To mark the release of the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) partnered with the agency The Good Company to launch a new awareness campaign that puts an ironic twist on the glossy advertising of the tourism industry.

Three out of six countries featured in the exposé are from the Asia Pacific region — but none from the Pacific Islands.

The campaign shines a stark light on the press freedom violations in countries that seem perfect on postcards but are highly dangerous for journalists, says RSF.

It is a striking campaign raising awareness about repression.

Fiji (44th out of 180 ranked nations) is lucky perhaps as three years ago when its draconian media law was still in place, it might have bracketed up there with the featured “chilling” tourism countries such as Indonesia (127) — which is rapped over its treatment of West Papua resistance and journalists.

Disguised as attractive travel guides, the campaign’s visuals use a cynical, impactful rhetoric to highlight the harsh realities journalists face in destinations renowned for their tourist appeal.

Along with Indonesia, Greece (89th), Cambodia (115), Egypt (170), Mexico (124) and the Philippines (116) are all visited by millions of tourists, yet they rank poorly in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, reports RSF.

‘Chilling narrative’
“The attention-grabbing visuals juxtapose polished, enticing aesthetics with a chilling narrative of intimidation, censorship, violence, and even death.

“This deliberately unsettling approach by RSF aims to shift the viewer’s perspective, showing what the dreamlike imagery conceals: journalists imprisoned, attacked, or murdered behind idyllic landscapes.”

The RSF Index 2025 teaser.     Video: RSF

Indonesia is in the Pacific spotlight because of its Melanesian Papuan provinces bordering Pacific Islands Forum member country Papua New Guinea.

Despite outgoing President Joko Widodo’s 10 years in office and a reformist programme, his era has been marked by a series of broken promises, reports RSF.

“The media oligarchy linked to political interests has grown stronger, leading to increased control over critical media and manipulation of information through online trolls, paid influencers, and partisan outlets,” says the Index report.

“This climate has intensified self-censorship within media organisations and among journalists.

“Since October 2024, Indonesia has been led by a new president, former general Prabowo Subianto — implicated in several human rights violation allegations — and by Joko Widodo’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as vice-president.

“Under this new administration, whose track record on press freedom offers little reassurance, concerns are mounting over the future of independent journalism.”

Fiji leads in Pacific
In the Pacific, Fiji has led the pack among island states by rising four places to 40th overall, making it the leading country in Oceania in 2025 in terms of press freedom.

Both Timor-Leste, which dropped 19 places to 39th after heading the region last year, and Samoa, which plunged 22 places to 44th, lost their impressive track record.

Of the only other two countries in Oceania surveyed by RSF, Tonga rose one place to 46th and Papua New Guinea jumped 13 places to 78th, a surprising result given the controversy over its plans to regulate the media.

RSF reports that the Fiji Media Association (FMA), which was often critical of the harassment of the media by the previous FijiFirst government, has since the repeal of the Media Act in 2023 “worked hard to restore independent journalism and public trust in the media”.

In March 2024, research published in Journalism Practice journal found that sexual harassment of women journalists was widespread and needed to be addressed to protect media freedom and quality journalism.

In Timor-Leste, “politicians regard the media with some mistrust, which has been evidenced in several proposed laws hostile to press freedom, including one in 2020 under which defaming representatives of the state or Catholic Church would have been punishable by up to three years in prison.

“Journalists’ associations and the Press Council often criticise politicisation of the public broadcaster and news agency.”

On the night of September 4, 2024, Timorese police arrested Antonieta Kartono Martins, a reporter for the news site Diligente Online, while covering a police operation to remove street vendors from a market in Dili, the capital. She was detained for several hours before being released.

Samoan harassment
Previously enjoying a good media freedom reputation, journalists and their families in Samoa were the target of online death threats, prompting the Samoan Alliance of Media Professionals for Development (SAMPOD) to condemn the harassment as “attacks on the fourth estate and democracy”.

In Tonga, RSF reports that journalists are not worried about being in any physical danger when on the job, and they are relatively unaffected by the possibility of prosecution.

“Nevertheless, self-censorship continues beneath the surface in a tight national community.”

In Papua New Guinea, RSF reports journalists are faced with intimidation, direct threats, censorship, lawsuits and bribery attempts, “making it a dangerous profession”.

“And direct interference often threatens the editorial freedom at leading media outlets. This was seen yet again at EMTV in February 2022, when the entire newsroom was fired after walking out” in protest over a management staffing decison.

“There has been ongoing controversy since February 2023 concerning a draft law on media development backed by Communications Minister Timothy Masiu. In January 2024, a 14-day state of emergency was declared in the capital, Port Moresby, following unprecedented protests by police forces and prison wardens.”

This impacted on government and media relations.

Australia and New Zealand
In Australia (29), the media market’s heavy concentration limits the diversity of voices represented in the news, while independent outlets struggle to find a sustainable economic model.

While New Zealand (16) leads in the Asia Pacific region, it is also facing a similar situation to Australia with a narrowing of media plurality, closure or merging of many newspaper titles, and a major retrenchment of journalists in the country raising concerns about democracy.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

This week Cambodia marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the murderous Khmer Rouge, and Vietnam celebrates the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces in April 1975.

They are being commemorated very differently; after all, there’s nothing to celebrate in Cambodia. Its capital Phnom Penh was emptied, and its people had to then endure the “killing fields” and the darkest years of its modern existence under Khmer Rouge rule.

Over the border in Vietnam, however, there will be modest celebrations for their victory against US (and Australian) forces at the end of this month.

Yet, this week’s news of Indonesia considering a Russian request to base aircraft at the Biak airbase in West Papua throws in stark relief a troubling question I have long asked — did Australia back the wrong war 63 years ago? These different areas — and histories — of Southeast Asia may seem disconnected, but allow me to draw some links.

Through the 1950s until the early 1960s, it was official Australian policy under the Menzies government to support The Netherlands as it prepared West Papua for independence, knowing its people were ethnically and religiously different from the rest of Indonesia.

They are a Christian Melanesian people who look east to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Pacific, not west to Muslim Asia. Australia at the time was administering and beginning to prepare PNG for self-rule.

The Second World War had shown the importance of West Papua (then part of Dutch New Guinea) to Australian security, as it had been a base for Japanese air raids over northern Australia.

Japanese beeline to Sorong
Early in the war, Japanese forces made a beeline to Sorong on the Bird’s Head Peninsula of West Papua for its abundance of high-quality oil. Former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam served in a RAAF unit briefly stationed in Merauke in West Papua.

By 1962, the US wanted Indonesia to annex West Papua as a way of splitting Chinese and Russian influence in the region, as well as getting at the biggest gold deposit on earth at the Grasberg mine, something which US company Freeport continues to mine, controversially, today.

Following the so-called Bunker Agreement signed in New York in 1962, The Netherlands reluctantly agreed to relinquish West Papua to Indonesia under US pressure. Australia, too, folded in line with US interests.

That would also be the year when Australia sent its first group of 30 military advisers to Vietnam. Instead of backing West Papuan nationhood, Australia joined the US in suppressing Vietnam’s.

As a result of US arm-twisting, Australia ceded its own strategic interests in allowing Indonesia to expand eastwards into Pacific territories by swallowing West Papua. Instead, Australians trooped off to fight the unwinnable wars of Indochina.

To me, it remains one of the great what-ifs of Australian strategic history — if Australia had held the line with the Dutch against US moves, then West Papua today would be free, the East Timor invasion of 1975 was unlikely to have ever happened and Australia might not have been dragged into the Vietnam War.

Instead, as Cambodia and Vietnam mark their anniversaries this month, Australia continues to be reminded of the potential threat Indonesian-controlled West Papua has posed to Australia and the Pacific since it gave way to US interests in 1962.

Russian space agency plans
Nor is this the first time Russia has deployed assets to West Papua. Last year, Russian media reported plans under way for the Russian space agency Roscosmos to help Indonesia build a space base on Biak island.

In 2017, RAAF Tindal was scrambled just before Christmas to monitor Russian Tu95 nuclear “Bear” bombers doing their first-ever sorties in the South Pacific, flying between Australia and Papua New Guinea. I wrote not long afterwards how Australia was becoming “caught in a pincer” between Indonesian and Russian interests on Indonesia’s side and Chinese moves coming through the Pacific on the other.

All because we have abandoned the West Papuans to endure their own “slow-motion genocide” under Indonesian rule. Church groups and NGOs estimate up to 500,000 Papuans have perished under 60 years of Indonesian military rule, while Jakarta refuses to allow international media and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit.

Alex Sobel, an MP in the UK Parliament, last week called on Indonesia to allow the UN High Commissioner to visit but it is exceedingly rare to hear any Australian MPs ask questions about our neighbour West Papua in the Australian Parliament.

Canberra continues to enhance security relations with Indonesia in a naive belief that the nation is our ally against an assertive China. This ignores Jakarta’s deepening relations with both Russia and China, and avoids any mention of ongoing atrocities in West Papua or the fact that jihadi groups are operating close to Australia’s border.

Indonesia’s militarisation of West Papua, jihadi infiltration and now the potential for Russia to use airbases or space bases on Biak should all be “red lines” for Australia, yet successive governments remain desperate not to criticise Indonesia.

Ignoring actual ‘hot war’
Australia’s national security establishment remains focused on grand global strategy and acquiring over-priced gear, while ignoring the only actual “hot war” in our region.

Our geography has not changed; the most important line of defence for Australia remains the islands of Melanesia to our north and the co-operation and friendship of its peoples.

Strong independence movements in West Papua, Bougainville and New Caledonia all materially affect Australian security but Canberra can always be relied on to defer to Indonesian, American and French interests in these places, rather than what is ultimately in Australian — and Pacific Islander — interests.

Australia needs to develop a defence policy centred on a “Melanesia First” strategy from Timor to Fiji, radiating outwards. Yet Australia keeps deferring to external interests, to our cost, as history continues to remind us.

Ben Bohane is a Vanuatu-based photojournalist and policy analyst who has reported across Asia and the Pacific for the past 36 years. His website is benbohane.com  This article was first published by The Sydney Morning Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders has condemned the assassination of Cambodian investigative environmental journalist Chhoeung Chheng who has died from his wounds.

He was shot by an illegal logger last week while investigating unlawful deforestation in the country’s northwest.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has urged the Cambodian government make sure this crime does not go unpunished, and to take concrete measures to protect journalists.

On 7 December 2024, journalist Chhoeung Chheng died in a hospital in Siem Reap, a city in northeastern Cambodia, from wounds suffered during an attack two days prior, RSF said in a statement.

The 63-year-old reporter, who worked for the online media Kampuchea Aphivath, had been shot in the abdomen while reporting on illegal logging in the Boeung Per nature reserve.

The Siem Reap regional government announced the arrest of a suspect the day after the attack, reports RSF.

Local media report that the suspect admitted to shooting the journalist after being photographed twice while transporting illegally logged timber.

“This murder is appalling and demands a strong response. We call on Cambodian authorities to ensure that all parties responsible for the attack are severely punished,” Cédric Alviani, RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director in Taipei.

“We also urge the Cambodian government to take concrete actions to end violence against journalists.”

Journalists face violence
Journalists covering illegal deforestation in Cambodia face frequent violence. In 2014, reporter Taing Try was shot dead while investigating links between security forces and the timber trade in the country’s south, reports RSF.

Press freedom in Cambodia has been steadily deteriorating since 2017, when former Prime Minister Hun Sen cracked down on independent media, forcing prominent outlets such as Voice of Democracy to shut down. The government revoked the outlet’s licence in February 2023.

One year into his rule, Prime Minister Hun Manet appears to be perpetuating the media crackdown started by his father, Hun Sen, reports RSF.

According to a recent CamboJA report, cases of legal harassment against journalists — particularly those covering environmental issues — are on the rise in Cambodia.

Having fallen nine places in two years, Cambodia is now ranked 151st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index, placing it in the category of nations where threats to press freedom are deemed “very serious”.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Vietnam’s famous Củ Chi tunnel network was on our bucket list for years.

For me, it was for more than half a century, ever since I had been editor of the Melbourne Sunday Observer, which campaigned against Australian (and New Zealand) involvement in the unjust Vietnam War — redubbed the “American War” by the Vietnamese.

For Del, it was a dream to see how the resistance of a small and poor country could defeat the might of colonisers.

• READ MORE: Flashback to the 1968 My Lai massacre: ‘Something dark and bloody’
• Ho Chi Minh City’s War Remnants Museum

“I wanted to see for myself how the tunnels and the sacrifices of the Vietnamese had contributed to winning the war,” she recalls.

“Love for country, a longing for peace and a resistance to foreign domination were strong factors in victory.”

We finally got our wish last month — a half day trip to the tunnel network, which stretched some 250 kilometres at the peak of their use. The museum park is just 45 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh city, known as Saigon during the war years (many locals still call it that).

Building of the tunnels started after the Second World War after the Japanese had withdrawn from Indochina and liberation struggles had begun against the French. But they reached their most dramatic use in the war against the Americans, especially during the spate of surprise attacks during the Tet Offensive in 1968.

The Viet Minh kicked off the network, when it was a sort of southern gateway to the Ho Chi Minh trail in the 1940s as the communist forces edged closer to Saigon.

Eventually the liberation successes of the Viet Minh led to humiliating defeat of the French colonial forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Cutting off supply lines
The French had rebuilt an ex-Japanese airbase in a remote valley near the Laotian border in a so-called “hedgehog” operation — in a belief that the Viet Minh forces did not have anti-aircraft artillery. They hoped to cut off the Viet Minh’s guerrilla forces’ supply lines and draw them into a decisive conventional battle where superior French firepower would prevail.

However, they were the ones who were cut off.

The Củ Chi tunnels explored.    Video: History channel

The French military command badly miscalculated as General Nguyen Giap’s forces secretly and patiently hauled artillery through the jungle-clad hills over months and established strategic batteries with tunnels for the guns to be hauled back under cover after firing several salvos.

Giap compared Dien Bien Phu to a “rice bowl” with the Viet Minh on the edges and the French at the bottom.

After a 54-day siege between 13 March and 7 May 1954, as the French forces became increasingly surrounded and with casualties mounting (up to 2300 killed), the fortifications were over-run and the surviving soldiers surrendered.

The defeat led to global shock that an anti-colonial guerrilla army had defeated a major European power.

The French government of Prime Minister Joseph Laniel resigned and the 1954 Geneva Accords were signed with France pulling out all its forces in the whole of Indochina, although Vietnam was temporarily divided in half at the 17th Parallel — the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, and the republican State of Vietnam nominally under Emperor Bao Dai (but in reality led by a series of dictators with US support).

Debacle of Dien Bien Phu
The debacle of Dien Bien Phu is told very well in an exhibition that takes up an entire wing of the Vietnam War Remnants Museum (it was originally named the “Museum of American War Crimes”).

But that isn’t all at the impressive museum, the history of the horrendous US misadventure is told in gruesome detail – with some 58,000 American troops killed and the death of an estimated up to 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. (Not to mention the 521 Australian and 37 New Zealand soldiers, and the many other allied casualties.)

The section of the museum devoted to the Agent Orange defoliant war waged on the Vietnamese and the country’s environment is particularly chilling – casualties and people suffering from the aftermath of the poisoning are now into the fourth generation.

The global anti-Vietnam War peace protests are also honoured at the museum and one section of the compound has a recreation of the prisons holding Viet Cong independence fighters, including the torture “tiger cells”.

A guillotine is on display. The execution method was used by both France and the US-backed South Vietnam regimes against pro-independence fighters.

A placard says: “During the US war against Vietnam, the guillotine was transported to all of the provinces in South Vietnam to decapitate the Vietnam patriots. [On 12 March 1960], the last man who was executed by guillotine was Hoang Le Kha.”

A member of the ant-French liberation “scout movement”, Hoang was sentenced to death by a military court set up by the US-backed President Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime.

In 1981, France outlawed capital punishment and abandoned the use of the guillotine, but the last execution was as recent as 1977.

Museum visit essential
Visiting Ho Ch Min City’s War Remnants Museum is essential for background and contextual understanding of the role and importance of the Củ Chi tunnels.

Also for insights about how the last US troops left Vietnam in March 1973, Nixon resigned the following year under pressure from the Watergate revelations, and a series of reverses led to the collapse of the South Vietnam regime and the humiliating scenes of the final Americans withdrawing by helicopter from the US Embassy rooftop in Saigon in April 1975.

Back in my protest days as chief subeditor and then editor of Melbourne’s Sunday Observer, I had published Ronald Haberle’s My Lai massacre photos the same week as Life Magazine in December 1969 (an estimated 500 women, children and elderly men were killed at the hamlet on 16 March 1968 near Quang Nai city and the atrocity was covered up for almost two years).

Ironically, we were prosecuted for “obscenity’ for publishing photographs of a real life US obscenity and war crime in the Australian state of Victoria. (The case was later dropped).

So our trip to the Củ Chi tunnels was laced with expectation. What would we see? What would we feel?

The tunnels played a critical role in the “American” War, eventually leading to the collapse of South Vietnamese resistance in Saigon. And the guides talk about the experience and the sacrifice of Viet Cong fighters in reverential tones.

The tunnel network at Ben Dinh is in a vast park-like setting with restored sections, including underground kitchen (with smoke outlets directed through simulated ant hills), medical centre, and armaments workshop.

ingenious bamboo and metal spike booby traps, snakes and scorpions were among the obstacles to US forces pursuing resistance fighters. Special units — called “tunnel rats” using smaller soldiers were eventually trained to combat the Củ Chi system but were not very effective.

We were treated to cooked cassava, a staple for the fighters underground.

A disabled US tank demonstrates how typical hit-and-run attacks by the Viet Cong fighters would cripple their treads and then they would be attacked through their manholes.

The park also has a shooting range where tourists can fire M-16s and AK-47s — by buying their own bullets.

‘Walk’ through showdown
When it came to the section where we could walk through the tunnels ourselves, our guide said: “It only takes a couple of minutes.”

It was actually closer to 10 minutes, it seemed, and I actually got stuck momentarily when my knees turned to jelly with the crouch posture that I needed to use for my height. I had to crawl on hands and knees the rest of the way.

A warning sign said don’t go if you’re aged over 70 (I am 79), have heart issues (I do, with arteries), or are claustrophobic (I’m not). I went anyway.

People who have done this are mostly very positive about the experience and praise the tourist tunnels set-up. Many travel agencies run guided trips to the tunnels.

“Exploring the Củ Chi tunnels near Saigon was a fascinating and historically significant experience,” wrote one recent visitor on a social media link.

“The intricate network of tunnels, used during the Vietnam War, provided valuable insights into the resilience and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. Crawling through the tunnels, visiting hidden bunkers, and learning about guerrilla warfare tactics were eye-opening . . .

“It’s a place where history comes to life, and it’s a must-visit for anyone interested in Vietnam’s wartime history and the remarkable engineering of the Củ Chi tunnels.”

“The visit gives a very real sense of what the war was like from the Vietnamese side — their tunnels and how they lived and efforts to fight the Americans,” wrote another visitor. “Very realistic experience, especially if you venture into the tunnels.”

Overall, it was a powerful experience and a reminder that no matter how immensely strong a country might be politically and militarily, if grassroots people are determined enough for freedom and justice they will triumph in the end.

There is hope yet for Palestine.

• The Melbourne-based Asia Vacations Group has recently expanded its Vietnam offering in New Zealand.

As world leaders meet in Glasgow for the UN Climate Summit (COP26), peaceful environmental activists are being threatened, silenced and criminalised around the world.

The host nation Scotland for this year’s meeting is one of many countries where activists are regularly facing rights violations.

New research from the CIVICUS Monitor looks at the common tactics and restrictions being used by governments and private companies to suppress environmental movements.

The research brief “Defenders of our planet: Resilient in the face of restrictions” focuses on three worrying trends:

• Bans and restrictions on protests;
• Judicial harassment and legal persecution; and
• The use of violence, including targeted killings.

As the climate crisis intensifies, activists and civil society groups continue to mobilise to hold policymakers and corporate leaders to account.

From Brazil to South Africa, activists are putting their lives on the line to protect lands and to halt the activities of high-polluting industries.

Severe rights abuses
The most severe rights abuses are often experienced by civil society groups that are standing up to the logging, mining and energy giants who are exploiting natural resources and fueling global warming.

As people take to the streets, governments have been instituting bans that criminalise environmental protests. Recently governments have used covid-19 as a pretext to disrupt and break up demonstrations.

Data from the CIVICUS Monitor indicates that the detention of protesters and the use of excessive force by authorities are becoming more prevalent.

In Cambodia in May 2021, three environmental defenders were sentenced to 18 to 20 months in prison for planning a protest against the filling of a lake in the capital.

In Finland in June, more than 100 activists were arrested for participating in a protest calling for the government to take urgent action on climate change.

From authoritarian countries to mature democracies, the research also profiles those who have been put behind bars for peacefully protesting.

“Silencing activists and denying them of their fundamental civic rights is another tactic being used by leaders to evade and delay action on climate change,” says Marianna Belalba Barreto, lead researcher for the CIVICUS Monitor.

Troubling indicator
“Criminalising nonviolent protests has become a troubling indicator that governments are not committed to saving the planet.”

The report shows that many of the measures being deployed by governments to restrict rights are not compatible with international law. Examples of courts and legislative bodies reversing attempts to criminalise nonviolent climate protests are few and far between.

Despite the increased risks and restrictions facing environmental campaigners, the report also shows that a wide range of campaigns have scored important victories, including the closure of mines and numerous hazardous construction projects.

Equally significant has been the rise of climate litigation by activist groups.

As authorities take activists to court for exercising their fundamental right to protest, activist groups have successfully filed lawsuits against governments and companies in more than 25 countries for failing to act on climate change.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea’s biggest bank — Bank South Pacific with major branch networks across the Pacific region — is the subject of regulatory action by the country’s banking regulator BPNG over failure to comply with anti-money laundering regulations, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

The Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit (FASU) of the Central Bank yesterday took regulatory action against the BSP Financial Group Ltd for alleged non-compliance.

The action includes the issuance of a formal warning under section 100 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Act 2015, an enforceable undertaking from BSP that it will remove and replace certain executive management staff and for the BSP to engage an external auditor to determine the full extent of the underlying good governance and best business practice issues that were identified during the onsite inspection by FASU.

The external auditor’s examination will cover enhanced customer due diligence practices employed by BSP on all high risk and politically exposed people who are customers of BSP.

The director of the Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit of the Central Bank, Benny Popoitai, said in a media release: “The nature of BSP’s non-compliance is serious enough for FASU to have issued an infringement notice, however, FASU has chosen to apply a formal warning instead, making this the first occasion of regulatory action undertaken by FASU against BSP.”

Among the alleged breaches detailed by FASU were BSP’s alleged failure to:

• conduct ongoing due diligence in respect of all of its business relationships in contravention of section 17(1) of the Act;
• ensure that transactions carried out on behalf of its customers are consistent with its knowledge of the customer, the customer’s commercial or personal activities and risk profile contrary to section 17(2)(b) of the Act;
• ensure that ongoing enhanced due diligence is conducted with respect to politically exposed persons in accordance with section 29(b) of the Act;
• conduct enhanced customer due diligence in accordance with the requirements of sections 27 and 28 of the Act where it had taken the view that the customer was a politically exposed person contrary to section 26(1) of the Act;
• obtain information relating to the source of the assets or the wealth of the customer when conducting enhanced due diligence contrary to section 27(b) of the Act;
• take reasonable steps to verify information relating to the source of the assets or the wealth of the customer contrary to section 28(b) of the Act; and
• take all reasonable steps to identify whether a customer or beneficial owner is a politically exposed person contrary to section 29(1) of the Act.

According to Wikipedia, BSP has 35 branches throughout Papua New Guinea and in eight other countries.

Outside PNG, the bank’s operations span Cambodia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Laos, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. It also has correspondent banking relationships with Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and National Australia Bank (NAB) provide correspondent banking services to BSP in Australia, providing a gateway for BSP’s clients from across the Pacific to transfer money in and out of Australia.

BSP employs more than 3000 people and services more than 650,000 business banking customers throughout the Pacific.

On site inspections
The FASU media release said the unit had conducted on site inspections on BSP in 2019 and late last year it had issued the bank with a “show cause notice” requiring it to explain why FASU should not impose enforcement action.

BSP’s response to FASU was a blanket denial without any acknowledgement of the deficiencies highlighted.

This, said Popoitai, had left FASU with no choice but to apply regulatory measures.

He also said: “FASU expects BSP to co-operate with the regulatory measures imposed.”

Penalties for breaching this Act are a fine of up to K500,000 (NZ$205,000) or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or both, or a fine of K1 million (NZ$410,000) for a body corporate, for each offence.

When contacted, BSP’s chief executive officer Robin Fleming told the Post-Courier: “At this stage BSP is unable to comment.”

However, in a later statement to the Australian Securities Exchange today, the BSP group insisted it has complied with the regulations and was considering its “legal options”.

According to the Australian Financial Review, an enforceable undertaking is being sought with the bank to “remove and replace certain executive management staff”. This is understood to include Fleming.

BSP will also be required to hire an external auditor to ensure it complies with anti-money laundering laws in the future.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

PACIFIC PANDEMIC DIARY: By David Robie

A rather beautiful Guåhan legend is rather poignant in these stressed pandemic times. It is one about survival and cooperation.

In ancient times, goes the story, a giant fish was eating great chunks out of this western Pacific island. The men used muscle and might with spears and slings to try to catch it.

This didn’t work. So, the women from many villages got together while washing their hair in a river. They wove their locks into a super strong net, caught the fish and saved the island.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – World Bank says economic crunch will hit poorest nations most

Now modern day Guåhan, or Guam, is the Covid-19 coronavirus epicentre in the Pacific, if we leave out the US state of Hawai’i. With the latest five more cases, Guam now has 82 infections – more than double the next worst island territory, French Polynesia with 37; there have also been three deaths so far.

For long time observers, the plight of Guam is not exactly a surprise.

“Epidemics or outbreaks of disease have been a persistent part of Guam’s history since first contact with Europeans,” writes local author, artist and activist Michael Lujan Bevacqua in the Pacific Daily News. “From the start of Spanish colonisation in 1668, you can provide a historical outline of Guam’s history over the next two centuries simply in terms of disease outbreaks.

“As the Spanish brought new diseases into the Marianas, their mere presence was deadly to CHamorus. As the first priests under San Vitores began to spread out across the Marianas, their arrival was often announced through microbes, with someone dying a strange and unsettling death, even prior to a priest actually visiting a village.”

Death by colonial ship
Death by epidemic always entered the territory the same way – by ship.

Although the last major outbreak happened back in 1918, writes Bevacqua, when the world was engulfed by the Spanish flu with 868 people dying locally (6 percent of the island population), some people still recall the horror.

And now Guam is host again to the worst Covid-19 outbreak in the Pacific. To make matters worse, another ship is involved with the colonial masters seeking sanctuary. The landing of almost 3000 crew members from the USS Theodore Roosevelt yesterday by Governor Lou Leon Guerrero to be quarantined in hotels ashore has been branded as a “dangerous” gamble by community leaders.

Seventy seven confirmed cases were on board with three deaths and the captain feared a disaster with the cramped quarters on board.

While the Pacific infection rates are still relatively low, many governments have been responding with panic, paranoia and creeping authoritarianism, especially in relation to freedom of information, media independence and constructive and accurate communication, so vital in these critical times.

Perhaps they are borrowing some ideas from not-so-distant neighbours in Southeast Asia. For example, the Philippines where President Rodrigo Duterte gave a controversial order to troops to “shoot dead” violators of the capital Manila’s three-week coronavirus lockdown, including those protesting for food.

Duterte’s ‘shoot them dead’ virus order to troops slammed as dangerous

Duterte’s government, intolerant of the news media at the best of times, has also cracked down on journalists. The Paris-based media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on Philippine prosecutors to abandon all proceedings against media under a new law that is claimed to combat “false information” about the coronavirus pandemic “but in fact [it] constitutes a grave violation of press freedom”.

Two journalists face prison
Two journalists based in the southern province of Cavite – Latigo News TV website editor Mario Batuigas and video blogger and online reporter Amor Virata – are facing the possibility of two months in prison and fine of 1 million pesos (NZ$68,000) along with a local mayor as a result of charges under the new law brought by the police last weekend.

According to RSF, they are accused of spreading “false information on the Covid-19 crisis” under section 6(6) of the “Bayanihan [community] to Heal As One Act,” which President Duterte signed into law on March 25 granting himself special powers.

In Cambodia, people who violate the extensive new state of emergency powers fast-tracked into law yesterday face up to 10 years in prison, according to a draft of the pending legislation.

“The law includes 11 articles divided into five chapters and gives the government near limitless powers to repress public gatherings and free speech during times of threats to national security and public order — or in times of health crises — and gives authorities wide powers to arrest people as they deem necessary,” reports Cambojanews.

In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo’s government has pressed ahead with fast a track  debate to adopt three controversial laws, including the revised Criminal Code and a weakening of the anti-corruption law, widely interpreted to collectively cement legal intolerance to dissent just at a time when the Covid-19 crisis public restrictions prevent any demonstrations.

Critics are stunned that the Parliament is determined to press ahead with this debate at the time of the health emergency that some critics have described as a “slowly-ticking coronavirus bomb nearing the point of detonation”.

Lacking public oversight
According to The Jakarta Post in an editorial: “It seems fairness is not something many of our politicians, either in the legislative and executive branches of power, believe in strongly. The deliberation of the three bills, which have met widespread opposition given to their contentious articles, will lack public oversight, which is essential.”

But as Gadjah Mada University communication lecturer Wisnu Prasetya Utomo notes in his Indonesia at Melbourne blog: “A key element of responding to the coronavirus outbreak must also involve efforts to eliminate or challenge misinformation. Minimising fear and panic as a result of hoaxes and misinformation is half the job in responding to this evolving crisis, which as yet has no end in sight.”

The Indonesian “bomb” across the border in Papua stirred an angry response in neigbouring Papua New Guinea from East Sepik Governor Allan Bird, who controversially called for a “shoot to kill” order to frontier troops against border-crossers. He later explained his views in a blog.

“This is a fight for survival. If we spend all our bullets (resources) and deploy our troops in the wrong corridor, we will lose the war,” he wrote.

“So what’s the strategy? Where should we deploy our assets to fight the virus? Where are we most vulnerable? And where can we mount our best defence? To me it’s at the entry point. Our borders… That’s the front line.

“Who do we need on the frontline? Soldiers and policemen. Well resourced. That should be 60 percent of our effort.”

Draconian rule, censorship
In Vanuatu, the caretaker government, taking cover from last month’s post-election confusion, has introduced draconian, authoritarian rule and censorship this week with the public barely noticing, as my colleague Sri Krishnamurthi revealed yesterday in Asia Pacific Report.

Vanuatu using Covid-19 to impose censorship on media, citizens

A regional media freedom advocacy group, Pacific Freedom Forum, has voiced concerns over governments taking advantage of emergency powers to impose restrictions on Pacific media. The detention and charging of two high profile Fiji citizens with breaching the Public Order Act over social media comments about Covid-19 brought the issue to a head.

The forum also noted that the Cook Islands had just passed information restrictions in its new Covid-19 legislation, levelling heavy fines and jail terms for those spreading “harmful information” over the pandemic.

“The state of emergency is not an excuse to treat newsrooms as a one-way channel to the public, or to gag dissent, social media commentary, and hard questions with restrictions and legislation,” warned Melanesia co-chair Ofani Eremae, a Solomon Islander.

As Governor Bird says, a comprehensive strategy is needed – not only for his country, but also for the Pacific region: “Burning roadside markets and beating up our women who sell food is not a smart strategy. Why is this our focus?”

Those legendary Guåhan women had the right idea: strategy, strength in unity and collaboration.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By David Robie in Paris

When Reporters Without Borders chief Christophe Deloire introduced the Paris-based global media watchdog’s Asia-Pacific press freedom defenders to his overview last week, it was grim listening.

First up in RSF’s catalogue of crimes and threats against the global media was Czech President Miloš Zeman’s macabre press conference stunt late last year.

However, Zeman’s sick joke angered the media when he brandished a dummy Kalashnikov AK47 with the words “for journalists” carved into the wood stock at the October press   conference in Prague and with a bottle of alcohol attached instead of an ammunition clip.

Zeman has never been cosy with journalists but this gun stunt and a recent threat about “liquidating” journalists (another joke?) rank him alongside US President Donald Trump and the Philippines leader, Rodrigo Duterte, for their alleged hate speech against the media.

Deloire cited the Zeman incident to highlight global and Asia-Pacific political threats against the media. He pointed out that the threat came just a week after leading Maltese investigative journalist – widely dubbed as the “one-woman Wikileaks” – was killed in a car bomb blast.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated outside her home in Bidnija on 16 October 2017 after exposing Maltese links in the Panama Papers and her relentless corruption inquiries implicated her country’s prime minister and other key politicians.

Although arrests have been made and three men face trial for her killing, RSF recently published a statement calling for “full justice’ – including prosecution of those behind the murder.

Harshly critical
While noting the positive response by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to the journalists’ safety initiative by RSF and other media freedom bodies, Deloire was harshly critical of many political leaders, including Philippines President Duterte, over their attitude towards crimes with impunity against journalists.

In the Philippines, for example, there is still no justice for the 32 journalists brutally slain – along with 26 other victims – on 23 November 2009 by a local warlord’s militia in to so-called Ampatuan massacre, an unsuccessful bid to retain political power for their boss in national elections due the following year.

Rappler published a report last year updating the painfully slow progress in the investigations and concluded that “eight years and three presidential administrations later, no convictions have been made”.

Ironically, Rappler itself – hated by President Dutertre – has also been the subject of an RSF campaign in an effort to block the administration’s cynical and ruthless attempt to close down the most dynamic and successful online publication in the Philippines (133rd in the RSF World Media Freedom Index – a drop of six places).

Founded by ex-CNN investigative journalist Maria Ressa, Rappler has continued to challenge the government, described by RSF last year as the “most dangerous” country for journalists in Asia.

Duterte’s continuous attacks against the media were primarily responsible for the downward trend for the Philippines in the latest RSF Index, with RSF saying: “The dynamism of the media has also been checked by athe emergence of a leader who wants to show he is all powerful.”

The media watchdog also stressed that the Duterte administration had “developed several methods for pressuring and silencing journalists who criticise his notorious war on drugs”.

Test case
The revocation of Rappler’s licence by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is regarded as a test case for media freedom in the Philippines.

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines advocate Jhoanna Ballaran says the situation is very worrying.

The RSF consultation with some of its Asia-Pacific researchers and advocates in the field has followed a similar successful one in South America. It is believed that this is the first time the watchdog has hosted such an Asia Pacific-wide event.

Twenty three correspondents from 17 countries or territories — Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Hongkong, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Tibet — took part in the consultation plus a team of Paris-based RSF advocates.

Asia Pacific director Daniel Bastard says the consultation is part of a new strategy making better use of the correspondents’ network to make the impact of the advocacy work faster and even more effective than in the past.

The Pacific delegation – Associate Professor Joseph Fernandez, a journalist and media law academic who is head oif journalism at Curtin University of Australia (19th on the RSF Index), AUT Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie of New Zealand (8th) and former PNG Post-Courier chief executive and media consultant Bob Howarth of Papua New Guinea (53rd) – made lively interventions even though most media freedom issues “pale into insignificance” compared with many countries in the region where journalists are regularly killed or persecuted.

Nauru’s controversial ban on the ABC from covering the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) this September was soundly condemned and the draconian 2010 Media Industry Development Decree in Fiji (57th) and efforts by Pacific governments to introduce the repressive “China model” to curb the independence of Facebook and other social media were also strongly criticised. (Nauru is unranked and China is 176th, four places above the worst country – North Korea at 180th).

Media highlights
Highlights of the three-day consultation included a visit to the multimedia Agence France-Presse, one of the world’s “big two” news agencies, and workshops on online security and sources protection and gender issues.

No sooner had the consultation ended when RSF was on the ball with another protest over two detained local journalists in Myanmar working for Reuters news agency.

An RSF statement condemned Monday’s decision by a Yangon judge to go ahead with the trial of the journalists on a trumped up charge of possessing secrets and again demanded their immediate release.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, have already been detained for more than 200 days with months of preliminary hearings.

They now face a possible 14-year prison sentence for investigating an army massacre of Rohingya civilians in Inn Din, a village near the Bangladeshi border in Rakhine state, in September 2017.

RSF secretary-general Deloire says: “The refusal to dismiss the case against the journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo is indicative of a judicial system that follows orders and a failed transition to democracy in Myanmar.”

The chances of seeing an independent press emerge in Myanmar have now “declined significantly”.

The Pacific Media Centre’s David Robie was in Paris for the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific consultation. Dr Robie is also convenor of PMC’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project.

Czech President Miloš Zeman’s “joke” threat against journalists. Video: The Young Turks

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Cambodia’s last independent newspaper has had its editorial team gutted after its managing editor, web editor and two senior journalists resigned following a demand from the Phnom Penh Post’s new owner to take down an article reporting on the sale of the paper over the weekend.

The Post’s editor-in-chief Kay Kimsong was then sacked for his role in the article’s publication.

“I got fired by the new owner…because I’m the editor-in-chief and I allowed the printing of the independent story based on journalistic integrity,” Kimsong told Southeast Asia Globe shortly after he was dismissed.

“I trust my reporters and my editors and I think that being journalists, we made the right decision. But it’s their business and they said, ‘Kimsong, you’re the editor-in-chief – and you made a big mistake.’”

The article, which was published on Sunday evening, confirmed that Sivakumar S. Ganapathy, chief executive and managing director of Malaysia-based public relations firm Asia PR, was the new owner of the newspaper, which has been the nation’s paper of record since 1992.

Outgoing publisher Bill Clough announced the sale in a press release on Saturday, welcoming Sivakumar – also known as Siva – to the role and praising his credentials.

“Siva is a well respected newspaper man, with a [sic] experienced journalist background, and represents a strong investment group from Malaysia,” said Clough, an Australian mining magnate who has be in charge of the paper since 2008.

Doubts over future independence
But journalists and media watchdogs across the region have raised doubts about the paper’s future independence due to a number of concerning links between the Post’s new owner and the Cambodian and Malaysian governments.

Asia PR’s website lists “Cambodia and [Prime Minister] Hun Sen’s entry into the government seat” as one of its previous clients. More worryingly, Sivakumar’s personal description maintains that he currently “leads the Asia PR team in managing ‘covert operations’ for our clients.”

Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, described the deal as “a staggering blow to press freedom in Cambodia”.

The Phnom Penh Post had been the subject of a US$3.9 million tax bill, which drew widespread parallels with the circumstances surrounding the shuttering of former English-language publication the Cambodia Daily.

The newspaper, which frequently published stories criticising the government, was shut down last September after being hit with a $6.3 million tax bill widely believed to be politically motivated.

The Post has also been dogged by an ongoing legal action launched by former chief executive Chris Dawe for wrongful dismissal during his tenure at the paper. Clough stated that the Post’s tax bill had been settled as part of the sale.

Post office plunged into chaos
Emotions ran high in the hallways and offices of the Post on Monday afternoon after the new ownership tussled with editors over the story.

Managing editor Stuart White, who has worked for the Post for six years, was the first staff member to refuse to remove the article.

“I was asked to take down the story about the sale by a colleague, who characterised it as a direct order from the new management,” White said. “I didn’t feel like I could do that in good conscience, so I resigned immediately.”

The order was passed through the ranks, with each editor refusing to take down the story.

Web editor Jenni Reid then refused and resigned, followed by the co-authors of the piece, business editor Brendan O’Byrne and senior journalist Ananth Baliga. Chief ececutive Marcus Holmes was the last to tender his resignation.

A senior Cambodian staffer who requested anonymity said that local reporters had pleaded with the new management not to put the paper’s long-running record of independent journalism at risk.

“The rest of the Khmer staff just stayed in the meeting to say, ‘Can you run a second story?’ ‘Do not pull [the original] down…run a second article, correction, make a clarification,’” the staffer said. Management refused, and Kimsong was fired shortly after.

Editors targeted by Sivakumar
Kimsong, O’Byrne and Baliga were all targeted by Sivakumar in an internal memo savaging the Post’s coverage of the newspaper’s sale, with the new owner calling on all three staff members to be “terminated”.

Although a press release from the paper’s new owners announcing the sale maintained that Sivakumar was “fully committed to upholding the paper’s 26-year-old legacy and editorial principles/independence without infringing any relevant laws and regulations of the Kingdom of Cambodia,” the memo – which was published earlier today by local news site AEC News – served up a stinging rebuke to the article, claiming that the piece did not meet the “high caliber” [sic] that the new owners expected from the paper.

Sivakumar called the piece “a disgrace and an insult to the independence claim of the newspaper” and said it “borders on internal sabotage”.

Today it is clear that the editorial independence of Cambodia’s last true independent media is at threat

Among Sivakumar’s complaints against the article were that the reporters forgot to publish his middle initial and that they identified him as “an executive”and “executive director” of Asia PRrather than CEO and managing director.

In the past year, Cambodia’s shrinking independent press has come under fire as the country gears up for a national election in July, with former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen the clear favourite to continue his 33-year reign.

The last gasp of the free press
Daniel Bastard, head of the Asia-Pacific desk of Reporters Without Borders, expressed his solidarity with the Post’s journalists.

“Rumours about pressures from Hun Sen’s government to try and muzzle the Phnom Penh Post have spread for a few months,” he said. “Today it is clear that the editorial independence of Cambodia’s last true independent media is at threat.

“The removal of the Post’s editor and the censorship on articles detailing the journal’s sale are dreadful signs that journalists will no longer be able to do their work freely.”

More than 30 radio stations known to be critical of Hun Sen’s rule were silenced by the government last year, including Radio Free Asia and Voice of America.

Cambodia plunged ten places in the 2018 Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index to number 142 out of 180 countries.

Since launching in January 2007, the Cambodia-based Southeast Asia Globe has sought to “engage our readers through reports that dig deeper and stories that inspire”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former slaves head for home: Thousands of fishermen rescued from brutal conditions on foreign fishing boats make the journey back home, many after years at sea. As reported by Associated Press in September 2015. Video: AP on YouTube

By Jewel Topsfield of The Sydney Morning Herald in Jakarta

It’s hard to comprehend it happened in this century: human slaves trapped on fishing boats being whipped with poisonous stingray tails, having ice blocks thrown at them and being shot.

“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us,” says Hlaing Min, 30, a runaway slave from Benjina, a remote fisheries weight station in eastern Indonesia’s Aru Islands.

“There must be a mountain of bones under the sea…. The bones of the people could be an island, it’s that many.”

In 2015 more than 1300 foreign fisherman from Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos were rescued from Benjina and Ambon, after an Associated Press investigation revealed the brutal conditions aboard many foreign vessels reflagged to operate in Indonesian waters.

Extraordinary images of men being kept in a cage exposed the chilling reality of 21st century slavery.

“They were trafficked from their home country, mostly by means of deception, forced to work over 20 hours per day on a boat in the middle of the sea, with little to no chance of escape,” says a report on human trafficking in the Indonesian fishing industry released this week.

Some were kept at sea for years at a time.

After the rescue, the International Organisation for Migration interviewed the fishers.

They were told of excessive work hours — 78 percent of 285 victims interviewed in depth claimed they worked between 16 and 24 hours a day, cramped conditions, meals of watery fish gruel, physical and psychological abuse and even murder.

‘Several crews died’
“While on board, I often heard the news from the boat radio that several boat crews had died, either falling to the ocean, fighting or killed by the other crews,” a Cambodian fisher says in the report.

“While I was working on the boat, I saw with my own eyes more than seven dead bodies floating in the sea.”

Witnesses testified that requesting to leave the boat could be a death sentence for some victims. Those who did might find themselves chained on the deck in the middle of the day or locked in the freezer.

“The heartrending stories of these fishers could not be left untold,” says IOM Indonesia’s chief of mission Mark Getchell.

The report says the Benjina and Ambon cases highlight the lack of adequate policing of the fishing industry and a lack of scrutiny of working conditions on ships and in fish processing plants.

Seafood caught by modern day slaves entered the global supply chain, with legitimate suppliers of fish “unaware of its provenance and the human toll behind the catch.”

“The situation in Benjina and Ambon is symptomatic of a much broader and insidious trade in people, not only in the Indonesian and Thai fishing industries, but indeed globally,” the report says.

Repatriation of enslaved fisherfmen
In 2015 the Australian government provided $2.17 million to IOM to support the daily care, repatriation and reintegration of formerly trafficked and enslaved fishermen from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, who had been stranded on islands in Indonesia’s Maluku province.

“This funding support has since been extended to enable IOM to provide assistance to foreign fishermen stranded in any area of Indonesia,” an Immigration Department spokesman said.

“This assistance plays a crucial role to support and protect victims of trafficking and slavery in the fishing industry by reuniting victims with their families and providing them with limited financial assistance which can help them establish an alternative livelihood.”

IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said Australia provided the lion share of the funding for its emergency response to the human trafficking crisis, which included returning more than 1000 victims to their home countries.

“This would not have been possible without the Australian government,” he said.

At the launch of the report in Jakarta this week, Indonesian Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti unveiled a new government decree requiring all fisheries companies to submit a detailed human rights audit.

This was one of the report’s key recommendations to protect fishermen and port workers from abuse.

“That being said, Indonesia still has homework towards the approximately 250,000 Indonesian crews on foreign vessels operating across continents that remain unprotected,” Pudjiastuti says in a foreword to the report.

The report also called for greater diligence in recording the movement of vessels in Indonesian waters, more training on human trafficking, independent inspections of ports and vessels at sea and centres in ports where fishers could seek protection.

Jewel Topsfield is the Jakarta-based Indonesia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald.This article was first published by the SMH and has been republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.