“Why is it that African teams and Middle Eastern teams have to answer for what their governments are doing but European teams don’t?” South African comedian Trevor Noah asked recently during a World Cup watch party.

He was reacting to the questions Western journalists had lobbed at Iranian players following their games. But the question goes far beyond Iran.

It speaks to a familiar hierarchy in global journalism: Some players are allowed to be athletes. Others are turned into ambassadors, defendants and moral exhibits.

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The World Cup is often sold as the place where football rises above politics. This has always been a canard. Politics, and hypocrisy, have always been part of the sport.

Teams have boycotted or been banned from the competition because of the policies of their governments. Russia is banned for its invasion of Ukraine. South Africa was eventually banned for apartheid.

Israel, however, gets to play in qualifiers despite occupying Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, bombing Iran, and despite findings by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN experts that it is committing genocide in Gaza and maintaining a system of apartheid at home and in the occupied territories.

The United States, too, has never been banned despite its many wars of aggression.

Full of politics
Nor is the World Cup unique. International cultural and sporting competitions are full of politics and hypocrisies dressed up as principle. Just look at the controversies around Israel’s participation in Eurovision.

Noah’s question is an indictment of a journalism that likes to imagine itself as challenging power but often mirrors its assumptions. Much ink was spilled over the propriety of Russia and Qatar hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, given the policies of those governments.

Yet there has been far less interrogation of the propriety of the US hosting this tournament while it attacks Iran and Venezuela, deports asylum seekers, and blocks or restricts the travel of tournament officials, players and fans.

The selective accountability that runs through the institutions — who is banned, who is allowed to host — runs through the press box too. So it should not surprise us that some political questions are reserved for some teams and not others.

Ahead of their match against Egypt in Seattle, branded locally as a “Pride Match”, Iran and Egypt were both asked about LGBTQ rights. A FIFA official even read a statement saying Iran wished to answer only questions about the game. Still, the media persisted. Egyptian officials also shielded their players from similar questions.

Again, the point is not that LGBTQ rights, war, repression, discrimination, apartheid or genocide are unimportant. They are profoundly important. Journalists should ask difficult questions. But difficult questions should not become a ritual reserved for some passports only.

American players are not routinely asked to account for US bombings, border policy, racism, police violence or support for Israel. English players are not habitually asked about British arms exports or colonial legacy. French players are not expected to answer for military interventions in Africa. German players are not pressed on Berlin’s crushing of pro-Palestinian protests.

Not a confession
And when European teams have been pulled into politics — the OneLove armbands and the German squad covering their mouths for a team photo at Qatar 2022, England taking a knee at Euro 2020 — it was a protest they chose to make, not a confession demanded of them before they were allowed to speak.

No reporter required them to denounce their governments as the price of discussing a match.

Western footballers are treated as individuals who happen to represent a country. Players from Iran, Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Senegal or Ghana are more easily turned into representatives of regimes.

For many players from the Global South, the tournament press conference becomes an ideological checkpoint. Before they are allowed to talk about tactics, injuries or the opposition’s midfield, they are asked to explain their governments, their societies, their religions, their laws and their wars.

Sound familiar?

Remember Palestinian interviewees being required to condemn Hamas at the start of any interview before they could speak of the genocide in Gaza? The purpose was not clarification. It was classification.

It established the moral hierarchy before the conversation could begin: Israel good, Hamas bad. Palestinian suffering could be heard only after passing through the checkpoint of Western approval.

World Cup pressers
The same logic is visible in these World Cup pressers. The Iranians must condemn Iran. The Egyptians must condemn Egypt. Africans must prove they understand the West’s moral vocabulary before they can be trusted to speak. But Americans will not be asked to condemn the United States, nor the English the UK.

This is the real answer to Noah’s question. The issue is not whether politics belongs in sport. It always has. The issue is who is made to carry politics, and who is allowed to simply play.

Western media is not merely asking questions. It is enforcing a story long carried by Western governments and institutions: the West is the measure of morality, and the rest of the world must constantly answer for itself.

Patrick Gathara is senior editor for inclusive storytelling at The New Humanitarian. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, New Zealand responded with unusual speed. Sanctions followed. Condemnations were issued. The language was unambiguous.

We were told this was about defending the “rules-based international order” — a phrase our politicians have grown remarkably fond of. Winston Peters has deployed it frequently in his time as Foreign Minister.

So where is that principled clarity now?

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On Saturday, the United States attacked the Venezuelan capital Caracas, seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and spirited them away to face charges in New York.

President Donald Trump then declared that America would “run” Venezuela — including, he made abundantly clear, its oil reserves. He threatened the acting president with a fate “probably worse than Maduro” if she failed to cooperate.

This is, by any reasonable definition, an invasion. An act of aggression against a sovereign state. A violation of Article Two of the UN Charter. The kind of thing New Zealand normally objects to, or used to.

Peters’ response? After about 24 hours, he made a brief statement on social media: “New Zealand is concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law.”

That’s it. “Concerned”. “Monitoring”. Expecting all parties to behave. One party has just bombed a capital city, kidnapped a head of state, and announced it will control the country’s resources. But sure, let’s urge “all parties” to play by the rules.

The Prime Minister’s Office, when asked for a response at the highest level, simply referred journalists back to Peters’ tweet. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon himself has said nothing.

As Geoffrey Miller, the independent geopolitical analyst, observed: “Luxon will probably be grateful to escape the media spotlight by virtue of the weekend’s events falling in the depths of New Zealand’s typically elongated summer holidays.”

The language tells you everything
Pay attention to the words politicians choose and the words they avoid. Peters didn’t name the United States. He didn’t describe what happened as an invasion, an attack, or even an intervention. The carefully crafted statement avoids assigning responsibility to anyone. It’s diplomatic jelly.

Compare this to how other countries have responded. Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay issued a joint statement expressing “deep concern and rejection of the military actions carried out unilaterally in the territory of Venezuela, which contravene fundamental principles of international law.”

They warned that “such actions set an extremely dangerous precedent for regional peace and security and for the rules-based international order.”

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was equally direct: “Spain did not recognise the Maduro regime. But neither will it recognise an intervention that violates international law and pushes the region toward a horizon of uncertainty and belligerence.”

Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide put it simply: “International law is universal and binding for all states. The American intervention in Venezuela is not in accordance with international law.”

Even Singapore, which is hardly known for picking diplomatic fights, issued a statement saying it was “gravely concerned” and “strongly condemned any unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country under any pretext.” That echoes the language Singapore used after Russia invaded Ukraine.

New Zealand? “Concerned” and “monitoring”.

The vested interests behind timidity
Maduro is no martyr; he is a dictator who ran his country into the ground. He lost the 2024 election by an enormous margin and then stole it. His regime was corrupt, authoritarian, and responsible for the flight of eight million Venezuelans from their own country. No tears should be shed for him personally.

But that’s not the point. The question isn’t whether Maduro deserved power. He didn’t. The question is whether the United States can bomb sovereign nations, kidnap their leaders, and declare control of their natural resources whenever it feels like it.

The answer, if you believe in national sovereignty or the rules-based order our government claims to defend, should be an emphatic no.

Why can’t New Zealand say so? The answer lies in vested interests: both American and our own.

Start with Washington. Trump’s intervention is not primarily about narcotics or democracy.

As Professor Robert Patman of Otago University has noted, Venezuela is not at the centre of America’s drug problems. Fentanyl and other drugs mainly come from places like China and Mexico. Trump’s announcement that America would “run” Venezuela and take its oil reserves revealed the true motivation.

At his news conference, Trump made clear his major objective was securing Venezuela’s oil resources, which he claims the United States “owns”. This from the man who once said America made a mistake in not grabbing Iraq’s oil reserves after the 2003 invasion.

The vested interests of American corporations are driving this policy, dressed up in the language of law enforcement and regional security. The military is simply being used to secure assets for private corporations.

And what about New Zealand’s own vested interests in staying quiet? Here the picture becomes clearer. Our farming and export sectors have already been hit by Trump’s tariff regime. An initial 10 percent rate in April was raised to 15 percent.

A November decision to roll back tariffs on food imports provided some relief, but American trade policy remains a constant threat. India has been hit with 50 percent tariffs for buying Russian oil. Brazil was targeted because of its prosecution of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro.

Our agricultural and export lobby groups watch these retaliatory tariffs nervously. Any government criticism of Trump risks placing New Zealand next on the punishment list. This explains why Peters has been so careful not to name the United States in his statement.

The economic interests of New Zealand’s export sector — farmers, meat processors, dairy companies — are being prioritised over principles. It’s the politics of fear, wrapped in the language of diplomacy.

Stephen Nagy, a professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo, put it bluntly when explaining why America’s Asian allies have been so reluctant to criticise Trump: “You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” This is what happens when a country’s foreign policy becomes subordinate to its immediate economic interests.

The double standard is breathtaking
Consider how this would play out if the roles were reversed. Imagine China had just bombed Taipei, sent special forces to capture Taiwan’s leader, and declared it would “run” the island.

Would Winston Peters be tweeting about how New Zealand “expects all parties” to respect international law? Would Chris Luxon be hiding behind his summer holiday?

Of course not. The response would be immediate, forceful, and unambiguous. We would be told that Chinese aggression cannot be tolerated. Gordon Campbell made this point sharply: “If the Chinese military were blowing up merchant shipping in the South China Sea, bombing Taipei and sending in special forces to kidnap Taiwan’s leader . . .  New Zealand wouldn’t be meekly asking both sides to show restrained respect for international law. We would be outraged.”

The same double standard has been on display over Gaza. Peters’ line about expecting “all parties” to respect international law has been the government’s exact position there too, as if both sides in that conflict have been equally responsible for bombing hospitals and blocking humanitarian aid.

Only last week, New Zealand opted not to join a joint statement by foreign ministers from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom calling for Israel to abide by ceasefire terms. Peters sat that one out.

Opposition voices show what’s possible
Not everyone in New Zealand politics has been so timid. Phil Twyford of the Labour Party issued a stronger statement, actually naming the United States and describing the action as a violation of international law.

It’s not revolutionary language (more like stating the obvious) but in the context of the government’s mealy-mouthed response, it stands out. Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins should be speaking out likewise.

Helen Clark has been characteristically direct, telling RNZ that the US attack was “clearly illegal under the UN Charter.” When former prime ministers speak more clearly than current foreign ministers, something has gone badly wrong.

Professor Patman told RNZ that New Zealand’s response should be “firm and robust” and noted that the days of “softly, softly diplomacy” with Trump are over. Patman says: “New Zealand has persisted for the last 12 months in what I call softly, softly diplomacy towards Trump. The idea is if we keep our heads beneath the radar, we say nice things, we have photo opportunities with the great men at international meetings, he will soften and we’ll be able to nudge him in a more moderate direction. I’m afraid that’s over.”

He labelled Peters’ statement as “limp”.

The credibility at stake
The consequences of this craven approach go beyond the immediate crisis. Geoffrey Miller warned that the inconsistency between how Western allies responded to Russia and how they’re responding to America “may come back to haunt them, particularly when it comes to their credibility with the Global South.”

He’s right. Countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are watching. They’ve heard endless lectures from Western nations about the importance of the rules-based order, about sovereignty, about international law.

Now they’re watching those same nations stay quiet — or worse, make excuses — when the violator is the United States. Beijing and Moscow will exploit this at every opportunity. They’ll point to Venezuela whenever anyone raises Ukraine or Taiwan. And they’ll have a point.

As Nathalie Tocci wrote in The Guardian, the European failure to condemn Trump’s action “embodies the law of the jungle so dear to dictators such as Putin. For Europeans to silently condone such a vision is not just unethical. It is plain stupid.”

After all, Trump is now speaking out loud about annexing Greenland too. And increasingly, the concept of “Spheres of Influence” seems to be rising, whereby military superpowers such as the US, Russia, China, etc can operate on a “might is right” basis to intervene however they want in their own regions.

If the world reverts to such “Spheres of Influence”, New Zealand is left exposed. If the US can claim the Americas, what is to stop a superpower from claiming the Pacific?

New Zealand has spent years positioning itself as “a good international citizen”. It has sought seats on the UN Security Council. It has championed multilateralism. It has talked endlessly about the importance of small states having a voice in international affairs.

How does that square with staying silent when a great power simply ignores international law because it can?

The integrity test New Zealand is failing
This is ultimately a question of integrity — the kind of integrity New Zealand claims to stand for on the world stage. Either international law applies to everyone, or it doesn’t. Either sovereignty matters, or it’s just a convenient talking point when it suits politicians.

Either New Zealand is willing to call out violations regardless of who commits them, or else the politicians are just selective critics who only speak up when the target is someone they already dislike.

Winston Peters once prided himself on being willing to speak uncomfortable truths. New Zealand First has long positioned itself as independent-minded, unwilling to simply follow the crowd. Where is that independence now?

What we’re seeing instead is a government so afraid of offending Trump, and so captured by the economic interests of our export sector, that it can’t even name the United States in a statement about an American military attack.

As Professor Patman observed: “Foreign policy in this country has been traditionally bipartisan. We have stood up for the rule of law internationally.” If that’s true, then it’s certainly time to show some element of independence from the US and Five Eyes.

But doing so requires the New Zealand government to put principles ahead of the vested interests of farmers and exporters, and ahead of the political calculation that offending Trump carries too high a price.

Murray McCully, not exactly a darling of the left, showed more backbone when he championed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on Israeli settlements in 2016. As Gordon Campbell observed, the current situation almost makes you yearn for the days when McCully was foreign minister.

That’s a damning indictment of how far New Zealand has fallen.

So, as we head towards an election year, foreign policy needs to be made a major issue. Voters now deserve to know whether New Zealand will continue to subordinate its principles to its perceived economic interests.

Dr Bryce Edwards is a political commentator and analyst. He is director of the Democracy Project, focused on scrutinising and challenging the role of vested interests in the political process. Republished with the author’s permission.

By Phil Goff

Like many others, I was appalled and astounded by the dishonest comments made about the situation in Ukraine by the Trump Administration.

As one untruthful statement followed another like something out of a George Orwell novel, I increasingly felt that the lies needed to be called out.

I found it bizarre to hear President Trump publicly label Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. Everyone knew that Zelenskyy had been democratically elected and while Trump claimed his support in the polls had fallen to 4 percent it was pointed out that his actual support was around 57 percent.

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Trump made no similar remarks or criticism of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and never does. Yet Putin’s regime imprisons and murders his opponents and suppresses democratic rights in Russia.

Then Trump made the patently false accusation that Ukraine started the war with Russia. How could he make such a claim when the world had witnessed Russia as the aggressor which invaded its smaller neighbour, killing thousands of civilians, committing war crimes and destroying cities and infrastructure?

That President Trump could lie so blatantly is perhaps explained by his taking offence at Zelenskyy’s refusal to comply with unreasonable and self-serving demands such as ceding control of Ukraine’s mineral wealth to the US. What was also clear was that Trump was intent on pressuring Ukraine to capitulate to Russian demands for a one sided “peace settlement” which would result in neither a fair nor sustainable peace.

It is astonishing that the US voted with Russia and North Korea in the United Nations against Ukraine and in opposition to the views of democratic countries the US is normally aligned with, including New Zealand.

Withdrew satellite imaging
It then withdrew satellite imaging services Ukraine needed for its self defence in an attempt to further pressure Zelenskyy to agree to a ceasefire. No equivalent pressure has yet been placed on Russia even while it has continued its illegal attacks on Ukraine.

Trump and Vance’s disgraceful bullying of Zelenskyy in the White House as he struggled in his third language to explain the plight of his nation was as remarkable as it was appalling.
What Trump was doing and saying was wrong and a betrayal of Ukraine’s struggle to defend its freedom and nationhood.

Democratic leaders around the world knew his comments to be unfair and untrue, yet few countries have dared to criticise Trump for making them.

Like the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, everyone knew that the emperor had no clothes but were fearful of the consequences of speaking out to tell the truth.

As New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK, I had on a number of occasions met and talked with Ukrainian soldiers being trained by New Zealanders in Britain. It was an emotionally intense experience knowing that many of the men I met with would soon face death on the front line defending their country’s freedom and nationhood.

They were extremely grateful of New Zealand’s unwavering support. Yet the Trump Administration seemed to care little for that country’s cause and sacrifice in defending the values that a few months earlier had seemed so important to the United States.

The diplomatic community in London privately shared their dismay at Trump’s treatment of Ukraine. The spouse of one of my High Commissioner colleagues who had been a teacher drew a parallel with what she had witnessed in the playground. The bully would abuse a victim while all the other kids looked on and were too intimidated to intervene. The majority thus became the enablers of the bully’s actions.

Silence condoning Trump
By saying nothing, New Zealand — and many other countries — was effectively condoning and being complicit in what Trump was doing.

It was in this context, at the Chatham House meeting, that I asked a serious and important question about whether President Trump understood the lessons of history. It was a question on the minds of many. I framed it using language that was reasonable.

The lesson of history, going back to the Munich Conference in 1938, when British Prime Minister Chamberlain and his French counterpart Daladier ceded the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, was clear.

Far from satisfying or placating an aggressor, appeasement only increases their demands. That’s always the case with bullies. They respect strength, not weakness.

Czechoslovakia could have been part of the Allied defence against Hitler’s expansionism but instead it and the Czech armaments industry was passed over to Hitler. He went on to take over the rest of Czechoslovakia and then invaded Poland.

As Churchill told Chamberlain, “You had the choice between dishonour and war. You chose dishonour and you will have war.”

The question needed to be asked because Trump was using talking points which followed closely those used by the Kremlin itself and was clearly setting out to appease and favour Russia.

A career diplomat, trained as a public servant to be cautious, might have not have asked it. I was appointed, with bipartisan support, not as a career diplomat but on the basis of political experience including nine years as Foreign, Trade and Defence Minister.

Question central to validity, ethics
“The question is central to the validity as well as the ethics of the United States’ approach to Ukraine. It is also a question that trusted allies, who have made sacrifices for and with each other over the past century, have a right and duty to ask.

The New Zealand Foreign Minister’s response was that the question did not reflect the view of New Zealand’s Government and that asking it made my position as High Commissioner untenable.

The minister had the prerogative to take the action he did and I am not complaining about that for one moment. For my part, I do not regret asking the question which thanks to the minister’s response subsequently received international attention.

Over the decades New Zealand has earned the respect of the world, from allies and opponents alike, for honestly standing up for the values our country holds dear. The things we are proudest of as a nation in the positions we have taken internationally include our role as one of the founding states of the United Nations in promoting a rules-based international system including our opposition to powerful states exercising a veto.

They include opposing apartheid in South Africa and French nuclear testing in the Pacific. We did not abandon our nuclear free policy to US pressure.

In wars and in peacekeeping we have been there when it counted and have made sacrifices disproportionate to our size.

We have never been afraid to challenge aggressors or to ask questions of our allies. In asking a question about President Trump’s position on Ukraine I am content that my actions will be on the right side of history.

Phil Goff, CNZM, is a New Zealand retired politician and former diplomat. He served as leader of the Labour Party and leader of the Opposition between 11 November 2008 and 13 December 2011. Goff was elected mayor of Auckland in 2016, and served two terms, before retiring in 2022. In 2023, he took up a diplomatic post as High Commissioner of New Zealand to the United Kingdom, which he held until last month when he was sacked by Foreign Minister Winston Peters over his “untenable” comments.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress in a highly partisan 100-minute speech, the longest presidential address to Congress in modern history on Wednesday.

Trump defended his sweeping actions over the past six weeks.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump praised his biggest campaign donor, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who’s leading Trump’s effort to dismantle key government agencies and cut critical government services.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And to that end, I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps.

Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight. Thank you, Elon. He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need this. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

AMY GOODMAN: Some Democrats laughed and pointed at Elon Musk when President Trump made this comment later in his speech.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s very simple. And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.

AMY GOODMAN: During his speech, President Trump repeatedly attacked the trans and immigrant communities, defended his tariffs that have sent stock prices spiraling, vowed to end Russia’s war on Ukraine and threatened to take control of Greenland.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland: We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it.

But we need it, really, for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.

‘A declaration of war against the American people.’  Video: Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: During Trump’s 100-minute address, Democratic lawmakers held up signs in protest reading “This is not normal,” “Save Medicaid” and “Musk steals.”

One Democrat, Congressmember Al Green of Texas, was removed from the chamber for protesting against the President.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Likewise, small business optimism saw its single-largest one-month gain ever recorded, a 41-point jump.

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 1: Sit down!

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 2: Order!

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions. That’s your warning. Members are engaging in willful and continuing breach of decorum, and the chair is prepared to direct the sergeant-at-arms to restore order to the joint session.

Mr Green, take your seat. Take your seat, sir.

DEMOCRAT CONGRESS MEMBER AL GREEN: He has no mandate to cut Medicaid!

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Take your seat. Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum, the chair now directs the sergeant-at-arms to restore order, remove this gentleman from the chamber.

AMY GOODMAN: That was House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called in security to take Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green out. Afterwards, Green spoke to reporters after being removed.

DEMOCRAT CONGRESS MEMBER AL GREEN: The President said he had a mandate, and I was making it clear to the President that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid.

I have people who are very fearful. These are poor people, and they have only Medicaid in their lives when it comes to their healthcare. And I want him to know that his budget calls for deep cuts in Medicaid.

He needs to save Medicaid, protect it. We need to raise the cap on Social Security. There’s a possibility that it’s going to be hurt. And we’ve got to protect Medicare.

These are the safety net programmes that people in my congressional district depend on. And this President seems to care less about them and more about the number of people that he can remove from the various programmes that have been so helpful to so many people.

AMY GOODMAN: Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green.

We begin today’s show with Ralph Nader, the longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, former presidential candidate. Ralph Nader is founder of the Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper. His most recent lead article in the new issue of Capitol Hill Citizen is titled “Democratic Party: Apologise to America for ushering Trump back in.”

He is also the author of the forthcoming book Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country That Works for the People.

Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, all these different programmes. Ralph Nader, respond overall to President Trump’s, well, longest congressional address in modern history.

RALPH NADER: Well, it was also a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favour of the super-rich and the giant corporations. What Trump did last night was set a record for lies, delusionary fantasies, predictions of future broken promises — a rerun of his first term — boasts about progress that don’t exist.

In practice, he has launched a trade war. He has launched an arms race with China and Russia. He has perpetuated and even worsened the genocidal support against the Palestinians. He never mentioned the Palestinians once.

And he’s taken Biden’s genocidal policies one step further by demanding the evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza.

But taking it as a whole, Amy, what we’re seeing here defies most of dictionary adjectives. What Trump and Musk and Vance and the supine Republicans are doing are installing an imperial, militaristic domestic dictatorship that is going to end up in a police state.

You can see his appointments are yes people bent on suppression of civil liberties, civil rights. You can see his breakthrough, after over 120 years, of announcing conquest of Panama Canal.

He’s basically said, one way or another, he’s going to take Greenland. These are not just imperial controls of countries overseas or overthrowing them; it’s actually seizing land.

Now, on the Greenland thing, Greenland is a province of Denmark, which is a member of NATO. He is ready to basically conquer a part of Denmark in violation of Section 5 of NATO, at the same time that he has displayed full-throated support for a hardcore communist dictator, Vladimir Putin, who started out with the Russian version of the CIA under the Soviet Union and now has over 20 years of communist dictatorship, allied, of course, with a number of oligarchs, a kind of kleptocracy.

And the Republicans are buying all this in Congress. This is complete reversal of everything that the Republicans stood for against communist dictators.

So, what we’re seeing here is a phony programme of government efficiency ripping apart people’s programmes. The attack on Social Security is new, complete lies about millions of people aged 110, 120, getting Social Security cheques.

That’s a new attack. He left Social Security alone in his first term, but now he’s going after [it]. So, what they’re going to do is cut Medicaid and cut other social safety nets in order to pay for another tax cut for the super-rich and the corporation, throwing in no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security benefits, which will, of course, further increase the deficit and give the lie to his statement that he wants a balanced budget.

So we’re dealing with a deranged, unstable pathological liar, who’s getting away with it. And the question is: How does he get away with it, year after year? Because the Democratic Party has basically collapsed.

Courts Just Say No to Trump’s Authoritarian Power Grabs https://t.co/wUZspBh6RQ

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) March 6, 2025

They don’t know how to deal with a criminal recidivist, a person who has hired workers without documents and exploited them, a person who’s a bigot against immigrants, including legal immigrants who are performing totally critical tasks in home healthcare, processing poultry, meat, and half of the construction workers in Texas are undocumented workers.

So, as a bully, he doesn’t go after the construction industry in Texas; he picks out individuals.

I thought the most disgraceful thing, Amy, yesterday was his use of these unfortunate people who suffered as props, holding one up after another. But they were also Trump’s crutches to cover up his contradictory behavior.

So, he praised the police yesterday, but he pardoned over 600 people who attacked violently the police [in the attack on the Capitol] on 6 January 2021 and were convicted and imprisoned as a result, and he let them out of prison. I thought the most —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph? Ralph, I —

RALPH NADER: — the most heartrending thing was that 13-year-old child, who wanted to be a police officer when he grew up, being held up twice by his father. And he was so bewildered as to what was going on. And Trump’s use of these people was totally reprehensible and should be called out.

Now, more basically, the real inefficiencies in government, they’re ignoring, because they are kleptocrats. They’re ignoring corporate crimes on Medicaid, Medicare, tens of billions of dollars every year ripping off Medicare, ripping off government contracts, such as defence contracts.

He’s ignoring hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare, including that doled out to Elon Musk — subsidies, handouts, giveaways, bailouts, you name it. And he’s ignoring the bloated military budget, which he is supporting the Republicans in actually increasing the military budget more than the generals have asked for. So, that’s the revelation —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph? Ralph, if I — Ralph, if I can interrupt? I just need to —

RALPH NADER: — that the Democrats need to pursue.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph, I wanted to ask you about — specifically about Medicaid and Medicare. You’ve mentioned the cuts to these safety net programmes. What about Medicaid, especially the crisis in this country in long-term care? What do you see happening in this Trump administration, especially with the Republican majority in Congress?

RALPH NADER: Well, they’re going to slash — they’re going to move to slash Medicaid, which serves over 71 million people, including millions of Trump voters, who should be reconsidering their vote as the days pass, because they’re being exploited in red states, blue states, everywhere, as well.

Yeah, they have to cut tens of billions of dollars a year from Medicaid to pay for the tax cut. That’s number one. Now they’re going after Social Security. Who knows what the next step will be on Medicare? They’re leaving Americans totally defenceless by slashing meat and poultry and food inspection laws, auto safety.

They’re exposing people to climate violence by cutting FEMA, the rescue agency. They’re cutting forest rangers that deal with wildfires. They’re cutting protections against pandemics and epidemics by slashing and ravaging and suppressing free speech in scientific circles, like CDC and National Institutes of Health.

They’re leaving the American people defenseless.

And where are the Democrats on this? I mean, look at Senator Slotkin’s response. It was a typical rerun of a feeble, weak Democratic rebuttal. She couldn’t get herself, just like the Democrats in 2024, which led to Trump’s victory — they can’t get themselves, Juan, to talk specifically and authentically about raising the minimum wage, expanding healthcare, cracking down on corporate crooks that are bleeding out the incomes of hard-pressed American workers and the poor.

They can’t get themselves to talk about increasing frozen Social Security budgets for 50 years, that 200 Democrats supported raising, but Nancy Pelosi kept them, when she was Speaker, from taking John Larson’s bill to the House floor.

That’s why they lose. Look at her speech. It was so vague and general. They chose her because she was in the national security state. She was a former CIA. They chose her because they wanted to promote the losing version of the Democratic Party, instead of choosing Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, the most popular polled politician in America today.

That’s who they chose. So, as long as the Democrats monopolise the opposition and crush third-party efforts to push them into more progressive realms, the Republican, plutocratic, Wall Street, war machine declaration of war against the American people will continue.

We’re heading into the most serious crisis in American history. There’s no comparison.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, we’re going to have to leave it there, but, of course, we’re going to continue to cover these issues. And I also wanted to wish you, Ralph, a happy 91st birthday. Ralph Nader —

RALPH NADER: I wish people to get the Capitol Hill Citizen, which tells people what they can really do to win democracy and justice back. So, for $5 or donation or more, if you wish, you can go to Capitol Hill Citizen and get a copy sent immediately by first-class mail, or more copies for your circle, of resisting and protesting and prevailing over this Trump dictatorship.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, four-time presidential candidate, founder of the Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper. This is Democracy Now!

The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence. Republished by Asia Pacific Report under Creative Commons.

The Green Party has called on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to rule out Aotearoa New Zealand joining the AUKUS military technical pact in any capacity following the row over Ukraine in the White House over the weekend.

President Donald Trump’s “appalling treatment” of his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a “clear warning that we must avoid AUKUS at all costs”, said Green Party foreign affairs and Pacific issues spokesperson Teanau Tuiono.

“Aotearoa must stand on an independent and principled approach to foreign affairs and use that as a platform to promote peace.”

• READ MORE: US pauses aid to Ukraine, puts tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China
• Other AUKUS reports

US President Donald Trump has paused all military aid for Ukraine after the “disastrous” Oval Office meeting with President Zelenskyy in another unpopular foreign affairs move that has been widely condemned by European leaders.

Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, declared that Trump appeared to be trying to push Kyiv to capitulate on Russia’s terms.

He was quoted as saying that the aid pause was worse than the 1938 Munich Agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

‘Danger of Trump leadership’
Tuiono, who is the Green Party’s first tagata moana MP, said: “What we saw in the White House at the weekend laid bare the volatility and danger of the Trump leadership — nothing good can come from deepening our links to this administration.

“Christopher Luxon should read the room and rule out joining any part of the AUKUS framework.”

Tuiono said New Zealand should steer clear of AUKUS regardless of who was in the White House “but Trump’s transactional and hyper-aggressive foreign policy makes the case to stay out stronger than ever”.

“Our country must not join a campaign that is escalating tensions in the Pacific and talking up the prospects of a war which the people of our region firmly oppose.

“Advocating for, and working towards, peaceful solutions to the world’s conflicts must be an absolute priority for our country,” Tuiono said.

Five Eyes network ‘out of control’
Meanwhile, in the 1News weekly television current affairs programme Q&A, former Prime Minister Helen Clark challenged New Zealand’s continued involvement in the Five Eyes intelligence network, describing it as “out of control”.

Her comments reflected growing concern by traditional allies and partners of the US over President Trump’s handling of long-standing relationships.

Clark said the Five Eyes had strayed beyond its original brief of being merely a coordinating group for intelligence agencies in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

“There’s been some talk in the media that Trump might want to evict Canada from it . . . Please could we follow?” she said.

“I mean, really, the problem with Five Eyes now has become a basis for policy positioning on all sorts of things.

“And to see it now as the basis for joint statements, finance minister meetings, this has got a bit out of control.”

Check out my interview with @GuyonEspiner on @NZQandA today on the implications of the disruptive reorientation of US foreign policy & its implications for Europe & #NZ; Chinese in the Tasman Sea, & the #CookIslands debacle: https://t.co/QD2N9NaBD1 via @YouTube

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) March 2, 2025

President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and journalists doing vital work into chaotic uncertainty — including in the Pacific.

In a statement published on its website, RSF has called for international public and private support to commit to the “sustainability of independent media”.

• READ MORE: What will US aid cuts mean for the Pacific?
• Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze leaves organisations in the Asia-Pacific region scrambling
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

Since the new American president announced the freeze of US foreign aid on January 20, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been in turmoil — its website is inaccessible, its X account has been suspended, the agency’s headquarters was closed and employees told to stay home.

South African-born American billionaire Elon Musk, an unelected official, whom Trump chose to lead the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called USAID a “criminal organisation” and declared: “We’re shutting [it] down.”

Later that day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was named acting director of the agency, suggesting its operations were being moved to the State Department.

Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organisations around the world — including media groups in the Pacific — that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty.

Large and smaller media NGOs affected
The affected organisations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.

“The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism. The programmes that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF USA.

“President Trump justified this order by charging — without evidence — that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with US interests.

“The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appealing to the international public and private funders to commit to the sustainability of independent media.”

USAID programmes support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media.

Many organisations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks.

According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023 the agency funded training and support for 6200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media.

Activities halted overnight
The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.

All over the world, media outlets and organisations have had to halt some of their activities overnight.

“We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,” explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous.

In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the economic capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election.

An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive.

An exiled Iranian journalist interviewed by RSF warns that the impact of the funding freeze could silence some of the last remaining free voices, creating a vacuum that Iranian state propaganda would inevitably fill.

“Shutting us off will mean that they’ll have more power,” she says.

USAID: the main donor for Ukrainian media
In Ukraine, where 9 out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor, several local media have already announced the suspension of their activities and are searching for alternative solutions.

“At Slidstvo.Info, 80 percent of our budget is affected,” said Anna Babinets, CEO and co-founder of this independent investigative media outlet based in Kyiv.

The risk of this suspension is that it could open the door to other sources of funding that may seek to alter the editorial line and independence of these media.

“Some media might be shut down or bought by businessmen or oligarchs. I think Russian money will enter the market. And government propaganda will, of course, intensify,” Babinets said.

RSF has already witnessed the direct effects of such propaganda — a fabricated video, falsely branded with the organisation’s logo, claimed that RSF welcomed the suspension of USAID funding for Ukrainian media — a stance RSF has never endorsed.

This is not the first instance of such disinformation.

Finding alternatives quickly
This situation highlights the financial fragility of the sector.

According to Oleh Dereniuha, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian local media outlet NikVesti, based in Mykolaiv, a city in southeast Ukraine, “The suspension of US funding is just the tip of the iceberg — a key case that illustrates the severity of the situation.”

Since 2024, independent Ukrainian media outlets have found securing financial sustainability nearly impossible due to the decline in donors.

As a result, even minor budget cuts could put these media outlets in a precarious position.

A recent RSF report stressed the need to focus on the economic recovery of the independent Ukrainian media landscape, weakened by the large-scale Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, which RSF’s study estimated to be at least $96 million over three years.

Moreover, beyond the decline in donor support in Ukraine, media outlets are also facing growing threats to their funding and economic models in other countries.

Georgia’s Transparency of Foreign Influence Law — modelled after Russia’s legislation — has put numerous media organisations at risk. The Georgian Prime Minister welcomed the US president’s decision with approval.

This suspension is officially expected to last only 90 days, according to the US government.

However, some, like Katerina Abramova, communications director for leading exiled Russian media outlet Meduza, fear that the reviews of funding contracts could take much longer.

Abramova is anticipating the risk that these funds may be permanently cut off.

“Exiled media are even in a more fragile position than others, as we can’t monetise our audience and the crowdfunding has its limits — especially when donating to Meduza is a crime in Russia,” Abramova stressed.

By abruptly suspending American aid, the United States has made many media outlets and journalists vulnerable, dealing a significant blow to press freedom.

For all the media outlets interviewed by RSF, the priority is to recover and urgently find alternative funding.

Fiji, Pacific media, aid groups reel shocked by cuts
In Suva, Fiji, as Pacific media groups have been reeling from the shock of the aid cuts, Fijivillage News reports that hundreds of local jobs and assistance to marginalised communities are being impacted because Fiji is an AUSAID hub.

According to an USAID staff member speaking on the condition of anonymity, Trump’s decision has affected hundreds of Fijian jobs due to USAID believing in building local capacity.

The staff member said millions of dollars in grants for strengthening climate resilience, the healthcare system, economic growth, and digital connectivity in rural communities were now on hold.

The staff member also said civil society organisations, especially grantees in rural areas that rely on their aid, were at risk.

Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report collaborate with Reporters Without Borders.

A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House.

More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

Member of the Palestinian community Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab presented Labour MP Phil Twyford with the petition, signed by more than 16,000 people.

• READ MORE: ‘Clock tick­ing fast to­wards famine’ as Is­rael bom­bards Gaza, blocks aid
• Other War on Gaza reports

Twyford said Labour unequivocally supported the call for special humanitarian visas for families of New Zealanders currently trapped in Gaza.

“We created a special visa for the families of Ukrainian Kiwis so they could sponsor their families to escape the war zone. To not do so for the people of Gaza is a disgraceful double standard,” he said.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick reiterated her party’s support for special visas.

“The Minister of Immigration has patronisingly said that the government do not want to offer what they call false hope to the people of Palestine. Let us say, that’s for the people of Palestine.

‘Offer consistency’
“It’s not for politicians in this place to patronise the people in Gaza and tell when what they should or shouldn’t hope for. The very least we can do is offer the consistency that we have to those affected in Ukraine by Russia’s aggressions.”

Last week, the government was urged to create a special humanitarian visas for Palestinians in Gaza who have ties to New Zealand.

It followed more than 30 organisations — including World Vision, Save the Children and Greenpeace — sending an open letter to ministers asking they step up support and help with evacuation and resettlement efforts.

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford acknowledged there was an “unimaginable humanitarian crisis in Gaza” but said issuing special visas would not assist people.

“Those people in Ukraine were able to leave. They were able to get on a plane and get to New Zealand. The situation in Gaza is that they cannot leave.

“I’m not going to be issuing visas, which is issuing false hope, for people on a great scale who cannot leave. As and when the situation changes, we will reconsider our position.”

Labour MP for Nelson Rachel Boyack, a Christian, said she was calling on MPs of all faiths in Parliament to stand up for Palestine.

‘War about land, power’
“Our religion and our faith has been used to fight a war that is fundamentally about land and power. I said in the House earlier this week in the debate that as a Christian, it pains me greatly to see other people of faith misuse their faith to kill and harm other people.”

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced plans to attend a NATO meeting in Brussels, and meet with counterparts in Egypt, Poland and Sweden.

The urgent humanitarian situation in Gaza will be a focus of the trip, with Peters saying New Zealand was part of an “overwhelming international consensus demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.

“This travel will allow us to share information and perspectives with a range of interested parties and coordinate on broad international action,” he said.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said Peters did not need to travel to the region to understand the need for further humanitarian support.

“it’s good to hear the minister talking about some support but we can do it now,” sdhe said.

“It’s right now that people are starving and dying without water and medical supplies. We can actually see that from here and that decision can be made right now to use all of the levers to get that kai and food and medical supplies through.”

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

The New Zealand government is being urged to create a special humanitarian visa for Palestinians in Gaza with ties to this country.

More than 30 organisations — including World Vision, Save the Children and Greenpeace — have sent an open letter to ministers, calling on them to step up support.

They also want the government to help evacuate Palestinians with ties to New Zealand from Gaza, and provide them with resettlement assistance.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘Everyone is susceptible to death’ — Palestinian New Zealander Muhammad Dahlen
• ‘This is one way we could help’ — World Vision spokesperson Rebekah Armstrong
• Israel’s war on Gaza live: More than 100 killed in al-Aqsa Hospital attack

Their appeal is backed by Palestinian New Zealander Muhammad Dahlen, whose family is living in fear in Rafah after being forced to move there from northern Gaza.

His ex-wife and two children (who have had visitor visas since December) were now living in a garage with his mother, sisters and nieces who do not have visas.

“There is no food, there is no power . . .  it is a really hard situation to be living in,” he told RNZ Morning Report.

If his family could receive visas to come to New Zealand “it literally can be the difference between life and death”.

‘Everyone susceptible to death’
With Israel making it clear it still intended to send ground forces into Rafah “everyone is susceptible to death and at least we would be saving some lives”.

Dahlen said New Zealand had a tradition of accepting refugees from areas of conflict, including Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Syria.

“So why is this not the same?”

He appealed to Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to intervene and approach the Egyptian government.

“We need these people out,” he said.

“Please give them visas; this is a first step. This is something super super difficult and huge and requires ministerial intervention.”

Border permission needed
At the Gaza-Egypt border potential refugees needed to gain the permission of officials from both Israel and Egypt.

Egypt had concerns about taking in too many refugees from Gaza so the New Zealand government would need to provide assurances flights had been organised.

If the government offered a charter flight to bring refugees to this country, “that would be amazing”.

World Vision spokesperson Rebekah Armstrong said the government had responded with immigration support in other humanitarian emergencies.

“We provided humanitarian visas for Ukrainians when their lives were torn apart by war, and we assisted Afghans to leave and resettle in this country when the Taliban returned to power. The situation for vulnerable Palestinians is no different.

“Palestinians are living in a perilous environment, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes; children and families starving with literally nothing to eat; and healthcare and medical treatment nearly impossible to access,” Armstrong said.

This is not a detainment camp in World War II, nor a prison in the Holocaust, this is Gaza in 2024. A chilling reminder that history repeats.

A holocaust is happening right before our eyes and the world is silent. pic.twitter.com/Y4SgE1yjji

— Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa) March 10, 2024

Several hundred
The organisations did not know exactly how many people would qualify for such a visa, but estimated it could be several hundred.

“We know there’s around 288 Palestinian New Zealanders in New Zealand, and they have estimated that there would be around 300-400 people that are their family members that they’d like to bring here,” Armstrong said.

“That’s a very small number and as we’ve seen, in the case of Ukraine . . . the actual number of people that have probably come here would be significantly less than that, it’s not like they’re asking for the world. I think it’s quite a conservative number myself.”

She told Morning Report similar visas for Ukrainians and Afghans had been organised within days or weeks.

“It would be New Zealand’s response to this catastrophic situation that is unfolding. We want to be on the right side of history and this is one way we could help.”

She said embassies in the region would need to assist with the logistics of people leaving Gaza.

NZ government ‘monitoring’
Stanford said in a statement the government was monitoring the situation in Gaza.

“The issue in Gaza is primarily a humanitarian and border issue, not a visa issue, as people are unable to leave.

“People who have relatives in Gaza can already apply for temporary or visitors’ visas for them,” Stanford said.

But Armstrong said: “If there is the political will, the government can do this.

“Other countries are doing this . . .  Canada and Australia are getting people out. It’s tricky, but it’s not impossible.”

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

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled against Israel and determined that South Africa successfully argued that Israel’s conduct plausibly could constitute genocide. The court has imposed several injunctions against Israel and reminds Israel that its rulings are binding, according to international law.

In its order, the court fell short of South Africa’s request for a ceasefire, but this ruling, however, is overwhelmingly in favour of South Africa’s case and will likely increase international pressure for a ceasefire as a result.

On the question of whether Israel’s war in Gaza is genocide, that will still take more time, but today’s news will have significant political repercussions. Here are a few thoughts.

• READ MORE: ICJ ruling an ‘indirect’ order for Israeli ceasefire in genocidal war, says legal analyst
• World Court or­ders Is­rael to take steps to pre­vent acts of geno­cide in Gaza

This is a devastating blow to Israel’s global standing. To put it in context, Israel has worked ferociously for the last two decades to defeat the BDS movement — Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions — not because it will have a significant economic impact on Israel, but because of how it could delegitimiSe Israel internationally.

However, the ruling of the ICJ that Israel is plausibly engaged in genocide is far more devastating to Israel’s legitimacy than anything BDS could have achieved.

Just as much as Israel’s political system has been increasingly — and publicly — associated with apartheid in the past few years, Israel will now be similarly associated with the charge of genocide.

As a result, those countries that have supported Israel and its military campaign in Gaza, such as the US under President Biden, will be associated with that charge, too.

Significant implications for US
The implications for the United States are significant. First because the court does not have the ability to implement its ruling.

Instead, the matter will go to the UN Security Council, where the Biden administration will once again face the choice of protecting Israel politically by casting a veto, and by that, further isolate the United States, or allowing the Security Council to act and pay a domestic political cost for “not standing by Israel.”

I have deleted my previous posts on the ICJ ruling to ensure accurate representation of their decision.

Having read and listened to expert analysis of the ruling, it remains the case that the New Zealand government, a signatory to the Genocide Convention, now has a clear duty… pic.twitter.com/GOulkTJ4Kv

— Donna Miles دانا مجاب (@UnPressed) January 26, 2024

So far, the Biden administration has refused to say if it will respect ICJ’s decision. Of course, in previous cases in front of the ICJ, such as Myanmar, Ukraine and Syria, the US and Western states stressed that ICJ provisional measures are binding and must be fully implemented.

The double standards of US foreign policy will hit a new low if, in this case, Biden not only argues against the ICJ, but actively acts to prevent and block the implementation of its ruling.

It is perhaps not surprising that senior Biden administration officials have largely ceased using the term “rules-based order” since October 7.

It also raises questions about how Biden’s policy of bear-hugging Israel may have contributed to Israel’s conduct.

Biden could have offered more measured support and pushed back hard against Israeli excesses — and by that, prevented Israel from engaging in actions that could potentially fall under the category of genocide. But he didn’t.

Unconditional support, zero criticism
Instead, Biden offered unconditional support combined with zero public criticism of Israel’s conduct and only limited push-back behind the scenes. A different American approach could have shaped Israel’s war efforts in a manner that arguably would not have been preliminarily ruled by the ICJ as plausibly meeting the standards of genocide.

This shows that America undermines its own interest as well as that of its partners when it offers them blank checks and complete and unquestionable protection. The absence of checks and balances that such protection offers fuels reckless behavior all around.

As such, Biden’s unconditional support may have undermined Israel, in the final analysis.

This ruling may also boost those arguing that all states that are party to the Genocide Convention have a positive obligation to prevent genocide. The Houthis, for instance, have justified their attacks against ships heading to Israeli ports in the Red Sea, citing this positive obligation.

What legal implications will the court’s ruling have as a result on the US and UK’s military action against the Houthis?

The implications for Europe will also be considerable. The US is rather accustomed to and comfortable with setting aside international law and ignoring international institutions. Europe is not.

International law and institutions play a much more central role in European security thinking. The decision will continue to split Europe. But the fact that some key EU states will reject the ICJ’s ruling will profoundly contradict and undermine Europe’s broader security paradigm.

Moderated war conduct
One final point: The mere existence of South Africa’s application to the ICJ appears to have moderated Israel’s war conduct.

Any plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and send its residents to third countries appear to have been somewhat paused, presumably because of how such actions would boost South Africa’s application.

If so, it shows that the court, in an era where the force of international law is increasingly questioned, has had a greater impact in terms of deterring unlawful Israeli actions than anything the Biden administration has done.

Trita Parsi is the co-founder and executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. First published at Responsible Statecraft.

Two years ago New Zealand joined 22 other countries in supporting the Ukrainian case against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its invasion of Ukraine.

We sent a legal team to The Hague where the ICJ is based and our representatives spoke directly to the court on New Zealand’s behalf. We used international law to argue the Russian invasion was illegal and warranted sanction by the ICJ.

Successive New Zealand governments for as long as I can remember have said we believe in an “international rules-based order” of which the ICJ and the ICC are an important part.

• READ MORE: War on Gaza: A textbook case of genocide
• Jordan backs South Africa ICJ genocide file against Israel over Gaza atrocities
• War on Gaza: The fate of global justice hangs on South Africa’s ICJ case

This makes sense because we are a small country without the economic or military clout to take unilateral action to protect our interests. Like other small countries we rely on international rules to provide a measure of protection when bigger countries, like Russia in this case, break the rules.

We have used such rules ourselves by making applications to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) when our trade interests have been threatened. Without such rules the biggest bully will win every time.

Last week South Africa filed papers at the ICJ alleging Israel’s actions in Gaza over the past 12 weeks amount to genocide.

South Africa said it “is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants”.

It described its case saying “acts and omissions by Israel . . .  are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent . . .  to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”.

Their court papers go on to claim that, “the conduct of Israel — through its state organs, state agents, and other persons and entities acting on its instructions or under its direction, control or influence — in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention”.

This case is important because Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and South Africa are all signatories of the Genocide Convention and are bound to abide by any decision made by the court.

The most important part of South Africa’s case is its application for an interim injunction to stop Israel’s indiscriminate killing immediately. If this interim injunction is successful it could put in place an immediate ceasefire to end the war and Israel’s indiscriminate killing of Palestinians.

It would allow unfettered humanitarian aid to enter Gaza where the need for food, water, fuel, medicine and vaccinations is desperate.

This is the outcome the majority of people in New Zealand, and across the world, want to see. New Zealand should back up the South African case which is most likely to get a first hearing on January 11.

So far, Bolivia, Ireland, Jordan, Malaysia, Maldives, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey, Venezuela and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have supported the South African legal action.

Those who have been paying attention will not be surprised at claims of genocide.

Genocide always begins with words and there is a wealth of reporting on the dehumanising language being used by Israel’s political and military leaders to set the scene for what has followed.

For example, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible”, and two days after the attack Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant spelt out genocidal intentions saying:

“We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.”

Israelis more generally have taken up this talk across social media with calls for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased” or “destroyed”. More tragic is a social media post showing Israeli children singing “we will annihilate everyone” in Gaza.

Israel’s Defence Minister’s statement matches the UN Convention closely to the point where Israeli scholar of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Raz Segal, has described Israel’s rhetoric and actions as “a textbook case of genocide”.

It is clear Israel’s political and military leaders have a case to answer before the International Court of Justice, just as Russia does for its invasion of Ukraine.

South Africa has filed a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. International law expert Francis Boyle, who has argued successfully at the ICJ, says he believes “South Africa will win an order against Israel.” pic.twitter.com/4Ebz02vxVc

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) January 2, 2024

As well as backing South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice we should also call for a swift, well-resourced International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes committed in the October 7 attack on Israel and the Israeli response.

This investigation should include examining the crimes of genocide and apartheid.

Palestinians deserve our support as much as the people of Ukraine.

John Minto is the national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by The Post and is republished with the author’s permission.

American President Joe Biden is among the latest Western politicians to land in Tel Aviv in a show of support to Israel.

As Israel’s primary backer, the United States has sent two aircraft carriers to the region and indicated it could deploy 2000 American troops to Israel.

Biden was also set to meet Palestinian and Arab leaders in the Jordanian capital Amman. But Jordan cancelled the meeting after a reported airstrike on October 17 killed about 500 people at a Gaza hospital.

• READ MORE: Tantura: New documentary sparks debate about Israel and the Palestinian Nakba

In the days after Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel, European and North American governments (with few exceptions) were quick to provide a unified and consistent message of support for Israel.

That message contains at least four interconnected elements:

• Israel is the victim of an unprovoked terrorist attack;
• Israel has the right to defend itself;
• The West fully stands with Israel against the barbaric and wanton violence of the Palestinians; and
• Hamas is to blame (either partially or fully) for all civilian deaths on both sides since they began these hostilities and forced Israel’s hand while hiding behind civilians.

Palestinians erased
There are a few important features of this message, but I want to focus on two that highlight the West’s double standards.

First, is the advancement of anti-Palestinian racism in the West. It is critical to underscore a salient feature of anti-Palestinian racism: the silencing of the Palestinian critiques of Zionism and Israel.

This is a dynamic which has its roots in the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) and erases Palestinian voices, history, presence, aspirations and identity from public discourse.

Political, media and educational institutions in the West regularly sideline and silence Palestinians and their supporters. This is not just an issue among the right-wing or even centrists, but occurs across the political spectrum.

Left-wing politics, including progressive spaces, that purport to be anti-racist often remain hostile to Palestinian voices

Here in Canada, a statement by progressive Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow painted a rally in support of Palestinians as allegedly supporting violence and as a threat to the safety and security of Canadian Jews. That statement is still up on her X account.

This is precisely the anti-Palestinian narrative that has permeated in the West for years: that all support for Palestine is inherently violent and driven by antisemitic hatred of all Jews. Thus, in the name of anti-racism, Palestinians and their supporters are denounced and even criminalised.

Gaza| The City Of War And Love. #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/naiFWgYS1G

— PALESTINE ONLINE (@OnlinePalEng) October 20, 2023

Differing reactions to civilian death
Second, the double standard is on display in the reactions we have seen to the killing of Israeli civilians and the reactions — or lack thereof — to the killing of Palestinian civilians. Many are rightly highlighting Western hypocrisy by drawing comparisons to how the West responded to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

We need to look at how Western governments have responded to the killing of Israeli civilians versus the killing of Palestinian civilians. For the Israeli state and Israeli victims, political, military, economic, cultural and social institutions have fully mobilised to provide support.

The same is entirely absent for the Palestinians. For the Palestinians, there are no evacuations. Aircraft carriers are not sent to provide military support. Mainstream political and cultural discourse does not humanise Palestinian life and mourn Palestinian death.

Aid relief is withheld and used as a bargaining counter. Economic support is not forthcoming. Institutions do not send Palestinians messages of support.

In some ways, this silence is not surprising. No one expressing support for Israel risks losing their livelihood. Many who have voiced solidarity with Palestinians have lost their jobs, been rebuked, suspended and faced doxing.

More than 400 congressional staffers signed a letter urging Congress to back a cease-fire in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/WT99B79n4f

— PALESTINE ONLINE (@OnlinePalEng) October 20, 2023

Western self-interest
States are not moral entities, but act purely in self-interest. Palestinian freedom and liberation does not align with the interests of the US-led West.

Therefore, Western institutions repeat the increasingly weak talking point that “terrorism” is the cause of all the violence. This talking point is used to provide Israel with the green light to unleash uninhibited violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem.

The idea that Western governments and institutions are horrified by violence against civilians rings hollow because of their silence when it comes to violence against Palestinian civilians and other groups around the world.

For decades, Palestinians have been expelled from their land, killed and maimed in great numbers, including in mass atrocities and many well-documented cases of sexual violence and torture in Israeli prisons.

This only scratches the surface of the violence that Palestinians continuously experience, and have experienced, since well before Hamas was formed.

I’m confused. When Ukrainians attacked back after Russia’s invasion, the US celebrated them. When Palestinians do the same against Israeli occupation, they’re condemned.

Filter the propaganda through this lens: the US empire will always choose sides based on its own interests.

— Bianca Graulau (@bgraulau) October 8, 2023

Palestinians continue to suffer what Palestinian scholars Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha have called an ongoing Nakba and genocide of the Palestinian people. Yet, when Palestinians suffer, as they are now in Gaza, what Israeli historian and expert on genocide Raz Segal has called “a textbook case of genocide,” Western governments remain silent.

There was no Western outrage when Israel ordered more than a million Palestinians to leave their homes in 24 hours. In February, Israeli settlers went on an hours-long rampage in the Palestinian town of Huwara after two settlers were shot by a Palestinian.

Western condemnations of the rampage were muted or non-existent.

Hundreds of scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies are now sounding the alarm about the possibility of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The stories of Palestinian lives that end with the sudden drop of a bomb are not told. Palestinian voices that explain the settler colonialism they suffer remain sidelined. And Palestinian aspirations for decolonised liberation are denied.

The West’s institutional reaction is not just hypocritical, it is an expression of where Western governments stand on the question of Palestine. The West is an active participant in the erasure of Palestine, and when moments of intensified violence like this happen, the West’s true position becomes clear for all to see.

However, people power across the world, including in the US, provide reason for hope. Increasingly, many in the West are disgusted and ashamed by the erasure of Palestine and the killing of Palestinian civilians.

More people are joining the protests and calling for the siege on Gaza to be lifted once and for all. More people power is needed to demand that governments do everything they can to resolve this issue, which can only begin to move towards peace and justice when the Palestinian people are free.

M. Muhannad Ayyash is professor of sociology, Mount Royal University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

It was perhaps inevitable that the shock Hamas attack on Israel would become a minor election sideshow in New Zealand. Less than a week from the Aotearoa New Zealand polls, a crisis in the Middle East offered opposition parties a brief chance to criticise the foreign minister’s initial reaction.

But if it was a fleeting and fairly trivial moment in the heat of a campaign, the crisis itself is far from it — and it will test the foreign policy positions of whichever parties manage to form a government after Saturday.

It can be tempting to see the latest eruption of violence in Gaza and Israel as somehow “normal”, given the history of the region. But this is far from normal.

• READ MORE: The Gaza Strip − why the history of the densely populated enclave is key to understanding the current conflict
• Israel has no good options for dealing with Hamas’ hostage-taking in Gaza
• Israel-Gaza conflict: how could it change the Middle East’s political landscape? Expert Q&A
• Other Israel-Gaza conflict reports

What appear to be intentional war crimes and crimes against humanity, involving the use of terror against citizens and guests of Israel, will provoke what will probably be an unprecedented response.

Israel’s declaration of war and formation of an emergency war cabinet — backed by threats to “wipe this thing called Hamas off the face of the Earth” — were the start.

The bombardment and “complete siege” of Gaza, and preparation for a possible ground invasion, have catastrophic potential.

Hundreds of thousands may be forced towards Egypt or into the Mediterranean, with the fate of the hostages held by Hamas looking dire. Israel has now said there will be no humanitarian aid until the hostages are free.

There is a risk the war will spread over Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, with Hezbollah (backed by Iran) now involved.

US President Joe Biden’s warning to Iran to “be careful”, and the deployment of a US carrier fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, only ups the ante.

“The number of bombs that Israel has dropped on the Gaza Strip in the last six days is equal to the number of bombs that America has dropped in Afghanistan in a year.”

– The Washington Post pic.twitter.com/0CiXPZKL1u

— PALESTINE ONLINE (@OnlinePalEng) October 13, 2023

Rules of war
Given the suspension of some commercial flights to and from Israel, New Zealand’s most meaningful first response has been practical: arranging a special flight from Tel Aviv for citizens and Pacific Islanders, and their families, currently in Israel or the Palestinian territories who wish to leave.

Beyond these immediate concerns, however, the world is divided. Outrage in the West is matched by support in Arab countries for Palestinian “resistance”. Despite US efforts to get a global consensus condemning the attack, the United Nations Security Council could not agree on a unified statement.

With no global consensus, New Zealand can do little more than assert and defend the established rules-based international order. This includes stating clearly that international humanitarian law and the rules of war are universal and must be applied impartially.

That’s akin to New Zealand’s position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: the rules of war apply to all, both state and non-state forces (irrespective of whether those parties agree to them). War crimes are to be investigated, with accountability and consequences applied through the relevant international bodies.

This applies to crimes of terror, murder, hostage-taking and indiscriminate rocket attacks carried out by Hamas. But the government needs also to emphasise that war crimes do not justify further retaliatory war crimes.

Specifically, unless civilians take a direct part in the conflict, the distinction between them and combatants must be observed. Military action should be proportionate, with all feasible precautions taken to minimise incidental loss of civilian life.

International law prohibits collective punishments, and access for humanitarian relief should be permitted. To hold an entire population captive – as a siege of Gaza involves – for the crimes of a military organisation is not acceptable.

UNICEF: 447 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza, there are reports that this number has already risen. #GazaUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/a2SNVqgOJg

— PALESTINE ONLINE (@OnlinePalEng) October 13, 2023

The two-state solution
It is also important that New Zealand carefully considers definitions of terrorism and legitimate force. Terrorists do not enjoy the political and legal legitimacy afforded by international law.

Unlike other members of the Five Eyes security network, New Zealand designates only the military wing of Hamas, not its political wing, as a prohibited “terrorist entity” under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

Whether this distinction is anything more than a fiction needs to be reviewed. If this were to change, it would mean the financing, participation in or recruitment to any branch of Hamas would be illegal. This might have implications for any future peace process, should Hamas be involved.

At some point, most people surely hope, the cycle of violence will end. The likeliest route to that will be the so-called “two-state solution”, requiring security guarantees for Israel, negotiated land swaps and careful management of Jerusalem’s holy sites.

New Zealand has long supported this initiative, despite its apparent diplomatic near-death status. An emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo this week urged Israel to resume talks to establish a viable Palestinian state, and China has also reiterated support such a solution.

New Zealand cannot stay silent when extreme, indiscriminate violence is committed by any group or nation. But joining any movement of like-minded nations to continue pushing for the two-state solution is still its best long-term strategy.

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

MEDIAWATCH: By Colin Peacock, RNZ Mediawatch presenter

The comedians on 7 Days had a few laughs at RNZ’s expense against a backdrop of the Kremlin on TV Three this week.

“A Radio New Zealand digital journalist has been stood down after it emerged they’d been editing news stories on the broadcaster’s website to give them a pro-Russian slant, which is kind of disgusting,” host Jeremy Corbett said.

“You’d never get infiltration like that on 7 Days. Our security is too strong. Strong like a bear. Strong like the glorious Russian state and its leader Putin,” he said.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: The RNZ editing fallout
• RNZ appoints panel to investigate inappropriate editing of online stories
• ‘I think it’s really important that we preserve the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ’ – PM Chris Hipkins
• Prime Minister responds to questions on RNZ investigation into pro-Russian editing
• Other RNZ inquiry reports

“I love this Russian strategy: ‘First, we take New Zealand’s fourth best and fourth most popular news site — then the world!” said Melanie Bracewell, who said she had not kept up with the news.

Just a joke, obviously, but this week some people have been asking if Kremlin campaigns played a role in the inappropriate editing of online world news.

It was on June 9 that the revelation of it kicked off a media frenzy about propaganda, misinformation, Russia, Ukraine, truth, trust and editorial standards that has been no laughing matter at RNZ.

The story went up a notch last weekend when TVNZ’s Thomas Mead revealed Ukrainian New Zealander Michael Lidski — along with 20 others — had complained about a story written by the journalist in May 2022, which RNZ had re-edited on the day to add alternative perspectives after prompting from an RNZ journalist who considered it sub-standard.

The next day on RNZ’s Checkpoint, presenter Lisa Owen said the suspended RNZ web journalist had told her he edited reports “in that way for five years” — and nobody had ever queried it or told him to stop.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson, who is also editor-in-chief, then told Checkpoint he did not consider what he had called “pro-Kremlin garbage” a resignation-worthy issue.

“I think this is a time for us actually working together to fix the problem,” he said.

RNZ had already begun taking out the trash in public by listing the corrupted (and now corrected) stories on the RNZ.co.nz homepage as they are discovered.

Thompson said the problem was “confined to a small area of what RNZ does” but by the following day,  RNZ found six more stories — supplied originally by the reputable news agency Reuters — had also been edited in terms more favourable to the ruling regimes.

“RNZ has come out with a statement that said: ‘In our defence, we didn’t actually realise anyone was reading our stories’,” said 7 Days’ Jeremy Corbett.

That was just a gag — but it did actually explain just how it took so long for the dodgy edits to come to light and become newsworthy.

Where the problem lay
Last Wednesday’s cartoon in the Stuff papers — featuring an RNZ radio newsreader with a Pinocchio-length nose didn’t raise any laughs there either — because none of the slanted stories in question ever went out in the news on the air.

They were only to be found online — and this was a significant distinction as it turned out, because the checks and balances are not quite the same or made by the same staff.

“In radio, a reporter writes a story and sends it to a sub-editor who will then check it. And then a news reader has to read it so there’s a couple of stages. Maybe even a chief reporter would have checked it as well,” Corin Dann told RNZ Morning Report listeners last Monday.

“What I’m trying to establish is what sort of checks and balances were there to ensure that that world story was properly vetted,” he said.

That question — and others — will now be asked by the external experts appointed this week to run the rule of RNZ’s online publishing procedures for a review that will be made public.

On Thursday a former RNZer Brent Edwards made a similar point in the National Business Review where he’ is now the political editor.

“For a couple of years, I was the director of news gathering. I had a large responsibility for RNZ’s news coverage but technically I had no responsibility whatsoever for what went on the web,” he said.

“Done properly the RNZ review panel could do all news media a favour by providing a template for how online news should be curated. It should reinforce the importance of quality, ethical journalism,” Edwards added.

His NBR colleague Dita di Boni said “there but for the grace of God go other outlets” which have “gone digital” in news.

“I worked at TVNZ and there was a rush to digital as well with lots of resources going in but little oversight from the main newsroom.”

Calls for political action
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has made it clear he doesn’t want the government involved in RNZ’s editorial affairs.

David Seymour of the ACT party wanted an inquiry — and NZ First leader Winston Peters called for a Royal Commission into the media bias and manipulation.

Former National MP Nathan Guy told Newshub Nation this weekend “heads need to roll” at RNZ.

“If I was the broadcasting minister, I would want the chair in my office and to hold RNZ to account. I want timeframes. I want accountability because we just can’t afford to have our public broadcaster tell unfortunate mistruths to the public,” he said.

In the same discussion, Newsroom’s co-editor Mark Jennings reminded Guy that RNZ’s low-budget digital news transition happened under his National-led government which froze RNZ’s funding for almost a decade.

“This is what happens when you underfund an organisation for so long,” he said.

Jennings also said “trust in RNZ has been hammered by this” — and criticised RNZ chairman Dr Jim Mather for declining to be interviewed on Newshub Nation.

Earlier — under the headline Media shooting itself in the foot — Jennings said surveys have picked up a decline and trust and news media here.

“And the road back for the media just had a major speed bump,” he concluded.

How deep is the damage to trust?

While the breach of editorial standards is clear, has there been an over-reaction to what may be the actions of just one employee, which took years to come to light?

Last week the think-tank Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures at Auckland University hosted a timely “disinformation and media manipulation” workshop attended by executives and editors from most major media outlets.

It was arranged long before RNZs problems arose — but those ended up dominating discussion on this theme.

Among the participants was media consultant and commentator Peter Bale, who has previously worked overseas for Reuters, as well as The Financial Times and CNN.

“I really feel for RNZ in this, for the chief executive and everybody else there who does generally a great job. The issue of trust here is in this person’s relationship with their employer and their relationship with the facts.”

Bale is also the newsroom initiative leader at the International News Media Association, which promotes best practice in news and journalism publishing.

The exposure of the “inappropriate editing” undetected for so long has created the impression a lot of content is published online with no checking. That is sometimes the case when speed is a priority, but the vast majority of stuff does go past at least two eyes before publication.

“I think it is true also that editing has been diminished as a skill. But I don’t think it’s necessarily a failure of editing here but a failure of this person’s understanding of what their job is,” Bale told Mediawatch.

“You shouldn’t necessarily need to have a second or third pair of eyes when processing a Reuters story that’s already gone through multiple editors. The critical issue for RNZ is whether they took the initial complaints seriously enough,” he said.

‘Pro-Kremlin garbage’?

There have been many reports in recent years about Russia seeding misinformation and disinformation abroad.

Last Tuesday, security and technology consultant Paul Buchanan told Morning Report that RNZ should be better prepared for authoritarian states seeking to mess with its news.

“This incident that prompted this investigation may or may not be just one individual who has certain opinions about the war between Russia and Ukraine. But it is possible that . . . stories were manipulated from abroad,” he said.

Back in March the acting Director-General of the SIS told Parliament: “States are trying, in a coercive disruptive and a covert way, to influence the behaviors of people in New Zealand and influencing their decision making”.

John Mackey named no nations at the time, but his GCSB counterpart Andrew Hampton told MPs research had shown Russia was the source of misinformation many Kiwis were consuming.

Is it really likely the Kremlin or its proxies are pushing propaganda into the news here? And if so, to what end?

“I think there’s been a little bit of ‘too florid’ language used about this. This person has inserted what are in some people’s views genuine talking points from those who . . . want to have expressed what the Russian view is. But it was very ham-fisted,” said Bale.

“There are ways to do this. You could have inserted the Russian perspective to highlight the fact that there is a different view about things like the Orange Revolution when the pro-Kremlin leader in Kyiv was overthrown,” he said.

Not necessarily ‘propaganda’
“I don’t think it is necessarily ‘Kremlin propaganda’ as it’s been described. It was just a misguided attempt to bring another perspective, I suspect, but it still represents a tremendous breach of trust,” he said.

“I write a weekly newsletter for The Spinoff about international news, and I try sometimes to show . . . there are other perspectives on these stories. Those things are legitimate to address — but not just surreptitiously squeeze into a story in some sort of perceived balance.

“I don’t think in this particular case that it is to do with the spread of disinformation or misinformation by Russia. I think this is a different set of problems. But I agree (there’s a) threat from the kind of chaos-driving techniques that Russia is particularly brilliant at. They’re very skilled at twisting stories . . . and I think we need to be ready for it,” he said.

The guest speaker at that Koi Tū event last Wednesday was Dr Joan Donovan, the research director of the Shorenstein center on Media and Politics at Harvard University in the US, where she researches and tracks the sources of misrepresentation and misinformation in the media, and the impact they have on public trust in media — and also how media can prepare for it.

At the point where 15 supplied news stories had been found to be “inappropriately edited” by RNZ, she took to Twitter to say: “This is wild. Fake news has reached new heights.”

Set against what we’ve seen in US politics — and about Russia and Ukraine — is it really that bad?

“Usually what you see is the spoofing of a website or a URL in order to look like you’re a certain outlet and distribute disinformation that way. It’s very unlikely that someone would go in and work a job and be editing articles without proper oversight,” said Donovan  — who is also the co-author of recently published book, Meme Wars, The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy. 

“I think when it comes to one country, wanting to insert their views into another country — even though New Zealand is very small — it does track that this would be a way to influence a large group of people.

“But I don’t think if any of us know the degree to which this could be an international operation or not,” she told Mediawatch.

“What you learn is that their pattern is that they happen over and over and over again until a news agency or platform company figures out a mitigation tactic, whether it’s removing that link from search or writing critical press or debunking those stories.

“When I think about the fallout of it . . . using the legitimacy of RNZ in a parasitical kind of way and that legitimacy to spread propaganda is one of the most important pieces of this puzzle that we would need to explore more,” she said.

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

Own goals by two of our top news organisations last week raised a fundamental question: What has happened to their checking processes?

Both Radio New Zealand and NZME acknowledged serious failures in their internal processes that resulted in embarrassing apologies, corrections, and take-downs.

The episodes in both newsrooms suggest the “second pair of eyes” that traditionally acted as a final check before publication no longer exists or is so over-worked in a resource-starved environment that they are looking elsewhere.

The RNZ situation is the more serious of the two episodes. It relates to the insertion of pro-Russian content into news agency stories about the invasion of Ukraine that were carried on the RNZ website.

The original stories were sourced from Reuters and, in at least one case, from the BBC. By today 22 altered stories had been found, but the audit had only scratched the surface. The alleged perpetrator has disclosed they had been carrying out such edits for the past five years.

RNZ was alerted to the latest altered story by news watchers in New York and Paris on Friday. It investigated and found a further six, then a further seven, then another, and another. This only takes us back a short way.

A number of the stories were altered only by the inclusion of a few loaded terms such as “neo-Nazi” and “US-backed coup”, but others had material changes. Some are spelt out in the now-corrected stories on the site. Here are two examples of significant insertions into the original text:

An earlier edit to this story said: “Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February last year, claiming that a US-backed coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis had created a threat to its borders and had ignited a civil war that saw Russian-speaking minorities persecuted.”

An earlier edit to this story said: “The Azov Battalion was widely regarded as an anti-Russian neo-Nazi military unit by observers and western media before the Russian invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the nationalists of using Russian-speaking Ukrainians as human shields.”

Hot water with Reuters
The scale and nature of the inappropriate editing of the stories is likely to get RNZ into very hot water with Reuters. The agency has strict protocols over what forms of editing may take place with its copy and even the most cursory examination of the altered RNZ versions confirms that the protocols have been breached.

It is unsurprising that RNZ’s chief executive Paul Thompson has told staff he is “gutted” by what has occurred.

Both security analyst Dr Paul Buchanan and AUT journalism professor Dr Verica Ruper have cautioned against speculating on how the material came to be appear on the RNZ website and I agree that to do so is premature. Clearly, however, it amounts to much more than a careless editing mistake.

Paul Thompson has acted promptly in ordering an external independent enquiry into the matter and in standing down the individual who apparently handled the stories. It is likely that the government’s security services are also taking an interest in what has occurred.

What we can speculate on is the possibility that RNZ’s internal processes are deficient to the point that there is no post-production vetting of some stories before publication — that “second pair of eyes”.

We might also speculate that the problem is faced by The New Zealand Herald newsroom, following the publication of an eight-line correction at the top of page 3 of the Herald on Sunday, and carried equally sparingly on the Herald website.

“A story published last Sunday about a woman who triumphed over a difficult background to become a lawyer had elements that were false. In publishing the article, we fell short of the high standards and procedures we hold ourselves to.”

Puzzled by correction
Many readers would have been puzzled by the correction, which gave no details of the story concerned, nor did it identify those elements that were false.

There may have been legal reasons for omitting which details were incorrect, but not for leaving readers to puzzle over the story to which they referred.

It appears to relate to a three-page story in the Review section of the previous Sunday’s edition that was headed “From mob terror to high flyer”. The story related to the daughter of a woman jailed for selling methamphetamine. The daughter had gone on to a legal career in the United States.

I recall having some undefined concern about the story when I read it and still can’t quite put my finger on why the old alarm bell in the back of my head tinkled. Perhaps it was that — apart from previously published material — the story appeared to rely on a single interview. There also appeared to be a motive in telling the story to the Herald on Sunday — a forthcoming book.

The article seems to have been removed from the Herald website, but the short correction suggests that checks were missed. The same seems to have been the case with RNZ.

It is, of course, sheer coincidence that both RNZ and the Herald on Sunday should face such shortcomings in the same week. However, the likely root causes of their embarrassment are issues that all news media face.

First, the pressure on newsroom resources has increased the workload of all staff, from reporters in the field to duty editors. Time pressures are a daily, and nightly, reality and multi-tasking has become the norm.

Checking comes second
In such an environment, checking the work of other well-trained staff may come second to more pressing demands.

As an editor, I slept better knowing that each story had passed through the hands of a news editor, sub-editor and, finally, a check sub with a compulsive attention to detail who checked each completed page before it was transmitted to the printing plant. I fear our newsrooms are now too bare for that multi-layered system of checks.

If the demands of newspaper deadlines are tough, the pressures are manifestly greater in a digital environment where websites have become voracious beasts that cry out to be fed from dawn to midnight. New stories are added throughout the protracted news cycle, pushing older stories down the home page, then off it to subsidiary pages on the site tree.

The technology to satisfy the hunger has advanced to the point where reporters publish direct to the web using Twitter-like feeds. We saw it last week during the Auckland City budget debate when news websites were recording the jerk dancing minute by minute.

Clay Shirky, in his influential 2008 book Here Comes Everybody, popularised the term “publish, then filter”. It referred to a change from sifting the good from the mediocre before publication, to a digital environment in which users determined worth once it had been published.

However, increasingly, the phrase has taken on additional meaning. The burden of work created by digital appetites has seen mainstream media foreshortening the production process by removing some of the old checks and balances because they can always go back later and make changes on the website.

The abridgement may, for example, mean a pre-publication check is limited to headline, graphic, and the first couple of paragraphs. Or, in the case of “pre-edited” agency or syndication content, it may mean foregoing post-production text checks altogether (I hasten to add that I do not know whether this was the case with the RNZ stories).

Editorial based on trust
Editorial production has always been based on trust. It works both down and up. Editors trust those they rely on to carry out processes from content creation to post-production, and those responsible for one phase trust their work will subsequently be handled with care.

Individual shortcomings should not erode trust in the newsroom, but such episodes do point to a need to re-examine whether systems are fit for purpose.

Over a decade ago, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote a book called Blur. It was about information overload. In it they state that, as journalism becomes more complicated, the role of the editor becomes more important, and verification is a bigger part of the editor’s role.

Incidents such as those that came to light last week reinforce that view. They also suggest that mainstream media organisations should leave Clay Shirky’s mantra to social media and bloggers. Instead, they should (thoroughly) filter, then publish.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes the website knightlyviews.com where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

RNZ has appointed a group of experts to carry out an investigation over how pro-Russian edits were inserted into international stories online.

An RNZ digital journalist has been placed on leave after it came to light he had changed news agency stories on the war in Ukraine.

RNZ has since been auditing hundreds of stories the journalist edited for its website over a five-year period.

Twenty-one stories from news agency Reuters and one BBC item have so far been found to be inappropriately edited, and have been corrected. Most relate to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but others relate to Israel, Syria and Taiwan.

Media law expert Willy Akel, will chair a three-person panel. The other members are public law expert and former journalist Linda Clark, and former director of editorial standards at the ABC, Alan Sunderland.

RNZ board chairman Dr Jim Mather told RNZ’s Morning Report the board had also agreed on the review’s terms of reference.

“The terms of reference are specific about reviewing the circumstances around the inappropriate editing of wire stories discovered in June 2023 identifying what went wrong and recommending areas for improvement.

Specific handling of Ukraine complaint
“We’re also going to look at the specific handling of the complaint to the broadcasting minister from the Ukrainian community in October 2022 and then it’s going to broaden out to review the overall editorial controls, systems and processes for the editing of online content at RNZ.”

The review would also look at total editorial policy and “most importantly” practice as well, Mather said.

No stone would be left unturned, he said.

“Policy is one thing but ensuring it’s put into practice is another.

“We have specifically and purposefully decided not to limit it in any way shape or form but to allow it to broaden as may be required to ensure we restore public confidence in RNZ.

“We’re prepared as a board to support the panel going where they need to, to give us all confidence that we are ensuring that robust editorial process are being followed.

“I’m making no pre-determinations whatsoever, I’m waiting for the review to be conducted.”

The investigation was expected to take about four weeks to complete.

Dr Mather said he retained confidence in RNZ chief executive and editor-in-chief Paul Thompson.

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

The RNZ board is meeting tonight to begin setting up an independent review on how pro-Russian sentiment was inserted into a number of its online stories.

An RNZ digital journalist has been placed on leave after it came to light he had changed copy from news agency Reuters on the war in Ukraine to include pro-Russian views.

Since Friday, hundreds of stories published by RNZ have been audited, and 16 Reuters stories and one BBC item had to be corrected, with chief executive Paul Thompson saying more would be checked “with a fine-tooth comb”.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘I think it’s really important that we preserve the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ’ – PM Chris Hipkins
• LISTEN TO RNZ NINE TO NOON: ‘I am gutted. It’s painful,’ says RNZ chief executive
• Prime Minister responds to questions on RNZ investigation into pro-Russian editing
• Other RNZ inquiry reports

The journalist told RNZ’s Checkpoint he had subbed stories that way for a number of years and nobody had queried it. Thompson said those comments appeared to be about the staffer’s overall role as a sub-editor.

Board chairperson Dr Jim Mather said the public’s trust had been eroded by revelations and it was going to take a lot of work to come back from what had happened.

“We see ourselves as guardians of a taonga and that taonga being the 98 years of history that RNZ has in terms of trusted public media and high standards of excellent journalism and so it is fair to say we are extremely disappointed,” he told RNZ’s Checkpoint on Monday.

“We need to demonstrate that we are prepared to review every aspect of what has occurred to actually start the restoration process in terms of confidence in RNZ.”

The board would discuss who will run the investigation and its terms of reference, and would make a decision “very soon”.

Currency is trust
“The role the board is going to take is we are going to appoint the panel of trusted individuals, experienced journalists, those that do have editorial experience to undertake the review. This is going to be done completely separate from the other work being undertaken by management,” he said.

Dr Mather said the currency of the public broadcaster was trust, and the revelations had impacted the organisation’s journalists.

“I know that we pride ourselves as having the highest standards of journalistic quality so I can just say that it’s had a significant impact also on our journalism team.”

Reuters said it had “addressed the issue” with RNZ, noting in a statement that RNZ had initiated an investigation.

“As stated in our terms and conditions, Reuters content cannot be altered without prior written consent,” the spokesperson’s statement said.

“Reuters is fully committed to covering the war in Ukraine impartially and accurately, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.”

‘Important that politicians don’t interfere’ – Hipkins
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said while he would never rule out a cross-party parliamentary inquiry, he had not seen anything so far to suggest the need for an wider action.

Hipkins told RNZ’s Morning Report he was not sure a cross-party parliamentary inquiry on issues around editorial decisions would be a good way of protecting the editorial independence of an institution like RNZ.

“Having said that, we always monitor these kinds of things to see how they are being handled, it’s really important that politicians don’t interfere in that,” he said.

“I think if it reached a point where public confidence in the institution was so badly tarnished that some degree of independent review was required, I’d never take that off the table.”

But in the first instance, it was important to allow RNZ’s management and board to deal with it with the processes that they had in place, Hipkins said.

“I haven’t seen anything in the last few days that would suggest that there’s any case for us to trigger something that’s more significant than what’s being done at the moment.”

Hipkins said he had not sought, nor had, any briefings from New Zealand’s security services in relation to the incident because it was a matter of editorial independence and it was important that politicians did not get involved in that.

“RNZ, while it’s a publicly-funded institution, must operate independently of politicians.”

Not an issue for politicians – Willis
National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis agreed that it was not an issue for politicians to be involved in.

She said it was important the investigation was carried out, and the concern was about editorial standards that let the situation go unnoticed for such a long time.

Trust in media was important and people reading mainstream media expected stories to go through a fact-checking process and reflect appropriate editorial independence, she told RNZ’s First Up.

“I think it will be a watch for newsrooms around the country, and I hope that it’s a thorough investigation that comes out with robust recommendations.”

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

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson says the New Zealand public has been let down after pro-Russian sentiment was added to a number of its online stories without senior management realising.

It comes after readers noticed the text of a Reuters story about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine published on RNZ was changed.

It has since come to light that a staff member altered the text, and Russian propaganda has been found on more than a dozen other stories.

• LISTEN TO RNZ NINE TO NOON: ‘I am gutted. It’s painful,’ says RNZ chief executive
• Prime Minister responds to questions on RNZ investigation into pro-Russian editing
• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT:  The Michael Lidski interview
• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: Probe into RNZ’s Russian invasion of Ukraine edits
• RNZ investigation into editorial editing

So far, 250 stories published by RNZ have been audited, with chief executive Paul Thompson saying thousands more would be checked “with a fine-tooth comb”.

Fifteen of the 16 altered articles were from the Reuters wire service, and one was from BBC.

An independent review of the editing of online stories has been commissioned by RNZ.

On Monday, Thompson told RNZ’s Nine to Noon it was a “serious breach” of the organisation’s editorial standards and “really, really disappointing”.

One area of operation
It was one area of the company’s operation and one staff member was under an employment investigation for alleged breaches to RNZ’s policy, he said.

Thompson apologised to RNZ’s audience, the New Zealand public and the Ukrainian community.

“It’s so disappointing that this pro-Kremlin garbage has ended up in our stories,” Thompson said, labelling the act inexcusable.

Thompson said it raised issues with RNZ’s editing process of online news, and showed they were not as robust as they needed to be.

When asked how it happened and no one noticed, Thompson simply said: “I don’t know.”

Most wire copy was only edited by one person, Thompson said, and most of the stories found to have issues only had one or two words changed, making it “very hard” to detect.

However, all added material was “really, really serious”.

‘We have to get to the bottom of what happened’
“I am gutted. It’s painful, it’s shocking and we have to get to the bottom of how it happened,” he said.

Since the weekend, Thompson said a new policy had been put in place where all wire copy needed to be checked twice before publishing, as RNZ required for any other stories being published on its website.

Thompson said he expected to be able to give further information about the external review in the coming days.

He confirmed it would be entirely independent to the organisation and the finding of the review would go straight to RNZ’s board – not him.

Findings would then be released to the public to keep everything fully transparent – as RNZ was doing with its current audit.

Thompson said the situation was a “blow” to RNZ’s reputation.

“We are responding as well as we can and as openly as we can. The really sad thing is how much great work that we do.

‘Fierceness’ of RNZ editorial standards
“The best part of working in RNZ is the fierceness with which we defend our editorial standards and it’s galling that the activity in a very small area of the organisation can affect us all.”

Thompson confirmed RNZ received the complaint from Michael Lidski in October last year, but the email was directed at Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson. The company was cced in, as well as other media organisations.

He confirmed RNZ does not typically respond to complaints directed at the minister.

In hindsight, Thompson said the organisation could have done something about it at the time.

Thompson said he had contacted both Reuters and BBC and was keeping the organisations updated as to its audit.

Neither had asked anything of him at this time.

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

A Ukrainian man who complained about an RNZ story last year having Russian propaganda says his concerns are only now being noticed.

It comes after the revelation a staff member altered Reuters copy to include pro-Russian sentiment.

Since Friday, 250 articles published on RNZ back to January last year have been audited.

Of those articles, 15 are now known to have been altered, and an RNZ employee has been placed on leave. Fourteen of the articles were from the Reuters wire service, and one was from BBC.

An independent review of the editing of online stories has been commissioned by RNZ.

Michael Lidski, who wrote the complaint, signed by several Ukrainian and Russian-born New Zealanders said the article he complained about appeared not only on RNZ, but The New Zealand Herald and Newshub as well.

Lidski said it took some time after the article was published to send the complaint letter to RNZ to make sure everyone who signed it was happy with what it said.

It was received by RNZ on the evening of Labour Day, October 24.

Russian ‘behavior similar to Nazi Germany’
“Obviously Russia is the aggressor and behaving very similar to what the Nazi Germany did in the beginning of the Second World War,” Lidski said.

“Luckily”, he said, Russia was much less “efficient” and “successful on the front” but not so luckily, they were “very efficient” in their propaganda.

Lidski said he also sent the complaint to Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson and other media outlets – but Jackson was the only one to provide any response.

Lidski said Jackson’s response essentially said the government could not interfere with the press and refrained from “taking sides”.

As part of the audit, RNZ reviewed the story published on rnz.co.nz on May 26, 2022 relating to the war in Ukraine, which it said was updated later that day to give further balance after an editorial process was followed.

When Lidski sent his letter, he said he received no response from RNZ.

Awaiting external review
He said he would be waiting to see what comes of the external review.

“I just want to stress that we are not dealing with a situation where someone just made a mistake.

“We are in the war, the enemy is attacking us, it’s very important that, you know, we take it seriously.”

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson declined to speak with Morning Report today, describing the breaches of editorial standards as extremely serious.

In a statement, Thompson said it was a “very challenging time for RNZ and the organisations focus is on getting to the bottom of what happened and being open and transparent”.

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

One year to the day since Russian tanks ran over the Ukraine border — and over the UN Charter and international law in the process — the world is less certain and more dangerous than ever.

For New Zealand, the war has also presented a unique foreign policy challenge.

The current generation of political leaders initially responded to the invasion in much the same way previous generations responded to the First and Second World Wars: if a sustainable peace was to be achieved, international treaties and law were the mechanism of choice.

• READ MORE: A year on, Russia’s war on Ukraine threatens to redraw the map of world politics – and 2023 will be crucial
• Ukraine war 12 months on: the role of the Russian media in reporting – and justifying – the conflict
• Ukraine: 12 months at war – Biden visit to Kyiv sets the seal on a year of growing Western unity and Russian isolation

But when it was apparent these higher levels of maintaining international order had gridlocked because of the Russian veto at the UN Security Council, New Zealand moved back towards its traditional security relationships.

Like other Western alliance countries, New Zealand didn’t put boots on the ground, which would have meant becoming active participants in the conflict. But nor did New Zealand plead neutrality.

It has not remained indifferent to the aggression and atrocities, or their implications for a rule-based world.

The issue one year on is whether this original position is still viable. And if not, what are the military, humanitarian, diplomatic and legal challenges now?

President Biden makes a surprise visit to Kyiv in dramatic show of U.S. support for Ukraine days before anniversary of invasion https://t.co/iqUrTrRqvq

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 20, 2023

Military spending
While New Zealand has no troops or personnel in Ukraine, it has given direct support.

Defence force personnel assist with training, intelligence, logistics, liaison, and command and administration support. There has also been funding and supplied equipment worth more than NZ$22 million.

This has been welcomed, although it is considerably less on a proportional basis than the assistance offered by other like-minded countries. However, the deeper questions involve how the war has affected defence policies and spending overall internationally.

While New Zealand’s current Defence Policy Review is important at the policy level, the implications affect all citizens and political parties. Specifically, most countries — allies or not — are increasing military spending and collaborating to develop new generations of weapons.

For New Zealand, this calls into question the longer-term feasibility of its relatively low spending of 1.5 percent of GDP on defence. And Wellington is increasingly being left out of collaborative arrangements (AUKUS being just one example), which in turn reinforce alliances and provide pathways to technology.

This is tied to the largest question of all: whether New Zealand wishes to relegate itself to becoming a regional “police officer” or wants to carry its fair share of being part of an interlinked modern military deterrent.

Amid U.S. claims that Beijing may be poised to send weapons to help Russia’s war in Ukraine, China accused the Biden administration of spreading lies and defended Beijing’s close partnership with Russia. https://t.co/52tRnRRAFh

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 20, 2023

Diplomacy and domestic law
New Zealand also needs to reconsider its commitment to humanitarian assistance. So far, almost $13 million has been spent and a special visa created allowing New Zealand-Ukrainians to bring family members in for two years. With the war showing no sign of ending, this will likely need to extend.

But New Zealand’s non-neutral status also means it has other responsibilities, and should consider greater assistance with the Ukrainian refugee emergency. This would require going beyond the current visa scheme, and opening and expanding the refugee quota programme’s current cap of 1500.

Diplomatically, New Zealand also has to start considering what peace would look like. This raises hard questions about territorial integrity, accountability for war crimes, reparations and what might happen to populations that do not want to be part of Ukraine.

New Zealand has enacted a stand-alone law to apply sanctions on Russia. But because this now sits outside the broken multilateral UN system, a degree of caution is called for, given the door is now open to sanction other countries, UN mandate or not.

Preparing for the worst
Finally, New Zealand needs to prepare for the worst. The war is showing no sign of calming down. Weapons and combatant numbers are escalating unsustainably.

Nuclear arms control is in freefall, with Russian President Vladimir Putin suspending participation in the New START Treaty, the last remaining agreement between Russia and the United States.

At the same time, the US has ramped up the rhetoric, suggesting China might supply arms to Russia, and declaring unequivocally that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

Were China to go against Western demands and provide weapons, countries like New Zealand will be in a very difficult position: its leading security ally, the US, may expect penalties to be imposed against its leading trade partner, China.

While Putin may be able to live with the rising death toll of his own soldiers (already over 100,000), at some point the Russian population won’t be. As the US discovered in Vietnam, it was not the external enemy that ultimately prevailed, it was domestic unrest, as more people turned against an unpopular war.

How Putin will respond to a war he cannot win conventionally, while risking losing popularity and position at home, is impossible to predict.

Everyone might hope his nuclear threats are a bluff, but New Zealand’s leaders would be wise to plan for the worst.

Whether a small, distant, non-neutral South Pacific nation might be a direct target or not is conjecture. What is not speculation, however, is that if the Ukraine war spins out of control, New Zealand would be in an emergency unlike anything it’s witnessed before.

Dr Alexander Gillespie, professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

West Papua independence campaigner Benny Wenda is in Vanuatu to meet Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau’s newly-installed government.

Wenda said he would also “strategise” on the way forward towards gaining eventual sovereignty from Indonesia and would be discussing ongoing issues in West Papua.

These include human rights abuses, and internal displacement of at least 160,000 Papuans by the Indonesian military while, he says, Jakarta continues to “pretend that nothing is happening in West Papua”.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

Wenda said seven church pastors were among more than 200 people who had died in the conflict in the region in the last five years.

Wenda’s United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has observer status in the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

“We are developing in Melanesia, but unfortunately we cannot develop on top of all the suffering in West Papua which is another Melanesian country,” he said.

“I look forward to meeting Vanuatu’s new government leaders to brief them on the realities happening in West Papua. For example in the last five years, almost 240 Melanesians have died in West Papua.

‘Seven pastors killed’
“So far seven of our church pastors have been killed, including the most well-known Pastor Sanabani — a Bible translator.

“Indonesian soldiers also target our children while women give birth in the bush. Nobody has any statistics because Indonesia has banned all journalists for almost 50 years now from entering and reporting on what has been happening in our country.”

Comparing their situation with that of Russia’s war with Ukraine, he said television viewers are focused on their screens while no one really cares about what is happening in their next door neighbour of West Papua.

“We, the Melanesian countries call ourselves Christians but where is the Melanesian spirit of Christian brotherhood regarding West Papua?

“We badly need Melanesian Good Samaritans and perhaps now is the right time to prove that level of responsible leadership,” he said.

Vanuatu has pushed through the West Papua case at the Pacific Islands Forum as well as further abroad through the Organisation of Asia Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) in Brussels.

Len Garae is a Vanuatu Daily Post journalist and RNZ Pacific correspondent. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

The humanitarian aid worker Andrew Bagshaw, who has dual New Zealand and British citizenship, has been missing in Ukraine for more than 10 days.

Bagshaw and his British colleague Christopher Parry worked as part of a team of Ukrainian and international volunteers delivering aid and carrying out evacuations of civilians, often under fire from Russian forces.

They have not been seen since January 6, when they left the city of Kramatorsk for Soledar, in eastern Ukraine, which has since been claimed by the Russian mercenary company Wagner.

• READ MORE: Ukraine: abduction of UK aid workers raises safety questions over humanitarian organisations
• Other Ukraine war reports

Humanitarian volunteers often represent the best of us. They are driven to put themselves at personal risk with little financial reward to reduce human suffering and the impacts of conflicts.

Their ethical justifications for entering dangerous locations, despite clear warnings from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to travel to Ukraine, are often exemplary.

But aid workers are at high risk. During the past two decades, intentional attacks on aid or humanitarian workers have become a disturbing trend, often perpetrated to drive outside influences away from war zones and fully isolate populations.

Ukraine conflict: Fellow aid worker keeps faith Andrew Bagshaw will be found alive https://t.co/2xOm1wInxC

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) January 12, 2023

It is a war crime to intentionally attack aid workers. Some, such as personnel working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations, have considerably more rights than others.

Despite this division, all aid workers are covered by basic rules. The problem is that international humanitarian law is not based on the ethics of why someone is in a war zone. This is especially the case if they are foreigners.

Rights of foreigners who enter war zones
There are three main groups of foreigners who voluntarily go into war zones.

1. Some people volunteer to fight in foreign wars and are paid more than local fighters. If captured and deemed mercenaries, these people have no rights. They can be executed.
2. The second group are “aliens”, inadvertently caught up in a conflict in a country that is not theirs. For these people, if captured and non-combatants, they have a prima-facie right to leave the country. However, this is not an absolute right — they can still be held if their departure is contrary to the national interests of the state that captured them.
3. Aid workers represent the third group, and they are at increasing risk. Capturing aid workers for hostage and propaganda purposes is a repugnant trend. In recent conflicts, we’ve also seen a rise in the number of victims of collateral violence — their deaths were not intended but a result of indiscriminate force now commonly used in war zones.

More often that not, attacks on aid workers are a combination of intentional and unintentional actions.

Globally, at least 460 aid workers were victims of major attacks in 2021: 140 were were killed, 203 wounded and 117 kidnapped.

Most of these attacks happened in countries such as South Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Ethiopia. But other conflict zones are also contributing to the figures, with growing numbers of deaths, kidnappings and wounding of aid workers recorded in Ukraine in 2022.

International humanitarian law is clear that if a country where a war is happening consents to the presence of aid workers and they are impartial in their work, they “shall be respected and protected”.

Although Russia has withdrawn its consent to the specific convention that contains this rule, Ukraine is a signatory. The obvious problem is that Russia now considers this annexed territory to be Russian, not Ukrainian.

Irrespective of debates about ownership and consent, Russia is still bound by other rules. Russia, like Ukraine, is a party to the Hostages Convention, which prohibits and criminalises the taking of hostages, for whatever justification.

Russia is also bound by the Security Council resolution, in which it strongly condemned all forms of violence against humanitarian workers. The council, including Russia, then urged states to ensure crimes against such personnel do not go unpunished.

Between theory and practice on the battlefield
Despite all of these rules and obligations, there is a large gap between the theory of restraint and the practices developing in Ukraine.

It is possible that Bagshaw and other humanitarian workers have been directly caught up in the violence in Ukraine. To be operating in a war zone, which involves the indiscriminate use of force, Somme-like conditions, the possibility of war crimes and the arrival of thousands of mercenaries who often pay scant regard to rules, is extremely risky.

It is also possible they have been taken for bargaining purposes. A practice is developing in Ukraine in which combatants and non-combatants, including foreigners, are taken and traded by the belligerents.

These exchanges also include the bodies of the dead.

Whichever scenario applies, this is a tragedy. We are at a point where individuals with the highest ethical motivations to provide impartial humanitarian assistance have themselves become victims: collateral in a war being conducted without honour.

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address to New Zealand’s Parliament today and the government has pledged an additional $3 million of humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Zelensky began with a friendly “kia ora” before saying he would offer New Zealand the opportunity to take the lead in pushing for peace.

“Today, this anti-war coalition has more than 100 countries, those who support the fundamental principle of international law and the UN Charter,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Ukraine reports

“Those who do everything possible to hold Russia’s war criminals accountable.”

He said New Zealand was one of the first countries to support Ukraine against Russia’s aggressive invasion and he recognised New Zealand imposed sanctions.

“Let me offer you one more thing, various dictators and aggressors — they always fail to realise that the strength of the free world is not about someone becoming large or becoming full of missiles but in the fact that everyone knows how to unite and act decisively and make a unique contribution to the common cause.

“Perhaps the time has come for your country to make such a unique contribution.”

President Zelensky’s address to the NZ Parliament today. Video: NZ Parliament TV

Peace plan 10 points
He said this could be one of the 10 points in the plan he laid out at the G19 Summit in Indonesia:

• Radiation and nuclear safety
• Food security
• Energy security
• Release of prisoners and deportees
• Implementation of the UN Charter
• Withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities
• Justice
• Ecocide and the protection of the environment
• Prevention of escalation
• Confirmation of the end of the war

“Each of these points can remove one or another of Russia’s aggression … I propose to convene a special summit in the coming months.”

He called upon New Zealand to support this formula and to start consolidating the world around the eighth point, environmental security, saying many people did not consider the impact of war on the environment and it was one aspect New Zealand society approached wisely.

“You can’t rebuild destroyed nature, just as you can’t rebuild destroyed lives.”

“There’s no true peace where the consequences of war could be there in the form of poisoned groundwater that may destroy normal lives in several countries. There’s no true peace where ecocide has taken place and its consequences have not been neutralised.”

He said to this day, the world had no strong experience in overcoming the destructive impact of war on the environment.

‘We will win’
“We will liberate our land. We will win this war. I am confident that we will return freedom and security to all Ukrainians wherever they live.”

“Ngā mihi, Slava Ukraini (glory to Ukraine).”

Zelensky is just the second head of a foreign government to address Parliament after Australia’s Julia Gillard in 2011.

The Ukrainian leader’s message to New Zealand comes as the government announced new sanctions on Iranian individuals and an entity involved in the manufacture and supply of drones to Russia.

Those sanctioned today include two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, the Armed Forces General Staff chair Mohammad Hossein Bagheri and drone manufacturer Shahed Aviation Industries.

He has previously spoken to other parliaments, including in the UK, US, European Union, and Australia, appealing for assistance and support in defending Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

In September, Zelensky addressed world leaders at the United Nations, demanding a special UN tribunal impose “just punishment” on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, including financial penalties and stripping Moscow of its veto power in the Security Council.

Ardern announces further humanitarian aid
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in response thanked him on behalf of New Zealand and said taking the time to speak today was a sacrifice when he was leading his people through a crisis “and one we do not take lightly”.

She hoped he heard loudly and clearly from New Zealand that Ukraine’s was not a forgotten war, and the Parliament on the other side of the world had come together to condemn Russia’s war.

“Our support for Ukraine was not determined by geography, it was not determined by history or by diplomatic ties or relationships — our judgment was a simple one: we asked ourselves the question ‘what if it was us’.”

She also referred to the breach of the international rules-based order and “the misuse of multilateral institutions”.

Running through New Zealand’s commitments to the Ukrainian war effort, she made a further announcement of $3 million of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, through the International Committee of the Red Cross, as the population faces severe hardships over winter.

This would cover items like medical supplies and equipment, power transformers and generators to cope with blackouts, and essential winter items for vulnerable families in Ukraine, like food, water and sanitation and hygiene items.

Ardern acknowledged the plan laid out by Zelensky today, and said the war “must not become a gateway to a more polarised and dangerous world for generations to come”.

Long-term impacts
She acknowledged Zelensky’s urging to counter the long-term impacts of war including with the environment, saying New Zealand had a long history of reconstruction post-conflict.

“That includes remediation such as dealing with unexploded ordinances. We will be with you as you seek peace but we will also be with you as you rebuild.”

She paid a special tribute to Zelensky himself, saying he had been unrelenting in his support of his people and coordinated an international response in support of the rules-based order.

“Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui – slava Ukraini.”

In a statement, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the new contribution “comes as the Russian military has stepped up its deliberate targeting of critical national infrastructure, further deepening the severe humanitarian crisis caused by the illegal invasion.”

“Russia’s targeting of energy and other civilian infrastructure is deplorable. As Ukraine faces a harsh winter, Putin’s actions have further disrupted electricity supply, and are harming the health, safety and well-being of already vulnerable communities,” the statement said.

The aid is in addition to almost $8m in humanitarian help already provided, and $48m of military spending including on training deployments, donation of surplus equipment, and procurement of weapons and ammunition.

Other party leaders speak
Opposition National Party leader Christopher Luxon said it was a great honour and tremendous privilege for the Parliament to hear Zelensky’s address, “and we all appreciate the opportunity to say to you ‘kia kaha’, which in our indigenous Māori language means ‘stay strong’.”

He said for those nations that valued democracy, national sovereignty and borders, and uphold the international rule of law the choice was simple.

“New Zealand is one of those countries. Confronted with brutality or diplomacy, autocracy or democracy, darkness or light, there was nothing to discuss except how to individually and collectively to support Ukraine.”

He said the war was a moral battle that posed an existential threat to Ukraine and it could not lose.

“You have been our generation’s Winston Churchill, and since those Russian tanks crossed Ukraine’s border, you have been unwavering in your determination that Ukraine will win this war that it did not want and it did not start.

“Of all the miscalculations Vladimir Putin has made — and there are many — underestimating your resolve and the impact of the strength of your leadership and the words — your words — would have in rallying Ukraine and the world has perhaps been the biggest.”

He said the death of every single Ukrainian was a tragedy, and the greatest regret of the war would be terrible loss of life that left tens of thousands of families bereft.

Luxon also spoke of the need for a reconstruction programme, because “the loss of homes and communities and critical infrastructure is also incalculable”. He said he could not imagine circumstances where New Zealand was not a part of that effort.

Green Party co-leader James Shaw said Russia’s invasion was “as barbaric as it is illegal”.

“It is apparent that there have been and continues to be a multitude of war crimes perpetuated on the Ukrainian people by the Russian forces.

“Were President Putin to be successful, the temporary violence of war would morph into the permanent violence of subjugation — perhaps even genocide.”

He said he applauded the Ukrainians’ efforts to minimise harm to civilians, however he urged that any future calls for military support come before the Parliament — not just the government.

“As a member of the Green Party I have a fundamental commitment to non-violence … the situation in Ukraine remains impossibly difficult in ways that we in Aotearoa New Zealand cannot possibly imagine.”

He said there were people on every continent still suffering from violence and subjugation, and emphasised the importance of universal human rights.

ACT leader David Seymour said he wanted Zelensky and the Ukrainian people “to know that on the other side of the world people care deeply about your struggle against evil”.

“We understand that a dictator attacking our democracy matters to New Zealand, your people are not just fighting for their lives but for all our freedom and democracy and I want you to know that your leadership and courage inspires us.”

He spoke of the New Zealanders who had gone to fight in Ukraine on their own initiative, and the funds raised for the defenders.

“Our donors were particularly pleased to buy luggage tags made from bits of aluminium from downed Russian jets – what great initiative under fire.”

But his comments also took a more political turn, saying the opposition had pushed for the government to do more.

“More sanctions, more refugee places, more lethal aid, and we’ll keep pushing them from this side of our Parliament and if our government changes before you win the New Zealand government will do a lot more than the $3 million you saw today.

“For now, please let me say that you are right and you are fighting against evil for all our freedom, and we back you not only in word but in deed. Slava Ukraini.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said they supported the kōrero of the Green Party.

“We have little to say today, all the teachings have been learnt of former occasions of war,” she said, quoting Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi, the prophets from Taranaki.

“We have been living together quietly, there will be nothing but mate — but death — for generations to come. We are small in numbers but we are strong. We are fighting not for part of peace but for the whole of peace.

“We today have one role, one role only, and that is to fight for peace.”

She said that as at Parihaka, Te Pāti Māori would continue to fight to uphold peace and make sure there was no suffering the young and coming generations could be ashamed of.

She and fellow co-leader Rawiri Waititi, along with other MPs around the House, concluded with a waiata written in World War II.

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

Pacific Media Watch

As Russia’s propaganda and crackdown on journalism continue to wreak havoc, the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released its new campaign video.

Devised and produced by the Paris-based advertising agency BETC, this powerful video takes just a few seconds to demonstrate the importance of journalism in combatting propaganda.

In the new video, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mendacious speeches to the Russian people about the invasion of Ukraine are contrasted with images of reporters covering the war.

Only the facts reported by journalists can thwart the Kremlin’s propaganda. Like the #FightForFacts campaign video that RSF released at the end of 2020, this new video aims to get viewers to appreciate the importance of journalism in raising awareness and in motivating the public about issues that are decisive for their future.

RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:

“Without journalists to cover the war in Ukraine, we would be powerless against disinformation and propaganda, we wouldn’t know whether the bombing of civilians in Ukraine was true or false, or whether the Bucha massacres really took place.

“After the world was stunned by the war in Ukraine, RSF wants to raise awareness about the other war being waged by the Kremlin, the information war.

Eight journalists have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war.

In the occupied territories, journalists are hunted down, arrested and given an impossible choice: collaboration, prison or death.

From day one, RSF teams mobilised. In Lviv and Kyiv, press freedom centres set up by RSF provide protective equipment, first aid kits, digital safety training and psychological support to both Ukrainian and foreign journalists covering the war.

This campaign video is intended to help RSF raise part of the funds it needs to continue its work in Ukraine and the rest of the world.

Targeted at the general public, it is being carried by TV channels, shared on social media and available to all websites that want it.

And it is available in 13 languages (French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Romanian, Azeri, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Mongolian).

The video was produced by and with the support of the BETC agency.

About BETC
An ad agency created in 1994, BETC was named Adweek’s International Agency of the Year in 2019 as well as the Effie Agency of the Year for the second year running.

BETC looks to renew the relationship between brands and creation.

Out of desire, curiosity and commitment, BETC creates new synergies and produces its own content in the fields of music, film, publishing, design… BETC is at the heart of the Magasins Généraux project in Pantin, where it moved in July 2016.

It is a new space for creation, innovation, production and sharing that is located at the heart of Greater Paris.

Since Jacinda Ardern described the state of world affairs as “bloody messy” earlier this year there have been few, if any, signs of improvement. Ukraine, China, nuclear proliferation and the lasting impacts of a global pandemic all present urgent, unresolved challenges.

For a small country in an increasingly lawless world this is both dangerous and confronting.

Without the military or economic scale to influence events directly, New Zealand relies on its voice and ability to persuade.

• READ MORE: Putin plays the annexation card, pushing the war in Ukraine into a dangerous new phase
• How will China interact with the world over the next 5 years? Xi’s new speech holds clues
• Nukes, allies, weapons and cost: 4 big questions NZ’s defence review must address

But by placing its faith in a rules-based order and United Nations processes, New Zealand also has to work with — and sometimes around — highly imperfect systems. In some areas of international law and policy the machinery is failing. It’s unclear what the next best step might be.

Given these uncertainties, then, where has New Zealand done well on the international stage, and where might it need to find a louder voice or more constructive proposals?

Confronting Russia
Strength and clarity have been most evident in New Zealand’s response to the Russian attack on Ukraine. There has been no hint of joining the abstainers or waverers at crucial UN votes condemning Russia’s actions.

While it can be argued New Zealand could do more in terms of sanctions and support for the Ukrainian military, the government has made good use of the available international forums.

Joining the International Court of Justice case against “Russia’s spurious attempt to justify its invasion under international law” and supporting the International Criminal Court investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine are both excellent initiatives.

Unfortunately, similar avenues have been blocked when it comes to other critical issues New Zealand has a vested interest in seeing resolved properly.

UN vote to ignore human rights abuses in China leaves west in dead end https://t.co/mTWo4ETubU

— The Guardian (@guardian) October 7, 2022

China and human rights
This has been especially apparent in the debate about human rights abuses in China, and allegations of genocide made by some countries over the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

New Zealand and some other countries correctly avoided using the word “genocide”, which has a precise legal meaning best applied by UN experts, not domestic politicians. Instead, the government called on China to provide meaningful and unfettered access to UN and other independent observers.

While not perfect, the visit went ahead. The eventual report by outgoing UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet concluded that China had committed serious human rights violations, which could amount to crimes against humanity.

This should have forced the international community to act. Instead, 19 countries voted with China to block a debate at the UN Human Rights Council (17 wanted the debate, 11 abstained). The upshot was that China succeeded in driving the issue into a diplomatic dead-end.

Allowing an organisation designed to protect victims to be controlled by alleged perpetrators isn’t something New Zealand should accept. The government should make it a diplomatic priority to become a member of the council, and it should use every opportunity to speak out and keep the issue in the global spotlight.

Ardern’s Russia warning: New nuclear age dawns – countries want to start and win new nuclear war https://t.co/ft03c2FAI5 pic.twitter.com/DRoA4IDRFN

— nzherald (@nzherald) September 23, 2022

Arms control
Elsewhere, New Zealand’s foreign policy can arguably be found wanting — most evidently, perhaps, in the area of nuclear arms regulation.

Advocating for the complete prohibition of all nuclear weapons, as the prime minister did at the UN in September, might be inspiring and also good domestic politics, but it doesn’t make the world safer.

With the risk of nuclear conflagration at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis, a better immediate goal would be improving the regulation, rather than prohibition, of nuclear weapons. This would entail convincing nuclear states to take their weapons off “hair-trigger alert”.

The other goals should be the adoption of a no-first-use policy by all nuclear powers (only China has made such a commitment so far), and a push for regional arms control in the Indo-Pacific to rein in India, Pakistan and China.

Pandemic preparedness
Finally, there is the danger of vital law and policy not just failing, but not even being born. This is the case with the World Health Organisation’s so-called “pandemic treaty”, designed to better prevent, prepare for and respond to the next global pandemic.

New Zealand set out some admirable goals in its submission in April, but these have been watered down or are missing from the first working draft of the proposed agreement.

This shouldn’t be accepted lightly given the lessons of the past two-and-a-half years. Transparency by governments, a precautionary approach and the meaningful involvement of non-state actors will be essential.

Similarly, improved oversight of the 59 laboratories spread across 23 countries that work with the most dangerous pathogens is critical. Currently, only a quarter of these labs score highly on safety. The proposed treaty does little to demand the kind of biosecurity protocols and robust regulatory systems required to better protect present and future generations.

As with the other urgent and difficult issues mentioned here, New Zealand’s future is directly connected to what happens elsewhere in the world. The challenge now is to keep adapting to this changing global order while being an effective voice for reason and the rule of law.

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

The BBC celebrated its 100th birthday last Tuesday. It came as the institution faces increasing competition for audiences from global entertainment providers, anxieties about the sustainability of its funding and a highly competitive global news market.

Its international broadcasting operation, the BBC World Service, is only a little younger, established 90 years ago.

Delivering news and programmes in 40 languages across the continents, it faces similar, significant questions about financing, purpose and its ability to deliver in a world of increased social media and online news consumption.

• READ MORE: US and Russia engage in a digital battle for hearts and minds
• 100 years of the BBC: the rebels who reshaped broadcasting – and paid the price

Currently the BBC’s international services are mostly funded by British people who pay a television licence fee, with a third of the total cost covered by the UK government.

The BBC claimed that, as of November 2021, the World Service reached a global audience of 364 million people each week.

The role of radio
Radio is still clearly a key means to extend the reach of the World Service and a core part of the BBC’s global news package. It is highly adaptable and reasonably affordable.

It also gives people in parts of the world where access to media can be difficult relatively easy access to news. Short-wave radio, the traditional means of broadcasting over very long distances, is also difficult for hostile regimes to block.

Recently, fears that Russia would target Ukraine’s internet infrastructure and erect firewalls to prevent its own citizens’ accessing western media sources, led the BBC to reactivate shortwave radio news services for listeners in both countries. UK government funding of £4.1 million supported this.

Current thinking about the World Service has been shaped by a 2010 decision of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to withdraw Foreign and Commonwealth Office funding for BBC international operations from 2014. This seemed to end a 60 years-long era when the BBC was the key subcontractor for British global “soft power” (using cultural resources and information to promote British interests overseas).

The plan was that British TV licence-fee payers would fund the World Service, seemingly as an act of international benevolence, free of government ties. However, this seemed unlikely to be sustainable at a time when BBC income was being progressively squeezed.

In 2015, World Service revenues were boosted by a major grant from the UK’s Official Development Assistance fund, covering around a third of the World Service’s running costs.

One anonymous BBC insider was quoted by The Guardian saying that this would sustain the corporation’s “strong commitment to uphold global democracy through accurate, impartial and independent news”.

Even before the Second World War, the BBC claimed it only broadcast truthful and objective news. Policy makers recognised this as a crucial asset for promoting British interests overseas, and seldom sought to challenge (openly at least) the “editorial independence” of the BBC.

The BBC’s 2016 royal charter further entrenched this thinking, stating that news for overseas audiences should be “firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality and fairness”. The idea that a truthful approach to news was a core “British value” that could help promote democracy around the world became part of the BBC’s basic mission statement.

In 2017, the BBC established 17 new foreign-language radio and online services. To maximise possibilities for listening it purchased FM transmitter time in major cities around the world, and deployed internet radio, increasingly accessible to many users via mobile devices.

The focus was on Africa and Asia. However, the World Service also strengthened its Arabic and Russian provision to serve those who “sorely need reliable information”.

The British Broadcasting Company has placed an advertisement in today’s edition of The Times for its first permanent members of staff.

(14 October 1922) pic.twitter.com/iRSDfvHsAz

— The BBC, 100 years ago today (@BBC100yearsago) October 14, 2022

Fake news factor
The World Service’s rationale has been strengthened by growing concerns about “fake news”: distorted and untrue reports designed to serve the commercial or geopolitical interests of those who manufacture it.

The BBC has, in response, further emphasised its historic role as a truthful broadcaster. In its trusted news initiative it has worked with other global media outlets to tackle disinformation, hosting debate and discussion, and sharing intelligence about the most misleading campaigns.

Claims for continued relevance also rest on a drive to bring news to an ever larger audience. The BBC’s stated aim is to reach 500 million people this year, and a billion within another decade.

In 2021 the BBC claimed to be on course to realise this goal, reaching a global audience of 489 million. The audience for the World Service accounted for the single largest component of this global figure.

What then should we make of the BBC’s announcement in September 2022 that 400 jobs would have to go at the World Service due to the freezing of the licence fee and rapidly rising costs?

Radio services in languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi and Chinese will disappear, and programme production for the English-language radio service will be pared down. Certainly, these cuts will reduce the BBC’s impact overseas.

But they should also be understood as part of a longstanding and ongoing transition from shortwave radio to web radio.

Similarly, cutting back on World Service non-news programming might not be a major cause for concern. In an age of global streaming services and social media, audiences can receive programmes from providers from across the globe.

The World Service would find it hard to compete with many of these services. However, the BBC remains in a pre-eminent position to offer trusted news.

By focusing on providing news online, the World Service is putting its resources where it can best promote British soft power and international influence, thereby improving prospects for its own continued existence.

However, abandoning radio entirely would be a mistake. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated, radio remains a crucial way to reach audiences who might find their access to trusted news via the internet suddenly cut off.

Dr Simon Potter, Professor of Modern History, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

OPEN LETTER to the Foreign Minister of Aotearoa New Zealand, Nanaia Mahuta:

Kia ora Nanaia,

We have been informed that the Wellington City Council has been advised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to light up the Michael Fowler Centre in the colours of the Palestinian flag tomorrow — which has been arranged through councillor Tamatha Paul and approved by council — because Aotearoa New Zealand does not recognise a Palestinian state and this will cause offence to the Israeli Embassy in Wellington.

This is outrageous advice. We want you to intervene and immediately override this advice from your ministry officials so the Fowler Centre can be lit up tomorrow.

• READ MORE:  RSF calls for independent probe into Al Jazeera reporter’s West Bank killing
• Gallery: Nakba Day in Auckland – protesting against Israel’s ‘ethnic cleansing’
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• Other Shireen Abu Akleh reports

Firstly New Zealand’s official policy is to support a “two-state” solution in historic Palestine and this policy in effect recognises a Palestinian state. You cannot have a “two-state solution” with just one state.

Secondly it is deeply insulting to Palestinians to have official recognition of their national day — Nakba Day — effectively vetoed by ministry officials and the “sensitivities” of the Israeli embassy. It is Israel which is refusing to allow a Palestinian state to be formed.

The current Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, has said he refuses to meet with Palestinian leaders, refuses to negotiate a peace deal and will refuse to recognise a Palestinian state while he is Prime Minister.

Why should Israel’s veto over a Palestinian state dictate Aotearoa New Zealand’s support for Palestinians?

Why would we take any notice of the “sensitivities” of an embassy which is supporting and promoting what every international human rights organisation has declared to be an apartheid state?

Parliament has flown the Ukrainian flag in recent weeks over Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine so why shouldn’t New Zealand fly the Palestinian flag in recognition of Israel’s ongoing brutal military occupation of the entire area of historic Palestine?

Within the last 10 days an Israeli court has approved the eviction of 1000 more Palestinians from their land and homes in the occupied West Bank of Palestine and the Israeli regime has announced it is ready to approve the building of 4000 more Jewish-only homes in illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

And just this last week we have seen the brutal “cold-blooded murder” of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the shocking sight of pall bearers and mourners at her funeral being brutally attacked by Israeli state forces.

Aotearoa New Zealand is bigger than the venal, self-serving advice of cowardly MFAT officials.

Please direct your ministry officials to approve Wellington City Council lighting up the Fowler Centre tomorrow in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

Asia Pacific Report editors join the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) in solidarity with this open letter protest over the Nakba Day censorship and in memory of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh assassinated by Israeli troops last Wednesday.

Aotearoa New Zealand is deeply saddened by the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin and the violence at her funeral. We call for an independent, transparent and thorough investigation into the circumstances of her death.

— Nanaia Mahuta (@NanaiaMahuta) May 15, 2022

A tweet after this open letter – but still no condemnation of Israel for the killing of Abu Akleh by the New Zealand government.

The war in Ukraine would test even the most hardened political operator: millions forced to flee their homes, thousands (including many civilians) killed or injured, evidence of Russian war crimes mounting.

Yet Volodomyr Zelenskyy, a relative novice head of state, has not just risen to the challenge, he has been widely praised and admired for his exemplary crisis leadership. So, what explains this prowess?

Zelenskyy’s acting experience has been credited with his ability to connect powerfully with different audiences, using facts and emotions to build support for the Ukrainian cause.

• READ MORE: How Zelenskyy emerged as the antithesis of Putin and proved you don’t need to be a strongman to be a great leader
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• Other reports on NZ and the Ukraine invasion

His commitment to serve his people has been called pivotal. He has been described as charismatic — although this alone is no guarantee of success, given charismatic leaders can still lead their nations to destruction.

And it’s Zelenskyy’s repeated displays of courage that seem to really strike a chord with many. This leads us into the territory of character virtues, which we argue hold the key to Zelenskyy’s abilities as a crisis leader.

Ancient wisdom for today’s world
Aristotle is credited with first proposing that virtues play a central role in forging a strength of character that can navigate and weather life’s challenges with moral fortitude and integrity.

Over the past few decades, scholars concerned with preventing unethical leadership have developed Aristotle’s insights further, using modern social scientific methods.

Recently, we drew on this knowledge to examine crisis leadership and how character virtues guided 12 heads of state through that first, tumultuous wave of covid-19. We’ve used the same approach to analyse Zelenskyy’s leadership.

We closely examined an extended filmed interview with Zelenksyy by The Economist. Being unscripted and more spontaneous than his pre-prepared speeches, it offered a clearer insight into his character.

We found all seven of the key character virtues — humanity, temperance, justice, courage, transcendence, wisdom and prudence — evident in Zelenskyy’s responses to the interviewers’ questions.

The Economist interview with President Zelenskyy.

Character virtues in action
The virtue of humanity relates to care, compassion, empathy and respect for others. Zelenskyy demonstrates this primarily through his focus on protecting Ukrainians from Russian aggression, but it even extends to his enemy’s suffering.

Zelenskyy expresses concern that Putin is “throwing Russian soldiers like logs into a train’s furnace”, and laments that the Russian dead are neither mourned nor buried by their own side.

This refusal to simply give way to hate and anger when speaking of his enemies also reflects a second virtue, temperance — the ability to exercise emotional control.

Zelenskyy’s modesty also reflects this virtue — in the interview he shrugs off praise for being an inspirational hero, preferring to keep to the main issues. Temperance serves to maintain emotional equilibrium, thus enabling Zelenskyy to make difficult decisions in a level-headed manner.

The virtue of justice means acting responsibly and ensuring people are treated fairly. It involves citizenship, teamwork, loyalty and accountability. Zelenskyy speaks of his “duty to protect” Ukrainians and to “signal” with his own conduct how others should act. By remaining in Ukraine, he becomes a role model of this virtue while simultaneously demonstrating the virtue of courage.

Zelenskyy’s own courage has been widely noted, but we observed that he also repeatedly acknowledges that of his fellow citizens, thereby encouraging them to act with virtue.

A formidable opponent
By expressing the seemingly unshakeable hope that Ukrainians will secure victory because of their courage, Zelenskyy demonstrates the virtue of transcendence — the optimism and faith that a cause is meaningful, noble and will prevail.

Zelenskyy’s views about what motivates other countries display his wisdom. In the interview he demonstrates a broad strategic perspective and insight into the varying interests that shape other nations’ responses to the war. This helps him craft his appeals to allies, and to Russia, which then have a greater chance of resonating.

The final virtue, prudence, complements that wisdom. It involves an ability to gauge what is the right thing to do and is something of a meta-virtue, guiding the choice of which other virtues are needed from moment to moment. We found repeated instances of Zelenskyy demonstrating just that, weaving together multiple virtues in his responses to questions.

Our analysis of his leadership indicates Zelenskyy possesses strength of character and emotional, intellectual and moral clarity about what is at stake. This explains his effective crisis leadership to date. Despite the clear military mismatch between Russia and Ukraine, Putin has taken on a formidable opponent.

Dr Suze Wilson is senior lecturer, Executive Development/School of Management, Massey University and Dr Toby Newstead is lecturer in management, University of Tasmania. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A New Zealand aid worker in Kyiv says the ReliefAid group he leads was one of the first to provide food in the suburb of Bucha — northwest of Kyiv — where Russian troops are alleged to have executed 150 civilians.

New Zealand donations in the Ukraine War have so far helped the aid group deliver more than six tonnes of food to survivors, and take medical supplies to hospitals around Kyiv.

ReliefAid executive director Mike Seawright arrived in Kyiv this weekend after driving in from the western side of Ukraine — “down some roads that have seen a lot of intense fighting, burnt out buildings, warehouses completely flattened, family homes destroyed and lots of military hardware burnt out.

• LISTEN TO RNZ SUNDAY MORNING: ‘You can’t do this from a desk in New Zealand’ – ReliefAid executive director Mike Seawright
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“It was an interesting if not somewhat chilling drive.”

He has been in the country for a month after crossing the border on foot.

In Kyiv, “the fighting may have stopped … but the destruction of family homes is still there. People are living in the rubble of what was their normal lives with nothing to their name, faced with cold, harsh conditions, with little or no food. So humanitarian support such as we are providing … is essential.”

But while fighting there may have stopped, missiles were still “raining down” on the city, making it unsafe.

Management on the fly
Seawright said that with many trucks bringing aid into the country — and at least one plane of medical supplies — a lot of organisation was involved.

“It also takes a lot of management on the fly. So we’ve predefined plans … but of course what happens on the day is entirely dependent on checkpoints we can’t control, road conditions on roads that have been severely damaged … and a security situation that is extremely volatile. So this is our number eight wire – managing all of this.”

His team also wants to deliver aid to people in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“We are standing by to get in there as soon as conditions allow. We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of humanitarian action. ReliefAid is a warzone specialist humanitarian aid organisation but I have to say, even we can’t get access to Mariupol at the moment.”

As soon as an access corridor was established, they would be in, Seawright said.

Being on the ground was key to working effectively, he said.

A lot of hard work
“It takes a lot of hard working, a lot of networking, a lot of managing logistics, but I’m proud to say we’ve got an incredible team here in Ukraine allowing us to do that.

“The most important thing you need to do when engaging with a new environment is see what is happening on the ground. We’ve got to know who we are supporting. We have got to make sure we know what their needs are and therefore we need to make sure the support that we receive by generous kiwis in New Zealand and across the world is going to the right place.

“You can’t do this from a desk in New Zealand, you can’t do this by reading a report. You have to get on the ground and see it yourself.”

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

The discovery of many civilian bodies lying dead in the Ukrainian city of Bucha this week has brought out more Western rhetoric of horror, disgust, anger and fury at the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has renewed calls for more sanctions against Russia, more weapons to the Ukrainians and calls for Putin to be put on trial as a war criminal.

That’s a strong response to war and those responsible for starting a military invasion of a sovereign state.

Let’s shift the focus to Iraq in 2003 for a moment.

• READ MORE: Bucha killings: ‘The world cannot be tricked anymore’

On the marches to protest against the US-UK-Australian-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 one of the chants used was “Never forget Fallujah!”.

So, for those that were too young to know, or now too old to remember, here are a few well-referenced paragraphs from Wikipedia about what happened when the US invaders attacked that city as part of an invasion of another sovereign state, Iraq.

The United States bombardment of Fallujah began in April 2003, one month after the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. In April 2003, United States forces fired on a group of demonstrators who were protesting against the US presence. US forces alleged they were fired at first, but Human Rights Watch, who visited the site of the protests, concluded that physical evidence did not corroborate US allegations and confirmed the residents’ accusations that the US forces fired indiscriminately at the crowd with no provocation.

Seventeen people were killed and 70 were wounded.

Further killings
In a later incident, US soldiers fired on protesters again; Fallujah’s mayor, Taha Bedaiwi al-Alwani, said that two people were killed and 14 wounded. Iraqi insurgents were able to claim the city a year later, before they were ousted by a siege and two assaults by US forces.

These events caused widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis in the city and surrounding areas. As of 2004, the city was largely ruined, with 60 percent of buildings damaged or destroyed, and the population at 30–50 percent of pre-war levels.

At least one US battalion had orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not. In violation of the Geneva Convention, the city’s main hospital was closed by Marines, negating its use, and a US sniper was placed on top of the hospital’s water tower.

On November 13, 2004, a US Marine with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, was videotaped killing a wounded combatant in a mosque. The incident, which came under investigation, created controversy throughout the world.

The man was shot at close range after he and several other wounded insurgents had previously been left behind overnight in the mosque by the US Marines. The Marine shooting the man had been mildly injured by insurgents in the same mosque the day before.

On November 16, 2004, a Red Cross official told Inter Press Service that “at least 800 civilians” had been killed in Fallujah and indicated that “they had received several reports from refugees that the military had dropped cluster bombs in Fallujah, and used a phosphorus weapon that caused severe burns.”

On 17 May 2011, AFP reported that 21 bodies, in black bodybags marked with letters and numbers in Roman script, had been recovered from a mass grave in al-Maadhidi cemetery in the centre of the city.

Blindfolded, legs tied
Fallujah police chief Brigadier General Mahmud al-Essawi said that they had been blindfolded, their legs had been tied and they had suffered gunshot wounds. The Mayor, Adnan Husseini said that the manner of their killing, as well as the body bags, indicated that US forces had been responsible.

Both al-Essawi and Husseini agreed that the dead had been killed in 2004. The US Military declined to comment.

There were no sanctions against the US, UK and Australia, there were no US soldiers, military leaders or politicians held to account. There were no arms sent to help the Iraqis facing overwhelming odds in their fight against the US and its allies.

There were no moves to charge George Bush (US President), Tony Blair (UK Prime Minister) or John Howard (Australian Prime Minister) for war crimes before the International Criminal Court.

Yes Vladimir Putin should be on trial at the International Criminal Court, but before he appears we should have seen George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard face the same charges first.

We should never forget Bucha — but we must never forget Fallujah either. The people of both cities deserve justice at the ICC. Let’s do all we can to hold them to account.

Incidentally, US President Joe Biden was pushing hard for the invasion of Iraq back in 2003. His hypocrisy now in condemning Putin is the stuff of legends.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

Time is running out for a group of West Papuan students in New Zealand whose scholarships were cut — out of the blue — by the Indonesian government

The sudden removal of government funding for the Papuan students has left many of them in financial dire straits on visas that are running out.

Forty two students learned of the termination of their scholarships at the beginning of this year. With deadlines approaching they have appealed to both the Indonesian government and MPs in New Zealand to see if they can fix their dashed hopes of a completed education.

• READ MORE: Ukraine example cited in call to extend visas for abandoned Papuan students
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Green Party MPs Ricardo Menendez March, Golriz Ghahraman and Teanau Tuiono penned a letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta requesting government to support for the students before they are deported.

They are calling for a scholarship fund to support the impacted students, a residency pathway for West Papuan students whose welfare has been affected, and an assurance that the students will have access to safe housing in affordable accommodation.

But according to Menendez March, the most urgent issue is the students’ visas — he is calling on the government to extend them due to special circumstances, such as those for Ukrainian nationals.

“What the situation in Ukraine taught us is that when there is political will, our immigration system can move relatively fast to provide solutions for people who are facing uncertainty,” he said. “The special visa that was created to support Ukrainian families show we could have an intervention to support these students.”

Quick move for Ukraine
Immigration moved quickly to ensure Ukrainians with family in New Zealand had an easier avenue to a two-year work visa as a part of the humanitarian support developed in response to the refugee crisis.

“Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said last week when the details were unveiled: ‘This is the largest special visa category we have established in decades to support an international humanitarian effort and, alongside the additional $4 million in humanitarian funding also announced today, it adds to a number of measures we’ve already implemented to respond to the worsening situation in Ukraine.'”

The Ukraine policy is expected to benefit around 4000 people, with Immigration streamlining processes to make sure they are supported sooner rather than later.

With just 42 West Papuan students now in this visa crisis, Menendez March said it would be easy enough for the Government to create a special category.

And more than that, it would be an opportunity for New Zealand to stand up for a Pacific neighbour.

“As a Pacific nation we do have a responsibility to support West Papuans,” he said. “I think this is a small but really tangible way that we could supporting the West Papuan community.”

For some of the students, returning home isn’t just a matter of giving up on whatever ambitions lay past graduation day – but also a safety risk.

Openly communicated
“The students have openly communicated in the past some of them may not necessarily face safe living conditions back at home,” Menendez March said, who met with the students last week along with Greens spokesperson for Pacific people Teanau Tuiono to discuss possible solutions.

Tuiono said there were multiple reasons why the New Zealand government should step in and offer support to the students.

“First, there’s the consistency thing — if we’re going to do this for people from the Ukraine, why not for West Papuans,” he said. “Also, we are part of the Pacific and we have signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

The declaration, first adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007, establishes a framework of minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world.

“West Papuans are indigenous peoples who have been occupied by Indonesia, so there’s that recognition of a responsibility on an international level that we have signed up to,” Tuiono said.

The letter signed by the Green MPs was sent to Mahuta at the beginning of this month, but they say there has been no meaningful response. Meanwhile, some of the students are potentially just a matter of weeks away from deportation.

The decision to rescind the scholarship funds came as a shock to West Papuan students in New Zealand like Laurens Ikinia, who is in the final year of his Master of Communication at AUT. He hopes he will be allowed in the country until his upcoming graduation.

But despite the International Alliance of Papuan Student Associations Overseas calling on the Indonesian government to consult with it to try and resolve the issue, there has been no response.

“It is really heartbreaking for us as the central government of Indonesia and the provincial government have not given any positive responses to us,” Ikinia said. “The government still stick to their decision.”

Matthew Scott is a journalist writing for Newsroom on inequality, MIQ and border issues. Republished with permission.

A New Zealand protest flotilla has arrived outside the luxury Northland home of Russian oligarch Alexander Abramov.

The eight vessels sailed to Helena Bay, north of Whangārei, early today to protest over the two-week-old Russian invasion of Ukraine facing the private estate owned by Abramov.

Locals on kayaks and boats were expected to join them.

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The flotilla is asking the government to freeze Abramov’s New Zealand assets.

Although he is one of the few super-rich influential Russians with assets in New Zealand — a handful of wealthy Russians are estimated to have $60 million invested in the country — he is not on the official sanctions list intended to put pressure on Russia to stop the invasion of Ukraine.

The government has said the list will remain under review.

Greenpeace joins protest
The global environmental campaigner Greenpeace has joined the flotilla.

Greenpeace programme director Niamh O’Flynn is on board a yacht, and told RNZ the water was a bit choppy, but demonstrators plan to remain on their vessels in the bay and stay for a few hours to get their message across.

“The main message is that we need to do our bit to end this war peacefully, and that means sanctioning oligarchs, it means freezing the assets of oligarchs like Alexander Abramov, immediately.”

She said sanctioning oligarchs puts pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war.

On February 24, the government announced a list of officials from the Russian government and others involved in the invasion of Ukraine, who are named in a targeted travel ban.

On March 9, the new Russia Sanctions Bill was passed by Parliament under urgency by all parties. It allows for New Zealand to impose harsher sanctions.

Some Northlanders living near Abramov’s lodge earlier put up Ukrainian flags on their properties.

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

In this A View From Afar podcast, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning deep dive into the big picture that hangs over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That big picture has many aspects to it, and as such any resolution to the atrocities being committed in Ukraine will likely be weighed against what is a challenge to the international law and rules-based order.

In a previous episode in this series, Dr Buchanan and Manning examined how the world was transitioning into a democracies versus authoritarian bipolarity.

• WATCH: A View From Afar on YouTube

This episode continues in that theme, but digs down into how descendent powers, or nations, tend to create or become entrenched in wars, and how Russia, in 2022, fits this pattern.

And, there are comparisons to global Western powers too.

But this episode goes further. It examines how transitional international moments, conflict as a systems regulator, can move to counter Russia.

In 2022, the United Nations Security Council, due to the P5 nations having veto powers, appears no longer fit for purpose.

A UN-led multilateral response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unlikely.

Frustrated by Russia
The UN General Assembly appears frustrated by Russia’s refusal to acknowledge the combined insistence of the UNGA that it cease its war against Ukraine.

Against this backdrop, NATO, at this juncture, cannot directly defend Ukrainians as Ukraine was not able to become a NATO member state before Russia invaded its territory.

Sometimes rules and law provide security and stability in the world. And sometimes, as seen in 2022, it permits conflict to burn on.

As discussed, the global rules-based order is fast changing in 2022. And as such, this underscores a need to re-set the international system.

But what can be done to stop people from being killed in this unprovoked war – a war that in many ways illustrates a wider war between democracies and authoritarians, as the world transitions toward a new bipolarity?

And, if a global order reset is needed, what would that reset look like?

These are huge challenges that require sensible analysis.

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

• The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was nominated as a top defence security podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.
• Follow A View from Afar via affiliate syndicators.

With the cabinet meeting on Monday agreeing to targeted Russian sanctions legislation, New Zealand is preparing to circumvent its normal United Nations-based response to international crises.

The Russia Sanctions Bill will allow additional sanctions against Russia, including the ability to:

• freeze assets in NZ;
• prevent people and companies from moving their money and assets to NZ to escape sanctions imposed by other countries; and
• stop super yachts, ships and aircraft from entering NZ waters or airspace.

Passing the law under urgency this week is justified due to Russia being one of the UN Security Council member states, allowing it to use its veto power to block any proposed UN sanctions.

• READ MORE: Ukraine crisis: how do small states like New Zealand respond in an increasingly lawless world?
• As the Ukraine war drags on, how secure will Putin’s hold on power remain?
• Russian sanctions are biting harder than it could have imagined, and it’ll get worse

But this is a sad development, and a break with 30 years of diplomatic history. Since 1991, New Zealand has worked within the UN framework and largely based its sanctions regimes around what the UN has mandated.

Over Ukraine, New Zealand has taken some small and supplementary steps against Russia, such as travel bans and export controls over technologies that may have military value. But this has been inadequate compared with the actions of its allies, and the rapidly worsening situation.

Ukrainians in NZ urge Govt to seize Russian financial interests https://t.co/F0CfTrl7zI pic.twitter.com/XMgJeV8GAn

— 1News (@1NewsNZ) February 28, 2022

NZ must align with allies
To create a new sanctions regime outside the UN system, New Zealand will need to take into account various important factors, including the law’s scope and how it fits with the actions of its allies.

Above all, the legislation must recognise this is a unique situation and must not create a precedent that enables other actions outside the UN system. The new law must expressly state why the urgent actions are justified and the objectives it wants to achieve, and it should have a sunset clause whereby it will lapse on a set date unless expressly renewed.

The law must be effective, proportionate and targeted. Anti-Russian hysteria must be avoided. Due process, fairness to those involved, and compliance with existing international obligations, must be uppermost.

Detail must be applied to the creation of a cross-party sanctions committee and a monitoring group. The evidence used to justify sanctions should come from secure and robust sources, which should be as transparent as possible.

Coordination with friends and allies is uppermost. It’s not a question of how large New Zealand’s sanctions are, but rather that they are consistent with those of other countries. If there are inconsistencies, these risk being exploited both politically and economically.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. and its allies are having a “very active discussion” about banning the import of Russian oil and natural gas in the latest escalation of their sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. https://t.co/qk2wtRvSS6

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 6, 2022

Military aid an option
In a normal situation, a “laddering” process for sanctions is used: sanctions start softly (sporting or cultural events, for instance) and escalate (with some diplomatic restrictions) towards increasingly harsh trade restrictions prohibiting goods, from luxuries to near essentials.

Exclusion from airspace, maritime zones and even travel restrictions for ordinary citizens may be added to the mix, as Russia is increasingly isolated from the wider world. With events moving so fast already, New Zealand is already halfway up the ladder.

Military aid needs to be an option, too. The goal is to help the Ukrainians fight for their own freedom, without putting foreign “boots on the ground”. A distinction between lethal and non-lethal aid (such as body armour, communications equipment, food and medical kit) will need to be made.

Again, the question is not one of scale but consistency with friends and allies. The symbolism of such support is important. Supplementing the efforts of Australia, for example, would be useful.

The new law may also need to cover those New Zealanders who want to fight in Ukraine — on either side. New Zealanders without dual Ukrainian citizenship are unlikely to be given prisoner of war status if they’re captured.

Such volunteers will be in a grey area of domestic law, too, as current legislation covering the activities of mercenaries, or those who seek to go overseas to fight for terrorist groups, is inadequate.

Fighting the Russian invasion of a sovereign country is not an act of terrorism, and some may be willing to fight without significant financial incentives. The government should make the rules clear — again, consistent with friends and allies.

Putin says sanctions over Ukraine are like a declaration of war https://t.co/znr6yxpxEG

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 5, 2022

Risk of unintended consequences
Despite what Vladimir Putin has suggested, sanctions are not an act of war. They are an unfortunate but sometimes necessary non-military strategy aimed at changing or ending a country’s harmful actions.

But even if New Zealand and other like-minded countries apply maximum pressure through sanctions, there is no guarantee Putin will change his policies.

Sanctions have the best chances of success when a country’s leadership feels affected by the pressure of its own citizens — or in Russia’s case, its oligarch class, as the prime minister hinted.

So, sanctions may work better with Russia than North Korea. But there is also a risk, if Putin starts to feel this pain, that he will respond in unexpected ways.

The only real certainty is significant collateral economic damage — for Russia and the world, including New Zealand. Everyone will see or feel the impact as economic and diplomatic relationships hit turbulence. Right now, however, there is no viable alternative.

Dr Alexander Gillespieis professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A West Papuan leader has praised the “bravery and spirit” of Ukrainians defending their country against the Russian invasion while condemning the hypocrisy of a self-styled “peaceful” Indonesia that attacks “innocent civilians” in Papua.

Responding to the global condemnation of the brutal war on Ukraine, now into its second week, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda highlighted a statement by United Nation experts that has condemned “shocking abuses” against Papuans, including “child killings, disappearances, torture and mass displacement of people”.

Wenda also stressed that the same day that Indonesia’s permanent representative to the UN said that the military attack on Ukraine was unacceptable and called for peace, reports emerged of seven young schoolboys being arrested, beaten and tortured so “horrifically” by the Indonesian military that one had died from his injuries.

• LISTEN TO ABC PACIFIC BEAT: ‘Double standards’ claims as world reacts to Ukraine crisis, ignores Papua
• UN report calls for independent probe into ‘shocking’ rights abuses in Papua
• Other West Papua reports at Asia Pacific Report

“The eyes of the world are watching in horror [at] the invasion of Ukraine,” said Wenda in a statement.

“We feel their terror, we feel their pain and our solidarity is with these men, women and children. We see their suffering and we weep at the loss of innocent lives, the killing of children, the bombing of their homes, and for the trauma of refugees who are forced to flee their communities.”

Wenda said the world had spoken up to condemn the actions of President Vladimir Putin and his regime.

“The world also applauds the bravery and spirit of Ukrainians in their resistance as they defend their families, their homes, their communities, and their national identity.”

Russian attack unacceptable
Wenda said Indonesia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Arrmanatha Nasir, had stated that that Russian attack on Ukraine was unacceptable and called for peace. He had said innocent civilians “will ultimately bear the brunt of this ongoing situation”.

“But what about innocent civilians in West Papua? asked Wenda.

“At the UN, Indonesia speaks of itself as ‘a peaceful nation’ committed to a world ‘based on peace and social justice’.

“This, on the very same day that reports came in of seven young boys, elementary school children, being arrested, beaten and tortured so horrifically by the Indonesian military that one of the boys, Makilon Tabuni, died from his injuries.

“The other boys were taken to hospital, seriously wounded.”

Wenda said the Indonesian military was deliberately targeting “the young, the next generation. This, to crush our spirit and extinguish hope.

“These are our children that [Indonesian forces are] torturing and killing, with impunity. Are they not ‘innocent civilians’, or are their lives just worth less?”

A leading West Papuan activist is comparing the plight of his region to that of the crisis in Ukraine. https://t.co/K3qsMtXXWI

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) March 4, 2022

Urgent humanitarian access
Wenda said that this was during the same week that UN special rapporteurs had called for urgent humanitarian access and spoken of “shocking abuses against our people”, including “child killings, disappearances, torture and mass displacement of people”.

This was an acknowledgement from the UN that Papuan people had been “crying out for”.

Wenda said 60-100,00 people were currently displaced, without any support or aid. This was a humanitarian crisis.

“Women forced to give birth in the bush, without medical assistance. Children are malnourished and starving. And still, Indonesia does not allow international access,” he said.

“Our people have been suffering this, without the eyes of the world watching, for nearly 60 years.”

In response, the Indonesian Ambassador to the UN had continued with “total denial, with shameless lies and hypocrisy”.

“If there’s nothing to hide, then where is the access?”

International community ‘waking up’
Wenda said the international community was “waking up” and Indonesia could not continue to “hide your shameful secret any longer”.

“Like the Ukrainian people, you will not crush our spirit, you will not steal our hope and we will not give up our struggle for freedom,” Wenda said.

The ULMWP demanded that Indonesia:

• Allow access for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and for humanitarian aid to our displaced people and to international journalists;
• Withdraw the military;
• Release political prisoners, including Victor Yeimo and the “Abepura Eight”; and
• Accept the Papuan right to self-determination and end the illegal occupation of Papua.

Ten lessons to be learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the war rages into its second week.

• READ MORE: The world is united on Ukraine, divided on America
• ‘Double standards’ claims as world reacts to Ukraine crisis, ignores Papua
• Other Palestine reports

1. The people of Ukraine are “European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed” while Palestinians are Arab and have darker complexion. Lesson one: Empathy and recognition of pain and suffering is colour coded and race still matters in 2022.
2. Palestine, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria where violence is normal and death is “baked” into the culture while Ukraine is a “European city” that is modern and advanced and these things are not supposed to happen in this area. Lesson two: Western and European history is but a long series of erasures, amnesia and deeply held view of exceptionalism.
3. Volunteering to fight in defence of the Ukraine from outside is a heroic act, which indeed it is, but volunteering to resist settler colonialism and Apartheid is framed as “terrorism” by Western powers. Lesson three: Palestinians are demonised no matter what heroic acts they underake.
4. When an officer in the Ukraine blows himself and destroys a bridge to prevent the Russians from advancing then he is celebrated for this sacrifice. Lesson four: Palestinians are demonised for merely being Palestinians and any and all resistance are framed as terrorism.
5. Sport teams and famous sport figures can express solidarity and carry the Ukrainian flag, post messages on the electronic boards and demonstrate this on the play field, which are all very positive and players should have the right and ability to do it. However, Palestine is an exception when it comes to sport figures expressing any support for the Palestinians who are living under settler colonial occupation that structured with an embedded Apartheid system of racial-religious segregation. Lesson five: The sport administrative structure hands out fines and sanctions (red card) for anyone who expresses support for Palestine including on the occasion of fans hoisting Palestinian flags in the stands.
6. Calls for sending weapons to Ukraine so as to resist and fight Russian invasion and occupation is supported and expressed as a fundamental right for people facing such an enemy. Anyone who calls for supporting the Palestinians by sending military equipment or items to strengthen the resistance is criminalised and often imprisonment under the spacious law designation of material support. Lesson six: Palestinians don’t have the right to defend themselves but must accept to be occupied and the world community is committed to fund and extend all types of support to the settler colonial occupier.
7. For the Ukraine, international law advocates in Western world brought out the defence of the 4th Geneva Convention, brushed-up on definitions of war crimes and genocide but none of this applies to Palestine and Palestinians. One can add must of the Global South and the Muslim World suffer the same type of double standards when it comes to international law and 4th Geneva Convention. If you have a doubt for a moment then ask the Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians on this single point then we can have a large discussion. Lesson seven: Palestinians are made to live outside the scope of international law and the Western world delivers the weapons and instruments used by Israel to violate the 4th Geneva Convention and the Convention on Genocide. The Ukraine invasion made this very clear.
8. Media coverage rightly focused on the victims of the Russian invasion and the human stories with people taking weapons to defend their families, homes, and cities. Palestine always faces the media coverage that amplifies, humanises and centres the narrative of the settler colonial occupation, while erasing or often problematising Palestinian narrative in the often deployed euphemism of death during “clashes”, Israel having the right to defend itself or responding to rocket firing. Lesson eight: Palestinians are made to be the guilty party for wanting to live on their land and having the audacity to insist on it. Double standard and culpability of the Western world in furthering settler colonialism in Palestine.
9. Educational institutions across the Western World expressed solidarity with the Ukraine, again rightly so when a people face an invasion. Last April-May period, Israel launched a massive attack on the Palestinians on the holiest night of Ramadan, the 27th Night of Ramadan, then followed by a massive bombardment of Gaza. When faculty members, departments and students at universities expressed solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians, a steady stream of political figures, university presidents and media figures insisted that colleges and universities should not be politicised and to make sure that their internal policies prevent them from expressing such solidarity positions. Lesson nine: Palestine on college campuses always meets the administration, Zionist and settler colonial checkpoints that are structured to prevent solidarity with the Palestinians.
10. The push for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Russia are moving faster than the speed of light and often by the same set of characters that pushed for legislations to criminalise and punish the Palestinian BDS movement. Lesson ten: Palestine faces the constant double standard on the BDS front, free speech and constitutional rights. No clear evidence of double standard than to listen to the same individuals and groups who now are on the front line of seeking legislation to authorise BDS effort directed at Russia while on record opposing the Palestinian BDS Movement.

Professor Hatem Bazian is executive director of the Islamophobia Studies Center and a professor at Zaytuna College and lecturer in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and Asian American Studies, UC Berkeley.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor about Russian strikes on four radio and TV towers in Ukraine since March 1 that constitute a war crime.

The strikes have prevented Ukrainian media from broadcasting. At least 32 TV channels and several dozen radio stations have been affected, reports the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it has deliberately targeted TV antennae throughout the country.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Under international law, antennae used for broadcasting radio and TV signals cannot be regarded as legitimate military targets unless they are used by the armed forces, or are temporarily assigned to military use, or are used for both civilian and military purposes at the same time.

RSF’s complaint demonstrates that the TV towers were civilian in nature, and that Russia deliberately targeted Ukrainian media installations because, Russia said, these installations were participating in “information attacks”.

The complaint filed by RSF emphasises the intentional nature of these attacks, and the fact that they are being carried out on a large scale, which shows that they are part of a deliberate plan.

“Deliberately bombarding many media installations such as television antennae constitutes a war crime and demonstrates the scale of the offensive launched by Putin against the right to news and information,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

Plea on crimes against media
“These crimes are all the more serious for clearly being part of a plan, part of a policy, and for being carried out on a large scale. We call on the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to put crimes against media and journalists at the heart of the investigation he opened on February 28.”

The ICC’s chief prosecutor announced on February 28 that he was opening an investigation into the situation in Ukraine.

On March 2, 39 countries that are parties to the Rome Statute (the treaty establishing the ICC) formally referred the situation in Ukraine to the prosecutor.

These referrals allow him to begin his investigations at once, without having to seek authorisation from the court’s judges first.

After Kyiv being fired on by the Russian armed forces for the previous week, the city’s TV tower was hit by a precision strike on March 1 that abruptly terminated broadcasting by 32 TV channels and several dozen national radio stations.

This deliberate strike had been announced in advance by the Russian Defence Ministry. Under the guise of protecting civilians, the Defence Ministry issued a signed confession to its crimes.

The Kyiv TV tower — which had an adjoining technical building that was destroyed by the bombardment — had no military use and was used only by civilian TV and radio stations, such as the public TV channel UA Pershiy, the privately-owned TV channel 1+1 and the TV news channel Ukraine 24.

Broadcasts were cut short
The viewers and listeners of these media outlets, whose broadcasts were cut short by the Russian strike, had to switch to satellite operators or go online to access their programming until broadcasting was reinstated later in the day.

The Russian strike killed Evgeny Sakun, a cameraman working for the Kyiv Live local TV channel who was at the TV tower, and four other people.

Since that first major attack on an essential installation for accessing news and information, Russia has attacked other TV towers.

According to the information obtained by RSF and its local partner IMI, at least three other radio and TV towers, in Korosten, Lysychansk and Kharkiv, have been the targets of Russian strikes, and two radio antennae, in Melitopol and Kherson, stopped broadcasting after Russian soldiers took control of those cities.

Strikes targeted the TV tower in the city of Lysychansk (in the Luhansk region, whose independence Russia has recognised) late in the morning of March 2. The radio and TV tower in the northeastern city Kharkiv was targeted by two Russian missiles shortly before 1 pm, causing its broadcast to be suspended.

Later the same day, another strike destroyed the TV tower in the norther city of Korosten.

These strikes against telecommunications antennae show a clear intention by the Russian armed forces to prevent the dissemination of news and information. The warning issued shortly before the attacks makes it clear that Russian military want to end what they call “information attacks”.

This desire is confirmed by the fact that the Russian army has cut Ukrainian TV and radio signals in several cities after taking control of them. In the southern region that Russia has invaded from Crimea, the occupation forces have blocked Ukrainian TV and radio broadcasts from the telecommunication towers in the cities of Melitopol and Kherson.

Russian ‘fake news’ law cripples media
The equipment on these towers has been changed and they are now broadcasting the pro-Kremlin propaganda channel Russia 24.

The satellite signal of UA Pershiy, a TV channel owned by the Ukrainian public broadcasting corporation Suspline, is meanwhile being subjected to jamming attempts by Russia, and its website was hacked on March 1.

Meanwhile, RSF has called on the Russian authorities to immediately repeal a draconian law adopted on March 4 that makes the publication of “false” or “mendacious” information about the Russian armed forces punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

It leaves little hope for the future of the country’s few remaining independent media outlets.

• Читать на русском / Read in Russian

Many leading foreign media — including the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg News, ABC, CBS News and Canada’s CBC/Radio-Canada — have decided to temporarily suspend broadcasting or news gathering in Russia since the amendment, which applies to foreign as well as Russian citizens, was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine is ranked 97th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index, while Russia is ranked 150th.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

International media has been facing scrutiny from indigenous groups in the Pacific for the way it has been covering the Russia-Ukraine war.

Some have highlighted “double standards” among journalists who have brought attention to the plight of Ukrainians, while long-standing conflicts like those in Indonesia’s provinces of West Papua and Papua are often ignored.

Vanuatu’s opposition leader and former Foreign Minister Ralph Regenvanu said a media clampdown in West Papua had made it difficult for media to report on the situation there.

• LISTEN TO ABC PACIFIC BEAT: Ukraine’s war with Russia has been making world headlines — so why isn’t the conflict in West Papua?
• UN report calls for independent probe into ‘shocking’ rights abuses in Papua
• Other West Papua reports at Asia Pacific Report

“The media blackout is a big contributing factor,” he said.

“In Ukraine, at least, we have journalists from around the world, whereas in West Papua, they’re banned completely.”

This week, the United Nations issued a statement sounding the alarm on human rights abuses in Papua, and called for urgent aid.

It also urged the Indonesian government to conduct full and independent investigations into allegations of torture, extrajudicial killings and the displacement of thousands of West Papuans.

Independent observers refused
But Regenvanu said Indonesia had refused to allow independent observers into the territories.

“Indonesia has just refused point blank to do it, and has actually stepped up escalated the occupation in the military, suppression of the people there,” he said.

A senior US policy advisor to Congress, Paul Massaro, drew heat from indigenous activists online after he tweeted: “I’m racking my brain for a historical parallel to the courage and fighting spirit of the Ukrainians and coming up empty. How many peoples have ever stood their ground against an aggressor like this? It’s legendary.”

I’m racking my brain for a historical parallel to the courage and fighting spirit of the Ukrainians and coming up empty. How many peoples have ever stood their ground against an aggressor like this? It’s legendary

— Paul Massaro (@apmassaro3) February 26, 2022

Veronica Koman from Amnesty International said such commentaries about the situation in Ukraine ignored the many instances of indigenous resistance against colonisation.

“West Papuans have been fighting since the 1950s. First Nations in Australia have been fighting since more than 240 years ago,” Koman said.

“That’s how resilient the fights are … it’s just pointing out the the double standard.”

Koman said the West Papua and Papua provinces of Indonesia are currently experiencing some of the worst humanitarian crises.

The war in Ukraine will be televised, unlike West Papua. https://t.co/gZRXnK39rC

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) February 24, 2022

“Sixty thousand to 100,000 people are being displaced right now in West Papua due to armed conflict, and these displaced people are mostly ignored,” she said.

“They are not getting assisted and all because mostly they are in forests. And they are afraid to return to their homes so are just running away from Indonesian forces.

“The situation is really bad and deserves our attention. And Ukraine war shows us that another world is possible, if only there’s no double standards and racism.”

Republished with author’s and ABC Pacific Beat’s permission.

New Zealand’s official response to Russian aggression and violations of international law have so far been strong — but they could go further.

While no NATO-aligned country can — under any circumstances — put boots on the ground in Ukraine (which could lead to world war), New Zealand must do everything tangibly possible to oppose the Russian invasion.

To that end, New Zealand’s sanctions regime must be nothing less than those of its allies.

• READ MORE: Ukraine’s military is outgunned but can still inflict a great deal of pain on Russian forces
• ‘Just short of nuclear’: the latest financial sanctions will cripple Russia’s economy
• Ukraine invasion updates

This should extend to passing legislation under urgency to allow sanctions beyond those mandated by the United Nations (UN).

Avoiding the need for UN approval is essential because of Russia’s Security Council veto. As other like-minded countries provide military hardware to Ukraine, New Zealand should also consider offering logistical support, with non-lethal military aid such as body armour and medical packs being a minimum.

New Zealand should continue to strengthen its relationship with NATO and consider seeking to become an “enhanced opportunity partner” as Australia did in 2014.

Finally, the government needs to reflect on whether its current defence spend and strategic focus are adequate for the world we now live in.

Decline of the UN
These measures are warranted, given the state of the United Nations Charter. Designed to prevent the scourge of war and uphold international law, there are now tank tracks all over it.

In theory, UN member states promise to settle disputes by peaceful means and refrain from the threat or use of force against other sovereign nations. Those commitments are supplemented with bilateral arrangements.

In Wellington, New Zealand, the @Ukraine flag is flying high above the @NZParliament alongside our own to #StandWithUkraine in solidarity @UKRinUN pic.twitter.com/BPohRvnBHs

— NZ at the UN (@NZUN) February 28, 2022

Just such an arrangement underpinned Ukraine’s decision in 1994 to hand its nuclear arsenal over to Russia in return for Russia promising to respect its independence, sovereignty and existing borders.

But two decades of decline lie behind today’s crisis. Since the end of the 1990s we have witnessed the continued destabilisation of the international architecture designed to keep peace.

Erosion of international law
We can trace this decline to the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 1999. That same year, NATO (whose member states regard an attack on one as an attack on all) began to expand eastward.

The UN’s effectiveness was dealt a serious blow by the unlawful US invasion of Iraq in 2003, while further NATO expansion in 2004 added to Moscow’s anxiety. But Russia appeared to learn by example.

Military interventions in Chechnya and Georgia, and support for the Assad regime in Syria from 2011, were followed by Russian recognition of breakaway eastern regions of Ukraine in 2014 and its illegal annexation of Crimea the next year.

Russia then withdrew from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and in 2016 quit the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (which the US has never even joined).

Meanwhile, then-US president Donald Trump pulled out of the Intermediate Nuclear Range Treaty (which kept intermediate range nuclear weapons out of Europe) and then exited the Open Skies Treaty which gave European and allied nations the ability to verify arms control commitments.

LIVE: NZ to send $2m in humanitarian aid for Ukrainehttps://t.co/5xui226xbE pic.twitter.com/4q5lXlRJZw

— 1News (@1NewsNZ) February 28, 2022

Putin’s impossible demands
The net result is today’s parlous situation. Whether Russia will try to annex all or just some of Ukraine we cannot say.

But before the invasion Putin put peace offers on the table in the form of two draft treaties, one for the US and one for the other NATO states.

Essentially, Putin is proposing the removal of collective defence guarantees by NATO in eastern Europe. He believes this is fair, based on the unwritten promises after the Cold War that former Soviet bloc countries would not join NATO.

Those promises were never made into a legally binding treaty, however, and Putin now wants that changed. Specifically, he wants a rollback of NATO forces and weaponry in the former Soviet allies to 1997 levels.

Russia also wants the US to pledge it will prevent further eastward expansion of NATO, and a specific commitment that NATO will never allow Ukraine or other bordering nations (such as Georgia) to join the western alliance.

But the prospect of a nuclear power like Russia dictating what its neighbour states can or can’t join is untenable in 2022. If anything, applications to join NATO are more likely to increase in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.

Where now for NZ?
These are sobering times for small countries like like New Zealand that rely on a rules-based international order for their peace and security.

With the failure of various treaties and the basic principles of international law to deter Putin, and the UN rendered virtually impotent by Russia’s veto power, New Zealand needs other ways to respond to such superpower aggression.

Until a semblance of normality and respect for the UN Charter and international treaties return, small states must focus on their core foreign policy values and finding common ground with friends and allies.

By being part of a united front on sanctions, military aid, humanitarian assistance and defence, New Zealand can leverage its otherwise limited ability to influence events in an increasingly lawless world.

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ukrainians and their supporters at a protest on the New Zealand capital Wellington say it’s agonising not being able to help those at home, but are unimpressed at a request to merge protests with supporters of the Parliament grounds occupation.

The presence of two different protest groups at Wellington’s Civic Square yesterday produced an uncomfortable situation, as supporters of Ukraine and the Destiny Church-backed anti-covid-19 mandate Freedom and Rights Coalition group found their timing had clashed.

Some of the Ukrainian protest supporters were offended when asked to merge protests with the much smaller coalition group and march to Parliament together.

• READ MORE: Putin ‘will not stop at Ukraine’ – NZ protesters condemn Russian invasion
• LISTEN TO RNZ CHECKPOINT: ‘Sanctions aren’t going to save our lives’ – Tanya Harper
• PM condemns Russia’s Ukraine invasion which will claim many ‘innocent lives’
• Russia-Ukraine live updates: Battle for Kyiv intensifies
• Ukraine attack: Hundreds arrested in anti-war protests in Russia

It was the group’s second protest in the capital in as many days, as they oppose Russia’s invasion of the eastern European nation.

Only about 100 people were at the anti-vaccine coalition’s protest yesterday, despite more than 1000 people attending their previous two marches in the capital late last year.

This march had been planned to start at the square at 11am, and the Ukrainian protest was advertised for midday, but the coalition march did not vacate until about 12.15pm.

One of the Ukrainian protest coordinators, Tetiana Zhurba, said it would not be right to mix their protests. She came dressed in a yellow dress, with blue ribbon in her hair, to match the Ukrainian flag she was carrying.

‘It’s real war’
“We are here to support our families who are dying now and it’s terrible. It’s war — it’s real war — and this one [the Freedom and Rights Coalition march] is just batshit, I’m sorry.”

Zhurba, who is from Ukraine, said they decided to protest at Civic Square because it was a more public space than the Russian Embassy in Karori and Ukrainians were wanting to share stories with New Zealanders about what was happening to their family members in their home country.

Tanya Harper had lived in New Zealand about 20 years but her mum, brother and two nephews are still in Ukraine.

Harper had to beg her 74-year-old mother to flee her house in Kyiv.

“I said you don’t have a choice, none of us want to go. I said think of my kids, this is the only way you’re going to get through it; you can’t just lie down and decide you’re not going,” she said.

“It’s awful, awful telling your mother to do that.”

The last time Harper heard from any of them was Friday night, but she trusted her brother and nephews were still alive by checking the “last active” timestamp of messaging platforms Whatsapp and Viber.

‘He’s still alive’
“So you know an hour ago he’s still alive but you don’t know if he’s going to be alive by morning.”

Like Harper, Olena Pokydko felt “helpless” being in New Zealand. Both were wearing traditional Ukrainian shirts — vyshyvanka — and Pokydko explained the embroidery traditionally represented different regions of the country.

Pokydko was worried about her family, but particularly her sister who was a doctor at a hospital in Kyiv.

“All I can do is talk to them on the phone when they’re scared,” she said. Her sister rang her on Thursday while at work and could hear bombs.

“She needs to be thinking about how to rescue people, not about what to do and how to hide, and where to find the nearest bomb shelter … she doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her any second.”

Pokydko felt protesting was “the best we can do while living in New Zealand”.

However, she hoped the government would recognise the support they were receiving and put tighter sanctions in place against Russia.

The Ukrainian protest group planned to move to the Russian embassy, where they also protested on Friday.

Zhurba said this was to communicate their anger to Russia.

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

The invasion of Ukraine is likely to have a signficant impact on the Pacific, warns a senior USP academic.

On Thursday, Russia launched a massive invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.

More than 100 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been killed in the fighting so far, with no figures for the Russians.

• READ MORE: New Zealand’s reaction: PM condemns Russia’s Ukraine invasion which will claim many ‘innocent lives’
• Australian PM imposes sanctions on Russia – world reacts
• Putin ‘will not stop at Ukraine’ – NZ protesters condemn Russian invasion

The invasion has put a strain on diplomacy around the world, with both Australia and New Zealand imposing sanctions on Russia and protesters picketed the Russian embassy in the capital Wellington on Friday.

Although geographically removed from the conflict the Pacific Nations should be concerned about the negative effect this war will have on multilateralism says Sandra Tarte, an Associate Professor at the University of the South Pacific and the Acting Head of the School for Law and Social Sciences.

“Multilateralism is on its knees, it’s in tatters,” Professor Tarte said. “Particularly for the smaller island countries, we really need multilateralism to protect ourselves.

“We don’t have power as such in the entire system. We rely on multilateralism and institutions like the UN and the rule of law.”

Professor Tarte also said that Pacific countries would feel an economic impact.

“We will see perhaps markets react, we will see confidence plummet,” she explained . “There might be supply chain issues with the oil markets.

“We are all connected. Through this global supply chain, we will see potential effects.”

EU targets Russian economy
The European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to impose new economic sanctions on Russia, joining the United States and Britain in admonishing President Vladimir Putin and his allies for invading Ukraine.

Leaders of the 27-nation bloc lambasted Putin at an emergency summit in Brussels, describing him as “a deluded autocrat creating misery for millions”.

The EU will freeze Russian assets in the bloc and halt its banks’ access to European financial markets.

These moves are part of what EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described as “the harshest package of sanctions we have ever implemented”.

The EU’s Ambassador to the Pacific, Sujiro Seam, echoed the sentiments of world leaders and “condemned the unprovoked and unjustified military actions” of Russia.

This is a gross violation of international law, Seam said, and he stated that the EU Office in Suva would reach out to its partners in the region to condemn Russia’s actions.

Seam hoped that Fiji, which had championed multilateralism in the United Nations, would support sanctions against Russia.

FSM severs diplomatic relations with Russia
The Federated of the Micronesia has severed diplomatic relations with Russia following the brutal invasion of Ukraine.

In a statement, the FSM government said it condemned the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine and the unjustified and brutal assault on its people and territory.

President David Panuelo said the FSM condemned any actions which threatened global peace and stability and the rules-based international order.

He said the FSM would only entertain renewing diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation when the latter demonstrated actionable commitments to peace, friendship, cooperation, and love in common humanity.

Fiji condemns Russia’s actions
Fiji has joined the international community in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In a Friday social media post, Fiji’s Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said that Fijians were praying for the people of Ukraine.

He called for an end to all the “hostilities and any violations of the international rule of law”.

Sayed-Khaiyum urged the warring parties to return to the diplomatic table, echoing the call for peace from UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Guterres addressed the UN General Assembly calling for negotiations, to save the people of Ukraine from the scourge of war.

Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Satyendra Prasad, echoed his government’s support of the UN’s call for a de-escalation of conflict.

On his official Twitter account, Prasad stated that Fiji supported the “UN’s efforts to have a swift return to the path of dialogue between the two warring nations”.

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

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been met with despair and anger in New Zealand.

Nearly 100 people gathered at the Russian embassy in the capital Wellington today, at a protest organised by the Ukrainian Gromada of Wellington.

Fake blood was plastered over the gate and driveway, and protesters were shouting the likes of “blood on your hands” and “hands off Ukraine”.

• LISTEN TO RNZ CHECKPOINT: ‘Sanctions aren’t going to save our lives’ – Tanya Harper
• PM condemns Russia’s Ukraine invasion which will claim many ‘innocent lives’
• Russian troops advance on Kyiv as Ukrainian leader pleads for help
• Ukraine attack: Hundreds arrested in anti-war protests in Russia

Tanya Harper has family in Ukraine and did not know if her nephew was still alive.

“I spoke [to him] this morning, he sent a message saying they’re not evacuating, they’re not allowed to leave the building.They can see fighting on the streets from the apartment where he is and it’s very scary.”

Sanctions have come thick and fast from Western nations — but it was cold comfort for Harper.

“Sanctions aren’t going to save our lives, they know it’s too late for sanctions again – I want to see my Mum again, I want to see my brother.”

Lana, who did not give her last name, said she was afraid for her community.

“I can’t tell you how scared we are – my Mum almost ended up in the hospital this morning, she’s at home, she couldn’t even come here. I didn’t sleep last night, she didn’t sleep last night, I don’t think anyone in the Ukrainian community had one hour of sleep last night — we are constantly in contact because of our relatives and friends back there.”

Igor Titov had been speaking to his family back in Kyiv.

‘He will not stop at Ukraine’ – Dozens protest Putin at embassy https://t.co/BknNIqHwHV

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) February 25, 2022

“Yesterday, I was on the phone with my Mum, I was preparing her to evacuate from her own apartment, I was waking up my friends from the shelling.”

Tetiana Zhurba and Nataliya Stepuroi wrapped the colours of the Ukraine flag around a brick post by the entrance of the embassy.

“Why we did it here near Russian embassy, [is] because Russia — everywhere in our territory — when they come … they [put] up their flags in every village,” Zhurba said.

“I want [the embassy staff] to see our colours when they wake up in the morning, and go to dinner in the evening — I want them to see those colours when they leave and they’re coming back,” Stepuroi said.

Elsewhere in New Zealand, Ukrainians told RNZ they were horrified.

Inga Tokarenko spent all morning on the phone to her family who were sheltering underground.

“Yesterday, they woke up to a bombing, because of the hit of the wave from the bomb – it shook their windows. So they woke up I called them this morning and they were already heading off to the underground facility. They can feel the shockwaves.”

Northland woman Olya Tolpyhina said what was happening in her home country felt surreal.

Her parents live in the west of the country and chose to stay and fight — offering up their home to those who have been displaced.

“So they’re waiting for people to arrive and they keep safe — but they have a lot of people stuck in traffic, because all major airports were bombed.”

She said people in New Zealand and around the world needed to protest against Russia’s attacks and she did not believe they would stop with Ukraine.

“My biggest desire is no World War III. I don’t know what sick thoughts Putin has in his mind, but he will not stop at Ukraine when he gets it.”

Protests condemning Russia’s actions will continue over the weekend across the country.

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

Russian troops advance on Kyiv as Ukrainian leader pleads for help https://t.co/0nIEdvZIAH

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) February 25, 2022

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand joins its international partners in condemnation of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and has immediately taken a range of measures against the Russian government.

Giving a statement today about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ardern said Russia began a “military offensive and an illegal invasion” yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine and launched a full-scale land, sea and air attack on the country.

• READ MORE: New Zealand announces bans on Russia in reply to Ukraine invasion

Putin said his goal was the “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine, but US President Joe Biden has asserted the evidence clearly showed Russia was the aggressor and it had no evidence for its justifications.

New Zealand has joined with the United Nations in launching economic sanctions against Russia.

Ardern said: “The UK’s Ministry of Defence communicated this morning that more than 80 strikes have been carried out against Ukrainian targets and that Russian ground forces are advancing across the border on at least three axis from north and northeast, and south from Crimea.

“There are reports of attacks in a range of locations around Ukraine, including heavy shelling in eastern Ukraine and fighting in some areas, including around airports and other targets of strategic importance.

‘Unthinkable’ loss of lives
“By choosing to pursue this entirely avoidable path, an unthinkable number of innocent lives could be lost because of Russia’s decision,” she said.

New Zealand called on Russia to do what was right and immediately cease military operations, and permanently withdraw to avoid a “catastrophic and pointless loss of innocent life”, she said.

The invasion posed a significant threat to peace and security in the region and would trigger a humanitarian and refugee crisis, she said.

Russia had demonstrated a disregard for diplomacy and efforts to avoid conflict in the lead-up to the attack, she said, and “must now face the consequences of their decision to invade”.

As a permanent UN Security Council member, Russia has “displayed a flagrant disregard for international law and abdicated their responsibility to uphold global peace and security” and now must face the consequences, Ardern said.

New Zealand has immediately imposed measures in response which include targeted travel bans against Russian officials and other individuals associated with the invasion. They will be banned from obtaining visas to enter or transit New Zealand.

Secondly, this country is prohibiting the export of goods to Russian military and security forces.

Blanket ban a ‘significant step’
“While exports from New Zealand under this category are limited, a blanket ban is a significant step as it removes the ability for exporters to apply for a permit and sends a clear signal of support to Ukraine,” she said.

Finally, New Zealand has suspended bilateral ministry consultations until further notice.

Ardern says there will be a significant cost imposed on Russia for its actions. New Zealand will also consider humanitarian response options, she said.

“Finally our thoughts today are with the people in Ukraine affected by this conflict. Decades of peace and security in the region have been undermined.

“The institutions built to avoid conflict have been threatened and we stand resolute in our support for those who now bear the brunt of Russia’s decisions.”

She again called for Russia to cease military actions and return to diplomatic negotiations to resolve the conflict.

During questions from journalists, Ardern said New Zealand was not constrained by being unable to launch autonomous sanctions.

Additional measures
“There are additional measures that we can take. Obviously already you’ll see those targeted travel bans, we do have the ability to extend those as required and as those involved with this activity grows,” she said.

“We also have the ability to continue to restrict the amount of diplomatic engagement that we have … and obviously the autonomous sanction regimes that have been proposed in the past don’t for instance cover situations of human rights violations.”

Ardern admitted there were some limitations on economic sanctions New Zealand could impose, but the government continued to get advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the tools that could be used and “we want them all to be on the table”.

The measures New Zealand has imposed are limited but send a very clear message.

“What this does say is that there’s no ability to apply or seek to export … this is a blanket ban,” she says.

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

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, New Zealand’s government is implementing a range of measures, including a travel ban on Russian officials and limiting diplomatic engagements.

Earlier today, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta condemned Russia’s actions and said she would provide another update later.

An adviser to Ukraine’s president said about 40 people had been killed so far amid Russia’s invasion with multiple air, land and sea attacks, according to Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: Russia-Ukraine live news: Moscow launches full-scale invasion
• Russia invades Ukraine in Europe’s ‘darkest hours’ since World War II
• Selwyn Manning and Dr Paul Buchanan on Russia, Ukraine and global bipolarity

Oleksii Arestovich, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s aide, also said that several dozen people had been wounded. He did not specify whether the casualties included civilians.

In a statement after 10.30pm, Mahuta and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern released a joint statement once again condemning Russia and calling on the country to cease its military operations in Ukraine.

“This is an unprovoked and unnecessary attack by Russia,” Ardern said. “By choosing to pursue this entirely avoidable path, an unthinkable number of innocent lives could be lost because of Russia’s decision.

“We call on Russia to do what is right and immediately cease military operations in Ukraine, and permanently withdraw to avoid a catastrophic and pointless loss of innocent life.”

International efforts disregarded
Mahuta said Russia had disregarded consistent international efforts for a diplomatic de-escalation of the Ukraine crisis and “they must now face the consequences of their decision to invade”.

New Zealand will introduce targeted a travel ban against Russian government officials and other individuals associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, prohibit the export of goods to Russian military and security forces, and suspend bilateral foreign ministry engagement until further notice.

The travel ban will stop intended individuals from obtaining visas to enter or transit New Zealand.

The government said while exports from New Zealand under the now-prohibited category were extremely limited, a blanket ban removed the ability for exporters to apply for a permit, and sent a clear signal of support to Ukraine.

“Officials have been engaging with affected businesses about the possible economic and trade impacts a military conflict could have on them. Russia is our 27th largest export market, with dairy accounting for about of half of those exports,” Mahuta said.

“In applying these measures, New Zealand joins other members of the international community, in responding to this breach of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

The new sanctions are in addition to existing bans put in place following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Mahuta said she had also asked officials to give advice on how New Zealand could contribute to possible humanitarian response options, given “serious concerns” about the military conflict.

She said her “thoughts today are with the people in Ukraine impacted by this conflict”.

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

Hundreds of Russian fishing crew at a New Zealand covid isolation hotel in Christchurch are said to be in good spirits and those who have the virus are doing well.

Eighteen of the 237 foreign workers at the Sudima Hotel are infected with covid-19.

They will all be tested again today with more positive cases expected.

• READ MORE: NZ has 25 new covid cases – 23 at border, 2 related to port worker
• Covid-19 outbreak among Russian fishers at NZ isolation facility

Sealord is one of the three companies which bought the crew into the country to work on its deep-sea trawlers.

Chief executive Doug Paulin managed to speak to some of them yesterday.

“We’ve been able to find out that they’re feeling positive, they’re feeling well looked after.

“They appreciate the lengths that the facility are going to to make sure they’re kept isolated and that protocols are being followed.”

No ‘adverse affects’
Those who have tested positive are not feeling too unwell he said.

“As far as we know none of them have any significant adverse affects [and are] feeling very well-managed in that facility.”

Paulin said they understood they would probably have to stay in isolation longer.

That also meant the trawlers were left sitting in port but he said that was not the company’s top priority.

“Our concern is around the welfare of our crew, there will likely be a delay because the Ministry of Health need to work through everyone being covid-19 free before they leave the facility then it needs to be cleaned before the next plane arrives into the country.”

Anna Filippochkina from the Russian Cultural Centre in Christchurch is worried about the crew being sick so far from home.

She has not spoken to the crew directly but expects anyone in their situation would find it stressful.

“They might feel lonely, they don’t know what to expect in the future so support from the community is very important and that’s what we want to do.”

She said the Russian community is going to come up with a plan to make the workers feel more at home.

Next chartered flight may be delayed
Health Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Morning Report the next chartered flight, due on November 2, could be delayed.

“The next charter flight will not come to New Zealand until we have cleared this one which means that it will be delayed if we need to because we don’t want to overcrowd that facility,” he said

“There is a lot of cooperation from the fishing companies who are chartering these flights, bearing in mind that this is the facility that they are paying for, that this is 100 percent their cost and they are being cooperative.”

Hipkins said the ministry would need the majority of the crew currently staying at the Sudima to have been released before the next plane can arrive.

He said a review found all the PPE requirements had been met at the Sudima and the transport from the airport to the hotel.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Some 11 cases of covid-19 have been confirmed at a New Zealand managed isolation facility (MIQ) in Christchurch, with another 14 possible cases being investigated.

The Ministry of Health said last night it was investigating after the cases were detected during routine day three testing.

None involved cases in the community, it said.

• READ MORE: Covid-19: ‘Major outbreak’ at Christchurch isolation facility housing dozens of international fishermen

The ministry said the positive cases were part of a group who were the only people staying at this facility.

Further details would be reported today, it said.

Stuff has reported several new cases have been detected at the Sudima Hotel where a number of international fishers are staying.

RNZ reported last week that more than 400 foreign fishers were headed to New Zealand to crew deep sea trawlers after failing to find Kiwis to fill the jobs.

Charter flight from Russia
A charter flight from Russia arrived in Christchurch on Friday, where the first 200 crew began managed isolation.

The crew are mostly Russians with others coming from Ukraine. Russia has recorded more than 1.3 million cases of covid-19 – the fourth highest number of any country.

Seafood New Zealand chief executive Jeremy Helson said all the men were tested before they flew to New Zealand.

“All of these fishers were covid tested before they took the charter flight into New Zealand. All crewmen tested negative. This pre-flight test was beyond what the government required,” Helson said.

“While we wait to see how many cases there are, the fact that they were all detected in quarantine shows the system is working well.”

Healthcare, isolation stays to be paid by fishing companies
Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin told RNZ Checkpoint he only knew what had been reported in the media and had not been contacted by the Ministry of Health or managed isolation and quarantine.

“I imagine that will take place in the near future,” he said.

“They’ll have a protocol and a process they need to follow and I think the most positive thing we can take out of this is that border protection at work.”

A total 237 Russian and Ukrainian fishermen arrived in Christchurch on Friday – to work for Sealord, IFL and Maruha – with 69 of those from Sealord. Paulin said all the workers came in on a private charter flight from Russia and only fishers and air crew would have been on the plane.

Paulin said he had no regrets about bringing the workers to New Zealand.

“This is a significant economic issue for not only the fishing companies themselves, but to a raft of other companies across New Zealand.

“There are no Kiwi workers that can do these jobs. Some of these fishermen have been fishing for 25 years.

“They have qualifications which take many years to receive and – at this point in time – there are not enough New Zealanders who actually have those qualifications to do those roles.”

Paulin said any additional costs such as healthcare or longer stays would be looked after by the fishing companies.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.