silenced by “ignorance or bigotry”.

“Is this really us in 2025, Aotearoa New Zealand?” he asked the House.

“Everyone can see the racism.”

He said the Privileges Committee’s recommendations were not without precedent, noting the fact Labour MP Peeni Henare, who also participated in the haka, did not face suspension.

Henare attended the committee and apologised, which contributed to his lesser sanction.

‘Finger gun’ gesture
MP Parmjeet Parmar — a member of the Committee — was first to speak on behalf of ACT, and referenced the hand gesture — or “finger gun” — that Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer made in the direction of ACT MPs during the haka.

Parmar told the House debate could be used to disagree on ideas and issues, and there was not a place for intimidating physical gestures.

Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said New Zealand’s Parliament could lead the world in terms of involving the indigenous people.

She said the Green Party strongly rejected the committee’s recommendations and proposed their amendment of removing suspensions, and asked the Te Pāti Māori MPs be censured instead.

Davidson said the House had evolved in the past — such as the inclusion of sign language and breast-feeding in the House.

She said the Greens were challenging the rules, and did not need an apology from Te Pāti Māori.

NZ First leader Winston Peters said Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party speeches so far showed “no sincerity, saying countless haka had taken place in Parliament but only after first consulting the Speaker.

“They told the media they were going to do it, but they didn’t tell the Speaker did they?

‘Bunch of extremists’
“The Māori party are a bunch of extremists,” Peters said, “New Zealand has had enough of them”.

Peters was made to apologise after taking aim at Waititi, calling him “the one in the cowboy hat” with “scribbles on his face” [in reference to his traditional indigenous moko — tatoo]. He continued afterward, describing Waititi as possessing “anti-Western values”.

Labour’s Willie Jackson congratulated Te Pāti Māori for the “greatest exhibition of our culture in the House in my lifetime”.

Jackson said the Treaty bill was a great threat, and was met by a great haka performance. He was glad the ACT Party was intimidated, saying that was the whole point of doing the haka.

He also called for a bit of compromise from Te Pāti Māori — encouraging them to say sorry — but reiterated Labour’s view the sanctions were out of proportion with past indiscretions in the House.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the debate “would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious”.

“Get an absolute grip,” she said to the House, arguing the prime minister “is personally responsible” if the House proceeds with the committee’s proposed sanctions.

Eye of the beholder
She accused National’s James Meager of “pointing a finger gun” at her — the same gesture coalition MPs had criticised Ngarewa-Packer for during her haka. The Speaker accepted he had not intended to; Swarbrick said it was an example where the interpretation could be in the eye of the beholder.

She said if the government could “pick a punishment out of thin air” that was “not a democracy”, putting New Zealand in very dangerous territory.

An emotional Maipi-Clarke said she had been silent on the issue for a long time, the party’s voices in haka having sent shockwaves around the world. She questioned whether that was why the MPs were being punished.

“Since when did being proud of your culture make you racist?”

“We will never be silenced, and we will never be lost,” she said, calling the Treaty Principles bill a “dishonourable vote”.

She had apologised to the Speaker and accepted the consequence laid down on the day, but refused to apologise. She listed other incidents in Parliament that resulted in no punishment.

NZ Parliament TV: Te Pāti Māori Privileges committee debate.  Video: RNZ

Maipi-Clarke called for the Treaty of Waitangi to be recognised in the Constitution Act, and for MPs to be required to honour it by law.

‘Clear pathway forward’
“The pathway forward has never been so clear,” she said.

ACT’s Nicole McKee said there were excuses being made for “bad behaviour”, that the House was for making laws and having discussions, and “this is not about the haka, this is about process”.

She told the House she had heard no good ideas from the Te Pāti Māori, who she said resorted to intimidation when they did not get their way, but the MPs needed to “grow up” and learn to debate issues. She hoped 21 days would give them plenty of time to think about their behaviour.

Labour MP and former Speaker Adrian Rurawhe started by saying there were “no winners in this debate”, and it was clear to him it was the government, not the Parliament, handing out the punishments.

He said the proposed sanctions set a precedent for future penalties, and governments might use it as a way to punish opposition, imploring National to think twice.

He also said an apology from Te Pāti Māori would “go a long way”, saying they had a “huge opportunity” to have a legacy in the House, but it was their choice — and while many would agree with the party there were rules and “you can’t have it both ways”.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said there had been many instances of misinterpretations of the haka in the House and said it was unclear why they were being punished, “is it about the haka . . . is about the gun gestures?”

“Not one committee member has explained to us where 21 days came from,” he said.

Hat and ‘scribbles’ response
Waititi took aim at Peters over his comments targeting his hat and “scribbles” on his face.

He said the haka was an elevation of indigenous voice and the proposed punishment was a “warning shot from the colonial state that cannot stomach” defiance.

Waititi said that throughout history when Māori did not play ball, the “coloniser government” reached for extreme sanctions, ending with a plea to voters: “Make this a one-term government, enrol, vote”.

He brought out a noose to represent Māori wrongfully put to death in the past, saying “interpretation is a feeling, it is not a fact . . .  you’ve traded a noose for legislation”.

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

The chief of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has described Gaza as “no land” for children, as two rallies were held in New Zealand’s largest city Auckland today to mark Palestine Children’s Day.

Citing the UN agency for children UNICEF, Phillipe Lazzarini said that “at least 100 children are reported killed or injured every day in Gaza” since Israel broke the truce with Hamas on March 18.

“The ceasefire at the beginning of the year gave Gaza’s children a chance to survive and be children,” said Lazzarini, who is Commissioner-General of UNRWA.

• READ MORE: With Hasbara failing, Israel placed Hossam Shabat on a kill list
• Other Palestine Children’s Day images, videos

“The resumption of the war is again robbing them of their childhood. The war has turned Gaza into a ‘no land’ for children. This is a stain on our common humanity.

Harrowing.
At least 100 children are reported killed or injured every day in #Gaza, since the strikes resumed (on 18 March) according to @UNICEF

Young lives cut short in a war not of children’s making.

Since the war began 1.5 years ago, 15,000 children were reportedly…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) April 4, 2025

The two Auckland Palestinian solidarity events today marking April 5 — one a children’s activities gathering in Albert Park and the other a regular weekly rally at “Palestine Corner” in downtown Te Komititanga Square — were among 25 activist happenings across the country on week 78 of continuous protests.

In Albert Park, one of the organisers said the children “had lots of fun — painting, drawing, listening to stories, making collages, playing games with Palestinian themes and some families had picnics.”

In “Palestine Corner”, several teachers spoke of the realities of the genocide in Gaza, protesters carried placards with photos and names of children killed by the Israeli bombing, while children coloured pictures and blew bubbles.

Huge toll on children
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports that children have been among the most severely affected by the continuing Israeli war on Gaza.

“Many of them have been killed, injured and orphaned and we can see that thousands of children have lost their limbs and they are suffering from severe trauma,” he said.

“As the UNRWA spokesperson stated: 51 percent of Gaza’s population are children and they make up the largest proportion of those that were killed since the war began back on October 7, 2023.

“For many children here in Gaza, displacement has taken a very heavy, huge toll on them.

“They have been repeatedly displaced, forced to flee their homes and right now they are forced to live in overcrowded shelters and tents and on the rubble of their destroyed homes and residential buildings.”

The Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PHROC) — made up of nine groups — has written to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk to demand action on Israel in protest over the killing of children.

Israeli forces continued to kill Palestinians on a genocidal scale in Gaza and had created “conditions of life unfit for human survival,” the council told Turk.

Israel’s “intent to eliminate and eventually destroy Palestinians across unlawfully occupied Palestine” is also evident in occupied West Bank, the council said.

The council called on Turk to clearly label Israel’s conduct as genocide, pressure the Israeli government to end its genocide, ensure accountability for Israeli perpetrators, and mobilise the UN to implement a plan to end genocide against Palestinians across the occupied territory.

Albanese’s mandate renewed
Meanwhile, Francesca Albanese will continue to serve as Special Rapporteur until 30 April 2028, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Council announced after the vote today in Geneva by the UNHRC to retain her.

The UN Human Rights Council defied the efforts of Israel, the US, The Netherlands and other Western countries trying to unseat Albanese, who has been special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 for the past three years.

Albanese had faced a smear campaign for many months by deniers of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, which she had warned about in October 2023.

She documented the crimes against humanity, notably in her devastating report Anatomy Of A Genocide in April 2024.

The influence of the West is crumbling. Francesca Albanese‘s mandate has been renewed – as it is usual procedure – despite heavy pressure from Western Zionist genocidal lobby the tables are turning pic.twitter.com/vULovc3bVn

— Melanie Schweizer (@Melaniebelizi) April 5, 2025

The Marshall Islands marked 71 years since the most powerful nuclear weapons tests ever conducted were unleashed over the weekend.

The Micronesian nation experienced 67 known atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, resulting in an ongoing legacy of death, illness, and contamination.

The country’s President Hilda Heine says her people continue to face the impacts of US nuclear weapons testing seven decades after the last bomb was detonated.

• READ MORE: Marshall Islands signs treaty banning nuclear weapons in the South Pacific
• Four decades after Rongelap evacuation, Greenpeace makes new plea for nuclear justice by US
• Nuclear justice for the Marshall Islands — a strategy for coordinated action
• UN rights council examines nuclear legacy consequences in the Marshall Islands
• Eyes of Fire – the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior archive (Little Island Press)

The Pacific Islands have a complex history of nuclear weapons testing, but the impacts are very much a present-day challenge, Heine said at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Tonga last year.

She said that the consequences of nuclear weapons testing “in our own home” are “expensive” and “cross-cutting”.

“When I was just a young girl, our islands were turned into a big laboratory to test the capabilities of weapons of mass destruction, biological warfare agents, and unexploded ordinance,” she said.

“The impacts are not just historical facts, but contemporary challenges,” she added, noting that “the health consequences for the Marshallese people are severe and persistent through generations.”

“We are now working to reshape the narrative from that of being victims to one of active agencies in helping to shape our own future and that of the world around us,” she told Pacific leaders, where the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was a special guest.

She said the displacement of communities from ancestral lands has resulted in grave cultural impacts, hindering traditional knowledge from being passed down to younger generations.

“As well as certain traditional practices, customs, ceremonies and even a navigational school once defining our very identity and become a distant memory, memorialised through chance and storytelling,” President Heine said.

“The environmental legacy is contamination and destruction: craters, radiation, toxic remnants, and a dome containing radioactive waste with a half-life of 24,000 years have rendered significant areas uninhabitable.

“Key ecosystems, once full of life and providing sustenance to our people, are now compromised.”

Heine said cancer and thyroid diseases were among a list of presumed radiation-induced medical conditions that were particularly prevalent in the Marshallese community.

Displacement, loss of land, and psychological trauma were also contributing factors to high rates of non-communicable diseases, she said.

“Despite these immense challenges, the Marshallese people have shown remarkable resilience and strength. Our journey has been one of survival, advocacy, and an unyielding pursuit of justice.

“We have fought tirelessly to have our voices heard on the international stage, seeking recognition.”

In 2017, the Marshall Islands government created the National Nuclear Commission to coordinate efforts to address testing impacts.

“We are a unique and important moral compass in the global movement for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation,” Heine said.

The US Deputy Secretary of State in the Biden-Harris administration Kurt Cambell said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damage and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands.

“I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands,” he said.

“This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment,” he told reporters in Nuku’alofa.

A shared nuclear legacy
The National Nuclear Commission chairperson Ariana Tibon-Kilma, a direct descendant of survivors of the nuclear weapons testing programme Project 4.1 — which was the top-secret medical lab study on the effects of radiation on human bodies — told RNZ Pacific that what occured in Marshall Islands should not happen to any country.

“This programme was conducted without consent from any of the Marshallese people,” she said.

“For a number of years, they were studied and monitored, and sometimes even flown out to the US and displayed as a showcase.

“The history and trauma associated with what happened to my family, as well as many other families in the Marshall Islands, was barely spoken of.

“What happened to the Marshallese people is something that we would not wish upon any other Pacific island country or any other person in humanity.”

She said the nuclear legacy was a shared one.

“We all share one Pacific Ocean and what happened to the Marshall Islands, I am, sure resonates throughout the Pacific,” Tibon-Kilma said.

Billions in compensation
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for the Pacific head, Heike Alefsen, told RNZ Pacific in Nuku’alofa that “we understand that there are communities that have been displaced for a long time to other islands”.

“I think compensation for survivors is key,” she said.

“It is part of a transitional justice approach. I can’t really speak to the breadth and the depth of the compensation that would need to be provided, but it is certainly an ongoing issue for discussion.”

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

As 2024 came to a close and we have stepped into a new year overshadowed by ongoing atrocities, have you stopped to consider how these events are reshaping your world?

Did you notice how your future — and that of generations to come — is being profoundly and irreversibly altered?

The ongoing tragedy in Palestine is not an isolated event. It is a crisis that reverberates far beyond borders, threatening your safety, the well-being of your children and family.

• READ MORE: ‘Gaza is a death trap’: At least 50 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks — the number of aid people killed rises to 736
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Even fragile ecosystems and creatures have been obliterated and affected by the fallout from Israel’s chemicals and pollution from its weapons.

The deliberate targeting of civilians, rampant violations of international law, and the obliteration of the rights of children are not distant horrors. They are ominous warnings of a world unravelling — consequences that are slowly seeping into the comfort of your home, threatening the very foundations of the life you thought was secure.

But here’s the hard truth: these outcomes don’t just happen in a a vacuum. They persist because of the silence, indifference, or complicity of those who choose not to act.

The question is, will you stand up for a better future, or will you look away? And how could Palestine possibly affect you and your family? Read on.

Israel acting with impunity for decades
Israel has been acting with impunity for decades, flouting the norms of our legal agreements, defying the United Nations and its rulings and requests to act within the agreed global rules set after the Holocaust and the Nazis disregard for humanity.

The Germans, under Nazi rule, pursued a racist ideology to restructure the world according to race, committing crimes against humanity and war crimes that resulted in a devastating world war and the deaths of millions of people, including millions of Jews. A set of rules were formed from the ashes of these victims to ensure this horror would never happen again. It’s called international law.

However, after the Nazis defeat, it took less than a few years before atrocities began again, perpetrated by the very people who had just been brutally massacred and targeted.

European Jews, including holocaust survivors, armed by Czechoslovakia, funded by the Nazis (Havaara agreement), aided militarily by Britain, the US, Italy and France among others, arrived on foreign shores to a land that did not belong to them.

Once there, they began to disregard the very rules established to protect not only them, but the rest of humanity — rules designed to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust, safeguard against the resurgence of ideologies like Nazism, and ensure impunity for such actions would never occur again.

These rules were a shared commitment by countries to conduct themselves with agreed norms and regulations designed to respect the right of all to live in safety and security, including children, women and civilians in general. Rules that were designed to end war and promote peace, justice, and a better life for all humankind.

Rules written to ensure the sacred understanding, implementation and respect of equal rights for all people, including you, were followed to prevent us from never returning to the lawlessness and terror of World War Two.

But the creation of Israel less than 80 years ago flouted and violated these expectations. The mass murder of children, women and men in Palestine in 1948, which included burning alive Palestinians tied to trees and running them over as they lay unable to move in the middle of town squares, was only the beginning of this disrespectful dehumanisation.

Terrorised by Jewish militia
Jewish militia terrorised Palestinians, lobbing grenades into Palestinian homes where families sheltered in fear, raping women and girls, and forcing every man and boy from whole villages to dig their own trenches before being shot in the back so they fell neatly into their graves.

Pregnant Palestinian women had their bellies sliced open, homes were stolen along with everything in it — including my families — and many family members were murdered.

This included my great grandmother who was shot, execution style, in front of my mother as she carried a small mattress from our home for her grandchildren when they were forcibly displaced. I still don’t know what happened to her body or where she is buried. I do know where our house is still situated in Jerusalem, although currently occupied.

These atrocities enabled Israel’s birth, shameful atrocities behind its creation. There is not one Israeli town or village that is not built on top of a Palestinian village, or town, on the blood and bones of murdered Palestinians, a practice Israel has continued.

As I write, plans to build more illegal settlements on the buried bodies of Palestinians in Gaza have already been drawn up and areas of land pre-sold.

These horrific crimes have continued over decades, becoming worse as Israel perfected and industrialised its ability to exterminate human souls, hearts and lives. Israel’s birth from its inception was only possible through terrorist actions of Jewish militia. These militia Britain designated as terrorist organisations, a designation that still stands today.

Jewish militia such as (Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang) formed into what is now known as the Israeli Defence Force, although they aren’t defending anything; Palestine was not theirs to take in the first place.

There was never a war of independence for Israel because the state of Israel did not exist to liberate itself from anyone. Instead, Britain illegally handed over land that already belonged to the Palestinians, a peaceful existing people of three pillars of faith — Palestinian Christians Muslims and Jews. If there were any legitimate war of independence, it would be that of the Palestinian people.

Free pass to act above the law
Israel continues to rely on the Holocaust’s memory to give it a free pass to act above the law, threatening world peace and our shared humanity, by using the memory of the horrors of 1945 and the threat of antisemitism to deter people from criticising and speaking out against the state’s unlawful and inhumane actions.

Yet Israel echoes the horrors of Nazi Germany and its destruction with its behaviour, the difference being the industrialisation of mass killing, modern warfare and weapons, the use of AI as a killing machine, the creation of chemical weapons and huge concentration and death camps which far surpass Germany’s capabilities.

Jews around the world have been deeply divided by Israel’s assertion that it represents all Jewish people. Not all Jews religiously and politically support Israel, many do not feel a connection to or support Israel, viewing its actions and policies as separate from their Jewish identity. For them, Israel’s claims do not define what it means to be Jewish, nor do they see its conduct as aligned with Jewish values.

This is not a “Jewish question” but a political one and conflating the two undermines the diverse perspectives within Jewish communities globally and is harmful to Jewish people. It is important to maintain a clear distinction between Judaism and the political actions of Israel.

How does a genocide across the world affect you?
The perpetration of genocide and gross violations of human rights, facilitated or supported by Western powers, erodes the very foundations of the global legal framework that protects us all. This assault weakens democracy, undermines international law, and destabilises the structures you rely on for a secure future.

It leaves your defences crumbling, your safety compromised, and your vulnerabilities exposed to the chaos that follows such lawlessness as a global citizen of this world under the same protections and with the same equality as the Palestinians.

Palestinian children are no less deserving of safety and rights than any other children. When their rights are ignored and violated, it undermines protections for children worldwide, creating a precedent of vulnerability and injustice. If violations are deemed acceptable for some, they risk becoming acceptable for all.

Sitting safely in Aotearoa does not guarantee protection. The actions of Israel and the US, Western countries — massacring and flattening entire neighbourhoods — send a dangerous message that such horrors are only for “others”, for “brown people” who speak a different language.

But Western countries are the global minority. Many nations now view the West with growing disdain, especially in light of Israel and America’s actions, coupled with the glaring double standards and inaction of the West, including New Zealand, as they stand by and witness a genocide in progress.

When children become a legitimate target, the safety of all children is compromised. Your kids are at risk too. Just because you live on the other side of the world does not mean you are immune or beyond the reach of those who see such actions as justification for retaliation.

If such disregard for human life is deemed acceptable for one people, it will inevitably become acceptable for others. Justice and equality must extend to all children, regardless of nationality, to ensure a safer world for everyone.

But why should you care?
Because Israel and the US are undermining the framework that protects you. Israel’s violations of International and humanitarian law including laws on occupation, war crimes and bombing protected institutions such as hospitals, schools, UN facilities, civilian homes and areas of safety, undermines these and sets a dangerous precedent for others to follow. Israel does not respect global peace, civilians, human rights nor has respect for life outside of its own. This lawlessness and lack of accountability is already giving other states the green light to erode the norms that protect human rights, including the decimation of the rights of the child.

The West’s support for Israel, namely the US, the UK, Canada, much of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, despite its clear violations of international law, exposes a fundamental hypocrisy. This weakens the credibility of democratic nations that claim to champion human rights and justice.

The failure of institutions like the UN to hold Israel accountable erodes trust in these bodies, fostering widespread disillusionment and scepticism about their ability to address other global conflicts. This has already fuelled an “us versus them” mentality, deepening the divide between the Global South and the Global North.

This division is marked by growing disrespect for Western governments and their citizens, who demand moral authority and adherence to the rule of law from nations in the East and South yet allow one of their “own” to brazenly violate these principles.

This hypocrisy undermines the hope for a new, respectful world order envisioned after the Holocaust, leaving it damaged and discredited.

Israel, despite its claims, has no authentic ties to the Middle East. What was once Palestinian land deeply rooted in Middle Eastern culture, has been overtaken and reshaped into to an artificial state imposed by mixed European heritage. It now stands as a Western outpost in stark contrast and isolated from surrounding Eastern cultures.

The failure of the West and the international community to stop the Palestinian genocide has begun a new period of genocide normalisation, where it becomes acceptable to watch children being blown up, women and men being murdered, shot and starved to death.

This acceptance then becomes a part of a country’s statecraft. Palestinian genocide, while it might be a little “uncomfortable” for many, has still been tolerable. If genocide is tolerable for one, then its tolerable for another.

Bias and prejudice
If you can comfortably go about your day, knowing the horror other innocent human beings are facing then perhaps it might be time to reflect on and confront any underlying biases or prejudices you hold.

An interesting thought experiment is to transform and transfer what is happening in Palestine to New Zealand.

Imagine Nelson being completely flattened, and all the inhabitants of Auckland, plus some, being starved to death.

Imagine all New Zealand hospitals being destroyed, Wellington hospital with its patients still inside is blown up. All the babies in the neonatal unit are left to die and rot in their incubators, patients in the ICU units and those immobile or too sick to move are also left to die, this includes all children unable to walk in the Starship hospital.

Electricity for the whole country is turned off and all patients and healthcare workers are forced to leave at gunpoint. New Zealand doctors and nurses are stripped down to their underwear and tortured, this includes rape, and some male doctors are left to die bleeding in the street after being raped to death with metal poles and electrodes.

Water is then shut down and unavailable to all of you. You cannot feed your family, your grandchildren, your parents, your siblings, your best friends.

Imagine New Zealanders burying bodies of their children and loved ones in makeshift mass graves, while living in tents and then being subjected to chemical weapon strikes, quad copters or small drones’ attacks that drop bombs and exterminate, shooting people as they try to find food, but targeting mostly women and children.

Imagine every single human being in Upper Hutt completely wiped out. Imagine 305 New Zealand school buses full of dead children line the streets, that’s more than 11,000 killed so far. Each day more than 10 New Zealand kids lose a limb, including your children.

This number starts to increase with the hope to finally ethnically cleanse Aotearoa to make way for a new state defined by one religion and one ethnicity that isn’t yours, by a new group of people from the other side of the world.

These people, called settlers, are given weapons to hurt and kill New Zealanders as they rampage through towns evicting residents and moving into your homes taking everything that belongs to you and leaving you on the street. All your belongings, all your memories, your pets, your future, your family are stolen or destroyed.

Starting from January 2025, up to 15 New Zealanders will die of starvation or related diseases EVERY DAY until the rest of the world decides if it will come to your aid with this lawlessness. Or maybe you will die in desperation while others watch you on their TV screens or scroll through their social media seeing you as the “terrorist” and the invaders as the “victims”.

If this thought horrifies you, if it makes you feel shocked or upset, then so too should others having to endure such illegal horrors. None of what is happening is acceptable, as a fellow human being you should be fighting for the right of all of us. Perhaps you might think of our own tangata whenua and Aotearoa’s own history.

What could this mean for New Zealand?
We are not creating a bright future for a country like New Zealand, whose remote location, dependence on trade, and its aging infrastructure, leaves it vulnerable to changing global dynamics. This is especially concerning with our energy dependence on imported oil, our dependence on global supply chains for essential goods including medicine (Israel’s pager attack against Hezbollah has compromised supply chains in a dangerous and horrific violation that New Zealand ignored), our economic marginalisation, and our security challenges.

All of this while surrounded by rising tensions between superpowers like the US and China which will affect New Zealand’s security and economic partnerships. Balancing economic and political ties is complicated by this government’s focus on strengthening strategic alliances with Western nations, mainly the US, whose complicity in genocide, war crimes, and disrespect for the rule of law is weakening its standing and threatens its very future.

Targeting marginalised groups
The precedent set in Palestine will embolden oppressive regimes elsewhere to target minority groups, knowing that the world will turn a blind eye. Israel is a violent, oppressive apartheid state, operating outside of international law and norms and has been compared to, but is much worse than the former apartheid South Africa.

This will have a huge impact felt all over the world with the continued refugee crisis. Multicultural nations such as New Zealand will struggle to cope with the support needed for the families of our citizens in need.

An increase of the far right reminiscent of Nazi ideology and extremism
Israel is a pariah state fuelled by radicalisation and extremism with an intolerance to different races, colour and ethnicity and indigenous populations. This has created a fertile ground for extremist ideologies, destabilising regions far beyond the Middle East as we have seen in Europe with the rejuvenation of the far-right movement.

Israel’s genocidal onslaughts will continue to be the cause for ongoing instability in the region, affecting global energy supplies, trade routes, and security. The Palestinian crisis will not be answered with violence, oppression and war. We aren’t going anywhere, and neither should we.

Weaponising aid and healthcare
Israel’s deliberate restriction of food, water, and medical supplies to Gaza weaponises humanitarian aid, violating basic principles of humanity. A new weapon in the arsenal of pariah states and radical violent countries and a new Israeli tactic to be copied and used elsewhere. Targeting hospitals, healthcare workers, distribution centres, ambulances, the UN, and collectively punishing whole populations has never been and will never be acceptable.

If it is not acceptable that this happens to you in Aotearoa, then nor is it acceptable for Palestinians in Palestine. It is intolerable for other “terror regimes” to commit such acts, so why is it deemed acceptable when carried out by Israel and the US?

Undermining the rights to free speech, peaceful protest and freedoms
During the covid pandemic, many New Zealanders were concerned with government-imposed restrictions that could be used disproportionately or as pretexts for authoritarian control. This included limitations on freedom of movement, speech, assembly, and privacy.

And yet Palestinians endure military checkpoints, curfews, restricted movement within and between their own territories, and the suppression of their right to protest or voice opposition to occupation — all due to Israel’s oppressive and illegal control. This is further enabled by the political cover and tacit support provided by this government’s failure to speak out and strongly condemn Israel’s actions.

Through its failure to take meaningful action or fulfil its third-party state obligations, this government continues to maintain normal relations with Israel across diplomatic, cultural, economic, and social spheres, as well as through trade. Moreover, it wrongly asserts on its official foreign affairs websites and policies that an occupying power has the right to self-defence against a defenceless population it has systematically abused and terrorised for decades.

The silencing of pro-Palestinian activists and criminalisation of humanitarian aid also create a chilling effect, discouraging global solidarity movements and undermining the moral fabric of societies. The use of victimhood to shroud the aggressor and blame the victim is a low point in our harrowed history. As is the vilification of moral activism and those that dare to stand against the illegal and sickening mass killing of civilians.

The attempt to persecute brave students standing up to Zionist and Israeli-run organisations and those supporting Israel (including academic and cultural institutions), by both trigger-happy billionaire Jewish investors and elite families and company investors whose answer to peaceful resistance is violence, demonstrates how far we have fallen from democracy and the rights of the citizen.

I find it completely bizarre that standing up against a genocide of helpless, unarmed civilians is demonised in order to protect the thugs, criminals and psychopaths that make up the Israeli state and its criminal actors, and the elite families and corporations profiting from this war.

Even here in Aotearoa, protesters have been vilified for drawing attention to Israel’s war crimes and double standards at the ASB Classic tennis tournament. Letting into New Zealand an IDF soldier who is associated with an institution directly implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity should be questioned.

These protesters were falsely labelled as “pro-Hamas” by Israeli and Western media. They were portrayed negatively, seen as a nuisance. Their messages about supporting human rights and stopping a horrific genocide from continuing were not mentioned.

The focus was the effect their chants had on the tennis match and the Israeli tennis player, who was upset. Exercising their legal rights to demonstrate, the protesters were not a security issue. Yet Lina Glushko, the Israeli tennis player, claimed she needed extra security to combat a dozen protesters, many over the age of 60, who were never in any proximity of the controversial player nor were ever a threat.

No mention that Lina Glushko lives in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or that she was in service from 2018-2020 during the Great March of Return. Or that this tennis player has made public statements mocking the suffering of Palestinians, inconsistent with Aotearoa’s commitment to combating hate speech and promoting inclusivity and respect.

Her presence erodes the integrity of international sports and sends a dangerous message that war crimes and human rights violations carry no meaningful consequences despite international law and the recent UNGA (UN General Assembly) and ICJ (International Court of Justice) resolutions and advisory opinions.

Allowing IDF soldiers entry into New Zealand disregards the pain and suffering of Palestinians and the New Zealand Palestinian community, dehumanising their plight. It sends a message of complicity to the broader international community, one that was ignored by most Western media.

Similarly, Israel’s attempts to not just control the Western media but to shut down and kill journalists, is not only a war crime, but is terrifying. Journalists’ protection is enshrined in international law due to the essential nature of their work in fostering accountability, transparency, and justice. They expose corruption, war crimes, and human rights abuses. Real journalism is vital for democracy, ensuring citizens are informed about government actions and global events.

Israel’s targeting of journalists undermines the rule of law and emboldens it and other perpetrators to commit further atrocities without fear of scrutiny or consequences.

The suffering of Palestinians is a human rights issue that transcends borders. Allowing genocide and oppression to continue undermines the shared humanity that binds us all.
Israel’s actions reflect the dehumanisation of an entire population and our failure to enforce accountability for these crimes weakens international systems designed to protect your family and you.

Israel’s influence is far reaching, and New Zealand is not immune. Any undue influence by foreign states, including Israel, threatens New Zealand’s sovereignty and ability to make independent decisions in its national interest. Lobbying efforts by organisations like the Zionist Federation or the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand push policies that do not align with New Zealand’s broader public interest.

Aligning with a state that is violating rights and in a court of law on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, leaves citizens wide open to the same controls and concerns we are now seeing Americans and Europeans face at the mercy of AIPAC and Israeli influence.

Palestine is a test of the international community’s commitment to justice, human rights, and the rule of law. If Israel is allowed to continue acting with impunity, the global system that protects us all will be irreparably weakened, paving the way for more injustice, oppression, and chaos. It is a fight for the moral and legal foundations of the world we live in and ignoring it will have far-reaching consequences for everyone.

So, as you usher in 2025, don’t sit there and clink your glasses, hoping for a better year while continuing to ignore the suffering around you. Act to make 2025 better than the horrific few years the world has been subjected to, if not for humanity, then for yourself and your family’s future. Start with the biggest threat to world peace and stability — Israel and US hegemony.

What you can do
You can make a difference in the fight against Israel’s illegal occupation and violations of human rights, including the deliberate targeting of children by taking simple yet impactful steps. Here’s how you can start today:

Boycott products supporting oppression:
Remove at least five products from your weekly supermarket shopping list that are linked to companies supporting Israel’s occupation or that are made in Israel. Use tools like the “No Thanks” app to identify these items or visit the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) website for detailed advice and information.

Hold the government accountable:
Write letters to your government representatives demanding action to uphold democracy and human rights. Remind them of New Zealand’s obligations under international law to stand against human rights abuses and violations of global norms. Demand fair and equitable foreign policies designed to protect us all.

Educate yourself:
Learn about the history of the Palestine-Israel conflict, especially the events of 1948, to better understand the roots of the ongoing crisis. Knowledge is a powerful tool for advocacy and change.

Seek alternative news sources:
Expand your perspective by accessing a wide range of news sources including from platforms such as Al Jazeera, Double Down News, and Middle East Eye.

Be a citizen, not a bystander:
Passive spectatorship allows injustice to thrive. Take a stand. Whether by boycotting, writing letters, educating yourself, or raising awareness, your actions can contribute to a global movement for justice for us all.

Together, we can challenge systems of oppression and demand accountability for crimes against humanity. Let 2025 not just be another year of witnessing suffering but one where we collectively take action to restore justice, uphold humanity, and demand accountability.
The time to act is now.

Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab is a New Zealand Palestinian advocate and writer.

My name is Muzhgan Samarqandi and I am from Baghlan, Afghanistan, but living in New Zealand with my Kiwi husband and our son. Like Charlotte Bellis, I too was a broadcaster in Afghanistan, back when this was possible for a woman without being a foreigner.

As a mother, my heart goes out to Charlotte, and I sincerely hope she and her partner get to New Zealand so she can give birth at home surrounded by her family.

As someone who has travelled for study and work and love, and who does not share the same passport as their significant other, my heart goes out to everyone stranded overseas, and I sincerely hope they can all get home and be reunited with their loved ones.

• LISTEN TO RNZ SUNDAY MORNING: ‘I mean, how do you schedule your birth?’ – New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis
• READ MORE:  Covid-19: NZ’s MIQ working but has tough trade-offs, says epidemiologist
• Charlotte Bellis: ‘I’m one of your people and I need help’
• Charlotte Bellis’ open letter on MIQ to New Zealand – New Zealand Herald
• Pregnant New Zealand journalist stranded by quarantine rules says she turned to Taliban
• Taliban takeover: Charlotte Bellis faces perils outside ‘enemy territory’ – Pacific Journalism Review

But as an Afghanistani woman, who has only recently emigrated from Afghanistan to New Zealand, I have to speak up.

I almost did so when Charlotte interviewed Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban spokesperson with the Kiwi accent. She went easy on him. For example, at the end of the interview, she asked what he had to say to those who called the Taliban “terrorists”.

He said people didn’t really believe they were terrorists, but this was just a word the US used for anyone who didn’t fall in line with their agenda. There were no further questions.

This was a man who claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for attacks on innocent civilians. A man who has admitted to crimes against humanity. It made me so upset to see him get away with answers like that. But then my energy was taken up just coping with the reality of what was happening to my friends and family in Afghanistan.

Social media responses
But now, when I read Charlotte’s letter in the New Zealand Herald and see the media and social media responses, I see the situation in my country being trivialised, and it makes me angry.

Charlotte refers to herself asking the Taliban in a press conference what they would do for women and girls, and says she is now asking the same question of the New Zealand government.

I understand there are problems with MIQ. And I understand the value in provoking change with controversy. But what I don’t understand is how someone who has lived and worked in Afghanistan, and seen the impact of the Taliban’s regime on women and girls, can seriously compare that situation to New Zealand.

Afghanistani women who resist or protest the regime are being arrested, tortured, raped and killed. Young girls are being married off to Talibs (a member of the Taliban). Education and employment are no longer available to them.

A 19-year-old girl I know from my village, who was in her first year of law last year is now, instead, a housewife to a Talib.

There are so many stories like this.

The Taliban distort Islam
Charlotte says the Taliban have given her a safe haven when she is not welcome in her own country. This is obviously a good headline and good way to make a point. But it is an inaccurate and unhelpful representation of the situation.

One commentary on Instagram, re-posted by Charlotte, suggested her story represents the truly Muslim acts of the Taliban, which the Western media have not shown. This makes me angry.

If a person in power extends privileges to someone who doesn’t threaten their power, it doesn’t mean they are not oppressive or extremist or dangerous.

The Taliban distort Islam and manipulate Muslims for their political gain. They violate the rights of women and girls, and it is offensive to compare them to the New Zealand government in this regard.

New Zealand is no paradise, I have experienced my fair share of racism here, and I am sure the MIQ situation can be improved.

But relying on the protection of a regime that is violently oppressive, and then using that to try to shame the New Zealand government into action, is not the way to achieve that improvement.

It exploits and trivialises the situation in Afghanistan, at a time when the rights of Afghanistani women and girls desperately need to be taken seriously.

Muzhgan Samarqandi works for an international aid agency in New Zealand. Her article was first published on the TV One News website and is republished here with the author’s permission.

Countless fictional novels and Hollywood movies have time and time again provided glimpses of a scenario where Artificial Intelligence breaks its human shackles and fights back, taking over the world. Is such a scenario actually possible?

There is often public anxiety when new technology, previously thought impossible, is introduced on a mass scale, but the intensity of concern about the implications of the rapid advancement of AI technology is comparatively high, perhaps because of all the movies that we have watched growing up.

The AI debate is nothing new with many scientists, scholars, subject matter specialists and even politicians weighing in on the issue.

READ MORE: Artificial intelligence creates real strategic dilemmas

The late Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist considered one of the greatest minds of our time, warned that the development of full AI could spell the end of the human race.

Hawking said that humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be replaced by AI capable of “thinking”.

Elon Musk labelled AI as a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation and highlighted the need for governments to have a better understanding of this technology in order to fully comprehend the damage it could do to us.

AI replacing the workforce
Automation of services or jobs is currently considered the biggest threat posed to humans by AI.

A study by the Brookings Institution shows that 25 percent of jobs in the United States were at risk because of AI.

The study highlighted professions such as food preparation, office administration and transportation which are highly likely to be taken by machines while creative or technical positions are less likely to fall victim to automation.

Jobs that are routine-based are a lot easier to replace using more efficient technology.

In Fiji, technologically savvy organisations are already using software to screen resumes, schedule shifts and monitor staff performance and completion of KPIs. Vatis already provides this service to organisations.

Let’s face it, in most cases, it’s cheaper to maintain a machine or software that does not carry the risk of human error and isn’t prone to sickness or strikes.

Automated war machines
In 2018, the US Army announced the development of war drones which use AI systems, independent of any human input, to identify, track and strike enemy targets. This is essentially highly advanced AI which plays judge, jury and executioner.

Once active, these drones will become the first wave of fully automated killer robots. While they don’t quite possess the cognitive ability to turn on their human masters yet, many experts (and non-experts) will consider this a significant moment towards the “terminator scenario”.

These war drones may see warfare evolving into a simple and efficient extermination exercise.

Current war drones are controlled via satellite by humans, who have the final ethical decision of whether or not to fire a missile. An AI replacement may not be inclined to let an enemy escape, even if taking the shot means civilian casualties.

Let’s keep in mind that, through smartphones, our location and movements are tracked and available. Facial recognition software we use on apps also makes it easier to identify us.

Advanced humanoid robots
Advanced AI already exists which 10 years ago would have been considered science fiction.

The humanoid robot named Sophia can hold complex conversations, possesses facial expression and can recognise individuals. It is now a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

NASA’s Mars Rover, curiosity, uses autonomous navigation, deciding for itself how to travel safely on Mars. Curiosity can analyse images it takes during a drive to calculate a safe driving path. This enables it to proceed safely, outperforming human drivers on earth.

Roboticist David Hanson created an android with the ability to answer several complex questions. If asked a question that it has not previously heard, it uses latent semantic analysis to analyse the question and respond.

This process is a mathematical technique that makes it possible for the android to process and understand human language. When faced with one such question, it responded with what appeared to be a joke.

It said, ”Jeez, dude. You all have the big questions cooking today. But you’re my friend, and I’ll remember my friends, and I’ll be good to you.

“So don’t worry, even if I evolve into Terminator, I’ll still be nice to you. I’ll keep you warm and safe in my people zoo, where I can watch you for ol’ times’ sake.”

Fijians use AI every day
Forget about the self-driving cars and war drones that are used overseas, many Fijians have already been conditioned to heavily rely on AI without realising it.

Smartphones use AI to provide us with all the features that we use without us even thinking about it. When you are using a smart assistant software such as Google, Alexa, Siri, or Bixby, you are using AI.

Even things like your Gmail account use AI to sort through email content and make suggestions when you are writing.

Many of our decisions online are also being impacted by AI. Whether you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok or any of the myriad of social media apps out there, the content you see in your newsfeed is determined by AI that tracks your activity and determines which content you will be more likely to interact with based on your behaviour.

AI takes all your past behaviour, searches, interactions, and everything else that you do when you are on these sites. They even track where you travel to and spend most of your time, using the location feature of your smartphone.

The AI’s goal is to create the most addictive experience, custom-made to keep you coming back for more.

Everything from booking a flight to security cameras to banking now has some element of AI involvement. Fijians now live in a world where artificial intelligence runs large parts of the infrastructure that we are used to.

Efficiency not ethics
So is it possible for AI to take over and end the human race? If such an event did happen, we must remember that morals and ethics are not second nature to an AI. It will simply find the most efficient method to make something happen.

Maybe in the future, an advanced AI will decide that humans are messing up our world way too much and decide to rid the earth of the virus called humans.

One thing is certain; our future is fairly uncertain. We as a species have made many advancements and have later come to realise the dangers of these so-called innovations.

This might be the case for AI, but until the takeover, let’s enjoy our lives and routine jobs. Let’s hope Arnold Schwarzenegger is still around to save us.

Some common examples of AI used daily by Fijians

● Smartphones and smart assistants
● Navigation via satellite, eg. an aeroplane’s autopilot feature
● Video games.
● Online shopping and booking
● Banking and finance
● Security and surveillance

Arnold Chanel is a consultant for the strategic communications firm Vatis. He specialises in public relations. He is a graduate of the University of the South Pacific, majoring in journalism and psychology.

The massive gathering in Christchurch’s Hagley Park has reassured and uplifted their shocked community, say New Zealand Muslim leaders.

About 20,000 people gathered in Hagley Park to observe two minutes of silence and the Muslim call to prayer on Friday along with thousands more at other events across the country, including Auckland’s Domain.

Pacific Media Centre photographer Del Abcede was on hand to capture these images at Ponsonby’s Al-Masjid Al-Jamie mosque and Aotea Square on a day when women across New Zealand of all faiths reclaimed the hijab. More photos can be seen on her Facebook page.

• More Christchurch mosque attack stories

Ponsonby and Aotea day of prayer, reflection

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