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Asia Pacific Report

Asia Pacific Report
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‘Race was used as a weapon’ – Fiji coup frontman urged to reveal backers

July 16, 2026

By Margot Staunton of RNZ Pacific Mahendra Chaudhry — a former Fiji prime minister removed from power and held hostage during the 2000 coup — wants George Speight to name those behind the racist takeover. The 84-year-old Labour Party leader, who became Fiji’s first prime minister of Indian heritage in 1999, made the comment after

Asia Pacific Report
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Jeremy Rose: New Zealand joins the arms race to climate calamity

July 16, 2026

COMMENTARY: By Jeremy Rose Late last year, the British government suppressed a report that contained warnings from its intelligence agencies that climate change could drive mass migration and trigger a nuclear war in Asia. A copy of the report, obtained by The Times, warned of collapsing ecosystems potentially triggering acts of eco-terrorism, and the possibility

Asia Pacific Report
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The toll-keeper of Hormuz – how the US just buried its own ‘freedom of seas’ doctrine

July 15, 2026

COMMENTARY: By Lim Tean The most important response to Trump’s Hormuz announcement did not come from Beijing, Brussels or the United Nations. It came from Tehran, and it was four words long. “POTUS is absolutely right.” That was Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, replying to the President’s declaration that the United States would henceforth be

Asia Pacific Report
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Vanuatu to take decades-long dispute with France to international court

July 15, 2026

By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific Vanuatu will escalate a decades-long dispute with France over two uninhabited islands to international arbitrators. Talks between the two countries left everything to be desired on June 30, with neither country budging on its claim of sovereignty. The Matthew and Hunter Islands have been controlled by France for decades,

Asia Pacific Report
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NZ’s Pacific Islands Forum budget could face a $10m squeeze, OIA reveals

July 15, 2026

By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific Cash set aside to host the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in New Zealand next year may fall short of what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) expected it to cost. RNZ Pacific has received a document from MFAT under the Official Information Act (OIA) that puts potential

Asia Pacific Report
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How Tehran turned Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral into a media event

July 15, 2026

Pacific Media Watch Once again, the Strait of Hormuz is at the centre of the latest escalation in the war between Iran, the United States and their allies, reports Al Jazeera’s media watchdog The Listening Post. The ceasefire collapsed just days after millions of Iranians took to the streets last week to pay homage to

Asia Pacific Report
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Antisemitic, really? Jewish leader speaks out on Australia’s Royal Commission hypocrisy

July 14, 2026

The tide has turned a little at Australia’s Royal Commission into Antisemitism with a second Jewish witness breaking from the Israel narrative. Michael West Media reports. COMMENTARY: By Jeffrey Loewenstein Sarah Schwartz, co-founder of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week. I venture

Asia Pacific Report
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Dilapidated infrastructure blamed for fatal PNG prison escape attempt

July 14, 2026

By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific The Papua New Guinea Correctional Service (PNGCS) has confirmed three prisoners have been killed in the Western Highlands Province while attempting an escape. The inmates, who scaled the fence at Baisu Prison, were shot dead, while five others were critically injured on Sunday afternoon. Two other escapees remain at

Asia Pacific Report
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Lim Tean: The Hormuz ‘guardian’ turns pirate – 20% for tribute

July 14, 2026

COMMENTARY: By Lim Tean The United States went to war to stop Iran charging tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. It has now imposed a toll 15 times larger. Where is the “international waterway” chorus now? For five months, we were treated to a sermon. Foreign ministries from Brussels to Tokyo to the Gulf capitals

Asia Pacific Report
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Sam Neill: NZ’s biggest but modest movie star dies at 78

July 14, 2026

RNZ Digital reporters Sam Neill was New Zealand’s biggest international film star, yet was a modest man who shied from the media spotlight. He has died at 78. He was born in Northern Ireland to a British mother and a New Zealand father stationed there with the British army. The family moved to New Zealand