Irish President Catherine Connolly’s sister is among the Gaza-bound Global Sumud flotilla activists detained by Israeli forces, reports Middle East Monitor.

Dr Margaret Connolly was among at least six Irish citizens aboard the aid flotilla detained by Israel, the Irish Independent reported, citing activists.

At least two New Zealanders — Hāhona Ormsby and Julien Blondel — have also been detained, according to the Global Sumud Aotearoa — support delegation.

A third New Zealander, Mousa Taher, was still sailing toward Gaza aboard the Kasri Sadabat.

According to the Global Sumud Flotilla, 10 boats from a 60-vessel convoy were intercepted in international waters and boarded by Israeli forces earlier on Monday.

Organisers said the interception took place around 70 nautical miles off the island of Cyprus, with at least six of the 15 Irish participants detained.

The flotilla released videos from Connolly and five other activists that appeared to have been recorded before the interception.

‘If you are watching . . . ‘
“If you are watching this video, it means I have been kidnapped from my boat in the flotilla by the Israeli occupying forces, and I’m now being held illegally in an Israeli prison,” Connolly said in the video.

“I am so proud to be taking part in this flotilla — it is the largest to date,” she added.

The Israeli army attacked and intercepted the Gaza-bound Global Sumud humanitarian flotilla in international waters and detained around 100 activists as the mission sought to break Israel’s blockade on the Palestinian enclave.

The flotilla, consisting of more than 50 boats, set sail on Thursday from the Turkish Mediterranean district of Marmaris in a renewed attempt to break the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007.

Organisers said the mission included 426 participants, among them 96 Turkish activists and participants from 39 other countries, including Germany, the US, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Algeria, Indonesia, Morocco, France, South Africa, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia, Oman and New Zealand.

On April 29, Israeli forces also attacked the Global Sumud aid flotilla off the coast of the Greek island of Crete.

Pacific Media Watch reports: A Global Sumud Aotearoa statement said today: “Overnight, the Israeli military has illegally boarded and intercepted over 35 vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla, including the two vessels carrying New Zealanders Hāhona Ormsby and Julien Blondel.

“Hāhona and Julien are now in israeli custody.

“New Zealander Mousa Taher is aboard one of 18 vessels still sailing through the night to Gaza.

“The safe and unimpeded passage of the remaining vessels is protected under international law, including the UNCLOS Treaty.

“We sail with the legacy of a people who have resisted for eight decades, rooted in steadfastness, in Sumud. We will not stop until the siege is broken and until Palestine is free.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Greenpeace International has condemned Israeli armed forces for illegally attacking a peaceful Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters for the second time.

The flobal environmental movement said in a statement it echoed the Global Sumud Flotilla’s urgent demand for safe passage for their peaceful humanitarian mission.

“Governments must act now to stop these illegal acts of aggression,” the Greenpeace statement said.

Greenpeace spokesperson Pujarini Sen said: “In Palestine, in Lebanon and now in international waters, Israel’s disregard for human rights and international law cannot be tolerated.

“How long will the world stand by and watch Israel act with such impunity?

‘Protect the flotilla’
“Greenpeace calls on all governments to act with urgency to uphold international law and ensure the immediate release and protection of the Global Sumud Flotilla with concrete steps to ensure its safe passage to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla is a peaceful international movement sailing to oppose Israel’s genocidal siege on Gaza, to confront the complicity that enables occupation, and to stand with the Palestinian people.

The Israeli government continues to enforce a blockade by land and sea of aid and food from international organisations. Blocking aid and targeting those who attempt to deliver it are violations of international humanitarian law.⁣

CPJ protest over journalists
In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on international governments to demand the immediate release and protection of all civilians detained after Israeli forces attacked and intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, including at least seven journalists on board.

“Detaining journalists for documenting a humanitarian mission is a grave violation of press freedom and international law,” said CPJ’s MENA regional director Sara Qudah in a statement.

“Israeli authorities must restore communications, ensure the safety of all passengers, and allow independent media to report without intimidation, violence, or arbitrary detention.

“Governments worldwide must act now to prevent further Israeli attacks on journalists and humanitarian civilians.”

At least 40 countries are represented by some 500 protesters and humanitarian activists on board the flotilla.

Israel is reported to have boarded and seized more than 60 boats in the flotilla.

At least two New Zealanders are reported to have been kidnapped by the Israeli military.

CPJ calls on international governments to demand the immediate release and protection of all civilians detained after #Israeli forces attacked and intercepted #the_Global_Sumud_Flotilla in international waters, including at least 7 #journalists on board. Detaining journalists for… pic.twitter.com/OpcQ33Jgrj

— CPJ MENA (@CPJMENA) May 18, 2026

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand needs to summon Israeli ambassador to protest over the illegal and brutal treatment of Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid activists — including three New Zealanders — kidnapped in international waters this week.

Peace activists are demanding this in the response to Israel ambassadors being summoned by several host governments over the “degrading” treatment.

Media footage broadcast by Al Jazeera and other media show Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting activists in Israeli custody, including the three New Zealanders — Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel and Hāhona Jason Ormsby.

The latest protest came from the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, who condemned a video showing Ben-Gvir abusing activists as they were forced to kneel on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs.

Kallas described the treatment of the abducted activists as “degrading and wrong” and said rightwing minister Ben-Gvir’s conduct was “unbecoming of anyone holding office in a democracy”.

Several countries — including Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Canada — have summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their capitals to express “indignation” over Israel’s treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists.

Other countries condemning the incident include South Korea, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, Turkiye, Austria, Belgium, Colombia and the United Kingdom.

Ben-Gvir’s actions ‘unacceptable’
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot denounced Ben-Gvir’s actions as “unacceptable”, calling for the release of French citizens “as soon as possible”.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand called the incident “deeply troubling”, adding that Ottawa would summon the Israeli ambassador over the incident.

“The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice and the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission,” a flotilla organiser, Brazilian Thiago Ávila, posted on X. “But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day.”

All 428 activists from 40 countries were part of the peaceful flotilla of more than 50 boats taking humanitarian aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel’s illegal blockade.

“We call on the Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, to summon the Israeli Ambassador,” said Valerie Morse, member of Peace Action Wellington.

“He needs to stand up for these New Zealanders who are being detained illegally and tortured by the Israeli military.

“The video footage shows the activists held in stress positions while Ben-Gvir parades around shouting at them.

‘Peters ignored responsibilities’
“Thus far, he has completely ignored his responsibilities as Foreign Minister. We have not heard a word of condemnation for Israel’s blatant kidnapping of ordinary people peacefully sailing in the Mediterranean Sea,” Morse said.

“Peters is greenlighting more Israeli impunity by failing to take action for New Zealanders in extremely vulnerable positions.

“He must demand the immediate release of these New Zealanders without delay and without harm.”

The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice & the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission. But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day pic.twitter.com/8Z7mgJa5uc

— Thiago Ávila (@thiagoavilabr) May 20, 2026

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

At least 87 people kidnapped by Israeli forces from a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza have begun a hunger strike, say organisers, after Israeli forces intercepted the last remaining vessel in international waters.

The group is striking “in protest of their illegal abduction and in solidarity with the over 9500 Palestinian hostages held in Israeli dungeons”, the Global Sumud Flotilla wrote on X, reports Al Jazeera.

Late on Tuesday evening, Israeli forces “kidnapped” six people on board the Lina al-Nabulsi boat, organisers said.

The boat was the last in a group of more than 50 vessels that left Turkiye’s port city of Marmaris last week to sail towards Gaza, with the goal of breaking Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed late on Tuesday that its forces were taking hundreds of flotilla participants to Israel.

“Another PR flotilla has come to an end. All 430 activists have been transferred to Israeli vessels and are making their way to Israel, where they will be able to meet with their consular representatives,” a ministry spokesman said, calling the effort “nothing more than a PR stunt.”

Israeli forces began overtaking the vessels in international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Monday, organisers said, where they raided boats, allegedly fired rubber bullets and abducted participants.

Nine Indonesians, 3 New Zealanders
The detainees included nine Indonesian citizens, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Indonesia called for the immediate release of all vessels and said that “every diplomatic channel and consular measure will continue to be fully utilised”.

Some 15 Irish citizens, including Dr Margaret Connolly, the sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, were among those being held.

Countries including Turkiye, Spain, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Libya, and the Maldives denounced the Israeli interceptions as “blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.

Three New Zealanders were also abducted on the flotllla but their government has not spoken out. They are Mousa Taher, turning 39 next week; Hāhona Ormsby, 56; and Julien Blondel, 47.

The United States, however, imposed sanctions on four activists for their involvement in flotillas that have tried to reach Gaza, claiming without evidence that the organisers were acting “in support of Hamas”.

Some previous flotilla participants have refused food upon being detained by Israel.

Pro-Palestine activists jailed in the UK also participated in a high-profile, months-long hunger strike that began last year and led to severe health effects.

NZ EMBASSY (responsible for the illegally occupied Palestinian terroritories) in Ankara, Turkey
+90(312)4463333
Email: NZEmbassyAnkara@mfat.govt.nz

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Türkiye has condemned Israel’s intervention against the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, describing it as “a new act of piracy”, reports TRT World News.

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Israeli forces had yesterday intervened against the flotilla, which was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Three New Zealanders were reported to be facing illegal interception — including Hāhona Ormsby, Mousa Taher, and Julien Blondel — according to Sumud Flotilla statement.

The Turkish ministry said: “We condemn the intervention carried out by Israeli forces in international waters against the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was formed to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and which constitutes a new act of piracy.”

The ministry noted that citizens from nearly 40 countries were on board the flotilla of more than 50 vessels and said Israel’s “attacks and intimidation policies” would not prevent international solidarity with the Palestinian people.

It called on Israel to immediately halt the intervention and unconditionally release the detained participants.

The ministry also said Turkish authorities were taking necessary steps to ensure the safe return of Turkish citizens aboard the flotilla and were closely monitoring developments in coordination with other countries.

Israeli military attack
The Israeli army attacked the Gaza-bound Global Sumud humanitarian flotilla in international waters on Monday. Live broadcasts from the flotilla showed Israeli naval forces intercepting the vessels one by one.

Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that activists detained aboard the flotilla were being transferred to a navy ship described as a “floating prison” before being taken to the port of Ashdod.

The Global Sumud aid flotilla demanded “safe passage” for its humanitarian mission to Gaza, accusing Israel of carrying out “illegal acts of piracy.”

In a statement, the flotilla said Israeli forces attacked the first of its boats “in broad daylight” in international waters while military vessels intercepted the fleet.

“We demand safe passage for our legal, non-violent humanitarian mission,” the statement said.

A Sumud Flotilla Aotearoa statement in Auckland last night said three of the boats being illegally intercepted carried New Zealanders on board. They were reported to be:

Hāhona Ormsby aboard the Diabolo
Mousa Taher aboard the Kasri Sadabat
Julien Blondel aboard the Abodes

“This is an illegal interception of a peaceful humanitarian flotilla sailing under international law.” said Phoebe McLean of the Aotearoa Delegation.

“We must speak out. We must protect our people. We must protect Palestine.”

‘Propaganda campaign’
In a background statement, the Aotearoa Delegation statement said this latest military interception followed a “coordinated week-long propaganda campaign” broadcast by state-controlled Israeli regime media outlets, and amplified by their own “self-proclaimed propaganda yacht filled with influencers spreading the israeli regime’s lies”.

“This established playbook seeks to manufacture consent to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity against an unarmed, non-violent civil society mission composed of doctors, journalists, and humanitarians.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla legal team has formally stated that the participants are entirely unarmed, and any violence executed on these vessels remains the sole legal responsibility of the israeli regime.

Active criminal investigations are moving forward across 20 countries, and individual liability will also be pursued in international courts for all forces “enforcing this genocidal siege”, the statement said.

Also, the naval interception of the flotilla “occurs in tandem with an aggressive containment strategy on land”.

The Global Sumud Land Convoy — comprising more than 30 vehicles, including 7 specialised ambulances and 20 mobile homes — has been halted near Sirte, Libya.

Eastern Libyan authorities, reportedly acting under direct political pressure from Egypt, have positioned military forces to block the overland humanitarian route toward Rafah.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

What a blast at the Auckland Writers Festival today, I had tickets for Marika and I to attend Palestinian writer Tareq Baconi’s talk and decided to dress up and wear my Palestine-flag-dress.

Little did I know the stir it would cause — the Aotea Centre security literally chased me through the building and around the auditorium where Tareq would be talking, saying I had to “remove my flag”.

But it was attached to my dress, so it was not “removeable” — unless I took my dress off (which was an option if things got too heated).

So I kept on walking, staying in view of all the people who were witnessing and sticking up for me. Yes, members of the public were challenging those security guards chasing me and questioning them about why I couldn’t keep my flag-dress as it was.

This went on until I managed to disappear into the rows of seats — what a great example of humanity that was. Later, after the talk, when I met gorgeous Tareq for the book signing, he also praised the dress and the action to dodge the security guards (there was only one witness who totally disappointed by their lack of support and sourness).

But the rest of humanity was totally behind this unplanned and unintentional statement.

Kathrine Ross is an activist with the Palestine Soidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This commentary was first published on her Facebook page.

• Palestinian scholar Tareq Baconi’s moving memoir, Fire In Every Direction, as described in the festival storybook: “At once a love story, a coming-of-age tale and diasporic narrative, it takes us from the Middle East to London, and from 1948 to the present, as Baconi traces generations of his family’s displacement through war, as well as his own political and queer awakening in the face of other forms of exile and expression.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s media workers finally got to celebrate their World Press Freedom Day this week 11 days late — on Thursday, May 14.

The event was pushed back from its traditional May 3 global date — which fell on a Sunday this year — to accommodate a packed news cycle dominated by parliamentary sittings and the Coca-Cola Games.

The events across Suva and Savusavu highlighted both the grit of local journalists and the very real threats still hovering over the industry.

In the capital Suva, the day started before sunrise. At 5am journalists met at the Bowling Club for a morning walk down to My Suva Park and back, catching up over a networking breakfast.

Later that evening, the focus shifted to Gordon House at the British High Commissioner’s Residence for a reception backed by BBC Media Action, Women in Media Fiji, and the Fijian Media Association (FMA).

Permanent Secretary for Information Eseta Nadakuitavuki described reporters as “real warriors” who required courage and “a very thick skin”.

While she praised the media’s fearless role in holding the powerful accountable, she also pointed to modern digital threats. She warned that while AI brought innovation, the rise of fake news and deepfakes meant ethical journalism and rigorous fact-checking were more crucial than ever.

BBC Media Action mentorship
The night also carved out time to recognise seven local journalists who completed a BBC Media Action content production mentorship under seasoned journalist Elenoa Baselala.

Up North, a different kind of gathering took place at the Hot Springs Hotel in Savusavu. FMA general secretary Stanley Simpson joined journalists for a dinner supported by the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS).

The Savusavu event was an acknowledgment of the mental toll carried by reporters outside the capital who usually “survive on roti and bean between assignments”.

Remembering the heavy weight these journalists carry, it was highlighted that in 2017, Northern reporters had to cover two back-to-back tragedies involving children: a fatal house fire, followed just two days later by a father drowning his three kids and himself.

With no debrief rooms or on-call counselors in the North, these reporters — including Peceli, Shratika, Naca, Feroz, Sampras, Nitesh, and Josese — just had to file their heartbreaking stories and keep going.

There was plenty of reason to celebrate on a national level, as Fiji recently jumped 16 spots to 24th globally on the 2026 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index — a massive climb from 84th place in 2023.

However, the FMA made it clear that Fiji’s press freedom gains remained fragile.

Navigating complexities
The industry is still navigating the complexities of Fiji’s hard-drugs crisis and dealing with disquieting developments like journalists being summoned to testify in court. There is also ongoing friction with government officials; recently, Minister for Information Lynda Tabuya criticised the media in Parliament over “mal-information” regarding a broken lift at the CWM Hospital, subsequently calling for an end to “doorstop-style” interviews.

The FMA firmly defended the practice as a necessary tool for holding officials accountable in a democracy.

Despite the challenges, the media fraternity is already looking ahead to its next major gathering. In September, the focus will return to Fiji as it hosts the region for the Pacific Media Summit.

Republished from the Fijian Media Association FB page.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When the Paris-based global watchdog Reporters Without Borders released their annual World Press Freedom Index dossier online three days before World Press Freedom Day, journalists in the Asia-Pacific region were quick to check out their ranking.

Overall the prognosis wasn’t very flattering. No country in the region was ranked in the top 20 of the 180 countries surveyed, and even New Zealand, which has traditionally done well in the past – including even being in the top 10 a few years ago — had continued its downhill slide.

“New Zealand (22nd) remains the region’s model for press freedom, despite slipping six places,” said the World Press Freedom Index report. “Other Asia-Pacific democracies, such as Taiwan (28th), Timor-Leste (30th) and Australia (33rd), face real challenges to upholding the right to reliable information, yet continue to offer broadly protective environments.

“They stand as exceptions in a region where press freedom is being steadily eroded.”

Fiji scored a remarkable 16-place climb to 24th, just two places behind New Zealand, after the scrapping of the draconian Media Industry Development Act in 2023, but this was certainly no grounds to be complacent.

Responding to the rankings and after a woman journalist in Tonga was threatened at gunpoint at Kele’a Voice FM radio station by a jailed-for-life drug gangster’s hooded henchman in Tonga, Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) president Kalafi Moala (himself Tongan and a doyen of Pacific media) declared:

Tongan armed threat against journalist troubles Pacific media freedom

“Threats against press freedom are unfortunately ongoing in the Pacific. The incident in Tonga demonstrates that the enemies of press freedom can come from anywhere — not always the government or those in power, but anyone averse to truth and transparency.

“Whether it is in Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, French Polynesia or anywhere else in the Pacific, media freedom must be protected, advocated for and exercised to the fullest.”

Smear. Kill. Repeat: The constant horror for journalists in Gaza     Video: Al Jazeera

Deafening silence on Gaza
But for all the lively debate and responses across the Asia-Pacific to this year’s Press Freedom Index results, there was a deafening silence and lack of collegial concern from New Zealand to Taiwan about the elephant in the global media freedom room: the unprecedented and chilling wholesale assassinations of Palestinian (and now Lebanese) journalists by the Israeli military forces.

Many of them were targeted and murdered for doing their jobs.

And those still surviving have been risking their lives (and those of their families) day and night while truth-telling to the world with extraordinary courage.

“Under Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977), journalists on ‘dangerous professional missions in armed conflict’ must be treated as civilians. It is one of the clearest protections in international law,” write Majdolin Hasan and Wadih Sabbagh of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).

“Yet in Gaza, their cameras and press vests have become targets.”

Statistics on this Israeli bloodlust are varied, depending on the source and methodology and criteria in compiling the information. According to the latest figures on the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Gaza database, 264 journalists have been killed, 174 wounded and 107 imprisoned. These figures include war-related killings of journalists and media workers in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Iran and Israel.

“By silencing the press, Israel is silencing those who document and bear witness to what human rights groups and UN experts agree is a genocide. CPJ calls on the international community to hold Israel to account for its unlawful attacks on journalists; ensure international media is given immediate, independent access to Gaza; and open humanitarian corridors for journalists.”

Death toll even higher
Some media counts put the death toll even higher. A United Nations human rights web page, for example, cites UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk saying in a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day that the situation for journalists in Gaza is a “death trap”.

“Israel’s war in Gaza has become a death trap for the media. My office has verified the killing of nearly 300 journalists since October 2023, with many more injured,” Türk said.

He urged States to investigate all violations against media workers and expressed alarm at the lack of accountability for killings of journalists.

“This year alone, at least 14 journalists have been killed. Over the past 20 years, only around one in 10 killings has led to full accountability,” Türk said.

In January 2024, I wrote an article for Declassified Australia that was already an “early warning” indicator of the growing death toll among Palestinian journalists. My earlier media freedom articles had frequently dealt with the Philippines, which used to be among the worst countries for the killing of journalists.

In the article, “Silencing the messenger”, I also warned against the growing censorship in what was already emerging as the greatest moral issue of our times: “Western journalists taking a stand against their media outlets’ biased coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza are being targeted with career threats and even dismissal. But their colleagues in Palestine are suffering a worse fate.”

I called on journalists to make a stand for truth-telling and in solidarity with their colleagues in Gaza.

Shameful NZ silence
Yet while the silence in the Pacific is perhaps not surprising given the conflicted collaboration of several governments, such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea, on the wrong side of history, in New Zealand it is shameful. At least in Australia, there has been a strong pushback by journalists against the bias in the mainstream, and one independent publication, Crikey, has been publishing a “register” of journalists who have been on paid junkets to Israel and are regarded as potentially compromised.

Media editor Daanyal Saeed wrote: “It’s become clear that a number of Australian politicians and journalists have been on organised tours to the Middle East — many of them sponsored by pro-Israel lobby groups and interest organisations.”

A similar grooming of New Zealand journalists has also been carried out by pro-Israel lobby groups’ “sponsorship” in recent years, but no media has published a comprehensive list.

Is this “captive journalists” phenomena one of the factors for the perceived bias of much of the New Zealand media? John Minto, national campaigns coordinator of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), the largest and most visible advocacy and protest group in the country, agrees: “The large number of journalists here, who should know better, who have taken all expenses paid trips to Israel are part of Israel’s building of a propaganda base.

“Another important factor is the long history of false smears of antisemitism against anyone criticising Israel. Editors think twice about reporting anything showing Israel in a bad light.

“Just last week an RNZ journalist talked on radio about an interview she had done with UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, and that the interview would be heard on the Nine to Noon show early the following week. The interview was then advertised to be broadcast on the Monday morning but then never appeared on the programme.

“Pressure from the anti-Palestinian racists in the pro-Israel lobby is the only sensible explanation. Most likely it will simply be buried — along with what’s left of RNZ’s journalistic integrity.”

Limited independent reportage
It needs to be realised too that New Zealand media has a limited independent “international” reportage tradition in contrast to Australia and many other countries. What international coverage with a New Zealand perspective that did exist, largely disappeared after the closure of the country’s only independent news agency, the 131-year-old NZ Press Association cooperative. This shut down in 2011.

Minto blames the narrow range of international news as another factor in why New Zealand media seems so slanted.

“The media industry here takes its overseas content solely from Western news sources such as AP [Associated Press, American], Reuters and the BBC [both British-based] alongside UK and US newspapers such as The New York Times, Washington Post and Daily Telegraph. It is packaged by Israeli sympathisers embedded in senior positions across these outlets and the inevitable result is a stream of pro-Israeli propaganda rather than balanced and accurate journalism.

“The recent analysis by The Intercept underscores this built-in bias in favour of Israel and against Palestinians.”

The Pacific Journalism Review also ran a special edition in July 2024 focused on systemic bias in the New Zealand and some international media. The provocative title theme was “Gaza, genocide and media: Will journalism survive?” and it was aimed at alerting journalists that declining credibility was at stake over this critical moral issue of our times.

Maher Nazzal, a Palestinian New Zealander who is a community advocate and chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, echoes this view.

“Much of the New Zealand media coverage on Palestine has been shaped through Western political narratives and reliance on international wire services that often frame events primarily through an Israeli lens,” he says. “This has contributed to the dehumanisation or invisibility of Palestinian voices, including journalists working under unimaginable conditions in Gaza.”

Courage and professionalism
A good point. The courage and professionalism of Gaza journalists has been widely acknowledged around the globe, including their collectively winning the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2024, yet NZ journalists seem to be reluctant to recognise this, let alone give statements of solidarity. Why?|

“What Gaza journalists have shown over the past 19 months is extraordinary courage and professionalism,” says Nazzal. “Many continued reporting while displaced, grieving family members, facing starvation, or living under bombardment.

“Some paid with their lives simply for documenting the truth. Their work has become one of the few direct windows into what is happening on the ground.

“Unfortunately, solidarity from many mainstream media institutions in New Zealand has been limited. There appears to be hesitation, fear of controversy, or political sensitivity around speaking openly on Palestine compared with other global conflicts.

“This silence itself becomes part of the problem.”

An independent New Zealand journalist who has been based in the occupied West Bank for two periods during the Israeli war on Gaza — in 2024 for two months and again last year – is also unimpressed with the local reportage.

Video and photojournalist Cole Martin from Ōtautahi Christchurch believes there is a serious lack of understanding in New Zealand media of the context of the structural and institutional violence towards the Palestinians.

“It is a media scene in Aotearoa that repeats very harmful and inaccurate narratives,” Martin says.

“Also, there is this idea to be unbiased and neutral in a conflict, both perspectives must have equal legitimacy.”

Israel regularly condemned
Reporters Without Borders has regularly condemned Israel for refusing to allow journalists from international media into Gaza, except on rare occasions embedded with Israeli military — they saw merely what Tel Aviv wanted them to see.

RSF has joined unsuccessful legal proceedings led by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) at Israel’s Supreme Court to challenge the ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza. It has also file multiple complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling for investigations into war crimes against journalists.

Minto believes New Zealand journalism is generally embedded with the “built-in bias of Western media” and with very few exceptions local journalists “are as complicit as journalists overseas”.

“I’m the first to admit it’s not easy for journalists to speak up and confront the bias — it’s easier to look the other way.

“Having said that I can’t understand why they would not report on Gaza journalists receiving awards for heroic reporting in circumstances when they know they are on an Israeli hit list. Journalistic solidarity based on fearless reporting which speaks truth to power is sorely missing.”

In general, says Minto, New Zealand journalists wait until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or US President Donald Trump make a statement before they report anything on Gaza or Palestine.

“And it’s not just reporting on the genocide in Gaza. Again and again I hear stories from our journalists — particularly in our state broadcaster TVNZ and RNZ — being directed towards reporting stories alleging antisemitism here rather than Islamophobia which is a far greater threat to our social fabric.

“It’s as though we never had a terrorist attack in 2019 which killed 51 Muslim worshippers.”

Media releases ignored
Mainstream news media routinely ignore media releases by Palestinian and solidarity groups.

“They are read by news editors and chief reporters but are otherwise disregarded,” admits Minto. “In fact, pretty much the only time our mainstream media report on PSNA is when we are attacked by the pro-Israel lobby as they did when we opposed Israeli soldiers coming here for rest and recreation from the genocide in Gaza or when we were attacked for ‘selective morality’ by an Iranian supporter of the old despotic Shah of Iran.

“On the other hand, our media releases are avidly read by our supporters and get good pickup on social media.”

While there was a fierce pushback by pro-Israel groups over PSNA’s controversial “Genocide Hotline” in New Zealand media, there was a more sympathetic response by many international media.

In fact, many campaigns in other countries, partly due to the inspiration of the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), are going further and actively seeking prosecutions of dual-citizen Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers on rest and recreation to their countries.

The Brussels-based foundation is dedicated to “breaking the cycle Israeli impunity and achieving justice for all the victims of the Gaza genocide” — more than 72,000 people so far, mostly women and children. It was established to honour the memory of five-year-old Hind Rajab who was murdered along with her family on January 29, 2024, in a brutal act of genocidal violence by the IDF.

Hind survived the initial attack, but was left trapped in a car alongside the bodies of her family. Her cries for help were broadcast to the world before being killed by an Israeli tank crew. An investigation found that the car was hit by 335 bullets. The inhumanity of this act has been captured in the 2025 docudrama film The Voice of Hind Rajab.

Hasbara propaganda
The PSNA and other groups have regularly complained to TVNZ and the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) about the “appalling reporting” and “systemic bias”, but with little success. At a national hui in Rotorua earlier this month, the PSNA discussed plans to step up its campaign to push back against Israeli disinformation in response to the Knesset’s approval last month of a fivefold budget boost to $730 million for Hasbara — Israeli “public policy”, or propaganda.

In spite of the many obstacles, Maher Nazzal says public awareness about the Palestine struggle has grown significantly in Aotearoa as well as globally: “Community movements, independent journalists, academics, and grassroots organisations have helped challenge dominant narratives and push for more balanced coverage and accountability.”

To improve media coverage, Nazzal would like to see a greater inclusion of Palestinian perspectives, stronger journalistic independence, and willingness to apply universal human rights standards consistently, regardless of who the victims are.

Dr David Robie is convenor of the Asia Pacific Media Network’s Pacific Media Watch project, a former media professor and who previously worked as a journalist and editor with several global news agencies, including Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Gemini News Service.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Most of the Western media refuse to join the dots and explain Israel’s decades-long obsession with defanging Tehran.

The war in Iran is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has planned for four decades. He has always wanted Israel to extend from Egypt to the Euphrates and in the process have the United States overthrow seven neighbouring countries, the last and latest being Iran.

That was also America’s plot, hatched by the neo-conservative authors at the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 2000. The list of targeted countries, confirmed by US General Wesley Clark in 2007, was based on a proposal published in Israel in 1982.

Ambitious as they were, these long-held intentions have now culminated in the US-Israel war on Iran, which seems sudden but was carefully planned, a former British Ambassador claims.

US President Donald Trump was not “bounced into it” by Israel: it had been in gestation for months, says Craig Murray, Britain’s ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002 and 2004.

Well in advance, Trump had weapons ordered for fast delivery from Lockheed Martin, naval ships and troops were moved to the Gulf, and CIA and Mossad agitators reportedly stirred up Iranians in several cities, already exasperated by their theocratic rulers and by US sanctions.

If Murray is right, Trump and Netanyahu must have been planning this in their frequent meetings before and since the “12-day war” against Iran last year. Or for longer: Trump has reminded the world that as far back as 1987 he wanted the US to take over some of Iran’s oil, and to go to war for it.

Everything is a ‘deal’
But Trump’s shambolic war shows that he regards everything as a “deal’” and while aggrandising himself, he fails to understand that Iranians don’t accept transactionalism about their country, whoever its leader is.

He appears not to remember that under the Shah, Iran was on good terms with Israel and the US, until the uprising against the Pahlavis in 1979. He doesn’t mention the CIA’s overthrow in 1953 of Prime Minister Mossadegh, who merely wanted to nationalise Iran’s oil.

Instead of understanding Iran and its people, Trump claims to trust his “gut instinct” about the war, and he regularly gets it wrong.

The state of the president’s mental, cognitive and physical health has been raised again lately by his niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist. She observes symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in Trump, and recalls that his father and her grandfather, Fred Trump sr., died with dementia.

Other specialists detect signs of “malignant narcissism”, and note that the President’s repeated threats, exaggerations, and reversals are more likely to be the results of incapacity than of intent.

Still, Trump’s erratic statements keep attention focussed on him, keeping the world guessing and confused, and his narcissistic self on centre stage. For Trump, as for Netanyahu, the personal is paramount. Both of them face coming elections (Trump has to face the mid-terms in November while Netanyahu has a general election before the end of the year); both want to stay alive and out of jail; and the continuing war further enriches them, their families and friends.

Plans for war
Netanyahu’s project derives from the 1982 Yinon Plan, named after its author, an Israeli diplomat, journalist, and former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Published in the Hebrew journal Kivunim (“Directions”) as “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s”, it reappeared in a 1996 policy paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, prepared for Netanyahu by American neoconservative strategists. They also produced their “Project for the New American Century”, advocating a “catastrophic and catalysing event” that would convince Americans of the need for war.

The “Clean Break” document argued that Israel should abandon land-for-peace diplomacy and instead pursue a strategy that would weaken or remove hostile regimes in the region, particularly Iraq and Syria. The goal was not mere military victory but a geopolitical restructuring of the Middle East in Israel’s favour.

In 1997, some of the same people involved with that report established the Project for the New American Century think tank, which produced several major reports, especially “Rebuilding America’s Defences” in the year 2000. It argued for preserving US military preeminence in the Middle East and two other theatres with a “revolution in military affairs” that might be accelerated by a “catastrophic and catalysing event — like a new Pearl Harbor”.

Just a year later on 9/11, such an event occurred, leading Congress quickly to pass the Authorisation for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, and the anti-terrorism PATRIOT Act.

Track the planning process forward to 2001, and a former CIA operator confirms what many conspiracy analysts have suspected for years: that Israel, together with Saudi Arabia, was potentially informed about conspirators in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11 before they occurred. John Kiriakou, a former CIA bureau chief for Pakistan, points to the involvement of the Saudi royal family in Al-Qaeda’s plan.

As well, Kiriakou says that Mossad was thick on the ground on the US east coast in 2001 and Israel knew what was to happen, but did nothing to stop it.

Furious response over Saudis
Kiriakou points to the furious response to Riyadh by US agencies on learning of the Saudis’ dominant involvement in 9/11. It produced three sudden deaths in a week in July 2022: Princes Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz (in hospital after an operation), Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki (in a car accident), and Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir (of thirst in the desert).

The latter two were both in their mid-twenties, while Ahmed was 43. Seven months later Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistan’s Air Marshal, died in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly Northwest Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.

9/11 researchers have found out a lot more about what two US “allies”, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, knew in advance of 9/11 and did in support of al-Qaeda. US lawyer Gerald Posner’s account is based on al-Qaeda operative Ali Zubaydah’s claims about his capture and interrogation, and his admissions about his work with Saudi and Pakistani officials.

From Guantánamo Bay, where he has been held without charge for more than two decades, he told Posner that both Prince Ahmed and Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistan’s Air Marshal, “knew that an attack was scheduled for American soil on that day”. Like Israelis, they did nothing to stop it.

The Report of the 9/11 Commission, which some said was “set up to fail”, read more as a call to arms against al-Qaeda than a forensic criminal report. The GW Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations prevented the US Congress accessing 28 pages from the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after 9/11.

Eventually released by Biden in June 2016, the pages identified Saudi Arabian diplomats, officials, and members of the ruling family as contributors to preparations for the attacks, but not Israelis.

Yet when US President Bush declared a “war on terror” in response to 9/11, he realised Netanyahu’s aim for the US to attack Israel’s neighbours. And war, says Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, “is always the first option, not the last one in Israel“.

Heavy insider trading was recorded in New York in advance of September 11, including put options on United Airlines, American Airlines, and other related stocks. A majority of those polled by The New York Times in the five years after the attacks on the Twin Towers and Washington thought the government was lying or was hiding something.  Even some staff, investigators, and members of the 9/11 Commission knew that senior military officials and CIA director George Tenet had lied to them, while others’ evidence was suppressed. But their knowledge was excluded from the final report.

Terrorists, neo-colonialists, tyrants and war criminals
This history reveals the need to be sceptical of Washington’s claims about terrorism from 9/11 to today’s war against Iran. “Terror” is repeatedly used as propaganda to manufacture consent for war and to demonise enemies of the West, while what the US and Israel do is “not terrorism”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a war crime, said NATO and its friends: yet the US coalition’s long wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria were not. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its former territory, was an outrageous land grab: Israel’s annexations of Syria’s Golan and the Palestinians’ West Bank territory were not. Hamas’ breakout from Gaza on 7 October 2023 was terrorism; Israel’s recurrent attacks on Palestinians since 1948 and its ethnic cleansing of Gaza since 2023 were not.

Hamas and Hezbollah’s retaliation and the Houthis’ attacks are terrorism: Israel’s bombing and occupation of Gaza and southern Lebanon are not. Iran’s leaders are murderous tyrants: Israel’s indicted war criminals Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (both wanted by the International Criminal Court on arrest warrants for crimes against humanity).are not. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC are designated terrorist organisations: the IDF, CIA, and Mossad are not. The US assaults on Venezuela and Iran, to be followed by Cuba, are claimed to be against terrorism or drugs: in fact they are about who controls oil and makes and unmakes governments.

It does not occur to most Americans and Israelis that their own activities are state terror. Instead, they claim a right to defend US hegemony and all Jews’ right to Eretz Israel and greatness as “God’s chosen people”. Palestinians who resist have no such rights and are called subhuman terrorists, and under a new law, Arab Israelis will be executed for terrorism, while Jewish Israelis are not.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis made similar claims about the superiority of their civilisation to justify the Holocaust. No wonder some now detect a resurgence of fascism in the US, Israel, and elsewhere. Others observe the sudden rise of anti-Semitism since October 2003.

A growing number expect the US war to fail, leaving Israel to do its worst in Iran and Lebanon.

Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have been added to Al-Qaeda on the list of designated terrorists. The wars that followed culminate in Iran, labelled by Trump a “terrorist regime”.

Candidate Trump took Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s advice to “move fast and break things”. He has done it as president. What ends up broken is now the whole world’s concern.

Dr Alison Broinowski AM is an Australian former diplomat, academic and author. Her books and articles concern Australia’s interactions with the world. She is president of Australians for War Powers Reform. Republished with permission from Declassified Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Throughout 2025, I served on Australia’s first parliamentary inquiry into society-wide antisemitism. When the Bondi terrorist atrocity occurred, we had yet to finalise a report, and I supported the decision to simply send our evidence to the Royal Commission.

A notable feature of our inquiry was the care taken to test evidence and contentions through robust questioning.

This included testing key witnesses vigorously as to the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel, and on other key contentions and demands of Jewish representative groups of a Zionist perspective.

This didn’t please all the witnesses, for example, it led Lynda Ben-Menashe, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, to later publicly label me as “NSW’s Gaslighter-in-Chief”. This was for daring to even suggest that a wrongful conflation of Israel and the Australian Jewish community could be driving antisemitism.

In my limited observations so far of the Royal Commission, this degree of scrutiny seems not to be present, particularly when

witnesses have sought to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The evidence in our inquiry made clear the absolute centrality in Zionist advocacy in Australia of this conflation, which is no new phenomenon, as former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban famously said of his work, “the chief task of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all”.

This conflation, however, seems to be worsening antisemitism.

Critising Israel not antisemitic
The Jewish Council of Australia spoke in their evidence of “a politicised and divisive discourse which seeks to label any criticism of Israel as antisemitic, thereby increasing antisemitism by linking Jewish identities to the state of Israel and its human rights abuses”.

A central insight I took from the inquiry is that political leaders need to exercise restraint and responsibility in not treating the Jewish community as a monolith (itself an antisemitic trope), but also in how we respond to political demands from pro-Israel Jewish representative groups.

We should undoubtedly treat these groups as important voices and witnesses on antisemitism and recognise their right to lobby, but if we subcontract the development of policy to them,

counterproductive policies focused on criticism of Israel will inevitably be the result.

This has certainly been the case with the appointment of Jillian Segal, someone, as I put to her in our inquiry, with no obvious expertise on the core question of how to reduce racism across a community.

Long before Bondi, Segal played a central role in demanding the banning of pro-Palestine protests from the CBDs of major cities, and she undoubtedly contributed to the divisive and unconstitutional post-Bondi ban on protests.

I challenged Segal in the inquiry on whether this demand was actually pernicious, because such bans would be unconstitutional and calling for them created fear and suggested the Jewish community was deliberately not being protected. She unsurprisingly disagreed.

Shared understanding missing
Another topic at the inquiry was the importance of dialogue at a community level, building shared understanding between communities sitting on each side of the conflict.

I put to a number of witnesses that perhaps this should be a two-way street.

On the one hand, non-Jewish communities are gaining an understanding of Jewish history, why Israel is so important to so many Jewish people and why the tropes of antisemitism are false.

On the other, Jewish people gaining an understanding of Palestinian history, which perhaps might reduce perceptions of antisemitism arising from Palestinian activism.

Segal was asked in this regard whether, “there might be a role for education within the Jewish community about the history of the Palestinian people” and tartly responded, “education is always valuable, but the focus of the plan is protecting Australians from hate, not asking vulnerable communities to adjust their sensitivity to it”.

Similar evidence emerged from Joshua Kirsch, a Jewish community advocate, of whom I asked:

“Do you think there are ways to deepen community understanding on both ‘sides’, if I can use that term, such that there can be a greater alignment of understandings, or greater understanding of the perspective of the other? We’ve heard evidence about perceptions of antisemitism having a pernicious influence themselves, and people interpreting things in a genuine way as antisemitism that is not intended as antisemitism is intended, for example, things that Palestinians might say about their situation.”

He answered, “I think my priority as a Jewish person, and I think as a person who is involved with Jewish organisations, is not to educate Jewish people about why their feelings are not valid.”

Indeed, what became clear in the evidence was that many of the political demands of pro-Israel groups actively

prevent the development of some semblance of a shared understanding of history.

This came up directly in the inquiry when I questioned Waverley Mayor Will Nemesh, whose council has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which suggests that it is antisemitic to label Israel a “racist endeavour”.

“If you had a Palestinian resident who came to you and said, ‘I was expelled in 1967 from what is now Israel. I’ve been denied a right of return. I think Israel is a racist endeavour,’ is that resident an antisemite?”

Namesh replied, “There are strong views in terms of Israel and Palestine. What is crucial is understanding there are two peoples and both claim connection to the land. I think both are very valid”. 

It seemed to me that the IHRA definition could, in that public exchange, hardly be defended, because to do so would have been to directly and blatantly deny Palestinian history and identity to an absurd degree.

Yet inevitably, it will continue to be advocated for by many Jewish representative groups.

Zionist denials
In that vein, prominent Australian Zionist Alex Ryvchin attended the inquiry and directly denied that any ethnic cleansing had occurred during the formation of Israel.

A level of denialism, contradicted by the historical record, that is difficult to square with a dedicated commitment to inter-community dialogue. The evidence in our inquiry convinced me that ensuring our Jewish community is not conflated with Israel is central to dealing with growing antisemitism.

Callow future Australian political leaders might return from Israel impressed after free study tours, but the difficult, albeit obvious, truth is that Israel is an Apartheid state, founded on ethnic cleansing, a premeditated determination to create a Jewish super majority and then a denial of the right of return.

The world’s expert human rights organisations do not have this wrong.

These facts, the criminality of the destruction of Gaza and Israel’s increasingly expansionist tendencies, mean Israel will continue to attract a growing storm of criticism.

But Australia is a free society, and our Jewish community is allowed to be as supportive of Israel and Zionism as they wish. No other community in Australia is expected to distance itself from a country with which they identify, no matter how illiberal and criminal its government is, and it should never be demanded of any part of our Jewish community.

Ultimately, the only people responsible for the actions of the state of Israel are the officials of that state.

While most people will agree on this statement, the difficulty is found in how broader narratives and policies, including the conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism, impact across the community.

It is in this fiendishly difficult context that we look to Royal Commissioner Bell to chart a way out of the downward and divisive spiral we seem to be in.

She truly will need the wisdom of Solomon to unpick this knot of growing antisemitism in Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Kim Wingerei

Saher Alghorra, a Palestinian photojournalist, has won the Pulitzer Prize for a series of photographs published in The New York Times. What’s the scam?

The scam is that so far, not a single Australian or New Zealand mainstream media outlet has reported on it, let alone dared show the “haunting images” from the Gaza genocide.

Instead, the focus has been on Australia’s Royal Commission into Antisemitism and, of course, the excesses of the rich and famous at the Met Gala.

Established in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are annual awards given by Columbia University for achievements in “journalism, arts and letters”.

It’s the equivalent of our Walkley Awards (not the Walkey) and New Zealand’s Voyager Awards.

Saher Alghorra won for his “haunting, sensitive series showing the devastation and starvation in Gaza resulting from the war with Israel.”

The Pulitzer profile says:

Saher Alghorra is a photojournalist who was born, lives and works in Gaza.

He got his first camera in 2017, and immediately began chronicling the fragile existence of everyday Palestinians.

Alghorra began his work as a freelance photojournalist in 2021 with many international agencies and institutions. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Time magazine, The Telegraph and The New York Times. In July 2023, he became the ZUMA Press Wire Service chief photojournalist in Gaza.

In 2023, an image of his was chosen as one of TIME Magazine 100 best photos of the year. In 2024, he won Best in Show at the Communications Arts Photography Annual, for his coverage for ZUMA in Gaza during the ongoing war.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Previously it was reporting on governments or politics that brought trouble for Tonga’s journalists — now it’s reporting on drugs or gangs.

Tongan journalists are coming to terms with new pressures on media freedom over reporting on the country’s drug crisis, and the role of gangs in it.

This comes after a journalist at Kele’a Publications was threatened at gunpoint in Nuku’alofa, following reporting on drugs issues two weeks ago — the same week as World Press Freedom Day.

While Tonga police are still searching for the suspect who threatened a journalist, the manager of the Kele’a Publications said police should do more to protect the press.

According to Teisa Cokanasiga, journalist freedoms were usually tested by previous governments when reporting on the police, but the current situation was different and represented a new type of challenge for Tonga’s media.

“The threat was regarding reports that we did about drugs and a specific gang member who is currently serving life in prison. So now we are aware that we have that kind of threat.

“In terms of freedom of the press, to report on political issues and controversial issues concerning the leadership in the country. I think we are fine with that.”

More awareness needed
Cokanasiga said there needed to be more awareness around this kind of threat as it could happen to any member of Tonga’s media.

“It’s just disheartening. And we are now aware that we can get that kind of challenge or risk, not only, I mean, from the public as well.”

For now, Cokanasiga said her team was supporting the journalist, and also being cautious while continuing daily duties.

“We’ve been trying to be, you know, encouraging of each other and at the same time give them space, especially the concerned journalist, and for her to slowly get back to working.”

Attack on Tongan’s constitutional rights
The Media Association of Tonga (MAT) said the incident was an assault not only on the safety of an individual journalist but on the constitutional right of every Tongan to receive information without fear or favour.

MAT’s president, Katalina Uili Tohi, said a climate of fear and intimidation targeting media personnel undermined democratic principles and silenced the very voices that hold power to account.

She said journalists must be able to work without the threat of violence or death.

Meanwhile, the co-chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum, Lepailetai Tosi Tupua has commended the courage and professionalism of the journalist and her colleagues and their swift reporting to police.

He said they awaited the outcomes of a thorough and impartial police investigation into this incident, ensuring public safety and including safety on the job for all media workers reporting these matters.

Police have yet to arrest anyone, but Cokanasiga said they remained in regular contact with both her and the journalist.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s military chief has made a public admission at a church service that the institution was “at fault” for the death of Jone Vakarisi while he was in military custody.

Local media reported that Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) commander Ro Jone Kalaouniwai, while addressing officers at a military family service, admitted “we are at fault” for Vakarisi’s death.

“We must be held accountable,” he was quoted as saying by local media outlets.

State broadcaster FBC reported that Kalouniwai described Vakarisi’s death as an “unintentional” and “regrettable” incident, while the two national dailies reported him saying no one imagined or knew it would end up the way it did.

Vakarisi, 37, was notorious for being at odds with law enforcement and had been linked to criminal networks. He died on April 16 after being detained by soldiers and taken to RFMF’s Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva to be questioned regarding “national security investigations”, which included allegations of trying to break in and access military assets.

Commander Kalouniwai initially attributed Vakarisi’s death to “pre-existing conditions”.

However, he was forced to issue a “correction” after the police announced they had classified Vakarisi’s death as murder.

Murder investigation
A murder investigation is currently ongoing, with no one charged, almost a month since Vakarisi’s death.

The Fiji police and military have launched joint security operations to take down criminal networks in the country. The operations have resulted in a heightened military visibility around the country.

Kalouniwai said the security forces had made progress but “an unforeseen incident occurred at the camp”, the FBC report said. He urged military officers to adhere to the law.

RNZ Pacific contacted Fiji police last week seeking an update on the murder investigation.

In an email reply, Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu said he would not let media dictate police actions and advised RNZ Pacific to continue liaising with the police’s media liaison officer.

Over the weekend, graphic and distressing photos of Vakarisi’s body began circulating and being shared widely on social media.

Fiji’s Online Safety Commission said it was “deeply concerned” about the images being circulated.

“The images being shared are highly distressing, show the deceased in a vulnerable and exposed state, and have caused further pain and trauma to the grieving family members,” it said.

“We strongly urge members of the public to refrain from sharing, reposting, forwarding, or publishing such material across any social media platform, messaging publication, or online platform.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Major Garrett (which apparently is a real name belonging to a real guy who works for 60 Minutes) told the CBS audience that “Netanyahu attributes the reputational harm to Israel almost entirely to social media, which he calls the eighth front of the war”.

“This is yours, right?” asked Netanyahu, picking up Garrett’s phone. “You’re not immune either. Because you can penetrate this machine, you can penetrate this little instrument, and you can say about Major Garrett anything you want.

“And I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.”

According to a Pew survey published last month, 60% of U.S. adults viewed Israel unfavorably, up nearly 20 points in four years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the rise of social media is a major reason for this decline. https://t.co/QP4ESNtjGq pic.twitter.com/miCEwFYLX3

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 10, 2026

“We have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States almost – I would say, it correlates almost 100 percent with the geometric rise of social media,” said Netanyahu, adding, “We have several countries that basically manipulated social media.

“And they do it in a clever way. And that’s something that has hurt us badly.

“Israel is besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front, and we’ve not done well on the propaganda war,” the prime minister lamented.

Netanyahu stresses the need for more propaganda     Video: Caitlin Johnstone

Netanyahu has been repeatedly stressing the need for more aggressive propaganda manipulation as public opinion of Israel plummets worldwide.

Earlier this year he told The Economist that “I’d like to do everything I can to fight the propaganda war waged against us,” complaining that “we’ve been using cavalry against f-35s, because they’ve flooded the social networks with the fake bots and many other things.”

Despite having the entire Western political-media class bending over backwards to protect Israel’s image, Netanyahu consistently frames his country’s struggle for narrative control as a brave little David figure standing up against the colossal Goliath of anti-Zionist social media users.

Last year the Israeli leader claimed that Israel was losing the propaganda war because “there are vast forces arrayed against us,” denouncing “the algorithms of the social network that are driving a lot of everything else”.

Here Netanyahu admits that TikTok and X are weapons of war   Source: Shayan Nikzad

In a meeting with American social media influencers last year, the prime minister spoke of how vital the forced sale of TikTok had been for Israeli information interests, and said that Elon Musk could help facilitate Israeli PR on the X platform as well.

“We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers,” Netanyahu said. “We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we’re engaged, and the most important ones are on social media.”

Of course, the possibility of Israel improving its public image by simply murdering fewer people and doing fewer evil things is never even considered. It is taken as a given that shoving pro-Israel messaging down everyone’s throat is the only way to sway public opinion in a positive direction.

It is under this framing that Israel has again massively increased its propaganda budget for the year, after having massively increased it from what it was the year before.

The Jerusalem Post reports the following:

“Israel is betting nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars that it can talk its way out of a reputation crisis.

“Lawmakers in Jerusalem approved a 2026 national budget last month that includes roughly $730 million for public diplomacy — the broad category known in Hebrew as hasbara — more than four times the $150 million they allocated the year before. That earlier sum was itself about 20 times what Israel had spent on such efforts before the war in Gaza broke out in 2023.

“The unprecedented expenditure comes as survey after survey shows declining support for Israel in the United States, its most important ally. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, up seven points in a single year, with only 37% viewing it favorably.”

So you know how you’re already seeing an insane amount of pro-Israel propaganda and running into aggressive Zionist trolls online? You can expect that to get a whole lot worse.

If you saw a guy spending 730 million dollars on media operations to manipulate people into thinking he is not an asshole, what could you reasonably conclude about that guy’s personality? https://t.co/giH4e1vYUY

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 5, 2026

Narrative manipulation has served Israel well over the years, but there’s a limit to how much propaganda can accomplish. If I walked up to you and spat in your face, there’s no amount of verbiage I could throw at you to convince you I’m actually a nice person.

There’s only so much carnage people can watch on their phones before you can no longer convince them it’s not what it looks like.

The propaganda has already hit a point of diminishing returns, and soon it’s going to start having a reverse effect. People are going to start hating Israel for all the evil things it’s been doing, and then hating it even more for all its in-your-face perception management operations to manipulate their thoughts and feelings.

At some point the hasbarists are themselves going to inadvertently become anti-Zionist propaganda agents, just because they make Israel look so creepy with the way they’re always trying to stick their rapey fingers into everyone’s mind.

The truth can only be concealed and distorted for so long.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to follow through on its demands that Israel complies with international law following the abduction and beating of citizens by the Israeli military in international waters in the Mediterranean last week.

PSNA national spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said the government had been “very explicit” in its recent warnings to Israel that New Zealand did not expect a repeat of Israeli forces “brutally capturing New Zealanders” while they were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza enclave.

“Anyone who has seen the pictures of Invercargill resident Julien Blondel’s face or the reports of Jay O’Connor suffering from concussion and a likely broken rib will know that once more Israel has called the New Zealand government’s bluff,” she said in a statement.

“The Global Sumud Aid Flotilla’s sole intention is to deliver aid to Palestinians still under Israeli attack and starvation in Gaza.

“The world is looking at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran. But the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is no less dire than when the ceasefire there was meant to have started last October but Israel continues its daily killing of mainly women and children.

“The volume of food is insufficient and lacking nutrition. It is incredibly expensive. Promised tents haven’t arrived.

“Medicine has run out. Reconstruction hasn’t started. Israel is still expanding its yellow-line ‘no-go’ zone.”

Tamimi, who was elected at the PSNA annual general meeting in Rotorua last weekend, said she knew the New Zealand government had already proved it “doesn’t care about Palestinians in Gaza”.

But she added that the government could not avoid its responsibility to protect New Zealanders going about lawful business.

“The government can’t simply opt out of its duties to its citizens by telling them it’s too dangerous to try helping Palestinians in Gaza.

“Israel has killed people on flotillas before. It has captured New Zealanders and brutalised them previously. Now it has done it again.”

Tamimi said the least New Zealand could do was to issue a formal rebuke by calling-in the Israeli ambassador.

“The ambassador should be expelled as far as I’m concerned. But if it was good enough for John Key’s government to reprimand Israel through a formal rebuke, then why can’t [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters do at least the same?”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz