Yet this global diplomatic posture raises a critical question: how credible is Indonesia’s claim to peace leadership while a prolonged humanitarian crisis continues in West Papua?

In late February 2026, Prabowo offered Indonesia’s services to mediate rising tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, even stating he was prepared to travel to Tehran if both parties agreed to dialogue.

The message was reinforced when former Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla met Iran’s ambassador, Mohammad Boroujerdi, on 3 March 2026 to reiterate Indonesia’s readiness to facilitate diplomatic engagement.

In response, Iran publicly welcomed the gesture but tempered expectations.

Iranian officials insisted that any meaningful mediation must include condemnation of US and Israeli military actions, warning that diplomatic initiatives without political clarity may have limited effectiveness.

The exchange highlighted both Indonesia’s aspiration to play a larger diplomatic role and the complexities of international conflict mediation.

Peacebroker limitations
However, Indonesia’s attempt to position itself as a global peace broker has already faced significant limitations. In 2023, Prabowo proposed a peace plan for the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The proposal, which included controversial suggestions such as a demilitarised zone and a referendum in disputed territories, was quickly rejected by Ukrainian officials. The response exposed the limited influence of Indonesia’s mediation efforts in conflicts far beyond Southeast Asia.

While presenting himself internationally as a peacemaker, critics argue that Prabowo has largely paid lip service to human rights at home, particularly regarding the unresolved crisis in West Papua.

Indonesian protesters denounce US link over Iran war         Video: Al Jazeera

While Indonesia promotes its diplomatic role in international conflicts, violence and instability continue to affect civilians in West Papua.

On 11 February 2026, only weeks before Prabowo’s international mediation initiative gained attention, a small civilian aircraft operated by Smart Air came under gunfire shortly after landing at Korowai Batu airstrip in Boven Digoel, West Papua.

A spokesperson linked to the military wing of Free Papua Movement (TPNPB- OPM) later claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that the aircraft had allegedly been used to transport Indonesian security forces.

The roots of the crisis stretch back to the early 1960s, when Indonesia invaded and took control of the territory following the withdrawal of Dutch colonial administration.

Act of Free Choice controversy
The subsequent 1969 referendum, known as the Act of Free Choice, remains one of the most controversial political processes in modern Southeast Asian and South Pacific history.

Rather than a universal vote, approximately 1025 selected representatives voted under significant political and military pressure.

Many Papuans and international observers argue that the process failed to meet internationally recognized standards for self-determination. As a result, the legitimacy of the referendum continues to be contested, and its legacy remains a central grievance fueling decades of political resistance and armed conflict.

For many analysts and human rights advocates, the Papua conflict cannot simply be framed as a domestic security problem. Instead, it represents a protracted humanitarian and political crisis that has yet to find a comprehensive and inclusive resolution.

In this sense, the issue has become what some observers describe as a long-standing wound within the Indonesian state.

Such incidents highlight the tragic reality faced by ordinary Papuans, who often find themselves caught between military operations and Papuan resistance attacks.

Civilians bear the brunt of a conflict that has persisted for decades without meaningful political dialogue capable of addressing its underlying causes.

Rising internal displacement in West Papua
According to reports by human rights organisations and humanitarian groups, displacement in West Papua has increased significantly in recent years.

The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has risen dramatically, from roughly 55,000 at the end of 2023 to more than 103,000 by October 2025. Many displaced communities face severe shortages of food, healthcare, education, and basic security.

These figures reflect a broader systemic failure to protect civilians and provide sustainable solutions for affected communities. Despite decades of development initiatives and official rhetoric emphasising stability and prosperity in Papua, the lived reality for many residents remains defined by insecurity and displacement.

Prabowo’s own military history also continues to shape international perceptions of Indonesia’s human rights record. During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999, Prabowo served as an officer in Indonesia’s elite special forces, Kopassus.

Human rights organisations have linked him to operations accused of abuses against civilians during that period.

Following the 1999 referendum that ultimately led to East Timor’s independence, the United Nations supported investigations into violence carried out by Indonesian-backed militias and security forces.

Although Prabowo was never tried or convicted by an international court, activists and some Timorese leaders have long argued that senior Indonesian officers should have faced deeper scrutiny.

Shaping of credibility
In international diplomacy, credibility is often shaped not only by external initiatives but also by a state’s domestic human rights record. When internal conflicts remain unresolved, claims to global moral leadership can face heightened scrutiny.

Prabowo was also involved in military operations in Papua during the 1990s. One of the most widely discussed incidents was the 1996 Mapenduma hostage crisis in the highlands of what is now Nduga Regency.

Human rights organisations have documented allegations of abuses committed by Indonesian security forces during that period.

Additional controversies have surrounded claims that aircraft bearing the emblem of the International Committee of the Red Cross were misused during operations. Such allegations, whether proven or not, continue to raise questions about adherence to international humanitarian law and contribute to lingering distrust among Papuan communities.

Taken together, these historical and contemporary dynamics create a sharp contrast between Indonesia’s global diplomatic ambitions and the unresolved realities within its own borders.

In international diplomacy, credibility is closely tied to domestic consistency.
It is difficult to advocate peace abroad while unresolved grievances and allegations of human rights violations persist at home.

For Indonesia, genuine leadership in global peacemaking would require more than diplomatic offers on the world stage. It would involve confronting the deeper structural issues underlying the conflict in West Papua.

Ensuring accountability
This would include ensuring accountability for past abuses, protecting civil liberties, and opening inclusive political dialogue that allows Papuans to meaningfully participate in shaping their own future.

Without such reforms, Indonesia’s peace diplomacy risks being perceived less as principled international engagement and more as a form of strategic public relations. The gap between Jakarta’s diplomatic rhetoric and the lived experiences of Papuan civilians remains stark.

Ultimately, Indonesia’s credibility as a global peacemaker will depend not only on its willingness to mediate conflicts abroad but also on its ability to address the long-standing humanitarian and political crisis within West Papua.

Until that gap is bridged, Indonesia’s aspirations for global diplomatic leadership will continue to face serious questions about legitimacy and moral authority.

The continued instability in West Papua also has broader regional implications for the Pacific, where several governments and civil society groups have increasingly raised concerns about the humanitarian situation faced by indigenous West Papuans.

Ali Mirin is a West Papuan from the Kimyal tribe in the highlands bordering the Star Mountains region of Papua New Guinea. He holds a Master of Arts in international relations from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: By Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams

US and Israeli airstrikes have killed nearly 300 Iranian and Lebanese children over the past nine days as the attackers target apartment towers, single-family homes, schools, medical facilities, and other civilian infrastructure.

Iran’s Health Ministry said Sunday that 198 women and 190 minors have been killed by US and Israeli attacks since February 28, including six children under the age of 5. The youngest reported victim is an 8-month-old girl.

Children account for more than 30 percent of those killed, according to the ministry, which also said that 1044 women and 638 children have been injured.

Overall, Iran said that more than 1300 people have been killed by the airstrikes, which are reportedly targeting 30 of the country’s 31 provinces.

The Lebanese Health Ministry announced Sunday that 394 people, including 42 women and 83 children, have been killed by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) attacks after Iran-backed Hezbollah joined the war.

The US-based charity Save the Children noted yesterday that the number of slain Iranian and Lebanese minors is the equivalent of “10 classrooms full of children”.

“It is devastating that airstrikes in Lebanon have reportedly caused the deaths of 83 children… among nearly 300 children killed in the region,” said Save the Children Lebanon director Nora Ingdal.

‘Not just numbers’
“These are not just numbers — these are young lives cut short and children whose futures have been forever scarred by war.”

Israel claims it has killed around 200 Hezbollah fighters. However, the IDF’s routine attacks on apartment towers and other residential buildings have drawn widespread condemnation.

On Sunday, an IDF strike massacred 18 people sheltering in an apartment building in Sir El-Gharbiyeh in Nabatieh district. The building was housing some of the nearly 700,000 Lebanese forcibly displaced by Israeli attacks, including around 200,000 children.

Local officials said women and children were among the victims.

Another IDF aerial massacre in the southern Lebanese town of Tafahata killed eight people, including five members of the Ezzedine family, whose home was bombed.

“This time is much worse than the previous war,” Nabatieh Civil Defence chief Hussein Faqih told the National, referring to Israel’s 2023-25 attacks on Lebanon that killed more than 4000 people, including nearly 800 women and over 300 children, in retaliation for Hezbollah’s rocket strikes in solidarity with Palestine during the Gaza genocide.

Israeli attacks on Iran during last year’s 12-Day War also killed more than 1000 Iranians, including 436 civilians.

Worst reported bombing
In the worst reported bombing of the current war — and possibly the deadliest US massacre since more than 400 Iraqis were wiped out in a “precision strike” on a Baghdad bomb shelter during the 1991 Gulf War — around 175 Iranians, most of them young children, were killed in what first responders and victims’ relatives said was a so-called double-tap strike on an elementary school in Minab in southern Iran.

US military investigators reportedly believe the strike was carried out by US forces, but President Donald Trump has blamed Iran.

On Monday, a group of Democratic US senators lead by Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said they were “horrified” by the school strike.

“The killing of school children is appalling and unacceptable under any circumstance,” the senators said in a statement. “This incident is particularly concerning in light of [Defence Secretary Pete] Hegseth’s openly cavalier approach to the use of force, including his statement that US strikes in Iran wouldn’t be bound by ‘stupid rules of engagement,’ in his words.”

Multiple members of the UK Parliament have condemned the killing of Iranian and Lebanese children.

Leftist Independent Jeremy Corbyn, a former Labour leader, said yesterday on Bluesky: “Classrooms of children in Iran. Hundreds of people in Lebanon. The ongoing genocide in Gaza. The message from our political and media class is clear: Their lives are less valuable than others.”

“Every human being matters, and every human being deserves a life of peace,” Corbyn added.

‘School girls slaughtered’
Zahra Sultana, who quit Labour and started the socialist Your Party with Corbyn last year, mocked US and Israeli pretensions, saying in a BBC interview on Sunday — International Women’s Day — that the girls in the Minab school were slaughtered “apparently to liberate women”.

Retaliatory attacks by Iran have killed at least 13 Israelis and wounded nearly 2000 others since February 28, according to Israel’s government. No Israeli child deaths have been reported. Seven US troops and at least 15 people in Gulf Arab nations have also been killed by Iranian counterattacks.

While the world’s focus is on Iran, Israeli occupation forces have continued killing and wounding people in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine.

Drop Site News reported yesterday that eight Palestinians were killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours, including two women and at least as many children.

More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. More than 20,000 children have been killed and over 44,000 others wounded.

More than 1 in 4 fatalities have been children in a war for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, and Israel is facing a genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice.

Since the 9/11 attacks, US-led wars have left nearly 1 million people dead in more than half a dozen countries in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa—over 400,000 of them civilians, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

“Every war is a war on children, and once again we are seeing them pay the highest price for a conflict they neither started nor had a say in,” Ingdal said yesterday.

“Wars have laws, and children must be off limits in every conflict,” she added. “World leaders must act urgently to prevent further escalation. There must be an immediate cessation of hostilities, and all parties must uphold international humanitarian law and do everything in their power to protect civilians—especially children.”

Republished under Creative Commons.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

According to the Manchester Evening News, the protest drew between 5000 and 6000 participants, based on estimates from the Metropolitan Police.

The rally began at Millbank near Victoria Tower Gardens at noon and was organised by a coalition of activist groups, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Stop the War Coalition and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Protesters marched toward the US Embassy carrying placards reading “Stop Trump’s Wars” and “No War on Iran,” while others waved Iranian and Palestinian flags.

Some demonstrators also carried portraits of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Organisers described the military strikes as “illegal” and warned that escalating conflict could place millions of civilians at risk across the Middle East.

Chris Nineham, vice-chair of the Stop the War Coalition, said the situation represented one of “the most dangerous global moments in decades.”

‘Murder and mayhem’
“[US President Donald] Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu are creating murder and mayhem across the Middle East,” Nineham said in a video posted on social media from the protest.

“They are risking spreading war across the Middle East, and they are creating the conditions of volatility and instability around the world, and what is disgraceful is that our government is allowing British bases to be used to promote this mayhem.”

He added that many people in Britain opposed the war and called for a broad and vocal movement to mobilise against the conflict and advocate for peace.

Tensions in the Middle East have escalated since the US and Israel launched a large-scale attack on Iran on February 28, killing more than 1300 people, including Khamenei and more than 165 schoolgirls, and senior military officials.

Iran has retaliated with sweeping barrages of its own that have targeted US bases, diplomatic facilities, and military personnel across the region, as well as multiple Israeli cities. At least 11 Israelis have been killed.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Journalists in Iran have been working amid hostile air strikes for almost a week since the start of the US-Israeli offensive while also facing repression from the Iranian regime.

Internet access in the country remains limited and information is scarce.

As war spreads across the region, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed its solidarity with journalists in the zone and has called on all parties involved in the conflict to guarantee their protection and the right to information.

“As the region goes up in flames, access to reliable information about the war following the attacks carried out by the United States and Israel, is more essential than ever — both regionally and internationally,” said Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East Desk, in a statement.

“Every single stakeholder involved in this war in Iran and the Middle East more widely is required, under international law, to guarantee the safety of reporters and their freedom to carry out their work.”

Although the situation was volatile and characterised by violence, respect for the right to information was still an obligation,” he said.

“The safety of journalists is non-negotiable. War must under no circumstances hinder the work of the press.

‘Release journalists’ call
“US and Israeli strikes against Iran must not endanger the media professionals covering those events. The Iranian regime must immediately release the journalists it is holding and cease all pressures against those covering the war.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new documentary film on the devastating “ecocide” happening in West Papua will be screened at a weekend solidarity forum in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau this weekend.

The 90m feature film, Pesta Babi (“The Pig Feast”) — Colonialism In Our Time, produced by award-winning Papuan journalist Victor Mambor and directed by Dandhy Dwi Laksono, tells a story about the impact of the Indonesian government and military on the lives of thousands of Papuans trying to protect their rainforests from destruction.

It also relates the plight of thousands of internal refugees in the Melanesian region.

The peaceful resistance of local communities is revealed in the documentary as they face up to 54,000 Indonesian troops and large corporate entities make big profits at the expense of an ancient culture.

Dorthea Wabiser of the environmental and human rights group Pusaka, will speak on the deforestation and displacement of communities in the south-eastern district of Merauke  where Indonesia is destroying 2.5 million ha of rainforest for palm oil, sugar cane, biodiesel, rice and other crops.

Military force is deployed to silence any dissent from communities.

Pesta Babi (The Pig Feast).                              Trailer: Jubi Media

Solidarity group hosts
The solidarity group West Papua Action Aotearoa with West Papua Action Tāmaki are hosting the two-day public forum on March 7 and 8 with the speakers from West Papua including environmental champions and filmmakers who operate in militarised zones at considerable risk to their personal safety.

Also, a media talanoa featuring Jubi Media founder Victor Mambor and others will be hosted by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub on March 9.

“The forum is an important event with a number of speakers and filmmakers from West Papua telling the hidden stories of the Indonesian occupation of their country,” said organiser Catherine Delahunty.

The climate impact of their destruction was incredibly serious as was the use of the military to enforce an end to traditional life, food sources, and forests, she said in a statement.

“These people are our Pacific neighbours with a devastating story to tell that our government and others across the world have chosen to ignore,” she said.

“They have a right to come here and to be heard despite the media bans in Indonesia and the desire of successive New Zealand governments to ignore structural genocide in our region.

NZ citizen kidnapped
“Only when a NZ citizen was kidnapped by Papuan soldiers did the government show any interest in West Papua, and this quickly faded once he was safely released thanks especially to West Papuan efforts.”

Other speakers at the forum include veteran activist and writer Maire Leadbeater, Green MP Teanau Tuiono, Hawai’an academic Dr Emalani Case, journalist and author Dr David Robie, Dr Arama Rata of Te Kuaka, and PNG academic Dr Nathan Rew.

• Forum Day One (public sessons), Saturday, March 7:  Old Choral Hall, University of Auckland, 7 Symonds St,  9am–4pm.
• World Premiere of “Pesta Babi” (The Pig Feast) documentary with Q&A – The Academy Cinema, Lorne St, CBD (below the Auckland Public Library), March 7, 6-8.30pm.
• Forum Day Two (solidarity development), Sunday, March 8: The Taro Patch, 9 Dunnotar Rd, Papatoetoe.
• Media Talanoa, Monday, March 9: “Kōrero with Victor Mambor: West Papua: Journalism as Resistance” – Whānau Community Centre and Hub, 165 Stoddard Rd, Mt Roskill (Next to Harvey Norman), 6-8pm.
• Further information: Catherine Delahunty, West Papua Action Tāmaki and West Papua Action Aotearoa. Tel: 021 2421967

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Michael West

We are led by fools and sycophants. The illegal, unprovoked invasion of Iran is not just garden-variety stupidity. This is stupidity on a grandiose, stratospheric scale.

The Israeli propaganda narrative that Iranians would sprinkle rose petals at the feet of their invaders has not come to pass. It has already been demolished in fact.

Instead of bringing freedom and democracy — “regime change” — we have brought chaos, possibly a world war, and definitely the destruction of the Middle East.

The world economy is being hit hard as we write; oil prices spiralling, energy prices about to soar, and the inexorable spectre of inflation and recession.

And it didn’t have to happen.

This was a war of choice. Even without the “Epstein Coalition” — as the Iranian media so aptly dubs their invaders — murdering 165 Iranian school girls on day one, “peace through strength” was never going to happen.

Quite the contrary. The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iran has hardened the resolve of Iranians, who are massing in their hundreds of thousands across the country to mourn their dead and chant “Death to America”, to back their regime.

Where was the advice?
The Epstein Coalition killed the Ayatollah, who was actually against nuclear power; he was a moderate.

Did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong not seek advice from Foreign Affairs that attacking Iran was folly, that the anti-regime protesters were a minority, that the pre-invasion protests were a Mossad and CIA psyop, that Iran might attack US proxy states in the region, that invasion would be a Brobigdadgian mistake?

Or did they ignore the advice in favour of a Washington regime compromised by the Epstein pedophile scandal?

And now, we see the feeble, hypocritical whining by Israel and its supporters about Iran attacking the Gulf states. Is that our only moral defence?

Decades of supporting these regimes: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — US proxy states all — regimes now unravelling, the oil price is soaring, inflation and recession are beckoning globally.

Images are emerging from Bahrain of locals cheering on the Iranian missiles. Were DFAT and our politicians unaware of popular angst in the Gulf states against American imperialism?

And what did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat? Not blow up American bases and infrastructure while the US attacked them; after the US betrayed them at the very negotiating table when they were offering significant concessions on nuclear enrichment, all to avoid war? This war.

War drums over Tehran.             Video: The West Report

Australia, the US flunkies
Yet here was Australia, Saturday night, first out of the blocks worldwide to throw its support behind Donald Trump and his preposterous “Operation Epic Fury”, a probable pedophile being blackmailed and led around by the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu like a pony at the fairground show.

“Operation Epstein Fury”, it was fast labelled. The soaring, craven stupidity is hard to grasp. Both major parties backing it.

Albo first, then Angus Taylor rushing to tow the Donald’s line. Then, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, too, who even congratulated and praised Netanyahu. We are led by fools and sycophants.

The flawed defence of atrocity
To address the empty rhetoric of the pro-war lobby, criticism of this war does not equate to support for the regime in Iran. Defenders of the US-Israel atrocity are busy with their swarms of social media bots peddling the argument that “you are an Islamist terror supporter” if you criticise the invasion.

This is the 2026 version of “You are a Hamas supporter” if you argue against genocide in Gaza.

The cold facts of this debacle are that regime change does not work, that Iran did not want this war, that Iran appears to be exceptionally well prepared, that the Epstein Coalition, which Australia supports, is daily backing war crimes: blowing up hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure.

This is a war which has already been lost.

The obvious reality is that regime change wars are a demonstrable failure. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iraq — a million dead, irretrievable regional stability. In Afghanistan, 20 years, trillions of dollars spent, four US presidents, six Australian PMs — all to replace the Taliban . . . with the Taliban.

And here we are, the world’s busybodies, doing it again.

Who would ever negotiate with the US in good faith again, or Israel for that matter? Iran did not want this war. Iran has not attacked another country in 300 years.

The US lured them to the negotiating table, then, without warning, murdered their leadership. This echoes last year’s 12-day war, where Israel and the US lured them in on the premise of good faith talks, then murdered them and now play the victim.

What did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat?

The record speaks for itself. The US is the biggest invader of other countries in history. Israel has, last year alone, attacked Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Palestine, Qatar, Tunisia, Malta, and Greece.

Six illegal attacks of sovereign nations, as well as three illegal attacks in international waters equals nine all up. In one year.

And now they are invading Lebanon again, seizing more territory as their puppets, America, fight their campaign against Iran.

Albo, what are you doing?
We know who the warmongers are. We are the warmongers. Yet, in his bizarre statement of support, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the fastest out of the blocks of all the allies on the weekend, issuing a false statement.

Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression.

For decades, the Iranian regime has been a destabilising force, through its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, support for armed proxies, and brutal acts of violence and intimidation.

Iran…

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) February 28, 2026

The claim, echoed by the usual warmongers of the Lib-Lab establishment, is that Iran is guilty of attacks on Australian soil, referencing alleged attacks on a deli in Bondi.

Apart from the common sense, why would Iran commit an act of terror on a deli in Bondi? Senior police have conceded that there is no evidence of this.

The nuclear furphy
Then there is the age-old claim that Iran is about to produce nuclear weapons. The US and Israel’s nuclear risk claims have been so roundly discredited it’s a joke.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to instigate a war against Iran for 30 years — claiming Iran is days away, weeks away, months away from nuclear missiles.

And they were at the negotiating table again when the Epstein forces murdered them.

The propaganda
We are now seeing mainstream media decry the “illegal attacks” on Israel and the Gulf states. Yet the ‘victim card” is tapped out.

Around the world, outside the legacy media propaganda, there is little sympathy for Israel having razed Gaza and slaughtered between 72,000 and 700,000 Palestinians while stealing more land in the West Bank daily.

It will continue. The media and political classes have failed so majestically that they can only try to salvage their authority with more propaganda.

The deplorable coverage of the murdered schoolgirls in Iran is a case in point. The “40 beheaded babies” and the “mass rapes” of Hamas filled the headlines in the West on October 8, 2023. Yet real murders — 165 murdered schoolgirls — have hardly rated a mention. Yes, a mention perhaps, but a side story, buried, no headlines of outrage.

Can’t handle the truth?

Is the truth too hard to handle? Is it not evident to everybody except the most brainwashed advocate of the Epstein lobby that Israel — the government, the state — is the problem here?

Netanyahu has won his ambition to drag America into a war against Iran, and if you follow the money, while world stock markets teeter, the stock market in Tel Aviv is surging, replete with weapons companies as it is.

Meanwhile, the ASX is tanking, ergo our savings. Oil prices are surging, ergo higher energy prices and inflation. The Houthis, Iran’s allies, are shooting again in the Red Sea while, on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, Iran has blocked the Straits of Hormuz, choking off a large chunk of the world’s oil supply.

Higher prices in India and China will mean higher prices for imports and inflation around the world.

The lessons of history have not been learnt; in fact, they have been discarded in spectacular fashion.

> 70 years ago, Iran looked just like any Western country.
> Short skirts, rock’n’roll, open universities.
> It’s 1953. Iran elects a secular socialist: Mohammad Mossadegh.
> He nationalizes oil. That pisses off BP.
> Cold War excuse.
> CIA and MI6 stage a coup. Operation Ajax.
>… pic.twitter.com/ZNWaLdBlCN

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddek) March 1, 2026

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

We, Alternative Jewish Voices, deplore Israel and America’s illegal war of aggression against Iran. We also condemned the repression of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but that does not justify this war.

International war will only bring — is already bringing — more civilian death and destruction. We support the right of the Iranian people to determine their own future.

America and Israel again attacked Iran in mid-negotiation, three days after Iran’s Foreign Minister, Sayed Abbas Araghchi tweeted: “Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.”

No one has offered the slightest contrary evidence.

This war of aggression violates international and US domestic law. After the Second World War, the Nuremberg Tribunal called aggression “the supreme international crime”.

We see around us the world they were trying to avert: Israel has waged genocidal war on a trapped community and bombed six countries that were not at war.

This morning, Israel is occupying parts of Lebanon. Russia has invaded and pounded Ukraine for four years. Pakistan is bombing the cities of Afghanistan. US President Donald Trump doesn’t know what to grab next.

Imperial ambitions
We regard the attack on Iran as the latest enactment of longstanding imperial ambitions. How many countries has America tried to bomb into submission? How many times did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bomb the blockaded population of Gaza before America gave him the green light and the weapons to commit outright genocide?

This week, benefiting from the distraction of Iran, Israel has yet again sealed Gaza behind a total blockade. Aid agencies are again counting the days until they again run out of food.

Netanyahu boasts on camera that this war is “what I have yearned to do for 40 years”. Beware of men who prefer the risks of war to those of peace. Chaos and civilian misery are their signatures, but we share responsibility for their impunity.

Even after the horror of livestreamed genocide in Gaza, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon acquiesces to more war and speaks as if Trump and Netanyahu are trustworthy public officials.

Luxon’s appeasement disgraces us. We must not support this unfolding disaster, not materially and not out of the side of the Prime Minister’s mouth. We must say “No” in a bold, principled voice; joining states like Spain and Denmark.

As this fire spreads, we must also peer through the headlines and focus on the people of Iran, Gaza, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Civilians need protection, intervention and an end to the games of these warmongers.

We urge our morally vacuous government to stand with the civilians, the law and our future.

Alternative Jewish Voices – Sh’ma Koleinu is a collective of anti-Zionist Jews from the Far North to Dunedin. It has a liberatory Aotearoa Jewish identity, whether religious or secular or cultural. It is part of a movement for collective liberation, in Aotearoa and in Palestine.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When I heard the terrible news that the Americans and Israelis had killed more than 165 children this week in an elementary school in Minab in Southern Iran it took me back to a wonderful day I spent in Isfahan in 2018.

I met lots of Iranian school children and their teachers that day. They were keen to practise their English and ask lots of questions. I want to share that day with you because it was filled with hope, with promise for a better world.

My wife and I were visiting Iran, both for the second time.

Right at the end of our time there we spent a day in Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan. It is a massive square that could enclose a dozen football fields.

Built by Shah Abbas I in the 17th Century, during the Safavid period, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site with markets, palaces and other cultural sites framing its four sides.  At one end is the magnificent Imam Mosque where a string of memorable moments happened to me.

I even saw a most astonishing one-woman demonstration.

We were just approaching the Imam Mosque when I noticed a young woman removing her head scarf. A mass of black hair fell down to her waist and then she began dancing.

‘Is this a protest?’
Rhythmically she swirled her upper body in a circular motion that sent her hair out horizontally around her. I was gob-smacked.

After a minute or two she stopped and started talking to her male companion who had been photographing her. I approached.

“Is this a protest?” I asked, somewhat gormlessly.  Yes, against the clothing restrictions.

Today the courage and determination of such people has, to a degree, paid off. Those restrictions, particularly in the cities, have effectively been lightened.  I have seen lots of footage of Iranian women without any head covering.

I salute their courage and determination and know their struggle will continue.

I also salute the courage and determination of the millions of Iranians who have turned out this week to support their government against the violent assault on the sovereignty of Iran by the racist, fascist genocidal Israeli state and its powerful vassal the USA.

Following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, I saw remarkable footage of that same vast square in Isfahan filled to the four corners with what must have been hundreds of thousands of people. As with millions around the country, they were defying the missiles to protest the violation of their sovereignty.

The inconvenient truth
The scale of the pro-government demonstrations is virtually never shown in the Western media but to understand the contested political landscape that is Iran you need to understand that inconvenient truth.

Iranian politics in the Western view has been reduced to a cartoon, to a Manichean world of black and white — which partly explains why Westerners, most particularly the leaders, fail to grasp the fierce nationalism that has seen millions of Iranians rally round their government as their state comes under an existential threat.

That day in 2018 in that square I chatted with pro-government and anti-government people; all incredibly nice and open and welcoming. Everyone was keen to discuss Iran and the wider world.

There were lots of school parties and both the teachers and their students were keen to speak with us. It was an unalloyed pleasure for us. Iranians are remarkably hospitable, cultured and kind. For me, they are the finest people in the Middle East.

That is partly why I felt sad and bitter when I watched the footage of the bombed-out Shajareh Tayyebeh girls elementary school (6-12 year-olds) in Minab and heard the screams of mothers calling for children whom they will never walk to school again.

The Western empire has a long history of killing children. I recently referenced Madeleine Albright’s infamous comment on the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children being “a price worth paying”.

This is just standard modus operandi for the West.

Protected by Mossad
Israeli football hooligans travel through Europe chanting “Why is school out in Gaza? Because there are no kids left!” They are protected by Mossad, local police and politicians like British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Australian PM Anthony Albanese recently welcomed Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel, who in October 2023 said: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.”

This is as clear a statement of genocidal intent as you could get and Israel made good on it.

Israel, the killer of tens of thousands of school kids, presents itself as a liberator for Iran? You don’t have to be an A-grade student to spot that lie.

Many people around the Western world want to commit the children of Iran into the hands of the President of the United States.

According to US Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA), Vice-Chair of the House Democratic Caucus: “In the Epstein files, there’s highly disturbing allegations of Donald Trump raping children, of Donald Trump threatening to kill children.”

Lieu, one of the architects of the Epstein Files Transparency Act is also one of those legislators who has had access to some of the files still kept out of the public record.

Iranian children have as much right to grow up in safety as our own children.

infamous bro-talk
We should all also recall Trump’s infamous bro-talk with the vile radio host Howard Stern. Stern asked if he could refer to Ivanka Trump as a “piece of ass,” and Donald Trump salivated back at him: “Yeah.”

While they were joking about this “piece of ass”, Trump said he would try to date Ivanka if she wasn’t his daughter. It is a relevant anecdote because we live in the age of American Geopolitical Epsteinism — a world of predators seeking to violate those weaker than them.

You don’t have to like the Iranian government to support the UN Charter and the insistence on the sovereign equality of nations.

Nothing in the Charter says it is okay for powerful white countries to attack other countries.  The West needs to bring its leaders to justice for the crime of genocide not launch yet another war on innocents.

Hands off Iran, Netanyahu. Hands off the children of Iran, Trump.

Eugene Doyle is a community organiser based in Wellington, publisher of Solidarity and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam war. This article was first published by Solidarity on 2 March 2026.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s weak response to the unprovoked and illegal United States and Israel attacks on Iran at the weekend has stirred strong criticism from many quarters.

A former New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, who also held a top United Nations position for eight years, labelled the government’s response “a disgrace”.

“In the absence of an imminent threat to the security of the United States and Israel, their armed attacks on Iran are illegal under international law,” she said. “They have no legitimate claim to invoking a right of self-defence.”

Clark was a Labour prime minister in New Zealand from 1999 to 2008 and administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) from 2009 to 2017.

Other critics of New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ joint statement today condemning Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and on US assets in the Gulf States included the opposition Green Party, a geopolitical strategic analyst, and a Palestine justice advocate, warning that Washington and Tel Aviv were risking a risky power vacuum in Iran and chaos across the Middle East with democracy unlikely to succeed.

Luxon and Peters singled out Iran for criticism in their statement while virtually ignoring the fact that Israel and the US had initiated hostilities with their sudden attack, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior regime figures, while Washington was still engaged with Tehran in negotiations about a possible nuclear agreement.

pic.twitter.com/xOrzfHdhng

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) February 28, 2026

“We condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s indiscriminate retaliatory attacks on Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan,” they said. “We cannot risk further regional escalation, and civilian life must be protected.”

In Clark’s response, she also shared on social media a statement from The Elders, an independent advocacy group linking senior public figures including herself, which condemned the military strikes by the US and Israel as a “threat to regional and global security”.

“History shows that wars to force regime change deliver neither democracy nor stability,” said The Elders chair Juan Manuel Santos.

In absence of an imminent threat to security of US & Israel, the armed attacks on Iran are illegal under international law. The Iranian regime is a vicious theocracy which has caused huge trauma to its people. But that isn’t a reason for a breach of Iran’s sovereignty. @TheElders pic.twitter.com/zBeJn9jQ1m

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) February 28, 2026

“Trump and Netanyahu’s unilateral attack on Iran must be condemned as an illegal and unprovoked act against the people of the region and any genuine pathway to peace,” opposition Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said.

“This latest escalation in aggression is part of a decades-long pattern of behaviour of the US dragging the region into more wars, violence, and bloodshed.”

“First the US kidnaps the president of a sovereign state after killing more than a score of civilians on the open seas without warrant or evidence of wrongdoing,” said 36th Parallel Assessments director Dr Paul G Buchanan. “Now it kills the head of state and supreme religious leader of another sovereign state, teaming up with a regime credibly accused of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank in order to do so.”

He said the “selective unilateral application of force” without imminent threat from either country “demonstrates two things: 1) the US and Israel have gone rogue; and 2) in doing so they have set a dangerous precedent for others to follow suit (think China with regard to Taiwan)”.

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-leader John Minto compared the current crisis with 1951 when Iran held its first democratic elections and elected its first democratic government led by Mohammad Mosaddegh as prime minister.

“Two years later the US and UK put in place Operation Ajax which overthrew this democratically elected government because the Iranians had nationalised the extraction and export of Iranian oil.

“How dare the Iranians take control of their own resources!” Minto added in a statement.

“This first democratic government in Iran was replaced by the autocratic rule of the US-friendly Shah.

“Today the US and Israel have attacked Iran yet again because Iran supports the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom from Israel’s genocidal occupation of Palestine and its ethnic cleansing and theft of Palestinian land.

“The US and Israel have never been interested in the democratic freedoms of Iranians. They want Iranians to live under the dictatorship of a US-bought leadership — just as the people of Arab countries across the Middle East suffer today.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Look around this morning.

America and Israel, nuclear-armed states have attacked Iran.

Israel, which has never declared its nuclear stockpiles nor its borders, has spent 2.5 years committing genocide against Gaza, a trapped community with no significant defensive weapons.

Israel has bombed six countries which are not at war with it. America funded it and elected Donald Trump to lead the violence from the front.

America and Israel pontificate about other states’ fitness to hold nuclear weapons.

Nuclear-armed Russia has invaded and battered Ukraine for four long years. Nuclear-armed Pakistan has begun to bomb the cities of Afghanistan, a state which lacks even an air force with which to defend its people (not that the Taliban care for the lives of their people).

We awake in the world that wise, caring people worked to avert for over a century; a world of impunity and gleeful slaughter by the already-overarmed.

People tried to minimise the risk and the harm of war with a few basic agreements. They dared to intervene for the protection and survival of civilians, doctors, journalists. They wrote laws to criminalise aggression and genocide.

All this is going up in smoke, and not one of the aggressors/provocateurs/genocidaires has a viable claim of self-defence.

How many people wake up in terror this morning (if they slept at all last night) in this new world?

Marilyn Garson writes about Palestinian and Jewish dissent.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Speakers at a pro-Palestine rally in central Auckland Tamaki Makaurau today were highly critical of the erosion of New Zealand’s once proud nuclear-free and independent foreign policy.

They also warned against being tied into a United States that is pivoting a hostile policy towards China, New Zealand’s major trading partner.

Ironically, just hours after the rally ended news broke of the unprovoked and illegal attack by Israel and the US against Iran barely eight months after a 12-day war last year.

With a theme posing the question “Is New Zealand a peace loving nation or a cog in the US war machine,” the speakers concluded that indeed the Pacific country was a “US war machine cog”.

Physicist Dr Peter Wills, a long-time activist and advocate for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, focused on New Zealand’s role in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.

He said the Five Eyes relationship has superseded ANZUS “or anything else”, saying while  the pact formalised in 1946 used to be intelligence, now it was the name of a five-nation military grouping.

“That’s the Anglo-Saxon countries,” he said. “Us good English-speaking people, you know, the white imperialists and colonialists of the world – the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and little old New Zealand.

“We’re all a part of it.

Eavesdropping on countries
“It used to be an intelligence agreement because they would talk about what they have listened to with other countries by eavesdropping on their radio communications and so on.

“But now everything has become so integrated, they have become the centre of war fighting.”

Explaining further, Dr Wills said: “And so they have this thing that they call C-5, which is command control for communications, computers and cyber.”

He said a top priority project was to make up a globally integrated “all domain” command and control system, which was hoped to be in place for next year.

The project had been discussed in Portsmouth, UK, in May 2024. Its purpose was to track friendly and enemy forces and send orders for attack.

“All domains – navy, land, air and space forces,” said Dr Wills, an honorary professor.

Globally integrated intelligence and military actions could be launched and directed anywhere in the world.

Countering China
It was electronic infrastructure for a superpower confrontation – to “develop a credible and effective combined all-domain command and control capability for operations to counter China”.

For Five Eyes officers overseeing these new digital and AI war-fighting systems at the Portsmouth meeting, a key objective was building the capability for confrontation with China.

“This means NZ following the US into military conflict with China,” Dr Wills said.

“We are involved in GIDE – Global Information Dominance Experiments, a new one is prepared every three months.

“And we will align with whatever is chosen by Five Eyes, either British or American.”

From an American point of view, said Dr Wills, New Zealand was a US ally, eager to play a role, “however small we are, to supporting the US around the globe”.

They also wanted NZ to get rid of its anti-nuclear legislation and return to ANZUS. This was the view of senior military officers and senior foreign affairs and intelligence officials

US ‘instability and bullying’
However, the majority of New Zealanders saw the US as a “source of instability and bullying” of New Zealand over its nuclear stand.

Dr Wills said New Zealand was influenced by the Anglo-American alliance today on many fronts, such as:

• NZ Navy ships transiting “provocatively” through the South China Sea;
• Being pressured to double military spending,;
• Being pressured to join the “anti-China” AUKUS alliance;
• The recent opening of a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Wellington; and
• New Zealand playing an increasing role in space warfare.

But Dr Wills warned people “don’t give up – they haven’t won, not even with their arguments”.

He also called on people to become better informed, such as reading Nicky Hager’s 2011 book Other People’s Wars.

NZ’s nuclear-free stance
Other speakers included nuclear-free New Zealand historian and activist Maire Leadbeater, who outlined the early trajectory of the country’s opposition to French nuclear tests in the Pacific by dispatching a frigate to Moruroa, and the campaign to declare New Zealand nuclear-free.

She said New Zealand had led the way in the 1970s and 1980s and could take a principled independent foreign policy stand again.

The rally also invoked the spirit of Kia Ora Gaza co-founder and campaigner Roger Fowler, who died last Saturday and who was farewelled at a “celebration of life” ceremony at Ngā Tapuwae Community Centre in Mangere East on Wednesday.

Veteran Polynesian Panther Tigilau Ness and his grandson on the saxophone played a rousing rendition of the popular song “We Are All Palestinians”, created by Fowler, and South African-born activist Achmat Esau read out his poem, “Roger, I Did Not Know” in tribute.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Having known the Filipino photojournalist Alex Baluyut, who died yesterday aged 69, for nearly half a century, I feel that looking at his photos — how he documented the events that unfurled during his lifetime — reveals his own lifelong search for himself.

By documenting the rawest parts of human existence, including war, poverty, and the shifting tides of our history, he was reconciling his own place within those same struggles.

Whether on the frontlines of conflict in Mindanao or the troubled streets of Metro Manila, he wasn’t just looking for a story; he was searching for a sense of truth.

​I first knew Alex when he was a photographer for the Associated Press. In those days, film was expensive, but it was not a constraint for him.

Having the resources of a major agency gave him a distinct advantage over his colleagues. I noticed how he loved documenting every movement of a subject, while others were often content with a single “good shot” for the day’s coverage.

It surprised me when, after we were dismissed from the Times Journal for union work and were organising a new daily with the late Joe Burgos, Alex approached me and Chuchay Fernandez. He asked if he can join Pahayagang Malaya.

He didn’t focus on the economic difficulties of a struggling paper, but instead embraced the challenge of being part of the “Mosquito Press” during the darkest days of the Marcos martial law era, especially during the surge of outrage following the death of opposition leader Benigno Aquino.

​Risky coverage
Alex was not just focused on protest rallies, his main assignments then. Together, we planned risky coverage of the underground movement, which took us to dangerous locations, including Mindanao to cover the Moro secessionist rebellion.

During the 76-day war in Lanao del Sur, Alex was hesitant to leave even after we received reports of napalm bombing; he stayed until it became clear the site was impossible to reach.

On one occasion, we braved a torturous hike to reach a MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) camp on the border of Lanao and Maguindanao to take the first-ever photos of their forces in formation at their own campsite.

Even then, I noticed a shift in Alex’s mood. His adrenaline was fueled by a drive to expose the plight of the aggrieved, a mission that eventually brought us to the countryside to cover the communist insurgency.

His photos were not always meant for the newspapers; they were documenting the struggle so that people might understand it. Eventually, the pressure of witnessing the stark truths of an armed struggle took its toll on him.

​Interestingly, the photos Alex provided me from his documentation of the underground movement did not show the stark reality of a rebellion, but rather the communities where he was immersed.

He was the best man at my wedding, and my only lament was that he failed to document the ceremony. Instead, he handed me and Merci a photo of a smiling Mangyan — a rare subject given his usual themes.

He told me it was his way of wishing us a happy life.

Mobile kitchen project
Alex also sought to chart a life beyond photojournalism. Driven by his love for cooking, he and some friends set up a small beer garden on the sidewalks of Ermita, which sparked his adventures in the restaurant business.

It was no surprise then that he eventually devoted his remaining years to serving the needy during calamities, co-founding the Art Relief Mobile Kitchen with his wife, Precious.

The news of Alex’s passing from cirrhosis of the liver stunned me, especially knowing the impact our late colleague Tony Nieva had on both of us. Tony also succumbed to the dreaded illness.He was our mentor in the struggle for press freedom and in documenting the lives of the downtrodden.

After Tony passed away, I rarely saw and worked with Alex, except for a few commissioned book projects.

Although I monitored his journey through social media and felt a sense of guilt for not joining his new advocacy, I am grateful to have been part of the life of a man who sought the truth in our ailing society and worked, in his own way, to lift the spirits of the marginalised.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A West Papuan leader has accused the Indonesian government of lying over its operations and “masking” the military role of some civilian aircraft.

Disputing an Indonesian government statement about reported that TPNPB fired upon an aircraft in Boven Digoel, killing both the pilot and copilot, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda said the aircraft was “not civilian”.

Wenda added that the Indonesian government was “tricking the world” about its military operations in West Papua.

“The Cessna plane the TPNPB [West Papua National Liberation Army] fired upon in Boven Digoel was not a civilian plane, as the police spokesman misleadingly stated, but part of a security operation,” Wenda said in a statement.

“Indonesia is again disguising their military activity as [civilian] activity. They are also willfully breaching the no-fly zones established by the TPNPB.”

The occupied conflict areas in which the Indonesian military TNI were “not permitted to fly” had been “clearly marked out by the TPNPB”.

“This is the same pattern Indonesia used in 1977, when Indonesia used a disguised civilian plane to bomb villages across the highlands and massacre thousands, including many members of my own family,” Wenda said.

Clear strategy
He added there was a clear strategy behind this — “Indonesia wants to avoid the attention that would be drawn by a large scale military buildup, so they mask their introduction of weapons and other military equipment and personnel”.

Wenda said they were effectively “using their own people as human shields”.

Indonesian soldiers and equipment next to a civilian aircraft. Image: ULMWP

The TPNPB attacks took place on February 11, with the plane being downed and the pilot and co-pilot being killed.

A second attack took place in Mimika, near the Grasberg gold and copper mine, which has been the cause of so much West Papuan deaths over the past 40 years.

“Indonesia then immediately began operating their propaganda machine, claiming that the planes were simply engaged in civilian and medical supply distribution,” Wenda said.

“The truth is that these aircraft were involved in intelligence and security operations.

Media blackout
“Indonesia is only able to spread these lies and mislead the international community because of their six-decades long media blackout in West Papua.

“No journalists or NGOs are allowed to operate in our land. West Papua is a closed society, just like North Korea. I thank God we have civilian journalists to document their lies.”

By breaching these rules the military were inviting further attacks, Wenda said.

“We must always remember that the Indonesian military uses any armed action by West Papuans for their own gain, as a pretext for more militarisation, more displacement, and more deforestation and ecocide.”

Wenda said their aim was always to escalate the situation as a way of ethnically cleansing Papuans, forcing them to become refugees in their own land, and strengthening their colonial hold over West Papua.

“It isn’t a coincidence that in the week since this incident we have seen an escalation in Yahukimo, an Indonesia-occupied community health centre, and transformed it into a military post, displacing and traumatising local residents.”

Using hospitals and other health infrastructure for military means was a clear breach of international humanitarian law, Wenda said.

Normal for military
In West Papua such behaviour was normal for the military.

“In the same week in Puncak regency, Indonesian military personnel seized a school, preventing students from learning and putting ordinary people at risk of harm. Soldiers are posted in classrooms with guns.”

Wenda called on the Indonesian government to withdraw their troops from occupied West Papua, allow civilians to return home, cease using civilian vehicles as a cover for military action, and immediately facilitate a UN Human Rights visit to West Papua — as has been demanded by more than 110 UN Member states.

“Ultimately, Indonesia must come to the table to discuss a referendum,” Wenda said. “This is the only path to a peaceful solution in West Papua.”

An Indonesian Embassy spokesperson blamed the “armed criminal group”, an expression it  uses to describe resistance movement fighters.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

This is a moment of great peril for the small Caribbean nation of Cuba. Nothing less than its sovereignty is on the line as the US drives its knee into the neck of 10 million Cubans by means of a crushing air and sea blockade and a set of secondary sanctions designed to muscle the nations of the world into compliance to the hegemon.

The issues are not particular to Cuba; we are in the midst of a militant US that is determined to assert domination through force.

It was therefore a pleasure to spend time this week with Luis Ernesto Morejón Rodríguez, Cuba’s Ambassador to New Zealand in Wellington.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Amnesty International has condemned Israeli authorities over unleashing a series of unlawful measures deliberately designed to dispossess Palestinians in the occupied West Bank — including East Jerusalem — and to make the annexation of the territory an irreversible reality.

These decisions since December 2025 represent an unprecedented escalation – in scale and speed – in Israel’s project to expand illegal settlements.

They facilitate the takeover of more Palestinian land, authorise a record number of new settlements, expanding existing ones, and formalise registration of land in the West Bank as Israeli state property.

While successive Israeli governments have pursued policies aimed at expanding settlements and entrenching occupation and apartheid, the latest measures underscore how the current Israeli government has turbocharged these efforts, in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza.

“What we are witnessing is a state, led by a Prime Minister wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, openly gloating about its defiance of international law,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns.

“Despite hundreds of UN resolutions, Advisory Opinions from the International Court of Justice and global condemnation, Israel continues to brazenly expand illegal settlements, entrenching its cruel system of apartheid and destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods.

“The unconditional support of the USA government, combined with the pervasive lack of international accountability for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, decades of crimes under international law linked to its unlawful occupation and its system of apartheid, has further emboldened Israel to escalate its illegal actions.

‘Formalising land grabs’
“This includes formalising land grabs with full confidence that it will face no consequences.

“The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action.”

— Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns.

“The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action.

“Third states have failed to respect their own legal obligations, refusing to use the tools at their disposal, such as suspension of the EU Israel Association Agreement, to deter Israel from pursuing its unlawful agenda.”

On 10 December 2025, the Israel Land Authority published a tender for 3401 housing units in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

The plan seeks to expand the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and create a continuum with occupied East Jerusalem.

This would sever the West Bank in two, permanently rupturing urban Palestinian contiguity between Ramallah, occupied East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem.

Forced transfer of Palestinians
Together with the construction of a bypass road which was set to begin this month, this plan will also lead to the forcible transfer of the Palestinian communities living in the area.

While since the 1990s successive Israeli governments have attempted to implement the E1 plan, it remained largely dormant for decades due to international pressure.

Its current advancement with such speed signifies a government that is brazenly pursuing its settlement expansion agenda amidst insufficient international pushback.

Since its occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, Israel has introduced and developed an oppressive administrative and legal architecture of dispossession and control against Palestinians.

The current government has been relentlessly accelerating this project by fast-tracking settlement expansion and land seizures.

On 11 December 2025, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to establish 19 new settlements, bringing the total number approved by the current coalition government to 68 in just three years and the total number of official settlements to about 210.

About 750,000 Israeli settlers currently live illegally in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Retroactive ‘legalisation’
The new settlements include the retroactive “legalisation” of outposts built in violation of even Israel’s own domestic laws.

Credible media reports indicate at least three of these sites sit upon land from which Palestinian communities, such as Ein Samia and Ras Ein al-Ouja, were recently forcibly transferred following state-backed settler violence.

According to Peace Now, an Israeli organisation monitoring settlement expansion, in 2025 alone, a record 86 outposts were established, primarily “herding” or “farming” outposts” which have significantly contributed to the spike in state-backed settler violence and forcible transfer of Palestinian communities.

Protected by the Israeli military and funded by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, the outposts have turned the lives of Palestinian farmers and shepherds, particularly in Area C, into a “living hell”.

Settlers in the outposts aggressively prevent Palestinian shepherds from accessing their grazing land, depriving them of their main livelihood, as well as seizing land by force, vandalizing property, stealing livestock and attacking Palestinians and their homes.

According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, 21 Palestinian communities were fully or partially uprooted in 2025 as a result of state-backed settler violence.

A mother of three from Ras Ein al-Ouja, near Jericho, told Amnesty International: “The fear of attacks forced us to put our children to bed with their shoes on, because we might have to flee at any moment.”

Freezing cold
In January 2026, she and her family were driven out in the freezing cold along with another 122 families — in total more than 600 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from this community.

A declaration by the Israeli civil administration on 5 January 2026 designating 694 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian towns of Deir Istiya, Bidya and Kafr Thulth in the northern West Bank as “state land”.

This was declared along with a series of measures to expand control over the West Bank announced by Israel’s security cabinet on February 8 to mark a further escalation in Israel’s land grabs.

These measures include repealing Jordanian legislation still in force to allow Israeli settlers to purchase Palestinian land without oversight increasing Israeli civil administrative control over planning and construction in Hebron City and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, as well as granting Israeli authorities new enforcement powers in archaeological sites and in issues related to water and environment in Areas A and B.

On 15 February 2026, the Israeli cabinet issued a decision that amounts to annexation under Israeli law.

It allocated more than 244 million NIS (Israeli shekels) for the establishment of a government mechanism to facilitate land registration in Area C, transferring the powers of land registration from the civil administration to Israel’s Ministry of Justice.

Currently, nearly 58 percent of the land in Area C of the occupied West Bank is unregistered, according to Peace Now.

Seized Palestinian land
Israel has already seized more than half of that area through state land designations.

Palestinians face almost insurmountable hurdles to prove land ownership due to Israel’s archaic interpretation of Ottoman land laws which require Palestinians to provide an array of documents, maps and other records that most Palestinians do not have access to.

“Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it. Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions.”

— Erika Guevara-Rosas

“Land registration is yet another Israeli euphemism for land grabs and dispossession. Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it,” Erika Guevara-Rosas said.

“Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions.

“Israel has totally disregarded its obligations as an Occupying Power towards Palestinian civilians and instead has deliberately and consistently advanced its aggressive annexation agenda, in blatant violation of international law, which categorically prohibits annexation and establishment of settlements in occupied territory.

“These measures are in brazen defiance of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinions of 2004 and 2024, the latter of which unequivocally found Israel’s presence in the OPT to be unlawful.

“A subsequent UN General Assembly resolution set September 2025 as the deadline to end Israel’s unlawful occupation.

“Yet instead of complying, Israel has simply invented new ways to violate international law, further entrenching its unlawful occupation and apartheid — while the international community continues, at best, to pay lip service to Palestinians’ rights and taken no effective action.”

Republished from Amnesty International.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz