The former head of BenarNews’ Pacific bureau says a United States court ruling this week ordering the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to release congressionally approved funding to Radio Free Asia and its subsidiaries “makes us very happy”.

However, Stefan Armbruster, who has played a key role in expanding the news agency’s presence in the region, acknowledged, “there’s also more to do”.

On March 14, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to defund USAGM outlets Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, including placing more than 1300 Voice of America employees on leave.

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• Victory for US press freedom and workers – court grants injunction in VOA media case

“This order continues the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary,” the executive order states.

Armbruster told RNZ Pacific Waves that the ruling found the Trump administration failed to provide evidence to support their actions.

“[Judge Royce Lamberth] is basically saying that the actions of the Trump administration [are] likely to have been illegal and unconstitutional in taking away the money from these organisations,” he said.

Order to restore funding
“The judgments are saying that the US administration should return funding to its overseas broadcasters, which include Voice of America [and] Radio Free Asia.”

He said that in America, they can lay people off without a loss, and they can still remain employees. But these conditions did not apply for overseas employees.

“Basically, all the overseas staff have been staff let go, except a very small number in the US who are on visas, dependent on their employment, and they have spoken out about this publicly.

“They have got 60 days to find a job, a new sponsor for them, or they could face deportation to places like China, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

“So for the former employees, at the moment, we are just waiting to see how this all plays out.”

Armbruster said there were hints that a Trump administration could take such action during the election campaign, when the Trump team had flagged issues about the media.

Speed ‘totally unexpected’
However, he added the speed at which this has happened “was totally unexpected”.

“And the judge ruled on that. He said that it is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary, capricious action, basically, random and unexplained.

“In short, the defendants had no method or approach towards shutting down USAGM that this Court could discern.”

Armbruster said the US Congress funds the USAGM, and the agency has a responsibility to disburse that funding to Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, and Radio Free Asia.

The judge ruled that the President does not have the authority to withhold that funding, he said.

“We were funded through till September to the end of the financial year in the US.

“In terms of how quickly [the executive order] came, it was a big surprise to all of us. Not totally unexpected that this would be happening, but not this way, not this hard.”

BenarNews ‘gave a voice’
The BenarNews Pacific bureau was initially set up two-and-a-half years ago but evolved into a fully-fledged bureau only 12 months ago. It had three fulltime staff based in Australia and about 15 stringers and commentators across the region.

“We built up this fantastic network of people, and the response has been fantastic, just like Radio New Zealand [Pacific],” Armbruster said.

“We were doing a really good thing and having some really amazing stories on our pages, and big successes. It gave a voice to a whole lot of Pacific journalists and commentators to tell stories from perspectives that were not being presented in other forums.

“It is hard to say if we will come back because there has been a lot of court orders issued recently under this current US administration, and they sometimes are not complied with, or are very slowly complied with, which is why we are still in the process.”

However, Armbruster remains hopeful there will be “some interesting news” next week.

“The judgment also has a little bit of a kicker in the tail, because it is not just an order to do [restore funding].

“It is an order to turn up on the first day of each month, and to appraise the court of what action is [the USAGM] taking to disburse the funds.”

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

Of all the contradictions and ironies of Donald Trump’s second presidency so far, perhaps the most surprising has been his shutting down the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for being “radical propaganda”.

Critics have long accused the agency — and its affiliated outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia — of being a propaganda arm of US foreign policy.

But to the current president, the USAGM has become a promoter of “anti-American ideas” and agendas — including allegedly suppressing stories critical of Iran, sympathetically covering the issue of “white privilege” and bowing to pressure from China.

• READ MORE: RSF sues Trump administration to defend Voice of America
• Other media freedom reports

Propaganda is clearly in the eye of the beholder. The Moscow Times reported Russian officials were elated by the demise of the “purely propagandistic” outlets, while China’s Global Times celebrated the closure of a “lie factory”.

Meanwhile, the European Commission hailed USAGM outlets as a “beacon of truth, democracy and hope”. All of which might have left the average person understandably confused: Voice of America? Wasn’t that the US propaganda outlet from World War II?

Well, yes. But the reality of USAGM and similar state-sponsored global media outlets is more complex — as are the implications of the US agency’s demise.

For the better part of a century, Voice of America has broadcast into countries whose governments censored free information. The Trump administration has dismantled VOA’s parent organization, put all of its employees on leave and ended funding for independent media agencies.… pic.twitter.com/TzagYQwNIx

— PBS News (@NewsHour) March 17, 2025

Public service or state propaganda?
The USAGM is one of several international public service media outlets based in Western democracies. Others include Australia’s ABC International, the BBC World Service, CBC/Radio-Canada, France Médias Monde, NHK-World Japan, Deutsche Welle in Germany and SRG SSR in Switzerland.

Part of the Public Media Alliance, they are similar to national public service media, largely funded by taxpayers to uphold democratic ideals of universal access to news and information.

Unlike national public media, however, they might not be consumed — or even known — by domestic audiences. Rather, they typically provide news to countries without reliable independent media due to censorship or state-run media monopolies.

The USAGM, for example, provides news in 63 languages to more than 100 countries. It has been credited with bringing attention to issues such as protests against covid-19 lockdowns in China and women’s struggles for equal rights in Iran.

On the other hand, the independence of USAGM outlets has been questioned often, particularly as they are required to share government-mandated editorials.

Voice of America has been criticised for its focus on perceived ideological adversaries such as Russia and Iran. And my own research has found it perpetuates stereotypes and the neglect of African nations in its news coverage.

Leaving a void
Ultimately, these global media outlets wouldn’t exist if there weren’t benefits for the governments that fund them. Sharing stories and perspectives that support or promote certain values and policies is an effective form of “public diplomacy”.

Yet these international media outlets differ from state-controlled media models because of editorial systems that protect them from government interference.

The Voice of America’s “firewall”, for instance, “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news”. Such protections allow journalists to report on their own governments more objectively.

In contrast, outlets such as China Media Group (CMG), RT from Russia, and PressTV from Iran also reach a global audience in a range of languages. But they do this through direct government involvement.

CMG subsidiary CCTV+, for example, states it is “committed to telling China’s story to the rest of the world”.

Though RT states it is an autonomous media outlet, research has found the Russian government oversees hiring editors, imposing narrative angles, and rejecting stories.

Other voices get louder
The biggest concern for Western democracies is that these other state-run media outlets will fill the void the USAGM leaves behind — including in the Pacific.

Russia, China and Iran are increasing funding for their state-run news outlets, with China having spent more than US$6.6 billion over 13 years on its global media outlets. China Media Group is already one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, providing news content to more than 130 countries in 44 languages.

And China has already filled media gaps left by Western democracies: after the ABC stopped broadcasting Radio Australia in the Pacific, China Radio International took over its frequencies.

Worryingly, the differences between outlets such as Voice of America and more overtly state-run outlets aren’t immediately clear to audiences, as government ownership isn’t advertised.

An Australian senator even had to apologise recently after speaking with PressTV, saying she didn’t know the news outlet was affiliated with the Iranian government, or that it had been sanctioned in Australia.

Switched off
Trump’s move to dismantle the USAGM doesn’t come as a complete surprise, however. As the authors of Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America described, the first Trump administration failed in its attempts to remove the firewall and install loyalists.

This perhaps explains why Trump has resorted to more drastic measures this time. And, as with many of the current administration’s legally dubious actions, there has been resistance.

The American Foreign Service Association says it will challenge the dismantling of the USAGM, while the Czech Republic is seeking EU support to keep Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty on the air.

But for many of the agency’s journalists, contractors, broadcasting partners and audiences, it may be too late. Last week, The New York Times reported some Voice of America broadcasts had already been replaced by music.

Dr Valerie A. Cooper is lecturer in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Indonesia’s plan to convert over 2 million ha of conservation and indigenous lands into agriculture will cause long-term damage to the environment, create conflict and add to greenhouse gas emissions, according to a feasibility study document for the Papua region mega-project.

The 96-page presentation reviewed by Radio Free Asia was drawn up by Sucofindo, the Indonesian government’s inspection and land surveying company.

Dated July 4, it analyses the risks and benefits of the sugar cane and rice estate in Merauke regency on Indonesia’s border with Papua New Guinea and outlines a feasibility study that was to have been completed by mid-August.

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Though replete with warnings that “comprehensive” environmental impact assessments should take place before any land is cleared, the feasibility process appears to have been a box-ticking exercise. Sucofindo did not respond to questions from RFA, a news service affiliated with BenarNews, about the document.

Even before the study was completed, then-President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo participated in a ceremony in Merauke on July 23 that marked the first sugar cane planting on land cleared of forest for the food estate, the government said in a statement.

Jokowi’s decade-long presidency ended last month.

Excavators destroy villages
In late July, dozens of excavators shipped by boat were unloaded in the Ilyawab district of Merauke where they destroyed villages and cleared forests and wetlands for rice fields, according to a report by civil society organisation Pusaka

Hipolitus Wangge, an Indonesian politics researcher at Australian National University, told RFA the feasibility study document does not provide new information about the agricultural plans.

But it makes it clear, he said, that in government there is “no specific response on how the state deals with indigenous concerns” and their consequences.

The plan to convert as much as 2.3 million ha of forest, wetland and savannah into rice farms, sugarcane plantations and related infrastructure in the conflict-prone Papua region is part of the government’s ambitions to achieve food and energy self-sufficiency.

Previous efforts in the nation of 270 million people have fallen short of expectations.

Echoing government and military statements, Sucofindo said increasingly extreme climate change and the risk of international conflict are reasons why Indonesia should reduce reliance on food imports.

Taken together, the sugarcane and rice projects represent at least a fifth of a 10,000 square km lowland area known as the TransFly that spans Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and which conservationists say is an already under-threat conservation treasure.

Military leading role
Indonesia’s military has a leading role in the 1.9 million ha rice plan while the government has courted investors for the sugar cane and related bioethanol projects.

The likelihood of conflict with indigenous Papuans or of significant and long-term environmental damage applies in about 80 percent of the area targeted for development, according to Sucofindo’s analysis.

The project’s “issues and challenges,” Sucofindo said, include “deforestation and biodiversity loss, destruction of flora and fauna habitats and loss of species”.

It warns of long-term land degradation and erosion as well as water pollution and reduced water availability during the dry season caused by deforestation.

Sucofindo said indigenous communities in Merauke rely on forests for livelihoods and land conversion will threaten their cultural survival. It repeatedly warns of the risk of conflict, which it says could stem from evictions and relocation.

“Evictions have the potential to destabilize social and economic conditions,” Sucofindo said in its presentation.

If the entire area planned for development is cleared, it would add about 392 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere in net terms, according to Sucofindo.

That is about equal to half of the additional carbon emitted by Indonesia’s fire catastrophe in 2015 when hundreds of thousands of acres of peatlands drained for pulpwood and oil palm plantations burned for months.

Indonesia’s contribution to emissions that raise the average global temperature is significantly worsened by a combination of peatland fires and deforestation. Carbon stored in its globally important tropical forests is released when cut down for palm oil, pulpwood and other plantations.

In a speech last week to the annual United Nations climate conference COP29, Indonesia’s climate envoy, a brother of recently inaugurated president Prabowo Subianto, said the new administration has a long-term goal to restore forests to 31.3 million acres severely degraded by fires in 2015 and earlier massive burnings in the 1980s and 1990s.

Indonesia’s government has made the same promise in previous years including in its official progress report on its national contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the rise in average global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius.

“President Prabowo has approved in principle a program of massive reforestation to these 12.7 million hectares in a biodiverse manner,” envoy Hashim Djojohadikusumo said during the livestreamed speech from Baku, Azerbaijan.

“We will soon embark on this programme.”

Prabowo’s government has announced plans to encourage outsiders to migrate to Merauke and other parts of Indonesia’s easternmost region, state media reported this month.

Critics said such large-scale movements of people would further marginalise indigenous Papuans in their own lands and exacerbate conflict that has simmered since Indonesia took control of the region in the late 1960s.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

The vibrant city of Hong Kong, once regarded as a haven for free speech, is experiencing a steady erosion of press freedom.

The former British colony was promised a high degree of economic and social autonomy upon its handover to China in 1997 — including freedom of the press — with the Hong Kong special administrative region operating under a “one country, two systems” principle. However, despite initially enjoying one of the most free media climates in the region, the situation appears to have deteriorated in recent years.

In the annual world press freedom index compiled by the Paris-based NGO Reporters Without Borders — or Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) — Hong Kong has slumped in the rankings from 18th in 2002 to 69th in 2016 (China sits at number 176 of 180 countries).

Further cause for concern can be found in the latest survey by the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), which reports that both journalists and the general public believe that press freedom in Hong Kong has worsened for second year in a row.

Self-censorship has been stressed as one of the major issues facing the media; when the HKJA asked journalists to evaluate the level of self-censorship on a scale of 1 to 10, their average rating was 7.

Benjamin Ismaïl, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, found Hong Kong’s media freedom situation troubling enough to warrant an in-depth report. Aiming to draw attention to self-censorship and editorial interference issues, the report calls on the special administrative region’s authorities to “reverse their insidious policies towards the media as a matter of urgency”.

Despite noting that there is no incontrovertible evidence of Beijing’s hand in undermining Hong Kong’s press freedom, the report raises questions about several distressing developments.

Triad-style attack
Chief among these is a growing number of physical attacks on journalists, the most shocking of which occurred in February 2014 when Kevin Lau was brutally stabbed in a triad-style attack. During his two-year stint as editor-in-chief of Ming Pao, a muckraking Chinese-language daily, the newspaper contributed investigative work to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) expose on the offshore holdings of China’s elites, which was widely speculated on to be the motivation behind the attack.

“The unfortunate truth is that for many physical attacks and other ‘legal’ violations of press freedom, it has been impossible to prove the intention of the perpetrators, and in the case of this attack, to identify the individuals who gave the order,” says Ismaïl.

Lau’s two assailants were jailed for 19 years in August 2015, confessing that they had been offered HK$100,000 each to “teach Lau a lesson”, but refusing to reveal who hired them. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club quoted Lau as saying that only when the perpetrator behind his attack is found “will the shadow cast on journalists by this violent attack be lifted.”

“We’ve seen ways that people can be pressured,” says veteran journalist Francis Moriarty.

“Kevin Lau is an example: pushed out of his job and physically attacked in the streets to within an inch of his life. His successor was marched out of the office at midnight and told don’t come back … You can see the results, even if you can’t always see the hand at work.”

Ming Pao has come to the fore of Hong Kong’s press freedom debate once again as their latest editor-in-chief, Keung Kwok-yuen, was suddenly fired last month after running a front-page story on local politicians and businessmen named in the Panama Papers. Following Keung’s dismissal, Ming Pao columnists submitted blank columns in protest, but to no avail.

Another disconcerting example of Beijing’s invisible hand at work, according to the RSF report, is the acquisition of the South China Morning Post (SCMP) — Hong Kong’s leading English-language newspaper — by billionaire Jack Ma, founder and chairman of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Company executives have said that they aim to counter the “negative” perception of China in the Western media. This move raised such fears of mainland interference that Ma felt it necessary to defend the decision in a recent SCMP interview.

‘Legal’ violations
As well as physical attacks and editorial interference, the RSF report details “legal” press freedom violations, such as the withdrawal of advertising to asphyxiate a publication and the demoting of critical journalists, as major causes behind growing self-censorship. Ismaïl says that for some journalists, “making no compromise will mean losing their job”.

Hong Kong journalist and press freedom advocate Mak Yin-ting fears that self-censorship may become “endemic” in Hong Kong, irreparably weakening the watchdog role of the Fourth Estate. “According to the [HKJA] surveys, the most self-censored issues are those sensitive to the central government in Beijing,” says Mak, who served as the HKJA chairperson for several years.

Stories regarding the independence of Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjian are considered to be the most sensitive to Beijing, and therefore most likely to go unpublished. Mak also points to human rights suppressions in China and Hong Kong’s vocal localist movement as further examples of issues less covered by Hong Kong media.

“This makes it impossible to play its watchdog role, it’s as simple as that,” says Ismaïl. “This happens the moment a journalist starts to balance the interest of the public with the interest of the state.” He contends that the “poor” local coverage of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s secret A$7 million payout is one such example.

The HKJA’s current chairperson, Sham Yee-lan, is renewing calls for the government to introduce a Freedom to Information Act, which Mak says is something journalists have been demanding for decades. Hong Kong’s existing information laws are “insufficient” for journalists to report effectively, according to the HKJA.

Mak “condemns” Leung for failing to keep his promise on this legislation once he became Chief Executive, as he signed a freedom of press charter in 2012 stating his commitment to implementing the act.

Leung made overtures towards defending press freedom at the annual Hong Kong News Awards last month, saying, “the SAR government will continue to maintain freedom of speech in Hong Kong … because it is a necessary condition for Hong Kong as an international city. Freedom of the press is essential to maintain Hong Kong’s competitiveness and free society. In other words, protecting freedom of the press means protecting Hong Kong’s way of life.”

Harshly criticised
This speech was harshly criticised by the Hong Kong Free Press. “Nowhere in his administration do we see these inspirational words put into action. In fact, Leung has presided over a troubling erosion of the very core value to which he was so keen to give lip service,” wrote Kent Ewing.

“One of the things for which many people in Hong Kong fault CY Leung is that he takes the mainland’s side in issues,” says Moriarty. “He couldn’t even bring himself to root for the Hong Kong soccer team when it played against China.” Leung’s growing unpopularity is on display on his Facebook page, where the public have taken to express their anger.

Polarising public dissatisfaction and accusations of Leung’s mainland-bias have been renewed over his administration’s inactive response to the missing booksellers, one of the most sensational freedom of speech cases in recent years. Five men with links to a Hong Kong bookstore — Causeway Bay Books, known for publishing scandalous material critical of China’s senior party officials — disappeared without trace over the course of several months late last year, only to resurface sporadically on Chinese state television giving what appear to be forced confessions.

The ongoing saga has dominated Hong Kong media for months and is threatening to become an international incident now that Angela Gui, daughter of one of the missing men, has gone public with an appeal for help in the United States. She has accused China of carrying out “illegal operations” beyond its borders, and urged the international community to respond.

“Almost nothing ever gets solved in China quietly,” says Moriarty. “Every case I’ve ever seen when something was resolved and somebody ultimately was freed was because there was a campaign, there were people in the family that wouldn’t give up, the public got behind them and wouldn’t give up — keeping quiet doesn’t help people.”

Timothy Hamlett is another veteran Hong Kong journalist critical of Leung’s pro-Beijing administration. “Hong Kong does not have a state of democracy,” he says. “Leung’s predecessors were quite successful in obscuring this fact by an ostentatious display of concern for public opinion. Leung doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him and makes this obvious. He is regarded as a shameless puppet.”

Hamlett says that the silence of Leung’s administration on the disappeared booksellers — one of whom, Lee Bo, is believed to have been illegally abducted from Hong Kong — is viewed as complicitous by many. “It is clear that the Chinese government is trying by a variety of ways to muzzle the Hong Kong media, and to a considerable extent it has succeeded,” he says.

Worrisome figures
Considering the worrisome figures presented by the HKJA and RSF, Hamlett says they do not present an accurate reflection of the media landscape, as “the reality is worse… Journalists and editors try to hide in areas like business where accuracy is still valued and ‘sensitive’ topics do not come up, or they consider alternative careers.”

While Hamlett bemoans the decline of Hong Kong’s traditional media, he says several new media outlets are picking up the watchdog baton, such as the newly-established Hong Kong Free Press, for which he is a contributor, and the pro-democracy Next Media websites — whose outspoken founder, Jimmy Lai, has often found himself a target.

Tim Summers, an adjunct assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, offers a “slightly counter-consensus view” on the issue, arguing that it is more complicated than “a critical one-dimensional decline in media freedom.”

“One of the things mixed into this debate is the changing nature of the media here,” he says, “and I think that makes it difficult to evaluate.” According to Summers, most people in Hong Kong now get their news and information from a wider range of sources, including social media and online chat groups, where “freedom of expression and information transfer are healthy.”

Summers suggests the extensive local coverage of the 2014 Umbrella movement as a positive example, during which all media outlets were live streaming the protests as they unfolded without restrictions, including the oft-criticised SCMP. “I’m not saying there are no issues around … there is perhaps less variety and diversity of outspoken views across the traditional media in Hong Kong, but I would argue that that is more than compensated by the emergence of new media.”

This more measured take on the state of Hong Kong’s press freedom is echoed by Dr Judith Clarke, a seasoned professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University’s journalism department. “There is certainly a lot of pressure to conform, but there are plenty of independent media getting the news out and leading the way on stories — scrutinising every move of the government, so that even pro-government media have to follow.”

She concedes, however, that the introduction of a Freedom to Information Act is unlikely under the current administration. “There are already some procedures in place, such as the Code on Access to Information, various complaints mechanisms and the Ombudsman’s office. These are not really adequate, but they do provide some level of access.”

Open access
Moriarty says that even these procedures are under threat, as the administration is attempting to make access more difficult for journalists. “Without open access to business records you wouldn’t have seen the same stories about the rich family members of the Chinese leaders — the Hong Kong records were extremely important in being able to confirm who was who and where the money was going.”

Ismaïl emphasises that regardless of whether the act happens or not, it should not be viewed as a solution to the threats that the Hong Kong media are facing. “Even with the Freedom to Information Act, which will [reduce] discrimination against independent online media like the Hong Kong Free Press, the media will continue to be pressured and encouraged to self-censor.” The Hong Kong government — perhaps sensing that new media could become the Fourth Estate’s new watchdog — does not allow online media access to press conferences and press releases.

In spite of his many concerns, Ismaïl is not yet ready to call the “one country, two systems” experiment a failure — at least as it relates to press freedom guarantees — and he promises RSF will continue to monitor the situation closely. “The Hong Kong media, both local and foreign, enjoy all sorts of freedoms that are refused to journalists operating in mainland China. And international press freedom organisations like ours can still go there and speak freely … But the moment RSF members are denied access to Hong Kong, we’ll be extremely worried.”

Dominic Pink compiled this report as part of the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Journalism Studies course.

• Hong Kong bookseller: Chinese TV confession was ‘forced’