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

Dozens of teenage girls were attending their regular training sessions of volleyball, basketball, and gymnastics in the main sports hall in Lamerd, a city near the Persian coast, when a missile slammed into the building at 5pm on Saturday.

Additional strikes hit two nearby residential areas and a hall adjacent to a school, as the US and Israel pounded targets across Iran on the first day of what President Donald Trump declared as a “regime change” war.

According to local officials cited in Iranian state media, the strikes on Lamerd killed at least 18 civilians and wounded scores more.

“Within seconds of the missile strike, the windows shattered into thousands of fragments. Sports equipment, balls, tables, barriers flew through the air. Black smoke filled the space,” Mohammed Saed Khorshedy, a 29-year-old worker at the gym who witnessed the attack, told Drop Site News.

“The smell of gunpowder made breathing almost impossible. The screaming began immediately, layered with the sound of debris collapsing and concrete falling from the ceiling.”

The facility sits on the outskirts of Lamerd, a quiet city in Fars province, near the surrounding Zagros mountain range, giving the natural landscape an uneven, rugged character.

Gym building at crossroads
The rectangular building is at a crossroads connecting the city center to Bandar Assaluyeh, an industrial port and energy hub on the Persian Gulf.

The sports hall was poorly maintained, with deteriorating walls surrounded by a low perimeter fence. A high arched metal roof sat atop a reinforced concrete frame and a rubber floor for volleyball and other sports.

The missile struck the middle of the roof, destroying a large part of the building. The main court, small spectator stands, changing rooms, and coach’s office were all reduced to rubble.

Hossein Gholami, a 50-year-old elementary school teacher, was returning from work when he heard the blast. His 16-year-old daughter, Zahra, was training in the hall.

“I noticed a strange gathering of people at the corner of the street leading to the sports hall,” Gholami told Drop Site.

“The screaming was rising from a distance. A colleague ran toward me, waving his arm, and said in a shaken voice: ‘Zahra, the hall, there has been an explosion.’

“I felt as though the ground had split beneath my feet. Everything around me became hazy,” he said. “I ran immediately, and with every step the columns of black smoke rose higher, while the smell of fire and flames entered my nose with force.”

Scene of horror
When he reached the site, he came upon a scene of horror.

“The continuous screaming of the injured mixed with the sounds of secondary explosions. The ground was covered in debris and shattered glass. It was difficult to move with all the rubble. Ambulances arrived after about twenty minutes, but most of the injured were in critical condition,” he said.

“The smell of blood and burns covered everything…the survivors were injured with fractures and burns from the shrapnel.”

Later, he learned that Zahra was among the dead.

“Every time I close my eyes I see her face, her smile, and I hear the sound of the explosion,” Gholami said.

There has been no public statement by the US or Israeli on the Lamerd strikes.

CENTCOM and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

165 killed – many schoolgirls
The bombing of the sports hall in Lamerd came hours after a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, another small city on the Persian Gulf, further east near the Strait of Hormuz, that, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, killed 165 people, many of them schoolgirls.

Neither the US nor Israel claimed that strike. The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area of Minab; CENTCOM’s spokesperson said they were “looking into” reports.

Another strike hit an adjacent IRGC naval base and the USS Abraham Lincoln is stationed nearby.

The governor of Lamerd said “The United States and the Zionist regime fired missiles at the sports hall while female students were playing inside,” according to the Fars news agency.

As of Sunday morning, the Iranian Red Crescent and state-linked media have reported preliminary casualty figures of more than 200 people killed and more than 740 injured across Iran, though the actual toll is expected to be significantly higher.

Iran launched retaliatory strikes across nine countries in the region: Israel, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with a total of 18 killed, including three US servicemen, according to a tally by Al Jazeera.

Mir Dehdasht, an administrative officer at Azad university whose 15-year-old daughter Rabab Dehdasht was training at the sports hall, was at home when a neighbour knocked on his door to tell him the facility had been attacked.

‘Their voices were deafening’
“I ran immediately toward the place, and when I arrived, I found burning cars and rubble scattered everywhere,” Dehdasht told Drop Site. “The injured were bleeding heavily, some had lost consciousness on the ground, others were screaming without stopping.

“Their voices were deafening.”

He continued: “Blood and dust covered everything, and the rubble blocked quick access to the building. Rescue teams were working with extreme care to bring out the injured athletes and the bodies of the victims.

“The screaming filled everything,” he said. “Robab did not survive the force of the explosion, while others survived but with life-threatening injuries. I felt complete helplessness.”

Farhad Za’eri, a retired Ministry of Health employee, received the news of the strike by phone. His 16-year-old daughter Elahe, was also there.

“I left immediately with some neighbors. The roads were unusually congested and there was a sense of anxiety throughout the neighborhood,” Za’eri told Drop Site. “When we arrived, the rescue teams were already there and they had begun bringing out the bodies one by one.”

“I did not know what I would see,” he continued, “but when I got close to the place where they were bringing out the victims, I felt a heaviness in my chest.

‘Mark of pain’
“Every body that was lifted carried the mark of pain, and the rescue effort was trying to distinguish between those who could still be saved and those whose lives had ended,” he said.

“There were voices from every direction, everyone was trying to understand what had happened. In that moment, everything inside me was silent, and I was waiting for them to tell me about my daughter Elahe.”

Elahe’s body was eventually brought out. “My daughter’s body was completely destroyed. It appears she was directly hit by the strike. The lower part of her body was completely destroyed,” Za’eri said.

“How can a father describe what he feels when he sees his child like this? All my memories of her, her laugh, her training, her dreams, collapsed before my eyes in a single moment.”

This articles was published first by Drop Site News in collaboration with Egab.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Citizen journalists bring to our attention the truths that we need to know. Being a witness to such truths is different to doom scrolling. It is about awareness.

This is about knowing the truths that the people who run this deteriorating world, want to hide.

Victims everywhere are begging to be heard and seen. And some people are revealing these truths. Some are trained in journalism, some are freelancing because the mainstream is not the clear clean truth stream, and some are self-trained.

The role of filming and reporting the truth is vital in an era when books are banned, when the names of predators are redacted, when the people at the top are part of an oligarchy that supports murder and rape.

A couple of years ago — almost to the day — I was pepper sprayed by a frontline policeman for filming police brutality against peaceful protesters standing on the footpath in Lyttelton Aotearoa New Zealand.

In that situation police seized people and hurled them to the ground. In other instances, as with human rights activist, John Minto, they seized baffled people and hauled them onto the road.

The men and women in blue vests and black gloves, formed a scrum over each seized civilian. They pummelled and beat them viciously, and hauled them into vans. Minto suffered a gash down his forehead.

Nightmares last longer
Others had similar wounds and thanks to the direct illegal use of pepper spray, many suffered a sense like glass in their eyes. In my experience, those painful symptoms lasted weeks. The nightmares lasted longer.

Early last year, I was banned from my own Town Hall for witnessing the State of the Nation speech by Winston Peters. One of that leader’s loyal fans complained that I was taking notes. I produced my press card. Made no difference.

I witnessed a leader inciting hatred. Witnessing. The security guards banned me. The police upheld the ban. I am a multi-award winning reporter who has reported from conflict zones around the world. And I see the conflict increasing.

In the United States, in Europe, in Australia, in Aotearoa New Zealand, what are we learning?

The right to support the right of all human beings to live on their land is decreed a crime by our leaders. Why? Because some have more than others and they want to protect their “more” and push others to have less, even nothing.

These are the actions of totalitarian capitalist regimes intent on retaining power over the land, the rivers, and all the waterways.

We see it in the US with ICE killing a woman who was poet and a mother, we see it in the killing of a nurse, and all the disappearances, people — including children — hauled off streets and “disappeared”.

Police kicking 2 women
We see it with police kicking and beating two women wearing abayas in the Netherlands. If they are assaulting women in public we can be certain they are also molesting women behind the public gaze.

We see totalitarian push back against human rights in Germany and France, Australia and New Zealand.

Let’s call this flagrant attack on democracy what it is.

It is imperialism. Yes I know, it sounds like I’m recalling Thatcher. But hey she never went away. Her Daddy abused her friends and she loved him. Thatcher was an abuse enabler.

Like Blair. Like Trump. Like other abusers who hold power. It is no surprise that many of these leaders who were raised by power hungry predators, become predators. They exploit others.

Really it is a very simple equation. Democracy is impossible under financial imperialist capitalism.

Imperialism upholds the right of one people to reign supreme over another. We aren’t talking about something that ended over a hundred years ago. We are talking about something that is being perpetuated now.

Shameful exploitation
And by now, those of us who are descended by people who usurped and enslaved, are coming to a difficult conclusion — that it is shameful, this history of exploitation.

As one Quaker researcher said: “What I have learned is that if my ancestors were not as radical for human rights as I have hoped, I can at least be different, be radical for human rights now.”

Greed, predatory behaviour is handed down from predator to predator. It used to favour the oldest son. Now it just faces those prepared to sell out to buy in.

Mercenary capitalist entrepreneurs control society and they govern our countries. The brutes who exploit are connected.

So back to the streets. Back to what some reporters saw and reported and what others who aren’t real reporters, failed to report.

Let’s pick apart the claims of incitement. Incitement for what?

Chanting crime
The authorities in NSW deem that it should be a crime for any citizen to chant these words.

From.

The.

River.

To.

The.

Sea.

What next? Will Jews be told they can no longer chant in Hebrew: le shana haba b’yerulashaem. See the parallel.

Next.

Year.

In.

Jerusalem.

Every year Jews around the world chant — as they have for decades and decades — the vow that next year they will be in Jerusalem. They lived in Europe. They lived in the US.

And this they chanted.

Perhaps that is why it bothers Zionists and supporters of genocide. But it wasn’t a return.

Jews who recite this are Europeans and Americans, New Zealanders and Australians.

When they talk of exile, they are talking in mythological proportions, invoking the Bible and tribalism, Goliath and David.

Zionist regime supreme
But one group is reigning supreme. The Zionist regime has pushed thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, and murdered tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands, and still this genocide continues.

But has New South Wales deemed it a crime for Jews to chant “next year in Jerusalem”?

No.

Nor should it. People have the right to chant.

But let’s understand the real history, rather than the propaganda pumped out by a multi million dollar US-Israeli think thank.

Thanks to very real anti-semitism, Europe did not want to rehome Jewish refugees from the Holocaust. Britain helped out with an imperialist Zionist strategy that pushed Palestinians out of their homes.

Some Jews fled, refused to do what had been done to them. Good on those Jews. And good on those Jews around the world who stand for societies that care and share, that don’t steal and kill.

I am worried about the implications of any law that bans a chant by exiled people. Will it become a crime for any group of people to chant about their desire to return to lands from which they were exiled?

Governments around the world are leaning that way. They stomp down on Indigenous people, on refugees, on immigrants. They protect their excessive power and privilege.

Blaming immigrants
It’s very popular among these regimes to blame immigrants who come from land that was raped and raided by imperialism. Just tune into our ageing playboy Winston Peters.

Make no mistake under regimes such as this, no one is safe. No one.

It is clearly a crime for others to stand alongside those who have been oppressed and exiled, so will it one day be deemed a crime to talk about ALL the stolen children? Like the stolen indigenous children? The children born in a certain place, on certain land, near a river, near the sea.

Will it be a crime to talk about those abused in state homes?

Will the imperialist histories be redacted? Oh they are. The narrative is changed. The victims can barely survive.

I witnessed some of this so I can remind myself and I can remind you.

When I first went to Israel in 1982 the Begin regime invaded Lebanon. Desecrated people dreaming under cypress trees.

The Israeli Offence Force assisted then, in the genocide, of around 3000 children, women, and men — Palestinians — in refugee camps.

Evil massacre
It was a bloodbath, an evil massacre carried out under stealth, at night. The victims did not have a chance. They had no one to defend them. They were murdered by mercenary Israeli soldiers.

One Israeli soldier, Ari Folman, later made a film, Waltz with Bashir which depicts how he came to realise he was among the soldiers who surrounded the camps and fired flares to illuminate the area for the Lebanese Christian Philangist militia.

Like most soldiers, he was only “following orders”. It haunted him.

The ghosts of every massacre carried out by every totalitarian state like Israel haunt the world. And every regime that supports it is responsibile.

Imperialism is the bloodstain that won’t wash out until the notion of super and special entitlement due to race or class or religion is extinguished.

It is racist and classist and it is wrong.

I wrote my novel The Seasonwife because I wanted to show the truth — that people down the bottom rungs of the class system were exploited by those at the top to exploit indigenous people.

Criminalised the poor
We need to know these truths. And they can be proved. Settler colonialism is not a pretty policy, it was dreamed up by a country that created poverty and criminalised the poor. It sent them out to do its dirty work. Oh some rode on those waves but others were submerged. And Indigenous people lost their rights.

Here in Aotearoa a Treaty was forged, a treaty which clearly gives Indigenous people the right to rangatiratanga. And successive legal acts pushed indigenous people down, breached the principles of that partnership.

When one partner is the abuser the partnership is not equal.

We must remember the crimes of imperialism. We must. Because the past is now.

The massacres of Palestinians is an extension of every colonial crime. The crimes are connected: slavery; forced servitude; exile due to poverty; apartheid, assimilation, extermination.

It is a thread from this ocean to that river to that ocean. From here to there. From Europe to the Levant and the Middle East. All the greed-mongers benefit.

The crimes against Palestinians have been going on for more than seven decades. Research the Nakba. Before the British aided and mounted a violent rape-and-kill takeover, Muslims and Jews and Christians worshipped alongside each other in Palestine. It is easy enough to find documentary evidence of this pleasant land on YouTube.

Look at it now. Look at the difference between Haifa or Tel Aviv and Gaza.

Standing against supremacy
Any Jew who has a soul, who has a conscience, will not stand for the slaughter of innocents or for the creation of a white apartheid supremely state. In the US most Jews are against this, and increasingly so are Jews in Australia and New Zealand, standing up against the supremacy of Zionism.

And Christians need to stand too. It is KKK fundamentalist to support the extermination of people. There is nothing holy in supporting theft and expulsion and the gunning down of women, children, and men.

When we invoke laws that support genocide we create a soul-less compassionless society.

A truly Humanist, Animist, any Values-based system will create a society with laws that uphold rather than extinguish, human rights.

It was a white Australian male who used his inheritance to kill 51 people praying at two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand. The Iman who greeted him at the door welcomed him as “a brother”.

It was a Muslim man who risked his life and suffered terrible injuries while tackling two ISIS-inspired extremist gunmen at Bondi Beach in Sydney. That Muslim man stepped in front of a gun to defend Jewish children, women, and men.

I met many such kind, brave, peace-loving men when I lived in the Middle East and I experienced the utmost hospitality from Muslims.

I differentiate between all people and their regimes.

Greed in common
The regimes that uphold human rights violations are all connected. They all have one thing in common: greed.

Their rulers are predators.

Israel is a US-supported state responsible for mass murder, for genocide, for apartheid, for stealing children decade after decade.

Every government that has failed to denounce that State of Hate is acting against the right of people — all people — to real and precious freedom.

Once again, I call down my Jewish ancestors who experienced, as I have, anti-semitism — in standing against the supremacism that is Zionism.

I stand with Jews Against Zionism. I stand with Jews for Peace. I stand with Jews Against Genocide.

I stand with Jews who support the right of Palestinians to return. Yes to the land, yes to that beautiful river, and to that precious sea. I stand with their right to live where they want to live.

Right to protest
And I stand with the right of all citizens to protest. I stand with the right of citizen journalists to film and report human rights violations.

In my social media posts I continually put aggressive impulsive patriarchal police on notice. I let them know that violence by people who are supposed to protect, is unacceptable.
Their actions could lead to them being incarcerated.

Maybe not now, not yet, but one day. Their violent actions could certainly lead to them being jobless.

Their violent actions will be seen over and over again. The truth won’t be erased.

And I say this to mainstream reporters, please do your job. Join a union and oppose the patriarchy that presents propaganda as truth. Some reporters on the ground in Sydney who said they saw violence by the police and no violence from protesters, but the BBC and RNZ changed that narrative.

News presenters who were not present at the scene presented a skewed version provided by their government. They became a mouthpiece for propaganda. And in doing so they supported totalitarianism.

Reporters must not be mouthpieces for what one commentator so aptly described as the Broligarchy. Predators.

Out of police
The policeman who pepper sprayed me, two years ago, when I took footage of assaults against peaceful civilians by violent police, is no longer in the force. Perhaps he has joined the great raft of unemployed.

I would like to think he can be educated into compassion, that he can learn, that the hard look in his eye will one day be softened when he holds a brown grandchild in his arms.

Think twice police. Think twice reporters. Think twice every one who reads this.

Would you want your children to support all human rights? Do you think words like river and sea and return should be banned? Do you think the colour of the grass and the colour of a rose should be denounced as evil?

Do you think people should have the right to live on their land unmolested? Do you think the land and the waterways should be respected or bombed to dust, drained for its minerals?

Do you believe in freedom? If you do, then know that those who are upholding the right of one people to strip the rights of others, will not leave it there.

These totalitarian leaders are united. As one commentator put it, they are the broligarchy. They are connected. They are predators. And they will use force to shut you up and shut you down.

But I hold hope.

Moral weapon — the truth
Every citizen journalist who films human rights crimes being carried out by the arm of the government is armed with a valuable moral weapon: the truth.

Every citizen journalist reporting these truths is a hero.

The truth might be redacted, those who speak it or shout it might become victims, but in calling it out, they fall on the side of freedom and they will be remembered.

Freedom will come. Because it must. The greed mongers who rule must not prevail.

When the truths of victims is heard, the predators lose the narrative, and then they lose their power.

We are all connected in the lifestream of this tiny, precious blue planet. A spark is born and that spark is creativity, it is the spark that rises from destruction and despair.

Never stop witnessing
Harmony. Peace, and Tranquility is possible if our goal is cooperative living.

So be a witness, and never stop witnessing. Raise your voice, raise your heart and your soul. We are all connected and related because we are all brothers and sisters and cousins, spinning on this spinning orb, sparks in the eye of the universe.

Sparks of creativity are born in societies where nurturers are valued rather than predators and exploiters.

In such a world, peace will prevail.

One fine day.

Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new paper by women scholars warns colonial power structures are still shaping health systems across the Pacific region.

They are calling for a radical shift in global health leadership and decision-making.

The call comes from a new paper published this month in The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, led by researchers from Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland, alongside Pacific collaborators.

The paper argues that while global health is framed around fairness and inclusion, Pacific knowledge and leadership are often marginalised in practice.

Dr Sainimere Boladuadua, lead author from the University of Auckland’s Department of Paediatrics: Child and Youth Health, said these power imbalances directly impacted on communities.

“Global Health must stop undervaluing Pacific expertise,” Dr Boladuadua said in a statement.

“When overseas consultants are paid more than local experts, and research extracts knowledge without building local capacity, colonial patterns are reinforced.”

Colonisation inequities
The researchers have traced current inequities to the history of colonisation in the Pacific, driven by commercial, religious, and military interests.

While many Pacific nations have since achieved political independence, the paper argues that colonial structures persist through unequal trade relationships, labour migration schemes, and externally controlled funding.

Dr Boladuadua said these systems limited Pacific control over health research, policy priorities, and resources, even as communities face growing burdens from non-communicable diseases and climate change.

“Global Health, at its core, is about health equity for all,” she said. “That means prioritising the most pressing problems faced by communities with the least resources.”

A plan for change
The paper outlines four action areas to transform global health in the Pacific: strengthening sovereignty through Pacific-led decision-making; integrating Indigenous and Western knowledge systems; building genuine and reciprocal partnerships; and ensuring fair pay, recognition, and leadership opportunities for Pacific professionals.

The authors argue Pacific Island countries must be supported to set their own priorities, including control over funding, research management, data sovereignty, and workforce training.

The researchers also highlight language as a source of power. They say English is often treated as the default in global health, but its use “should not come at the expense of Indigenous Pacific languages and knowledge systems”.

The research places Pacific women at the centre of decolonisation efforts, noting that while colonisation was deeply patriarchal, Indigenous women historically held major leadership roles in island societies.

“Contrary to the control of white women during colonisation, Indigenous women held powerful positions in Island societies,” the research states.

Growing Pacific leadership
Dr Boladuadua said change was already underway, pointing to the establishment of the Fiji Institute of Pacific Health Research and the launch of the Pacific Academy of Sciences in Sāmoa as signs of growing Pacific leadership.

At the academy’s opening ceremony, then-prime minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa said the launch marked an important milestone for regional collaboration and would “give voice to science in and from the Pacific Islands”.

The authors argue Pacific-led approaches offer a blueprint not only for the region, but for building fairer and more resilient global health systems worldwide.

Republished from Pacific Media Network News with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In Gaza today, university scholarships have taken on a whole new meaning. No longer are they a step towards self-development, educational attainment or an academic experience in a different country.

For a whole generation of Gazan students, a foreign university scholarship has become a lifeline and one of the few remaining legal escape routes from the besieged territory.

Gaza’s students are not asking each other where they will study or which university programme is best; the question is existential: “Will I even be able to leave?”

In an environment that has become defined by war, trauma and uncertainty, a university education has taken on a whole new meaning, no longer just a human right or tool for building one’s future.

A university education is now a survival strategy.

The reality of higher education under siege
Over two million Palestinians in Gaza continue to live in exceptional circumstances, under an indefinite Israeli blockade interjected over the years by repeated wars and economic collapse.

The most recent war on the territory, which began after 7 October 2023, resulted in the complete destruction of Gaza’s education infrastructure.

While universities continue to operate partially, they do so among power outages, limited resources, damaged laboratories and libraries and poor internet access.

Language centres, where university-age Palestinian students would go to study for IELTS and TOEFL exams, two English proficiency exams for non-native speakers, which are prerequisites for many universities, were either destroyed or shut down as a result of the most recent war.

This has made meeting traditional admission requirements at foreign universities virtually impossible for many students.

“I had been preparing to take my IELTS exam for two years,” 24-year-old computer engineering graduate Samer Labad from Beit Lahia in North Gaza told The New Arab.

“The language centre I was studying at was completely destroyed in the war. Since then, there has been no stable electricity or internet.”

“How can we be required to meet [admissions requirements] when the tools for them no longer exist?”

More than a degree
Despite the difficult circumstances Palestinian students continue to live in, they have not given up on applying for scholarships in foreign universities. In fact, scholarship funding has increased over the last two years.

Since the most recent ceasefire, which went into effect on 10 October 2025, hundreds of Gazan students have continued to apply for scholarships, with 200 being successful so far.

According to international independent educational initiatives, last year, dozens of students successfully left the Strip to enrol and begin their scholarships abroad. This increase in applications for foreign scholarships does not come from a desire to emigrate, but from the search for safety and psychological stability.

Yasser*, a 26-year-old computer science graduate, recently secured a scholarship for his Master’s degree in Germany.

“I did not only apply for this scholarship because of my love for computer science, but because I felt like my life in Gaza is on hold: work, marriage, my future.” he said.

“This scholarship has enabled me to regain a sense of control over my life.”

He added: “How do you explain to university admissions teams that you’re applying not only so you can learn, but so you can live?”

The surge in demand for scholarships post-October 2023
Israel’s most recent war on Gaza changed the relationship between Gaza’s students and foreign university scholarships forever.

Students no longer viewed a foreign scholarship as a future possibility or nice-to-have, but a necessity for survival in an emergency.

Alaa Al-Turk, an accounting graduate from Al-Jalaa in North Gaza, said when Israel’s genocide broke out in October 2023, his plans to apply for a foreign scholarship transformed from being long-term to imminent.

“In October 2023, I felt like time had run out. I thought, ‘Either I get out [of Gaza] now, or I stay in a danger zone indefinitely.’”

Social experts believe this sharp surge in applications for foreign scholarships since October 2023 reflects a shift in the role of education in Gaza, from a natural path to self-development to a means of emergency survival.

Scholarships not only enable young Palestinians to attempt to leave Gaza legally, but psychologically, they are being used as an attempt to regain control over their destinies.

International universities step in
Understanding the exceptional circumstances Palestinian students face, some international universities in the UK, Germany, Italy, Turkïye and some Scandinavian countries have taken steps to facilitate the admission of students from Gaza.

These steps include offering scholarships specifically for Palestinians from Gaza or easing admissions requirements, particularly language requirements. Some have accepted applications from Gazan students without TOEFL and IELTS exams.

“I was so afraid the university would not accept me because I did not have a language certificate,” said 22-year-old English graduate Layan Al Mashharawi from Shuja’iyya in East Gaza.

“They conducted a lengthy interview with me and told me they knew the issue isn’t my language level, but where I live.”

In the UK, the University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham and SOAS in London have eased admissions requirements for Palestinian students from Gaza as part of the Chevening Scholarships programme, including relaxing language and document requirements.

In Ireland, universities such as Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin have accepted Palestinian students from Gaza onto their programmes, with special humanitarian and academic arrangements.

The University of the United Arab Emirates offers Palestinian students from Gaza full scholarships.

Independent initiatives such as Scholarships for Ghazza and the Gaza Scholarship Initiative have played a large role in connecting Gazan students with these universities.

A scholarship does not always lead to an exit
Obtaining a foreign scholarship does not automatically mean an exit from Gaza. The bigger challenge is actually leaving the Strip.

Gaza’s border crossings are open only for limited periods, and they are sporadic and irregular. There are complex coordination lists and security approvals, making it a highly stressful process.

Every delay to crossing the border puts Palestinian students at risk of losing their scholarships, and every border closure places them back at square one. Many live for months in a state of limbo, waiting for academic acceptance and geographical isolation.

“I was living between two suitcases,” said political science student Noor Hijazi from Deir-El-Balah in central Gaza.

“One packed and ready for travel, and the other for the life I would have to return to if I failed to leave Gaza. This waiting was more stressful than the studying itself.”

Meanwhile, 27-year-old Master’s student Mahmoud Awad from Khan Younis in South Gaza almost missed the start of his degree.

“The university sent me a starting date three times, and each time I explained to them that the problem wasn’t my visa but my inability to leave Gaza. I was afraid I would lose my scholarship because of something that was beyond my control,” he told The New Arab. 

When university admission becomes a commodity for survival
With the near-total closure of Gaza’s borders and lack of safe and legal routes out of the territory comes the rise of a disturbing new phenomenon: purchasing acceptance into a university programme not for study but to leave the Strip.

It is not a topic students will talk about openly; those who spoke to The New Arab asked to have their identities protected not for fear of legal repercussion, but because of the moral stigma.

Behind this phenomenon lies a reality more complex than mere cheating. It comes with legal and financial risks, and those who benefit are the middlemen.

Twenty-nine-year-old Karim* said: “I wasn’t looking for a university, I was looking for a door. I applied for official scholarships the traditional way and was unsuccessful.

“The waiting was mentally killing me. At the end, I paid for acceptance into a university just so I could leave.”

Another student, 27-year-old Heba* said: ” I knew I might not be able to continue my studies, but staying in Gaza was no longer an option. I wasn’t buying a university education; I was buying a chance at survival.”

Education should not be a corridor to survival
What Gaza’s university-age students are asking for is not emigration, but the ability to choose to study, travel and also return to Gaza without these options being a matter of life and death.

University scholarships should not be a ticket to survival, and education should not become a substitute for the basic human rights of freedom of movement and the right to live with dignity.

Until that happens, for Gaza’s students, foreign scholarships will remain more than an academic opportunity.

*Names changed upon request

Haya Ahmed is a doctor and freelance writer from Gaza. This article was first published by The New Arab.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Samoan playwright, author and poet Papali’i Sia Figiel has died in prison, according to local media reports.

Local media, citing sources at the country’s main correctional facility in Apia, are reporting that Papali’i, 58, was found dead in her prison cell on Monday.

She was being held at Tanumalala Prison, awaiting her next Supreme Court hearing in relation to a murder charge.

RNZ Pacific has contacted the Samoan police for comment.

Samoa Observer reports she had been in custody since 2024 for the alleged murder of Professor Caroline Gabbard.

Often described as Samoa’s first woman novelist, Papali’i’s first book, where we once belonged (1996), won the Best First Book award in the South East Asia/South Pacific region of the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1997. Her second novel was They who do not grieve (1999).

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Jeremy Rose

At the beginning of last month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stood in front of an estimated 600,000 supporters in Zócalo Square and reflected on the achievements of her first year in office and the seven years since the Morena Party, which she heads, came to power.

It was quite a list: 13 million people lifted out of poverty; the minimum wage increased by 125 percent; Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities allocated budgets to run their own affairs; a locally produced people’s electric car about to roll off production lines; a new fast rail system crossing the country; a national park spanning 5.7 million hectares across Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala; a 37 percent drop in homicides — and on it went.

Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first woman president, its first Jewish president, and a climate scientist who was part of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team.

In short, she has a story to tell, but it’s not one our media pays enough attention to.

That speech — where she declared the end of neoliberalism in Mexico — barely rated a mention in the world’s English-language press.

The grope that trumped the anti-Trump
In fact, Sheinbaum’s extraordinarily popular first year in office — El País reports she has an approval rating of over 70% — has been largely ignored by the English-language media, with three notable exceptions: when she was groped by a man on the streets of Mexico City last November, it made front-page news around the globe; a much-hyped series of “Gen Z” protests; and her dignified, and at times witty, responses to bellicose threats to Mexico’s sovereignty from the US president — which have seen her labelled the anti-Trump.

So why the lack of interest? Some possibilities, none of them edifying, spring to mind: if it doesn’t involve violence, Latin America rarely rates a mention in the media; Sheinbaum is a woman; and she’s leftwing.

But for each of those, there’s at least one counter-example that suggests this isn’t always the case.

Argentina’s right-wing libertarian president, Javier Milei, is widely reported on despite coming from a country with little over a third of Mexico’s population and GDP. Milei is a poster boy for right-leaning pundits from Auckland to London.

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern — leader of a country of just five million people compared to Mexico’s 130 million — was widely reported on while in office, and with the recent publication of her memoir has been the subject of more feature articles in recent months than Sheinbaum has generated in a year in office.

And finally, and perhaps most interestingly, there was the saturation coverage of Zoran Mamdani’s run and eventual victory in the New York mayoral election.

Sheinbaum’s successful campaign to become the equivalent of mayor of Mexico City — with a population significantly larger than New York’s — in 2018 was barely reported, despite running on a similarly leftwing, if notably more ambitious, platform.

Mamdani’s campaign and victory were newsworthy but, on any metric, less significant than Sheinbaum’s time in office.

World’s most popular leader
She is arguably the world’s most popular leader, delivering on promises more far-reaching and consequential than anything on offer in the Big Apple.

A promise by Mamdani to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York — something he almost certainly cannot deliver on — was widely reported, while Sheinbaum’s support for resettling Palestinian children orphaned by Israel’s genocide in Gaza barely rated a mention. (Mexico has also joined South Africa’s International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel.)

The contrast between the saturation coverage of Mamdani and the paucity of coverage of Sheinbaum holds true for both conservative and liberal media.

The Wall Street Journal ran 50-plus editorials and op-eds criticising Mamdani in the run-up to his election but just three or four on Sheinbaum in her first year in office, all focusing on her alleged failure to tackle violence and the cartels. (In fact, homicides are down, though still extremely high.)

Even Jacobin magazine, one of the few US outlets to provide in-depth coverage of Mexico’s so-called “Fourth Transformation,” has given far more coverage to Mamdani, with a recent podcast declaring New York the epicentre of global socialism.

Whatever the explanation for the scant coverage of Sheinbaum, the achievements and popularity of the Morena movement are worth talking about.

The Donroe Doctrine’s threat to Mexico
There’s little doubt we’ll be hearing more about Mexico over the coming months, but the focus will almost certainly be on the threat from the north, not the achievements and promise of the Fourth Transformation.

After the illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, President Trump turned his sights on Mexico, declaring Sheinbaum to be a “tremendous woman, she’s a very brave woman, but Mexico is run by the cartels”.

Having designated the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels as terrorist organisations at the beginning of his second term in office, Trump had already signalled the possibility of military intervention in Mexico.

Sheinbaum’s response to both the Venezuelan intervention and the implied threat to Mexican sovereignty was resolute and principled:

“We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: intervention has never brought democracy, never generated well-being, nor lasting stability.

“Only the people can build their own future, decide their path, exercise sovereignty over their natural resources, and freely define their form of government.”

Trump has other ideas, recently declaring that the US military could attack the cartels without congressional approval.

“I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”

Trump has dubbed the new era the Donroe Doctrine — a reference to his regime’s embrace of the Monroe Doctrine, named for President James Monroe, who declared the Western Hemisphere an area of US influence in the 1820s.

200 years of brutal interventions
It was the beginning of more than 200 years of brutal interventions by the US state, including a war on Mexico that resulted in the US taking over approximately 1.36 million sq km of Mexican territory — about 55 percent of the country.

Last year Trump hung a portrait of the country’s 11th president James Polk in the White House. Polk was responsible for the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848 which ended with the ceding of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming to the USA, in exchange for $15 million.

Trump has pointed to the portrait and told visitors: “He got a lot of land.”

His play on words with the Donroe Doctrine is characteristically narcissistic but also painfully accurate. It is the geopolitics of a gangster state.

In a world reeling from the criminal actions of that gangster state — from its continued bankrolling of genocide, to the extrajudicial killing of alleged drug smugglers, to SS-like round-ups of “foreigners” on its city streets, to threats to take over the sovereign territory of an ally — Mexico and its president, Claudia Sheinbaum, are a beacon of hope.

There is plenty I haven’t even touched on:

• The election of an Indigenous lawyer, Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, as head of the Supreme Court;
• The construction of 1.1 million affordable homes over the next six years, generating hundreds of thousands of jobs;
• The launch of SaberesMX, a free national online platform designed to democratise access to knowledge and provide lifelong learning opportunities across Mexico; and
• Sheinbaum’s daily morning press conferences, where she speaks directly to the nation.

If past experience is anything to go by, the mainstream media’s ignoring of Morena’s successes is unlikely to end any time soon.

The good news is that there are alternatives. Mexico Solidarity Media is a great source of original articles, translations from local media, and podcasts, and Substack writer and former Boston Globe and LA Times journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez regularly writes about Mexico from a progressive perspective.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and broadcaster and his Towards Democracy blog is at Substack. This article was first published at Towards Democracy and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Internationally, we are marking the 2025 Human Rights Day at a time of extraordinary retreat from human rights protection across the World. Every human right, every breach of human right and every advance in the protection of human rights must matter equally to us.

The frameworks for human rights protection are well established internationally reflecting the genesis of the international system in the horrors of the Second World War. Social, cultural, political, women’s, indigenous, children’s, and all fundamental human rights are well protected in international laws that have evolved since then.

What may seem like a paralysis in protection of fundamental human rights internationally today does not arise from the absence of protections in international law but from the fractures that characterise the international interstate system in a phase of severe disruption.

The significant advances in protection of human rights internationally arose from a rare postwar geopolitical consensus. That global consensus is dead.

Though the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have their origins in this context, it was not until 2008 that the UN made an explicit resolution on human rights and climate change stating that climate change posed a real and substantial threat to the full enjoyment of human rights.

The Pacific’s human rights story
When the Blue Pacific discusses human rights impacts of climate change, it is shaped by our lived realities. The fundamental right to life in the Pacific is persistently harmed by heat stress.

It is estimated that more than 1200 deaths annually are now attributed to heat stress.

The fundamental right to health is eroded by growing illnesses and diseases arising from rising temperatures. Across the Pacific, well in excess of 1000 deaths are already attributed to climate change related illnesses annually.

The fundamental right to water faces worsening pressures arising from sea water intrusion into ground water, more frequent and prolonged droughts and sewage contamination of water systems as a result of floodings.

The fundamental right to food is persistently harmed by rising surface and ocean temperatures and experienced through failed crops, subsistence farms destroyed by winds and rains, collapse of coral reef systems and with that oceanic foods.

Indigenous people’s rights are similarly persistently harmed as communities across Melanesia undertake climate change induced migration without corresponding transfer of land and other social and cultural rights.

In Tuvalu and atoll states these are likely to lead to more unsettling outcomes as their small and culturally compact communities get thinly dispersed across larger countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Fiji.

Policy choices are needed to respond to worsening human rights protection that are a consequence of climate change.

Climate change and human rights in Pacific education
The right to education is one of foundational rights in international law. Having access to continuous, safe and quality education is the foundation for the enjoyment of this right.

Every time a student misses school because the river that she crosses is flooded or at risk of flooding, that student is denied the full enjoyment of this right. Learning days lost are increasing in Fiji and Melanesia generally. This has lifelong consequences.

The more painful reality is that learning loss is felt so unevenly. It is often people in our poorest households who stay in most flood-prone areas.

In Fiji’s case it is also the case too many I-Taukei settlements/villages are in flood prone areas or in areas more likely to be cut off from school access roads and bridges.

The average day time surface temperatures has increased between 1-3 degrees Celsius across the Pacific within a space of four decades. It may be much higher in schools in urban areas. The safe classroom temperatures for children are 24-26 degrees Celsius at the upper end.

In many schools, classroom temperatures are well above 30C for days on end. The health impacts of prolonged exposure to these temperature are seen through general weaknesses, fainting, headaches and fatigue.

I know of no school that systematically monitors classroom temperatures. I have heard of schools closing down for a day or two when the risks of flooding are high. I have not heard of schools being closed when temperatures are in the mid-30s during periods of high humidity.

Quite shockingly, school building and major repairs are still being carried out in so many schools in exactly the same way as they were done 4-5 decades ago.

The human rights context in education is profoundly gendered. Some of these simply arise from the fact that decisions are made by male leaders.

When reconstruction of several schools in Vanua Levu happened a few years back, boys’ and girls’ hostels needed to be rebuilt following one of the recent cyclones.

The boys’ hostels were reconstructed within a year of two back-to-back cyclones. A 100 percent of the hostel boys were back in school.

The girl’s hostel took another year to be up and running. Only one girl returned to school from those who were resident in hostels during the cyclone year.

A whole generation of girls in the middle to high schools from one of the most disadvantages regions of our country and from some of the most economically disadvantaged communities had simply dropped out of school.

This is a story that repeats itself in so many ways each across the Pacific.

Health, human rights and climate change
As with education, universal access to the sufficient health care constitutes yet another core human right.

One of the worst and least understood aspects of the health and climate change interface in the Pacific is its impacts on mental health.

Following extreme weather events — mental health consequences linger for long periods and most intensely among young children. When winds pick up ever so slightly, many children in schools get frightened — scared — quietly reliving their trauma in full view of teachers who are poorly trained to understand what is happening.

But the health consequences of climate change are far broader. Influenza, dengue including in off seasons, leptospirosis are profoundly impacting our communities. Loss of concentration, performance and worsening learning outcomes are some of these harsh trendlines inside classrooms.

Growing food insecurity
The right to food is a core part of our global human rights architecture. A few years back I had the great pleasure of visiting several schools in Vanua Levu.

I have taught in Fiji’s high schools. I know what I am talking about in a deeply personal way. Nothing prepared me for this.

The numbers/percentages of children who came to schools without lunch was just shocking. Nearly a third of students in one the classes that I visited came to school without lunch that morning.

Rates of stunting rates of children in primary schools (in peri and urban areas) in Fiji can be as high as 10 percent. Stunting rates are much higher in PNG at nearly 50 percent — one of the highest in the world.

Nutritional deprivation leads to delayed cognitive development and over time harms performance. Damage from stunting has life long and intergenerational consequences.
How does climate change feature in this?

The most obvious one is that global warming impacts on our coral reef systems. There is a near collapse of oceanic foods across so many Pacific’s coastal communities.

Equally on the high lands of PNG, delayed precipitation, prolonged rains and droughts harm and overtime irreversibly erode food security. This has widespread consequences.

Food insecurity, gender violence and inter-community conflict are a growing part of the Blue Pacific’s climate story.

Human rights, climate change and cultural and political rights
Nowhere does climate change demonstrate the scale of its destructiveness as in our closest atoll state neighbour.

Tuvalu may be uninhabitable within 4-6 decades even with the adaptation measures underway. It is forced to contemplate the real prospects of near total loss of land. The state has taken protective measures by amending its constitution to preserve sovereignty under any scenario.

Fiji and fellow PIF members have undertaken to respect its sovereignty under any climate scenario.

Compared with PNG, Solomon Islands and Fiji where communities are being relocated, the human rights and climate story of Tuvalu is of a different order altogether. Land rights, cultural rights are rooted and grounded. They do not move when communities are relocated. Relocations are deeply disrespectful of all rights — including cultural, social rights.

It is indeed possible that its whole populations in time may come to be dispersed outside of Tuvalu — in Australia through the Falepili Treaty, in Fiji and in New Zealand. Small and dispersed communities will over time lose their language. They are over time likely to lose many elements of their Tuvaluan identity.

Indigenous and cultural rights are rooted to land and oceans in such deep ways. These rights are recognised as fundamental human rights internationally. Global warming and rising seas treat these rights with callous disregard.

From a 1.5 to 2.8C world
The Blue Pacific has to fight the battle of our lives to return the planet to a 1.5C pathway. No one will do this for us. All our economic forecasting today are based on 1.5C  temperature increase. But the reality is that we are on course for a 2.8C or perhaps even a post 3.0C world.

The consequences of a 3.0C future on human rights of people across the Pacific Islands are unimaginable. For a start, most of the existing infrastructure, school buildings , health centres, data centers are simply not built to withstand 450 km/h winds.

Most of the Pacific’s towns and settlements are coastal. Our entire tourism infrastructure is barely a few metres above sea level. In Melanesia alone there are more than 600 schools that need to be relocated and/or rebuilt.

Several hundred health centres need to be moved. These are estimates based on 1.5C — not twice that. The near total collapse of coastal fisheries is almost a foregone conclusion at anywhere above 2.0C. The silliest thing we can do as a region and as a people is to not prepare for a 3.0C world.

Shaping our story of hope
On the 2025 Human Rights Day, I have reflected on the broad and deep impacts on human rights that directly result from climate change. Ours is a story of hope.

On this day, then let me celebrate the extraordinary leadership shown by Pacific’s students who took the world to court — to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and won.

We owe such an extraordinary gratitude to Fiji’s Vishal Prasad, Cynthia Houniuhi, Solomon Yeo from Solomon Islands and that small group of university students at USP who decided to take on the world. We celebrate Vanuatu’s leadership on all our behalf. Collective action matters.

We make a difference as individuals. We make a difference as a people and as large ocean states. I urge that we deepen our shared understanding of the unfolding universe of elevated human rights vulnerabilities across the Pacific.

Sharing our stories, deepening our understanding of interlinkages between human rights and global warming and beginning honest conversations about things taboo are foundational starting points.

In universities, this may mean adding climate change and human rights legal studies so that graduates leave with a firmer understanding of the world they will enter into.

At medical schools, this means integrating climate change into how human health is studied and researched.

In social science schools, that means advancing our understanding of the rapid evolution of kinship, leadership and culture in traditional Fijian and Pacific societies in a climate changed context.

In communications and journalism programmes, this may mean preparing students to communicate climate crisis with humility, sensitivity and empathy.

As responsible employers, we may be able to lead by ensuring that human rights protection arising from climate change are as mainframed as is possible. Being able to provide the level of sociopsychological support to students and staff bearing the silent scars of slow onset or climate catastrophes would be another great start.

This may include, as well, the simplest of things such as allowing paid compassionate leave for staff to recover from climate change related extreme weather events. In the longer term, the employment laws of Pacific Island states will need to catch up.

I have advised many Pacific island countries to take a hard look at even their school calendar. Few schools measure class room temperatures today.

Our colonial legacy has shaped the school year. We today subject our students to their final examinations when the temperatures inside class rooms are the highest. We today pressure students to prepare for their exams in the months when the chances of catastrophic events are the highest and the chances of illness that are climate change induced are the highest.

A school calendar that is climate informed and that protects human rights in the education context is more likely to commence the school year in September (third term) and conclude exams by August (end of second term).

All of these things are within our gift. We do not need international conferences or even international assistance to do all of these as the changes needed are so simple and so basic.

Building blocs for advancing human rights in a climate changed world:

• First is that individual and communities need to know how their fundamental rights are impacted by climate change. This is a task for all of us — not governments alone.
• Across the region, so many laws and legislative frameworks need to be revised to reflect how climate change and human rights play out. How many hours should an agricultural worker or road construction worker be working when temperatures are higher than 1.5C.
• For employers and service providers, what are the human rights obligations in a climate changed context? What does the waiting room in a health care facility look like in a 1.5C temperature increase and in a 3.0 degree world? They surely cannot be the same.
• National human rights and legal settings need to pay systematic attention to human rights and climate change. This means ensuring that national human rights agencies and courts build up their capabilities to provide the necessary jurisprudence; and our citizens both supported and empowered to approach courts and relevant agencies.
• Internationally, the Pacific Island states including Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) are well advised to ramp up their presence internationally. The next decade must be the decade when the region pushes the boundaries of international law. The decade following that may just be too late.

A Pacific Pre-COP31
I am delighted to have been invited to deliver my remarks so soon after COP30 and well in time for reflections for Pacific’s preparations for Pre-COP31. This climate conference to be held in the Pacific next year will be a great opportunity to bring a consolidated understanding of how fundamental human rights are being harmed by runaway climate change.

Shape this well — together, respectfully and with humility. We can present our agenda for advancing human rights protection in the Pacific powerfully at this Pre-COP.

As a region, we need to begin to win the argument about climate change in the theatres of international public opinion. Lobbyists and interests groups — including much of the global mainstream media — so wedded to petro interests appear to be winning.

We need to tell our stories with clarity and with impact. We need to back that with strategic bargains in all our international relations. A Pre-COP in the Pacific gives us a real chance of doing so.

Thank you for marking the 2025 International Human Rights Day in this way.

This speech about climate change and human rights was delivered by Dr Satyendra Prasad, the climate lead at Abt Global and Fiji’s former ambassador to the United Nations, during the 2025 Human Rights Day on December 10 at the University of Fiji. It is republished from Wansolwara News as part of Asia Pacific Report’s collaboration with the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls  this week with the government saying the day is a reminder that for too many women and girls violence is a daily reality — not a headline or a statistic.

The day also kicked off 16 days of activism against gender-based violence — a worldwide UN campaign running from November 25 to December 10.

The country’s Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran told Parliament violence against women and girls was not limited to the private sphere — “it permeates every dimension of society”.

“Addressing this issue is therefore not only a woman’s matter; it is a national priority — requiring engagement from every sector, every institution and every leader in our country.

“It manifests in various forms including physical, emotional, sexual and economic abuse as well as harmful practices such as trafficking.”

She said the cost of violence against females was estimated to be equivalent to seven percent of Fiji’s gross domestic product (GDP), affecting families, the health system, productivity and the nation’s development.

“The cost of violence is not only emotional — it is national.”

She pointed out several statistics, including that around 60 percent of Fijian women had experienced some form of violence in their lifetime; girls as young as 13 remained the most vulnerable to sexual assault; and from 2020-2024, more than 4000 child sexual offences were reported — most involving young girls.

“Our response must be survivor-centred, and above all accessible to everyone — including women and girls with disabilities and those from diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”

In the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Western Pacific Region, more than a quarter of girls and women experience some form of intimate partner or sexual violence.

But WHO said in several Pacific island countries and areas, the prevalence of lifetime intimate partner violence is as high as one in two women.

WHO’s western Pacific director, Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, said governments and communities must use data to drive stronger policies, scale up prevention efforts, and invest in health system readiness, “so every girl is protected and woman is empowered”.

WHO said while the numbers were grim, a survey on “health system readiness to respond to interpersonal violence” pointed to an encouraging policy environment.

“Many countries are integrating strategies to prevent violence against women and girls into their national multisectoral plans, and acknowledging the key role that health systems must play in tackling this societal problem.

“However, the survey also highlights challenges in implementing these strategies.”

It is not all bad news in the region though — Cook Islands police have reported a decrease in the number of assault cases against women this year.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In an open letter released at the Belém Climate Summit, special envoys for strategic regions have expressed their support for the COP30 presidency and for all leaders committed to advancing climate crisis action.

Former New Zealand prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern, the “voice” for Oceania, was among the seven climate envoys signing the letter.

The document acknowledges the progress achieved through the Paris Agreement and the Dubai Consensus, while underscoring the need for further advances “in light of the Global Stocktake” and warning of the growing challenge posed by climate disinformation.

The text calls for unity and concrete action to bridge the “triple gap” between climate finance, adaptation, and mitigation.

These bottlenecks, it emphasised, could not be resolved solely through revisions to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), but required tangible policy measures.

The Baku to Belém Roadmap is highlighted as a vehicle for developing innovative solutions to unlock large-scale investments while reducing financing costs.

In addressing the spread of climate disinformation, the special envoys underlined the need for coordinated responses, collective strategies, and reinforced regulatory frameworks.

The letter was signed by Special Envoys Adnan Z. Amin (Middle East), Arunabha Ghosh (South Asia), Carlos Lopes (Africa), Jacinda Ardern (Oceania), Jonathan Pershing (North America), Laurence Tubiana (Europe), and Patricia Espinosa (Latin America and the Caribbean).

The open letter to leaders in Belém and to the COP30 presidency from the special envoys for strategic regions

We, the Special Envoys for our respective regions, wish to express our strong support for the Brazilian Presidency and all leaders committed to climate action at Belém.

COP30 presents both a significant opportunity and a profound challenge. To remain aligned with the ambition of the Paris Agreement amidst an increasingly complex geopolitical environment, we must demonstrate decisive progress. Multilateralism, grounded in international law and guided by the Paris Agreement, remains our most effective framework.

A clear signal from COP30 that the international community stands united in its determination to confront climate change will resonate globally. Our shared commitment to fully implement the Paris Agreement is the strongest collective response to a crisis that is disproportionately affecting vulnerable households and countries, devastating lives, livelihoods, and the ecosystems upon which we all depend.

We should also recognise the progress achieved since the Paris Agreement in 2015. The rapid growth of clean solutions is bending the trajectory of global emissions; where we had been on track to exceed a devastating temperature increase of more than 4°C, we are now able to project a level of less than 2.5°C.

But we need greater progress. We are not on track to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, and in particular, we are taking insufficient action to keep 1.5°C within reach, or even enough to keep warming well below 2°C. And every tenth of a degree of additional warming will mean harsh consequences for the world.

COP30 must acknowledge and address the “triple gap” in mitigation, adaptation and finance. Doing so requires an accelerated effort across the next decade, mobilising the full range of tools, resources, and partnerships available to us. This is at the heart of the goal of COP30: to advance the full implementation of both the Paris Agreement and the UAE Consensus, informed by the Global Stocktake presented at COP28 in Dubai.

To accelerate progress, we must maintain a laser focus on concrete, coordinated action.

The Action Agenda is a powerful reservoir of those actions, which must be structured, monitored, and supported for effective delivery. Addressing the gap should not be understood solely as revising Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), but rather as translating ambition into policies that enable each country to overperform on its existing commitments. And the policies we take, as has been amply demonstrated in our successes to date, can marry not only climate benefits, but also contribute to growing our economies, promote our national security, improve the welfare of our citizens, and promote a healthy environment.

Tripling global renewable energy capacity is a goal within reach. Collectively, we have the
technology and resources: what is required now is scaled investment in all regions. The Baku to Belém roadmap to mobilise US$1.3 trillion annually for developing countries outlines both established and innovative solutions to deliver investment at scale at reduced costs of finance. To operationalise it, clear milestones, mandates, and responsibilities are needed.

Ministers of finance should take the lead in defining the priorities. Creating fiscal space, minimizing debt burdens, effectively mobilising domestic and international finance, and
ensuring enabling policy environments, alongside increased investment in the Global South,
are all essential to making this roadmap credible and implementable.

Strengthening resilience and adaptation are equally critical. Climate impacts are increasingly a major barrier to sustainable economic and social development. We must work together to define the indicators that do not impose resource-intensive reporting burdens but instead help our economies and societies adapt to their local circumstances and become resilient.

We must engage the insurance sector, central banks, and private investors to close the
protection gap that threatens long-term developmental gains.

Countries pursuing the transition away from fossil fuels should define roadmaps, in line with their national circumstances, while fostering dialogue between producers and buyers of fossil fuels. Roadmaps to end deforestation and restore ecosystems are equally necessary. Taken together, these pathways can allow countries to implement the long-term strategies submitted in previous years.

For the first time, COP30 will also confront the challenge of climate disinformation: a growing threat that undermines public trust and policy implementation. Combatting this challenge requires coordinated approaches, shared strategies, and strengthened regulatory
cooperation. We must shine the spotlight on our collective progress, in general, but also cases in particular where countries have met their climate targets ahead of schedule,
demonstrating a positive bias for action.

Lastly, we need an evolution of the climate regime that makes implementation more effective and inclusive. Progress depends on joining forces with the local authorities, economic sectors, governments, and civil society. Subnational leaders, from governors, to regional authorities, mayors, and community representatives, must be empowered to reinforce and complement NDCs and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). COP30 is the moment to have them at the table and to craft a new approach that brings all relevant actors together in a global effort to safeguard our common future.

It is the moment to remind ourselves of the need for solidarity, and to recognise our agency — we have it within our power to change the future for the better.

Signed:

Adnan Z. Amin (Special Envoy for Middle East), chair, World Energy Council; CEO of COP28; former director-general, International Renewable Energy Agency

Arunabha Ghosh (Special Envoy for South Asia), founder-CEO, Council on Energy, Environment and Water

Carlos Lopes (Special Envoy for Africa), chair, Africa Climate Foundation; former executive
secretary, UN Economic Commission for Africa

Jacinda Ardern (Special Envoy for Oceania), former Prime Minister of New Zealand

Jonathan Pershing (Special Envoy for North America); former US Special Envoy for Climate Change

Laurence Tubiana (Special Envoy for Europe), dean, Paris Climate School; CEO, European
Climate Foundation; former French Special Envoy for Climate Change

Patricia Espinosa (Special Envoy for Latin America and the Caribbean), former executive
secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Māori and Pasifika leaders are leading climate adaptation, guided by ancestral knowledge and Indigenous principles to build resilience and shape global solutions.

Last week, they played a key role in launching a new Indigenous climate adaptation network at a wānanga ahead of Adaptation Futures 2025, held on October 13-16 in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

The network aims to build a global movement grounded in Indigenous knowledge, centred on decolonising systems and financial mechanisms, and ensuring Indigenous peoples have direct access to climate finance, the funding that supports actions to address and adapt to climate change.

The wānanga was led by Lisa Tumahai (Ngāi Tahu), New Zealand patron for Adaptation Futures 2025 and deputy chair of the NZ Climate Commission, and Tagaloa Cooper (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Niue), director of the Climate Change Resilience Programme at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in Apia, Samoa.

“The Indigenous Forum came from what we learnt at the previous two adaptation conferences. The recommendations from Indigenous peoples were to step it up a bit at this conference and create an intentional day and space for Indigenous voices,” says Tumahai.

“For the first time, people are really seeing the commonalities we share with other Indigenous populations, whether they’re from Canada, Africa, or the Amazon.”

Kotahitanga across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa
Cooper said many of the Pasifika in attendance felt “at home” in Aotearoa and welcomed the opportunity to have a major conference hosted in the region, as international events are often inaccessible due to high costs.

“I’d like to have more of these types of conversations with our cousins in New Zealand where we can exchange knowledge, learn from each other, and also be innovative about how we do adapt,” she says.

She added that, in speaking with Pacific participants, there was a strong call for deeper engagement with iwi across Aotearoa, particularly in rural communities facing similar challenges to small island nations, to create more opportunities for sharing and exchanging traditional knowledge.

The value of Indigenous knowledge
Cooper emphasised that Indigenous peoples hold a vast body of knowledge that has long been marginalised.

“Science now is telling us what we’ve always known as Indigenous people,” Cooper says.

“We must remember our ancestors navigated the vast oceans to get here and then grew nations in very difficult places. There is a lot to learn from our people because we have adapted to live in new lands and we’re still here.”

As Indigenous observer for the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds, lawyer Taumata Toki (Ngāti Rehua) says this is a growing area that deserves attention, given the value Indigenous peoples bring and how their knowledge can strengthen climate adaptation projects.

He says he is continually inspired by Indigenous leaders around the world who are not only experts in Western knowledge systems but also grounded in Indigenous principles that are transforming how climate change is addressed.

Toki says the guiding aim of tikanga is balance, a core concept that aligns with many other Indigenous worldviews and shapes how they approach climate change and sustainability.

Barriers to climate finance
Indigenous peoples globally have often had limited access to UN climate change negotiation spaces.

Tumahai said barriers include accreditation requirements or registered body status to access climate finance.

Cooper added that smaller nations and small administrations often lack the capacity, time, and personnel to develop complex project proposals, causing delays and frustration in the flow of funds.

When asked whether Māori face additional barriers to accessing climate adaptation funding as Indigenous peoples within a developed nation, Toki says that, on a global scale, Māori are at the forefront of sovereignty over what development looks like.

However, he acknowledges that when this is set against the wider context of what is happening in Aotearoa, “it doesn’t look the best,” pointing to the ongoing challenges Māori face at home despite their strong global standing.

Māori-led adaptation and succession planning
“When it comes to Māori-led adaptation, it needs to start in our court,” he says. “We need to have our own really thought-out discussion in terms of how we develop these projects to be both tikanga-aligned, but also wider Indigenous peoples’ principles aligned.”

Once internal cohesion across iwi is established, state support will play an important role.

Despite the challenges, Toki says the potential ahead is immense, both economically and environmentally, and Aotearoa has the opportunity to be world-leading in this space.

Tumahai agrees that the work has to start at home, and her passion, which she has long championed, is succession planning to bring rangatahi into the work.

“And with that succession planning, it’s not to be dismissive of the pakeke or kaumatua who are really that korowai and the knowledge holders,” she says.

“We have our own systems that ensure the conversations are held and led where the knowledge is sitting.”

Te Aniwaniwa is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News and contributes to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by Te Ao Māori News and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“Speak Up Kōrerotia” — a radio show centred on human rights issues — has featured a nuclear-free Pacific and other issues in this week’s show.

Encouraging discussion on human rights issues in both Canterbury and New Zealand, Speak Up Kōrerotia offers a forum to provide a voice for affected communities.

Engaging in conversations around human rights issues in the country, each show covers a different human rights issue with guests from or working with the communities.

Analysing and asking questions of the realities of life allows Speak Up Kōrerotia to cover the issues that often go untouched.

Discussing the hard-hitting topics, Speak Up Kōrerotia encourages listeners to reflect on the issues covered.

Hosted by Sally Carlton, the show brings key issues to the fore and provides space for guests to “Speak Up” and share their thoughts and experiences.

The latest episode today highlights the July/August 2025 marking of two major anniversaries — 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior here in Aotearoa.

What do these anniversaries mean in the context of 2025, with the ever-greater escalation of global tension and a new nuclear arms race occurring alongside the seeming impotence of the UN and other international bodies?

Anti-nuclear advocacy in 2025           Video/audio podcast: Speak Up Kōrerotia

Guests: Disarmament advocate Dr Kate Dewes, journalist and author Dr David Robie, critical nuclear studies academic Dr Karly Burch and Japanese gender literature professor Dr Susan Bouterey bring passion, a wealth of knowledge and decades of anti-nuclear advocacy to this discussion.

Dr Robie’s new book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior was launched on the anniversary of the ship’s bombing. This revised edition has extensive new and updated material, images, and a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I unequivocally support Irish author Sally Rooney with all my heart and soul. The author risks imprisonment for donating funds from her books and the TV series based on Normal People to a Palestinian group.

Once again the United Kingdom tells Palestinians who they should support. Go figure.
In her opinion piece in The Irish Times last Saturday she said that:

“Activists who disrupt the flow of weapons to a genocidal regime may violate petty criminal statutes, but they uphold a far greater law and a more profound human imperative: to protect a people and culture from annihilation.”

Whenever the people resist or rebel they are deemed terrorists. That has been the case for indigenous people around the world from indigenous Americans to Indians in India to Aborigine and Māori, the Irish and the Scots, and the Welsh.

I went from being a “born-again” starry-eyed kibbutznik who believed in Zionism to a journalist who researched the facts and the hidden truths.

Those facts are revolting. Settler colonialism is revolting. Stealing homes is theft.

I kept in touch with some of my US-based Zionist kibbutznik mates. When I asked them to stop calling Palestinians animals, when I asked them not to say they had tails, when I asked them to stop the de-humanisation — the same de-humanisation that happened during the Nazi regime, they dumped me.

Zionism based on a myth
Jews who support genocide are antisemitic. They are also selfish and greedy. Zionists are the bully kids at school who take other kids toys and don’t want to share. They don’t play fair.

The notion of Zionism is based on a myth of the superiority of one group over another. It is religious nutterism and it is racism.

Empire is greed. Capitalism is greed. Settler colonialism involves extermination for those who resist giving up their land. Would you or I accept someone taking our homes, forcing us to leave our uneaten dinner on the table? Would you or I accept our kids being stolen, put in jail, raped, tortured.

The country was weird when I visited in 1982. It had just invaded Lebanon. Later that year it committed a genocide.

The Sabra and Shatila massacre was a mass murder of up to 3500 Palestinian refugees by Israel’s proxy militia, the Phalange, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The horrific slaughter prompted outrage and condemnation around the world, with the UN General Assembly condemning it as “an act of genocide”.

I had been primed for sunshine and olives, but the country gave me a chill. The toymaker I worked with was a socialist and he told me I should feel sorry for the Palestinians.

It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets. But you need to defend yourself when you steal.

Paranoia from guilt
Paranoia is a consequence of a persecutor who fails to recognise their guilt. It happens when you steal. The paranoia happens when you close doors. When you don’t welcome the other — whose home you stole.

In 2014, soldiers of the IDF — a mercenary macho army — were charged with raping their own colleagues. Now footage of the rape of Palestinian men are celebrated on national television in Israel in front of live audiences. Any decent person would be disgusted by this.

The army under this Zionist madness has committed — and continues to commit — the crimes it lied about Palestinians committing. And yes, the big fat liar has even admitted its own lies. The bully in the playground really doesn’t care now, it does not have to persuade the world it is right, because it is supported, it has the power.

This isn’t the warped Wild West where puritans invented the scalping of women and children — the sins of colonisers are many — this is happening now. We can stand for the might of racism or we can stand against racist policies and regimes. We can stand against apartheid and genocide.

Indigenous people must have the right to live in their homeland. Casting them onto designated land then invading that land is wrong.

When Israelis are kidnapped they are called hostages. When Palestinians are kidnapped they are called prisoners. It’s racist. It’s cruel. It’s revolting that anyone would support this travesty.

Far far more Palestinians were killed in the year leading up to October 7, 2023, than Israelis killed that day (and we know now that some of those Israelis were killed by their own army, Israel has admitted it lied over and again about the murder of babies and rapes).

Mercenary macho army
So who does murder and rape? The IDF. The proud mercenary macho army.

Once upon a time, a Palestinian kid who threw a stone got a bullet between the eyes. Now they get a bullet for carrying water, for going back to the homeground that has been bombed to smithereens. Snipers enjoy taking them down.

Drones operated by human beings who have no conscience follow children, follow journalists, follow nurses, follow someone in a wheelchair, and blow them to dust.

This is a game for the IDF. I’m sure some feel bad about it but they have to go along with it because they lose privileges if they do not. This sick army run by a sick state includes soldiers who hold dual US and Israeli citizenship.

Earlier this year I met a couple of IDF soldiers on holidays from genocide, breezily ordering their lattes in a local cafe. I tried to engage with them, to garner some sense of compassion but they used “them” and “they” to talk about Palestinians.

They lumped all Palestinians into a de-humanised mass worth killing. They blamed indigenous people who lived under a regime of apartheid and who are now being exterminated, for the genocide.

The woman was even worse than the man. She loathed me the minute she saw my badge supporting the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aoteara. Hate spat from her eyes.

Madness.

De-brainwashing
I saw that the only prospect for them to change might be a de-brainwashing programme. Show them the real facts they were never given, show them real Palestinians instead of figments of their imagination.

It occurred to me that it really was very tempting to take them home and offer them a different narrative. I asked them if they would listen, and they said no. If I had forced them to come with me I would have been, you know, a hostage-taker.

Israel is evidence that the victim can become the persecutor when they scapegoat indigenous people as the villain, when they hound them for crime of a holocaust they did not commit.

And I get it, a little. My Irish and French Huguenot ancestors were persecuted. I have to face the sad horrid fact that those persecuted people took other people’s land in New Zealand. The victims became the persecutor.

Oh they can say they did not know but they did know. They just did not look too hard at the dispossession of indigenous people.

I wrote my book The Seasonwife at the ripe young age of 63 to reveal some of the suppressed truths about colonisation and about the greed of Empire — a system where the rich exploit the poor to help themselves. I will continue to write novels about suppressed truths.

And I call down my Jewish ancestors who hid their Jewishness to avoid persecution. I have experienced antisemitism.

Experienced cancelling
But I have experienced cancelling, not by my publisher I hasten to add, but I know agencies and publishers in my country who tell authors to shut up about this genocide, who call those who speak up anti-semitic.

I have been cancelled by Zionist authors. I don’t have a publisher like that but I know those who do, I know agencies who pressure authors to be silent.

I call on other authors to follow Rooney’s example and for pity’s sake stop referencing Hamas. Learn the truth.

Benjamin Netanyahu refused to deal with any other Palestinian representative. Palestinians have the right to choose their own representatives but they were denied that right.

What is a terrorist army? The IDF which has created killing field after killing field. Not just this genocide, but the genocide in Lebanon in 1982.

I have been protesting against the massacre of Palestinians since 2014 and I wish I had been more vocal earlier. I wish I had left the country when the Phalangists were killed. I did go back and report from the West Bank but I feel now, that I did not do enough. I was pressured — as Western writers are — to support the wrongdoer, the persecutor, not the victim.

I will never do that again.

Change with learning
I do believe that with learning we can change, we can work towards a different, fairer system — a system based on fairness not exploitation.

I stand alongside indigenous people everywhere.

So I say again, that I support Sally Rooney and any author who has the guts to stand up to the pressure of oppressive regimes that deny the rights of people to resist oppression.

I have spent a decade proudly standing with Palestinians and I will never stop. I believe they will be granted the right to return to their land. It is not anyone else’s right to grant that, really, the right of return for those who were forced out, and their descendants, is long overdue.

And their forced exile is recent. Biblical myths don’t stack up. Far too often they are stacked to make other people fall down.

Perhaps if we had all stood up more than 100,000 Palestinians would still be alive, a third of those children, would still be running around, their voices like bells instead of death calls.

I support Palestinians with all my heart and soul.

Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The New Zealand Green Party co-leader suspended over criticising government MPs over a “spineless” stance over Gaza has called for action.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said in an interview with Al Jazeera that public pressure was mounting on governments to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The politician continues to push for recognition of Palestinian statehood and sanctions on Israel, despite being ejected from New Zealand’s Parliament for a week for her remarks.

She refused to apologise in the House last week, telling Al Jazeera that New Zealand must “stand on the right side of history”.

“We in Aotearoa New Zealand have a long proud history of standing typically on the right side of things, whether that be our anti-nuclear stance or our stance against apartheid in South Africa,” she said.

“So it really is a question for this current government whether they are now willing to do the right thing and stand on the right side of history, and that was precisely the point that we were making last week in Parliament.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A New Zealand policeman pushed over an elderly man who was doing nothing but waving a Palestinian flag at a solidarity rally in Ōtautahi yesterday.

Yes the man employed to protect the public committed a violent assault. Not a wee shove, a great big push that caused the man to fall the ground – onto hard tarmac.

It comes on top of a woman being fatally shot this week by police and her partner being shot and injured. In that case a knife was involved but it’s kind of like paper-scissors-rock, is it not?

Police wear protective clothing and where are the tasers?

In other, different, situations I know for a fact that some of our police are violent against peaceful people.

I have experienced their brutality directly while filming their brutality. Like the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) they see journalists who film their offensive actions as the enemy.They used pepper spray against me illegally to stop me filming their perversity.

But look, it’s a hard job so they need how-not-to-be-thugs training.

Pre-trained as thugs
Some young men are already pre-trained to be thugs and they seem to be out at the front. They feel great in this mostly white gang.

I have witnessed police haul people off the pavement, beat them up, and then arrest the victims of their assaults “for assault”.

False accusations to protect themselves? Twisting the narrative completely to hide their own violence?

False arrests when they themselves should face arrest.

I think we’ve had enough.

Some of the boys in blue really really need to grow up.

They need training that teaches them that manning or womaning up (some women cops play the thug game too) doesn’t mean training to be a wanker white supremacist.

Self awareness
Good training means teaching police to be self aware, aware of thoughts and feelings, not just learning cognitive behavioural tools but applying them.

They are in the community to protect the community. They should not see people who are supporting human rights or kids attending a party as their opposition, their enemy.

These thug police need to unlearn their thuggery and learn instead, how to relate to the people. They are not defending themselves against the public. They must not view people — real human beings — as their enemy.

The thug cops are adept at dehumanising others. They need to learn to see people as individuals and this includes people attending group functions like parties or protests or club activities. People have human rights.

This includes the right to be respected and treated with dignity.

The perpetrators of violent crime are — far too often — the police. I’ve seen it happen with no provocation time and again. Too many times to count.

They don the black gloves and black sunnies and wear bullet proof vests and feel what?How do they feel when they gear up? Threatened or threatening?

Public protection
Questions need to be asked.

The public needs protection from some — not all — of our police.

And the legal system, the justice system — (I’m trying not use an ironic tone here) needs to be applied to violent crimes, including the police crims who assault members of the public.

I worry for unseen victims too. I worry for their wives and children because if they assault with no provocation on the street what do they do at home?

Do people who behave like street devils turn into angels at home?

Investigations must be held about why our police are assaulting bystanders and peaceful protesters.

Tragedy investigation
I guess there wll be an investigation into the bullets against knife tragedy. But we need other investigations too.

I know the footage of what happened to our innocent elderly protester will be posted on social media.

New footage emerges of policeman pushing partygoer (2021 1News video)

In the meantime, here’s other footage above of Christchurch police doing what they are in danger of doing best.

This footage is four years ago but this alarming, aggressive behaviour continues as demonstrated yesterday by a cop shoving to the ground an unarmed, unprotected, elderly man waving a Palestinian flag whom they then — so wrongly — charged with assault!

Saige England is an Aotearoa New Zealand journalist, author, and poet, member of the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA), and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This commentary was first published on her social media.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz