The murders of unarmed civilians on the streets of Minneapolis, including the killing of the intensive-care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, would not come as a shock to Iraqis in Fallujah or Afghans in Helmand province.

They were terrorised by heavily armed American execution squads for decades.

It would not come as a shock to any of the students I teach in prison. Militarised police in poor urban neighborhoods kick down doors without warrants and kill with the same impunity and lack of accountability.

What the rest of us are facing now, is what Aimé Césaire called “imperial boomerang”.

Empires, when they decay, employ the savage forms of control on those they subjugate abroad, or those demonized by the wider society in the name of law and order, on the homeland.

The tyranny Athens imposed on others, Thucydides noted, it finally, with the collapse of Athenian democracy, imposed on itself.

But before we became the victims of state terror, we were accomplices. Before we expressed moral outrage at the indiscriminate taking of innocent lives, we tolerated, and often celebrated, the same Gestapo tactics, as long as they were directed at those who lived in the nations we occupied or poor people of colour.

We sowed the wind, now we will reap the whirlwind. The machinery of terror, perfected on those we abandoned and betrayed, including the Palestinians in Gaza, is ready for us.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report”. This commentary was first published on the Chris Hedges Substack page and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

On June 22, American warplanes crossed into Iranian airspace and dropped 14 massive bombs.

The attack was not in response to a provocation; it came on the heels of illegal Israeli aggression that took the lives of more than 600 Iranians.

This was a return to something familiar and well-practised: an empire bombing innocents across the orientalist abstraction called “the Middle East”.

That night, US President Donald Trump, flanked by his vice-president and two state secretaries, told the world: “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace”.

There is something chilling about how bombs are baptised with the language of diplomacy and how destruction is dressed in the garments of stability. To call that peace is not merely a misnomer; it is a criminal distortion.

But what is peace in this world, if not submission to the West? And what is diplomacy, if not the insistence that the attacked plead with their attackers?

In the 12 days that Israel’s illegal assault on Iran lasted, images of Iranian children pulled from the wreckage remained absent from the front pages of Western media. In their place were lengthy features about Israelis hiding in fortified bunkers.

Victimhood serving narrative
Western media, fluent in the language of erasure, broadcasts only the victimhood that serves the war narrative.

And that is not just in its coverage of Iran. For 20 months now, the people of Gaza have been starved and incinerated. By the official count, more than 55,000 lives have been taken; realistic estimates put the number at hundreds of thousands.

Every hospital in Gaza has been bombed. Most schools have been attacked and destroyed.

Leading human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have already declared that Israel is committing genocide, and yet, most Western media would not utter that word and would add elaborate caveats when someone does dare say it live on TV.

Presenters and editors would do anything but recognise Israel’s unending violence in an active voice.

Despite detailed evidence of war crimes, the Israeli military has faced no media censure, no criticism or scrutiny. Its generals hold war meetings near civilian buildings, and yet, there are no media cries of Israelis being used as “human shields”.

Israeli army and government officials are regularly caught lying or making genocidal statements, and yet, their words are still reported as “the truth”.

Bias over Palestinian deaths
A recent study found that on the BBC, Israeli deaths received 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths, despite Palestinians dying at a rate of 34 to 1 compared with Israelis. Such bias is no exception, it is the rule for Western media.

Like Palestine, Iran is described in carefully chosen language. Iran is never framed as a nation, only as a regime. Iran is not a government, but a threat — not a people, but a problem.

The word “Islamic” is affixed to it like a slur in every report. This is instrumental in quietly signalling that Muslim resistance to Western domination must be extinguished.

Iran does not possess nuclear weapons; Israel and the United States do. And yet only Iran is cast as an existential threat to world order.

Because the problem is not what Iran holds, but what it refuses to surrender. It has survived coups, sanctions, assassinations, and sabotage. It has outlived every attempt to starve, coerce, or isolate it into submission.

It is a state that, despite the violence hurled at it, has not yet been broken.

And so the myth of the threat of weapons of mass destruction becomes indispensable. It is the same myth that was used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq. For three decades, American headlines have whispered that Iran is just “weeks away” from the bomb, three decades of deadlines that never arrive, of predictions that never materialise.

Fear over false ‘nuclear threat’
But fear, even when unfounded, is useful. If you can keep people afraid, you can keep them quiet. Say “nuclear threat” often enough, and no one will think to ask about the children killed in the name of “keeping the world safe”.

This is the modus operandi of Western media: a media architecture not built to illuminate truth, but to manufacture permission for violence, to dress state aggression in technical language and animated graphics, to anaesthetise the public with euphemisms.

Time Magazine does not write about the crushed bones of innocents under the rubble in Tehran or Rafah, it writes about “The New Middle East” with a cover strikingly similar to the one it used to propagandise regime change in Iraq 22 years ago.

But this is not 2003. After decades of war, and livestreamed genocide, most Americans no longer buy into the old slogans and distortions. When Israel attacked Iran, a poll showed that only 16 percent of US respondents supported the US joining the war.

After Trump ordered the air strikes, another poll confirmed this resistance to manufactured consent: only 36 percent of respondents supported the move, and only 32 percent supported continuing the bombardment

The failure to manufacture consent for war with Iran reveals a profound shift in the American consciousness. Americans remember the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that left hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis dead and an entire region in flames. They remember the lies about weapons of mass destruction and democracy and the result: the thousands of American soldiers dead and the tens of thousands maimed.

They remember the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan after 20 years of war and the never-ending bloody entanglement in Iraq.

Low social justice spending
At home, Americans are told there is no money for housing, healthcare, or education, but there is always money for bombs, for foreign occupations, for further militarisation. More than 700,000 Americans are homeless, more than 40 million live under the official poverty line and more than 27 million have no health insurance.

And yet, the US government maintains by far the highest defence budget in the world.

Americans know the precarity they face at home, but they are also increasingly aware of the impact US imperial adventurism has abroad. For 20 months now, they have watched a US-sponsored genocide broadcast live.

They have seen countless times on their phones bloodied Palestinian children pulled from rubble while mainstream media insists, this is Israeli “self-defence”.

The old alchemy of dehumanising victims to excuse their murder has lost its power. The digital age has shattered the monopoly on narrative that once made distant wars feel abstract and necessary. Americans are now increasingly refusing to be moved by the familiar war drumbeat.

The growing fractures in public consent have not gone unnoticed in Washington. Trump, ever the opportunist, understands that the American public has no appetite for another war.

‘Don’t drop bombs’
And so, on June 24, he took to social media to announce, “the ceasefire is in effect”, telling Israel to “DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS,” after the Israeli army continued to attack Iran.

Trump, like so many in the US and Israeli political elites, wants to call himself a peacemaker while waging war. To leaders like him, peace has come to mean something altogether different: the unimpeded freedom to commit genocide and other atrocities while the world watches on.

But they have failed to manufacture our consent. We know what peace is, and it does not come dressed in war. It is not dropped from the sky.

Peace can only be achieved where there is freedom. And no matter how many times they strike, the people remain, from Palestine to Iran — unbroken, unbought, and unwilling to kneel to terror.

Ahmad Ibsais is a first-generation Palestinian American and law student who writes the newsletter State of Siege.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.

The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.

The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.

There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth.  Iran is the weakest.  If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.

Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.

“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.

That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.

US chooses war to re-shape Middle East
Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.

In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.

One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.

With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years.  A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.

Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.

Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being
Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.

Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.

Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg?
For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.

Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Listen to the audio from 3:00 minutes in.

Over the last 24 hours, the atomic control agency IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) formed a view at its UN Geneva meeting, that there was so-called evidence that Iran had ‘undisclosed sites’ where uranium was identified.

Iran disputes this, and suggested today that the IAEA members were wrong.

It appears Israel identified a window of opportunity where it can strike Iran’s nuclear power generation infrastructure, assassinate its nuclear scientists, and destroy other sites that it insists are covert nuclear-development-sites.

But let’s be clear at this moment, it is not proven that Iran has or had a covert uranium enrichment operation in play.

ISRAEL CLAIMS:

Israel claims its attacks on Iran are justified as preemptive defence operations – but we need to understand here… preemptive defence in itself is not legal.

The problem on this aspect is Israel has arguably, long ago, crossed the Rubicon regarding International Law – especially in Gaza and the West Bank. So it’s reasonable to suggest; Israel is not deterred by the possibility of any future recourse being brought upon it by the international community.

CONTEXT:

Iran is believed to be not war-ready. But, Iran will respond. Its Supreme Leader stated it will respond. It remains to be seen how it will respond.

At this moment, there are reports in Israel that over 100 missiles are incoming from Iran to Israel.

We also know, Israel has weakened Hezbollah, especially within Lebanon. The strikes on Beirut earlier this month and prior were designed to weaken Hezbollah.

Further, Syria is in a state of transition.

This is the backdrop to Israel’s window of opportunity.

THE UNITED STATES:

The United States obviously knew a strike was imminent. It pulled non-essential personnel out of neighbouring Iraq and from the general region.

United States President Donald Trump has confirmed that there was communication on this offensive between Israel and the US, in the context of no-surprises.

Trump added that the US would help defend Israel, but it’s unclear what ‘defend’ actually means. The US appears to be waiting to see exactly how Iran responds.

The Trump Administration insists Israel’s decision to strike Iran was unilateral. United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.”

IRAN’S POSITION:

Last Sunday, the Iranian President said Iran was “ready for inspections” but added it is “unacceptable to deprive peoples of access to knowledge, technology and scientific achievements”.

*** Only yesterday Iran’s foreign minister stated that Iran and the US were close to a deal on its nuclear energy ambitions. In a statement he said: “Trump took office saying that Iran should not have nuclear weapons. In fact, this is in line with our own doctrine and could be the main basis for the deal.”

Perhaps Israel saw its window of opportunity narrowing.

Iran insists its nuclear energy programme has been transparent.

BACK-STORY:

In negotiations with United States envoys, Iran has been insisting that it has the right to enrich its uranium but insists this is for efficient energy generation.

Back in May Iran’s foreign minister said: To claim that any country that wants to enrich uranium has non-peaceful purposes is a “deliberate misconception”

He stressed. “There are states that enrich uranium but do not possess nuclear weapons.”

LEAKS ISRAEL GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE:

On June 7, Iran’s Intelligence Minister claimed Iran had acquired trove of Israel Government documents that detailed Israel’s nuclear program.

Iran described the intelligence as “sensitive and strategic” and one of the most significant intelligence leaks in Israel’s history.

The intelligence documents also detailed communications between Israel and the United States, Europe and other countries.

OTHER CONTEXT:

The Russian Federation announced this week that it was willing to assist Iran with its nuclear energy ambitions.

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

If there is one thing we can thank US President Donald Trump for, it is this: he has decisively stripped away the ridiculous notion, long cultivated by Western media, that the United States is a benign global policeman enforcing a “rules-based order”.

Washington is better understood as the head of a gangster empire, embracing 800 military bases around the world. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been aggressively seeking “global full-spectrum domination”, as the Pentagon doctrine politely terms it.

You either pay fealty to the Don or you get dumped in the river. Last Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was presented with a pair of designer concrete boots at the White House.

The innovation was that it all happened in front of the Western press corps, in the Oval Office, rather than in a back room, out of sight. It made for great television, Trump crowed.

Pundits have been quick to reassure us that the shouting match was some kind of weird Trumpian thing. As though being inhospitable to state leaders, and disrespectful to the countries they head, is unique to this administration.

Take just the example of Iraq. The administration of Bill Clinton thought it “worth it” – as his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, infamously put it — to kill an estimated half a million Iraqi children by imposing draconian sanctions through the 1990s.

Under Clinton’s successor, George W Bush, the US then waged an illegal war in 2003, on entirely phoney grounds, that killed around half a million Iraqis, according to post-war estimates, and made four million homeless.

Those worrying about the White House publicly humiliating Zelensky might be better advised to save their concern for the hundreds of thousands of mostly Ukrainian and Russian men killed or wounded fighting an entirely unnecessary war — one, as we shall see, Washington carefully engineered through Nato over the preceding two decades.

Henchman Zelensky
All those casualties served the same goal as they did in Iraq: to remind the world who is boss.

Uniquely, Western publics don’t understand this simple point because they live inside a disinformation bubble, created for them by the Western establishment media.

Henry Kissinger, the long-time steward of US foreign policy, famously said: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

Zelensky just found that out the hard way. Gangster empires are just as fickle as the gangsters we know from Hollywood movies. Under the previous Joe Biden administration, Zelensky had been recruited as a henchman to do Washington’s bidding on Moscow’s doorstep.

The background — the one Western media have kept largely out of view — is that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US tore up treaties crucial to reassuring Russia of Nato’s good intent.

Viewed from Moscow, and given Washington’s track record, Nato’s European security umbrella must have looked more like preparation for an ambush.

Keen though Trump now is to rewrite history and cast himself as peacemaker, he was central to the escalating tensions that led to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In 2019, he unilaterally withdrew from the 1987 Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces. That opened the door to the US launching a potential first strike on Russia, using missiles stationed in nearby Nato members Romania and Poland.

He also sent Javelin anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, a move avoided by his predecessor, Barack Obama, for fear it would be seen as provocative.

Repeatedly, Nato vowed to bring Ukraine into its fold, despite Russia’s warnings that the step was viewed as an existential threat, that Moscow could not allow Washington to place missiles on its border, any more than the US accepted Soviet missiles stationed in Cuba back in the early 1960s.

Washington pressed ahead anyway, even assisting in a colour revolution-style coup in 2014 against the elected government in Kyiv, whose crime was being a little too sympathetic to Moscow.

With the country in crisis, Zelensky was himself elected by Ukrainians as a peace candidate, there to end a brutal civil war — sparked by that coup — between anti-Russian, “nationalistic” forces in the country’s west and ethnic Russian populations in the east. The Ukrainian President soon broke that promise.

Trump has accused Zelensky of being a “dictator”. But if he is, it is only because Washington wanted him that way, ignoring the wishes of the majority of Ukrainians.

Reddest of red lines
Zelensky’s job was to play a game of chicken with Moscow. The assumption was that the US would win whatever the outcome.

Either Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bluff would be called. Ukraine would be welcomed into Nato, becoming the most forward of the alliance’s forward bases against Russia, allowing nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to be stationed minutes from Moscow.

Or Putin would finally make good on his years of threats to invade his neighbour to stop Nato crossing the reddest of red lines he had set over Ukraine.

Washington could then cry “self-defence” on Ukraine’s behalf, and ludicrously fearmonger Western publics about Putin eyeing Poland, Germany, France and Britain next.

Those were the pretexts for arming Kyiv to the hilt, rather than seeking a rapid peace deal. And so began a proxy war of attrition against Russia, using Ukrainian men as cannon fodder.

The aim was to wear Russia down militarily and economically, and bring about Putin’s overthrow.

Zelensky did precisely what was demanded of him. When he appeared to waver early on, and considered signing a peace deal with Moscow, Britain’s prime minister of the time, Boris Johnson, was dispatched with a message from Washington: keep fighting.

That is the same Boris Johnson who now breezily admits that the West is fighting a “proxy war” against Russia.

Hmm, maybe someone can help me.

How was Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine entirely ‘unprovoked’, when the British leader in charge at the time, Boris Johnson, now admits Nato viewed Ukraine as the battlefield for a ‘proxy war’ against Russia? 🤯 pic.twitter.com/VS6jRE03gH

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) February 24, 2025

His comments have generated precisely no controversy. That is particularly strange, given that critics who pointed this very obvious fact out three years ago were instantly denounced for spreading “Putin disinformation” and Kremlin “talking points”.

For his obedience, Zelensky was feted a hero, the defender of Europe against Russian imperialism. His every “demand” — demands that originated in Washington — was met.

Ukraine has received at least $250 billion worth of guns, tanks, fighter jets, training for his troops, Western intelligence on Russia, and other forms of aid.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian men have paid with their lives — as have the families they leave behind.

Mafia etiquette
Now the old Don in Washington is gone. The new Don has decided Zelensky has been an expensive failure. Russia isn’t lethally wounded. It’s stronger than ever. Time for a new strategy.

Zelensky, still imagining he was Washington’s favourite henchman, arrived at the Oval Office only to be taught a harsh lesson in mafia etiquette.

Trump is spinning his stab in the back as a “peace agreement”. And in some sense, it is. Rightly, Trump has concluded that Russia has won — unless the West is ready to fight World War III and risk a potential nuclear war.

Trump has faced up to the reality of the situation, even if Zelensky and Europe are still struggling to.

Trump’s overt ‘genocidal’ warning over Gaza.   Video: TRT World News

But his plan for Ukraine is actually just a variation of his other peace plan — the one for Gaza. There he wants to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population and, on the bodies of the enclave’s many thousands of dead children, build the “Riviera of the Middle East” — or “Trump Gaza” as it is being called in a surreal video he shared on social media.

In telling the “people of Gaza”, they will be “DEAD” if the hostages aren’t released – something they can’t decide – Trump is expressing clear genocidal intent. He’a also sending the arms to make that genocide possible.

He needs to be in the ICC dock alongside Netanyahu. pic.twitter.com/eomkGP6eWe

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) March 6, 2025

Similarly, Trump now sees Ukraine not as a military battlefield but as an economic one where, through clever deal-making, he can leverage riches for himself and his billionaire pals.

He has put a gun to Zelensky and Europe’s head. Make a deal with Russia to end the war, or you are on your own against a far superior military power. See if the Europeans can help you without a supply of Washington’s weapons.

Not surprisingly, Zelensky, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron huddled together at the weekend to find a deal that would appease Trump. All Starmer has revealed so far is that the plan will “stop the fighting”.

That is a good thing. But the fighting could have been stopped, and should have been stopped, three years ago.

Money, not peace
It is deeply unwise to be lulled into tribalism by all this — the very tribalism Western elites seek to cultivate among their publics to keep us treating international affairs no differently from a high-stakes football match.

No one here has behaved, or is behaving, honourably.

A ceasefire in Ukraine is not about peace. It’s about money, just as the earlier war was. As all wars are, ultimately.

An acceptable ceasefire for Trump, as well as for Putin, will involve a carve-up of Ukraine’s goodies. Rare earth minerals, land, agricultural production will be the real currency driving the agreement.

Zelensky now understands this. He knows that he, and the people of Ukraine, have been scammed. That is what tends to happen when you cosy up to the mafia.

If anyone doubts Washington’s insincerity over Ukraine, look to Palestine for clarity.

In his earlier presidency, Trump tried to bring about what he termed the peace “deal of the century” whose centrepiece was the annexation of much of the Occupied West Bank.

The hope was that the Gulf states would ultimately fund an incentivisation programme — the carrot to Israel’s stick — to encourage Palestinians to make a new life in a giant, purpose-built industrial zone in Sinai, next to Gaza.

That plan is still simmering away in the background. At the weekend, Israel received a green light from Washington to revive its genocidal starvation of Gaza’s population, after Israel refused to negotiate the second phase of the original ceasefire agreement.

The Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are now spinning their own bad faith as Hamas “rejectionism”.

They and the echo chamber that is the Western media are blaming the Palestinian group for refusing to be gulled into an “extension” of what was never more than a phoney ceasefire — Israel’s fire never ceased. Israel wants all the hostages back, without having to leave Gaza, so that Hamas has no leverage to stop Israel reviving the full genocide.

The people of Gaza are still being fed into the Washington mafia’s meatgrinder, just as the Ukrainian people have been.

Trump wants them out of the way so he can develop a Mediterranean playground for the rich, paid for with Gulf oil money and the so-far untapped natural gas reserves just off Gaza’s coast.

Unlike his predecessors, Trump doesn’t pretend that Ukraine and Gaza are anything more than geostrategic real estate for Washington.

The big shakedown
Zelensky’s shakedown did not come out of the blue. Trump and his officials had been flagging it well in advance.

Two weeks ago, the industrial correspondent for Britain’s Daily Telegraph wrote an article headlined “Here’s why Trump wants to make Ukraine a US economic colony”.

Trump’s team believes that Ukraine may have rare-earth minerals under the ground worth some $15 trillion — a treasure trove that will be critical to the development of the next generation of technology.

In their view, controlling the exploration and extraction of those minerals will be as important as control over the Middle East’s oil reserves was more than a century ago.

And most important of all, the US wants China, its chief economic — if not military — rival excluded from the plunder. China currently has an effective monopoly on many of these critical minerals.

Or as the Telegraph puts it, Ukraine’s “minerals offer a tantalising promise: the ability for the US to break its dependence on Chinese supplies of critical minerals that go into everything from wind turbines to iPhones and stealth fighter jets”.

A draft of the plan seen by the Telegraph would, in its words, “amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity”.

Washington wants first refusal on all deposits within the country.

At their Oval Office confrontation, Trump reiterated this goal: “So we’re going to be using that [Ukraine’s rare earth minerals], taking it, using it for all of the things we do, including AI, and including weapons, and the military. And it’s really going to very much satisfy our needs.”

All of this means that Trump has a keen incentive to get the war finished as quickly as possible, and Russia’s territorial advance halted. The more territory Moscow seizes, the less territory is left for the US to plunder.

Self-sabotage
The battle against China over rare-earth minerals isn’t a Trump innovation either — and adds an additional layer of context for why Washington and Nato have been so keen over the past two decades to prise Ukraine away from Russia.

Last summer, a Congressional select committee on competition with China announced the formation of a working group to counter Beijing’s “dominance of critical minerals”.

The chairman of the committee, John Moolenaar, noted that the current US dependence on China for these minerals “would quickly become an existential vulnerability in the event of a conflict”.

Another committee member, Rob Wittman, observed: “Dominance over global supply chains for critical mineral and rare earth elements is the next stage of great power competition.”

What Trump appears to appreciate is that Nato’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has, by default, driven Moscow deeper into Beijing’s embrace. It has been self-sabotage on a grand scale.

Together, China and Russia are a formidable opponent, and one at the centre of the ever-growing Brics group — comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They have been seeking to expand their alliance by adding emerging powers to become a counterweight to Washington and Nato’s bullying global agenda.

But a deal with Putin over Ukraine would provide an opportunity for Washington to build a new security architecture in Europe — one more useful to the US — that places Russia inside the tent rather than outside it.

That would leave China isolated — a long-time Pentagon goal.

And it would also leave Europe less central to the projection of US power, which is why European leaders — led by Keir Starmer — have been looking and sounding so unnerved over the past few weeks.

The danger is that Trump’s “peacemaking” in Ukraine simply becomes a prelude to the fomenting of a war against China, using Taiwan as the pretext in the same way Ukraine was used against Russia.

As Moolenaar implied, US control over critical minerals — in Ukraine and elsewhere — would ensure the US was no longer vulnerable in the event of a war with China to losing access to the minerals it would need to continue the war. It would free Washington’s hand.

Trump may be behaving in a vulgar manner. But the gangster empire he now heads is conducting the same global shakedown as ever.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years and returned to the UK in 2021. He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). In 2011, Cook was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism for his work on Palestine and Israel. This article was first published in Middle East Eye and is republished with the author’s permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

The reported plea bargain between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the United States government brings to a close one of the darkest periods in the history of media freedom, says the union for Australian journalists.

While the details of the deal are still to be confirmed, MEAA welcomed the release of Assange, a Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance member, after five years of relentless campaigning by journalists, unions, and press freedom advocates around the world.

MEAA remains concerned what the deal will mean for media freedom around the world.

The work of WikiLeaks at the centre of this case — which exposed war crimes and other wrongdoing by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan — was strong, public interest journalism.

MEAA fears the deal will embolden the US and other governments around the world to continue to pursue and prosecute journalists who disclose to the public information they would rather keep suppressed.

MEAA media federal president Karen Percy welcomed the news that Julian Assange has already been released from Belmarsh Prison, where he has been held as his case has wound its way through UK courts.

“We wish Julian all the best as he is reunited with his wife, young sons and other relatives who have fought tirelessly for his freedom,” she said.

‘Relentless battle against this injustice’
“We commend Julian for his courage over this long period, and his legal team and supporters for their relentless battle against this injustice.

“We’ve been extremely concerned about the impact on his physical and mental wellbeing during Julian’s long period of imprisonment and respect the decision to bring an end to the ordeal for all involved.

Julian Assange boards flight at London Stansted Airport at 5PM (BST) Monday June 24th. This is for everyone who worked for his freedom: thank you.#FreedJulianAssange pic.twitter.com/Pqp5pBAhSQ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 25, 2024

“The deal reported today does not in any way mean that the struggle for media freedom has been futile; quite the opposite, it places governments on notice that a global movement will be mobilised whenever they blatantly threaten journalism in a similar way.

Percy said the espionage charges laid against Assange were a “grotesque overreach by the US government” and an attack on journalism and media freedom.

“The pursuit of Julian Assange has set a dangerous precedent that will have a potential chilling effect on investigative journalism,” she said.

“The stories published by WikiLeaks and other outlets more than a decade ago were clearly in the public interest. The charges by the US sought to curtail free speech, criminalise journalism and send a clear message to future whistleblowers and publishers that they too will be punished.”

Percy said was clearly in the public interest and it had “always been an outrage” that the US government sought to prosecute him for espionage for reporting that was published in collaboration with some of the world’s leading media organisations.

Julian Assange has been an MEAA member since 2007 and in 2011 WikiLeaks won the Outstanding Contribution to Journalism Walkley award, one of Australia’s most coveted journalism awards.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Good slogans have people nodding their heads in agreement because they recognise an underlying truth in the words.  

I have a worn-out t-shirt which carries the slogan, “The first casualty of war is truth — the rest are mostly civilians”.

If you find yourself nodding in agreement it’s possibly because you have found it deeply shocking to find this slogan validated repeatedly in almost eight months of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The mainstream news sources which bring us the “truth” are strongly Eurocentric. Virtually all the reporting in our mainstream media comes via three American or European news agencies — AP, Reuters and the BBC — or from major US or UK based newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Washington Post or The New York Times. 

This reporting centres on Israeli narratives, Israeli reasoning, Israeli explanations and Israeli justifications for what they are doing to Palestinians. Israeli spokespeople are front and centre and quoted extensively and directly.

Palestinian voices, when they are covered, are usually at the margins. On television in particular Palestinians are most often portrayed as the incoherent victims of overwhelming grief.

In the mainstream media Israel’s perverted lies dominate. 

Riddled with examples
The last seven months is riddled with examples. Just two days after the October 7 attack on Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters were accused of chanting “Gas the Jews” outside the Sydney Opera House.

The story was carried around the world through mainstream media as a nasty anti-semitic slur on Palestinians and their supporters. Four months later, after an intensive investigation New South Wales police concluded it never happened. The words were never chanted.

However the Radio New Zealand website today still carries a Reuters report saying “A rally outside the Sydney Opera House two days after the Hamas attack had ignited heated debate after a small group were filmed chanting “Gas the Jews”.

Even if RNZ did the right thing and removed the report now the old adage is true: “A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on”. Four months later and the police report is not news but the damage has been done as the pro-Israel lobby intended.

The same tactic has been used at protests on US university campuses. A couple of weeks ago at Northeastern University a pro-Israel counter protester was caught on video shouting “Kill the Jews” in an apparent attempt to provoke police into breaking up the pro-Palestine protest.

The university ordered the protest to be closed down saying “the action was taken after some protesters resorted to virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews’”. The nastiest of lies told for the nastiest of reasons — protecting a state committing genocide.

Similarly, unverified claims of “beheaded babies” raced around the world after the October 7 attack on Israel and were even repeated by US President Joe Biden. They were false.

No baby beheaded
Even the Israeli military confirmed no baby was beheaded and yet despite this bare-faced disinformation the Israeli ambassador to New Zealand was able to repeat the lie, along with several others, in a recent TVNZ interview on Q&A without being challenged.

War propaganda such as this is deliberate and designed to ramp up anger and soften us up to accept war and the most savage brutality and blatant war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Recall for a moment the lurid claims from 1990 that Iraqi soldiers had removed babies from incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and left them to die on the floor. It was false but helped the US convince the public that war against Iraq was justified.

Twelve years later the US and UK were peddling false claims about Iraq having “weapons of mass destruction” to successfully pressure other countries to join their war on Iraq.

Perhaps the most cynical misinformation to come out of the war on Gaza so far appeared in the hours following the finding of the International Court of Justice that South Africa had presented a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide.

Israel smartly released a short report claiming 12 employees of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) had taken part in the October 7 attack on Gaza. The distraction was spectacularly successful.

Western media fell over themselves to highlight the report and bury the ICJ findings with most Western countries, New Zealand included, stopping or suspending funding for the UN agency.

Independent probe
eedless to say an independent investigation out a couple of weeks ago shows Israel has failed to support its claims about UNRWA staff involved in the October 7 attacks. It doesn’t need forensic analysis to tell us Israel released this fact-free report to divert attention from their war crimes which have now killed over 36,000 Palestinians — the majority being women and children.

The problem goes deeper than manufactured stories. For many Western journalists the problem starts not with what they see and hear but with what their news editors allow them to say.

A leaked memo to New York Times journalists covering the war tells them they are to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to avoid using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land.

They have even been instructed not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” or the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza settled by Palestinian refugees driven off their land by Israeli armed militias in the Nakba of 1947–49.

These reporting restrictions are a blatant denial of Palestinian history and cut across accurate descriptions under international law which recognises Palestinians as refugees and the occupied Palestinian territories as precisely what they are — under military occupation by Israel.

People reading articles on Gaza from The New York Times have no idea the story has been “shaped” for us with a pro-Israel bias.

These restrictions on journalists also typically cover how Palestinians are portrayed in Western media. Every Palestinian teenager who throws a stone at Israeli soldiers is called a “militant” or worse and Palestinians who take up arms to fight the Israeli occupation of their land, as is their right under international law, are described as “terrorists” when they should be described as resistance fighters.

The heavy pro-Israel bias in Western media reporting is an important reason Israel’s military occupation of Palestine, and the ongoing violence which results from it, has continued for so long.

The answer to all of this is people power — join the weekly global protests in your centre against Israel’s settler colonial project with its apartheid policies against Palestinians.

And give the mainstream media a wide berth on this issue.

John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Political Roundup: NZ’s Middle East strategy, 20 years after the Iraq War

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War.

While it strongly opposed the US-led invasion, New Zealand’s then Labour-led government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark did deploy military engineers to try to help rebuild Iraq in mid-2003.

With violence soaring, their 12-month deployment ended without being renewed further, in 2004.

However, New Zealand re-entered Iraq in 2015 as part of the international coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group.

The emergence and growth of ISIS was one of many unintended consequences of the Iraq War’s disastrous and bloody aftermath.

The Government announced last year that the remaining two New Zealand personnel deployed as part of the coalition will be withdrawn by the end of June.

New Zealand first opened an embassy in Baghdad in 1975 – one of its first missions in the Middle East – only to close it again in 1983.

An embassy was re-established in Iraq in 2015 to support military operations, but the post was again closed in 2020 as the anti-ISIS mission wound down.

The time might be right for New Zealand to take another look at Iraq.

The past twenty years have been a long bloody road – but there is now a little optimism in the air.

Monthly civilian deaths caused by conflict in Iraq are now at their lowest levels since the US invaded in 2003, according to the Iraq Body Count group.

And the surprise pledge by Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic ties has the potential to reshape the region.

Behind the unexpected deal was an unexpected mediator – China – but much of the groundwork had also been laid by Iraq in talks that began in 2021. The Gulf state of Oman has also played a pivotal role.

In theory, Iraq – which has significant Sunni, Shia and Kurdish populations and sits geographically between Saudi Arabia and Iran – is perhaps a natural location for attempts to de-escalate regional tensions.

Baghdad hosted a major new summit initiative co-organised with French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021, which inspired a follow-up event in Jordan in December that was dubbed ‘Baghdad II’.

The Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers spoke to each other on the sidelines of the conference in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

Iran has arguably been the big winner of ongoing turmoil and unrest in Iraq since 2003.

Many political parties have the backing of Tehran, as do militia groups that operate under the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) banner.

Last year, the PMF managed to quell protests outside Baghdad’s powerful Green Zone area from supporters of Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party had won the biggest share of the vote in 2021 elections.

Sadr has now withdrawn from the political process. The outcome has been the formation of a government by the Coordination Framework bloc of anti-Sadr Shiite parties, led by new Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani.

It remains to be seen whether a government that excludes the most popular party led by Sadr can gain legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis, or whether it can solve long-standing problems including rampant corruption, general economic malaise, poverty and high unemployment.

Around a quarter of Iraq’s population of 43 million live below the poverty line, while over a third of young people aged under 24 are unemployed.

It is also unclear whether the Saudi-Iranian resumption of diplomatic ties will grow into something more – and whether Iran will dial down its role in Iraqi domestic politics.

But China’s involvement in the deal suggests that Iran and Saudi Arabia may have realised there is more to be gained from working together than fighting old battles.

In addition to being a major player in Iraq, Iran has also been a key actor in long-running civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

The war in Syria has killed over 300,000 civilians and created over five million refugees – with many others displaced internally. The conflict in Yemen – called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by the UN’s World Food Programme, has led directly or indirectly to some 400,000 deaths.

In both conflicts, Iran and Saudi Arabia have backed opposing sides – and supplied ample weaponry.

However, the civil wars may finally be coming to an end.

Reports have suggested that Tehran agreed to stop sending arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen as part of the deal with Saudi Arabia, while there are signs that Riyadh is facing up to the fact that President Bashar al-Assad has defeated Saudi-backed rebels in Syria.

Peace would be good news for the Middle East.

However, a deal involving China, Iran and Saudi Arabia – matched with Assad’s likely victory in Syria – shows the shifts will probably come without democracy.

The commitment by Tehran and Riyadh to at least contemplate burying the hatchet – with Beijing’s assistance – shows that a more economic focus could be on the horizon.

For New Zealand, which has maintained embassies in Beijing, Tehran and Riyadh for decades, any rapprochement could boost long-term trade prospects in the Middle East.

Iran – now home to 80 million people – was once the second-biggest buyer of New Zealand lamb.

For its part, Iraq holds the fifth-largest proven oil reserves in the world.

Newly-built skyscrapers in the Kurdish-controlled northern city of Erbil show that this wealth is already being felt by some – if not by all.

Syria – which also suffered enormously from last month’s Turkish earthquake – and Yemen will need much greater reconstruction efforts. However, the rebuild could happen faster than expected, especially if Chinese investment is forthcoming.

Iraq, Syria and Yemen are also likely to benefit from their relative proximity to the wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of the Arabian Peninsula, which already constitute New Zealand’s seventh-biggest export market.

However, not everything is straightforward with the Saudi-Iran deal.

For one, Iran is supplying dozens of killer Shahed drones to Russia for use in its unrelenting war on Ukraine.

And Amnesty International last week said Iran’s security forces have used ‘horrific’ tactics – including torture and rape – to crush recent human rights protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in September.

Nanaia Mahuta, New Zealand’s foreign minister, recently condemned Iran’s ‘violent repression of protest activity’ in a speech to the UN Human Rights Council – and imposed travel bans and other restrictions on members of the country’s leadership.

New Zealand may be wary of getting involved too deeply in the Middle East.

Change is clearly underway – but the region is likely to remain a diplomatic minefield.

But if Beijing is interested, Wellington probably should be too.

New Zealand may want to think about re-opening its embassy in Baghdad – again.

Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.

Further reading on Foreign Affairs

Gareth Hughes (Stuff): Will New Zealand be dragged into a war between Aukus and China?
Simon Shepherd (Newshub): China expert Anne-Marie Brady says New Zealand should have de-emphasised trade with Beijing as geopolitical tensions increase
Robert Patman (Stuff): Why New Zealand should remain sceptical about Aukus
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): AUKUS vs NZ – Andrew Little is going to need a bigger waka (and drone) – why Māori Party neutrality matters
RNZ: US defence official says door is open for further talks with New Zealand
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Joe Biden official Kurt Campbell says US-NZ agreement on ‘cutting edge’ technology to come
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Why China’s Embassy met with NZ officials over the US ‘spy’ balloon saga
Tess McClure (Guardian): New Zealand to ban TikTok from government devices
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): TikTok banned on government devices over security concerns from Chinese-owned app
Anna Whyte and Thomas Manch (Stuff): TikTok ban across NZ Parliamentary-devices incoming
RNZ: Parliamentary Service bans TikTok on its devices

Other items of interest and importance today

LOBBYING, CONSULTANTS, CONTRACTORS
Guyon Espiner (RNZ): Lobbying firms earning hundreds of thousands from contracts with government agencies
Phil Pennington (RNZ): Govt pays contractors 8.5% more in wages overall in 2022, 46% more for lower paid jobs
Martien Lubberink: Radio New Zealand and KPMG on banking this week
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Ministry in charge of MIQ grew managerial staff by 200 in two years

GREENS
Simon Shepherd and Molly Swift (Newshub): Former Green MP Gareth Hughes criticises party’s muted response to Government’s axing of climate policies
Finn Hogan and Gray Gibson (Newshub): Newshub Nation: Marama Davidson defends Green’s ability to enact change after Labour’s policy bonfire
Claire Trevett (Herald): The Green Party could have walked out on Labour after Chris Hipkins’ moves this week. Why did James Shaw hold back? (paywalled)
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Bluegreen James Shaw’s impossible balance
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): What happens if Greens made a State of the Planet speech and neither the State or Planet noticed?
Steven Cowan: State of the planet: uninspiring speech from James Shaw
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Greens call for Capital Gains Tax and end to petrol tax cuts at party rally
William Hewett (Newshub): Co-leader James Shaw, Marama Davidson call for stronger climate action at Greens State of the Planet speech
RNZ: Greens lay down climate change election challenge to other parties
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Greens to use ‘State of the Planet’ speech to rally the Left, as Labour turns to centre
Adam Pearse (Herald): National responds to Greens’ ‘race-baiting’ broadside: ‘No interest in working with them’
Rachel Sadler and Ruwani Perera (Newshub): ACT, Greens launch attacks over ‘ineffectiveness’, ‘reactionary, race-baiting’ politics
Adam Pearse (Herald): Greens co-leader jokes National will dump Christopher Luxon amid warning of ‘race-baiting’ National/Act Govt
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Frustrated Greens take aim at ‘visionless government’ and possible National-ACT coalition
RNZ: Rainbow Greens ask government to ban anti-transgender activist from New Zealand
Nina Brown (Critic Te Ārohi)  Former Green Party Co-leader Joins Law Faculty

TE PĀTI MĀORI
1News Q+A: ‘Tiriti-centric’ – Te Pāti Māori on its coalition aspirations
Adam Pearse (Herald): Potential kingmaker Māori Party avoids indicating Labour or National coalition preference

STUART NASH
Jarrod Gilbert (Herald): Stuart Nash’s resignation as Police Minister the right call (paywalled)
Tim Watkin (Pundit): Saving Stuart Nash: Explaining Chris Hipkins’ Unexpected Political Calculation
Jo Moir (Newsroom): Hipkins loses sight of his no-distractions policy
Claire Trevett (Herald): Sacking Stuart Nash was the easy option for PM Chris Hipkins. Why didn’t he take it? (paywalled)
Sasha Borissenko: (Herald): Stuart Nash and conflict of interest, where do you draw the line?
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): The too-high price of speaking your mind (paywalled)
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): Making a Nash of it: The self-destruct sequence of
a police minister
Gordon Campbell: On firing Stuart Nash, plus a music playlist
Hawke’s Bay Today: Reverse Spin: Will Stuart Nash survive? The answer is blowing in the wind (paywalled)
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): Demoting Nash down the Cabinet rankings means nothing (paywalled)
Paula Bennett (Herald): PM Chris Hipkins a chicken over Stuart Nash scandal (paywalled)
Phil Smith (RNZ): The House: Political pile-on or Parliament as designed?
RNZ: Stuart Nash demoted to bottom of Cabinet, now on his ‘final warning’ – Hipkins
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Stuart Nash demoted, but stays in Cabinet and on final warning, PM says
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): Prime Minister Chris Hipkins demotes Stuart Nash, places him on ‘final warning’ after details of another meddling incident emerge
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Christopher Luxon, Brooke van Velden accuse Chris Hipkins of ‘weak leadership’ by failing to sack Stuart Nash
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Michael Wood says Jacinda Ardern ‘likely’ knew Solicitor-General was considering charging Stuart Nash but ‘can’t say for sure’
Adam Pearse (Herald): Stuart Nash pokes fun at Cabinet demotion in social media post
Steve Braunias (Herald): The secret diary of … Stuart Nash (paywalled)
Victor Billot (Newsroom): An Ode to .. Stuart Nash

ECONOMY, POLICY BONFIRE, COST OF LIVING
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): PM Chris Hipkins denies Government was out of touch with now-dumped policies
Kate MacNamara (Herald): Cost of living: Fuel tax reduction – official advice warns Government’s policy too broad and expensive (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Government considered giving up to $5k to each Kiwi during the pandemic – was it a good idea? (paywalled)
Hayden Donnell (RNZ): Mediawatch: Climate policies burn on the bread and butter bonfire
Liam Dann (Herald): Why banking crisis means cheaper petrol and (maybe) lower mortgage rates (paywalled)
Catherine Knight (Newsroom): Why our economy is too important to leave to the experts
Damien Grant (Stuff): The war with inflation is over. Inflation has won
Dan Brunskill (Interest): Could RBNZ rate hikes end as soon as next month?
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Govt debt, spending more than it earns may put country’s credit rating at risk
Herald Editorial: Spending like there’s no tomorrow (paywalled)

PARLIAMENT
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Stuart Nash Cabinet demotion, really? Chris Hipkins may have just delayed the inevitable
Herald Editorial: Labour, National playing it safe in election year with one goal in mind (paywalled)
Richard Harman (Politik): Kicking National’s tyres (paywalled)
Tova O’Brien (Today FM): Coup me once shame on me, coup me twice shame on you
Shane Te Pou (Herald): If not Christopher Luxon, could Shane Reti or Erica Stanford lead National? (paywalled)
Stuff: Points of order: He’s a man few get to see. Christopher Luxon, after hours
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Beehive Diaries: Nicola Willis woman of the moment, Māori Party has Te Puke moment (paywalled)
Peter Wilson (RNZ): Week in Politics: Nash’s resignation upsets Hipkins’ family-friendly week
Melanie Reid (Newsroom): From politician to pimp – the transformation of Jami-Lee Ross
Herald: Ex-National MP Jami-Lee Ross running escort agency Sapphire Blue – reports
Stuff: The politicians that have quit this year and why they are leaving
Felix Desmarais (1News): ‘It’s pretty brutal’: Outgoing MP Todd Muller on politics
Adam Pearse (Herald): Former National leader Todd Muller forgoes political dream in decision to resign
Kiri Gillespie and Megan Wilson (Bay of Plenty Times): Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller, National, retires from politics: ‘No regrets’ after roller-coaster career
Thomas Manch and Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Former National leader Todd Muller to step down at election, without regret
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Whangārei MP Emily Henderson to retire from Parliament, after three years
Phil Smith (RNZ): The House: The ominously named Shadow Leader
Jonah Franke (Stuff): ‘It’s harder than I thought it would be’ – Tama Potaka’s first 100 days
Finn Hogan: Newshub Nation Backstory: ACT MP Simon Court recounts harrowing brush with death from meningitis

WELLINGTON CENTRAL LABOUR CANDIDATE SELECTION
Matthew Hooton: Labour Party Members are Revolting: 1990 Possible? (paywalled) (paywalled)
Adam Pearse (Herald): Wellington Central electorate: Labour chooses Ibrahim Omer as candidate to replace Grant Robertson in hotly-contested seat
Newshub: Election 2023: MP Ibrahim Omer defeats former Labour president Claire Szabo in race to replace Grant Robertson as Wellington Central candidate
Audrey Young (Herald): Election 2023: Labour’s Wellington Central selection battle – Claire Szabo vs Ibrahim Omer

BUSINESS, BANKS, EMPLOYMENT
Rob Stock (Stuff): Bank profits: ‘Comparing the banking industry to building companies is ridiculous’
Duncan Bridgeman (Herald): CEO Pay Survey: NZ’s top bosses richer than ever following big pay rises (paywalled)
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Commerce Commission holds 3 meetings, sends 9 letters, 61 emails in 1112-hour probe
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Commerce Minister says supermarket split ‘difficult’ but promises competition reforms won’t stop
Ganesh Nana (Herald): The future of supply chains is bleak … but so was the past (paywalled)
Kate MacNamara (Herald): Alleged misrepresentation in procurement but public contract stands for embattled firm We Are Indigo (paywalled)
RNZ: RBNZ ‘confident’ NZ banks ready for any market upheaval
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Expect more disruption due to climate change, rural sector warned by minister
Toby Morris (Spinoff): The Side Eye: Case of the missing dads
Adam Pearse (Herald): Govt working on allowing bars to open for 2023 Rugby World Cup
John Roughan (Herald): Cost of living, inflation: Chris Hipkins’ decisions show Government scared of upcoming election (paywalled)
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Government’s policy bonfire won’t even come close to saving enough cash – Steven Joyce
Mike Treen (Daily Blog): Taxing wealth is an essential part of the only road forward in the crises we face
Bruce Cotterill (Herald): $2b for welfare – is that our best spending choice?
1News: Students say $20 allowance increase a cost-of-living ‘band-aid’

CYCLONE GABRIELLE
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Cyclone Gabrielle: Some blindsided by red zone proposals
Henry McMullan (1News): Displaced Hawke’s Bay families wonder where to turn next
Marty Sharpe (Stuff): ‘Someone has to pay’: The messy and costly dilemma of contaminated silt
1News: Muriwai residents allowed back home for short visits
James Perry (Whakaata Māori): Calls for resilient internet for marae in the wake of cyclone devastation
Siena Yates (E-Tangata): Why our marae will always open in a crisis
1News: Special Lotto draw raises over $11m for cyclone relief

ENVIRONMENT, CONSERVATION
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Thousands of birds die at important wetland, from deadly disease caused by pollution
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Pounamu slows Labour’s ban on mining conservation land
Tim Cadogan (Southland Times): Short-term concerns should not be ahead of the generational devastation 

EDUCATION
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Unredacted document reveals mega polytechnic Te Pūkenga requested $330m from government
Marty Sharpe (Stuff): Early Childhood Council to sue the Government over ‘discrimination’
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Teacher strike talks showing progress ‘in a number of areas’, ministry says
Michael Johnston (Stuff): Teachers’ unions aren’t helping our best teachers get the pay they deserve
1News: Q+A: Kiwi academic: Oral exams an alternative in AI era
Kate Nicol-Williams (1News): Chat GPT use being considered by education sector
Gianina Schwanecke (Stuff): Vulnerable Hutt Valley schools to lose ‘critical’ social worker service

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Auckland Council row: Top official hits back
Sapeer Mayron (Stuff): Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says $145m road cone spend is ‘unjustifiable’
Anne Goulding (Newsroom): It seems as if Wayne Brown doesn’t know what a library is

CO-GOVERNANCE, TREATY OF WAITANGI
Grant Duncan: On the Treaty of Waitangi
Janet Wilson (Stuff): Tackling systemic prejudice will require shrugging off our apathy
Jack Tame (Newstalk ZB): Labour’s handling of co-governance does a disservice to Māori
David Fisher (Herald): Julian Batchelor’s ‘stop co-governance’ rallies: How a property dispute with Māori triggered his campaign (paywalled)
Chris Marriner (Herald): Anti co-governance roadshow: Ōrewa protesters clash with attendees

HEALTH
Nicholas Jones (Herald): Revealed: Hospital wait lists are getting worse – and a fix could be three years away (paywalled)
Michael Hundleby (Stuff): Health focus must shift from plans to action to address surgery wait times
Phil Pennington (RNZ): Mental health building projects face soaring costs, delays – review
Andrea Vance (Stuff): The very long road to regulate alternative medicines
Ian Powell: Reducing health inequity
Mike Munro (Herald): Health system has its problems – but staff are pure gold (paywalled)
Stephen Forbes (Local Democracy Reporting): 7 out of 10 adults in Counties Manukau overweight or obese – report
1News: Programmes underway to naturalise foreign-trained doctors

DENTAL CARE
1News: 72% of Kiwis putting off dental care due to cost – poll
RNZ: Online petition launched for government to provide free dental care for all

HOUSING
Miriam Bell (Stuff): Cheatsheet: Is there a ‘war’ on landlords?
Carmen Hall (Bay of Plenty Times): Rental ‘war’: Government under fire over leasing perks for landlords (paywalled)

With murders, contract killings, ambushes, war zone deaths and fatal injuries, a staggering total of 1668 journalists have been killed worldwide in connection with their work in the last two decades (2003-2022), according to the tallies by the Paris-based global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) based on its annual round-ups.

This gives an average of more than 80 journalists killed every year. The total killed since 2000 is 1787.

RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As protests in Iran drag on into their fourth week over the violent death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, there are two central questions.

The first is whether these protests involving women and girls across Iran are different from upheavals in the past, or will simply end the same way with the regime stifling a popular uprising.

The second question is what can, and should, the outside world do about extraordinarily brave demonstrations against an ageing and ruthless regime that has shown itself to be unwilling, and possibly unable, to allow greater freedoms?

The symbolic issue for Iran’s protest movement is a requirement, imposed by morality police, that women and girls wear the hijab, or headscarf. In reality, these protests are the result of a much wider revolt against discrimination and prejudice.

Put simply, women are fed up with a regime that has sought to impose rigid rules on what is, and is not, permissible for women in a theocratic society whose guidelines are little changed since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.

Women are serving multi-year jail sentences for simply refusing to wear the hijab.

Two other issues are also at play. One is the economic deprivation suffered by Iranians under the weight of persistent sanctions, rampant inflation and the continuing catastrophic decline in the value of the Iranian riyal.

The other issue is the fact Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose death sparked the protests, was a Kurd.

The Kurds, who constitute about 10 percent of Iran’s 84 million population, feel themselves to be a persecuted minority. Tensions between the central government in Tehran and Kurds in their homeland on the boundaries of Iraq, Syria and Turkey are endemic.

A BBC report  on the Mahsa Amini protests.

Another important question is where all this leaves negotiations on the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA had been aimed at freezing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.

Former President Donald Trump recklessly abandoned the 2015 agreement in 2018.

The Biden administration, along with its United Nations Security Council partners plus Germany, had been making progress in those negotiations, but those efforts are now stalled, if not frozen.

The spectacle of Iranian security forces violently putting down demonstrations in cities, towns and villages across Iran will make it virtually impossible in the short term for the US and its negotiating partners to negotiate a revised JCPOA with Tehran.

Russia’s use of Iranian-supplied “kamikaze” drones against Ukrainian targets will have further soured the atmosphere.

How will the US and its allies respond?
So will the US and its allies continue to tighten Iranian sanctions? And to what extent will the West seek to encourage and support protesters on the ground in Iran?

One initiative that is already underway is helping the protest movement to circumvent regime attempts to shut down electronic communications.

Elon Musk has announced he is activating his Starlink satellites to provide a vehicle for social media communications in Iran. Musk did the same thing in Ukraine to get around Russian attempts to shut down Ukrainian communications by taking out a European satellite system.

However, amid the spectacle of women and girls being shot and tear-gassed on Iranian streets, the moral dilemma for the outside world is this: how far the West is prepared to go in its backing for the protesters.

It is one thing to express sympathy; it is another to take concrete steps to support the widespread agitation. This was also the conundrum during the Arab Spring of 2010 that brought down regimes in US-friendly countries like Egypt and Tunisia.

It should not be forgotten, in light of contemporary events, that Iran and Russia propped up Syria’s Assad regime during the Arab Spring, saving it from a near certain end.

In this latest period, the Middle East may not be on fire, as it was a decade or so ago, but it remains highly unstable. Iran’s neighbour, Iraq, is effectively without a government after months of violent agitation.

The war in Yemen is threatening to spark up again, adding to uncertainties in the Gulf.

In a geopolitical sense, Washington has to reckon with inroads Moscow has been making in relations with Gulf States, including, notably Saudi Arabia.

The recent OPEC Plus decision to limit oil production constituted a slap to the US ahead of the mid-term elections in which fuel prices will be a potent issue.

In other words, Washington’s ability to influence events in the Middle East is eroding, partly as a consequence of a disastrous attempt to remake the region by going to war in Iraq in 2003.

A volatile region
Among the consequences of that misjudgement is the empowerment of Iran in conjunction with a Shia majority in Iraq. This should have been foreseen.

So quite apart from the waves of protest in Iran, the region is a tinderbox with multiple unresolved conflicts.

In Afghanistan, on the fringes of the Middle East, women protesters have taken the lead in recent days from their Iranian sisters and have been protesting against conservative dress codes and limitations on access to education under the Taliban.

This returns us to the moral issue of the extent to which the outside world should support the protests. In this, the experience of the “green” rebellion of 2009 on Iran’s streets is relevant.

Then, the Obama administration, after initially giving encouragement to the demonstrations, pulled back on the grounds it did not wish to jeopardise negotiations on a nuclear deal with Iran or undermine the protests by attaching US support.

Officials involved in the administration, who are now back in the Biden White House, believe that approach was a mistake. However, that begs the question as to what practically the US and its allies can do to stop Iran’s assault on its own women and girls.

What if, as a consequence of Western encouragement to the demonstrators, many hundreds more die or are incarcerated?

What is the end result, beyond indulging in the usual rhetorical exercises such as expressing “concern” and threatening to ramp up sanctions that hurt individual Iranians more than the regime itself?

The bottom line is that irrespective of what might be the desired outcome, Iran’s regime is unlikely to crumble.

It might be shaken, it might entertain concerns that its own revolution that replaced the Shah is in danger of being replicated, but it would be naïve to believe that a rotting 43-year-old edifice would be anything but utterly ruthless in putting an end to the demonstrations.

This includes unrest in the oil industry, in which workers are expressing solidarity with the demonstrators. The oil worker protest will be concerning the regime, given the centrality of oil production to Iran’s economy.

However, a powerful women’s movement has been unleashed in Iran. Over time, this movement may well force a theocratic regime to loosen restrictions on women and their participation in the political life of the country. That is the hope, but as history has shown, a ruthless regime will stop at little to re-assert its control.

Dr Tony Walker is a vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It seems that New Zealand First is driving the Government’s current orientation to the Middle East crisis, with Defence Minister Ron Mark and Foreign Minister Winston Peters the only two Government politicians making any comment to date. The Prime Minister has kept silent.

Should NZ condemn the US assassination of Soleimani?

New Zealand has refused to condemn the US’ assassination of Iran’s general Qasem Soleimani, whose extrajudicial execution precipitated the current escalating crisis. It was an act of state terrorism regarded by experts as counterproductive and illegal.

According to journalist Matthew Theunissen, “Like most of the world’s government’s, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s administration has neither condemned nor endorsed the US drone strike which killed Soleimani, only calling for a de-escalation of hostilities” – see: Iran’s embassy calls on NZ to promote peace and security.

Many commentators say this isn’t good enough. Theunissen reports Middle East expert Jon Stephenson saying New Zealand’s response has been inadequate: “I am concerned that there has been a lack not just of political leadership but of moral leadership by Western politicians. They need to step up now and make it clear to the Trump administration that they’re very concerned”. He suggests that this is the time for Trump’s allies to speak out: “It’s fine for [Justin] Trudeau, [Angela] Merkel, Boris Johnson and Jacinda Ardern to snigger behind Trump’s back at international meetings, but this is where it really counts.”

Former Green MP Keith Locke goes further and complains that Winston Peters’ statements on the assassination “could also be read as a justification for the drone killing” – because Peters’ words included an acknowledgement of the “strong US concerns about Iran” and that “the US took action on the basis of information they had” – see: New Zealand’s response to the Soleimani assassination is shamefully timid.

According to Locke, “Apparently it is now OK to assassinate any top government official you label as a ‘bad person’, whatever the consequences for peaceful relations between nations.” He says “New Zealand must speak out against Donald Trump’s terrorist assassination of Qassem Soleimani. Not doing so will set a dangerous precedent in world politics, and help make us all less safe.”

For Locke, the Government’s response has been “a craven display of fealty to Donald Trump”. And he says the whole episode raises questions about whether New Zealand still has independent foreign policy.

Similarly, leftwing political commentator Gordon Campbell says “Peters’ silence has hardly been a proud moment in the history of our ‘independent’ foreign policy – see: On the Iran aftermath. He also suggests it’s somewhat inconsistent of Peters to hold back on criticising the US’ actions, given that the NZ First leader “likes to flatter himself as a defender of protocol and a promoter of respect for the legal niceties”.

Some similar messages come from international relations specialist Robert Patman of the University of Otago: “Mr Trump’s actions are inconsistent with New Zealand’s world view, a rules-based international order. This was a unilateral targeted killing… We need to be quite clear that we disapprove of an action which boosts both the Iranian regime and Isis” – see Emma Perry’s New Zealand’s reaction to targeted killing too timid, academic believes.

According to this article, Patman thinks New Zealand can only keep its troops in Iraq if the Government approves of Trump’s leadership of the situation: “Whether they leave or not will depend on two things — clearly the situation on the ground and also whether or not New Zealand have confidence Mr Trump is leading the anti-Isis coalition in the correct fashion… That confidence has begun to wane”.

The Green Party has now come out publicly wanting the Government to take a harder line against US actions, with defence spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman saying: “We do have to, in the days to come, reassess whether or not we are really going to stand up to what has become a belligerent US president… I think that is a good place for New Zealand to be, that we stand as a principled voice on the international stage and we do call out our allies” – see Charlie Dreaver’s New Zealand should be a ‘principled voice’ as US-Iran tensions rise, Golriz Ghahraman says.

Not everyone is calling for the Government to condemn Trump’s actions. Negar Partow, who lectures in defence and security studies at Massey University, and who was born in Iran, wants Jacinda Ardern to get more involved in the crisis, but not necessarily to criticise the US’ actions: “There’s quite a lot of discussions about ‘why don’t we condemn this part of the conflict or that part’, my position is… we need to go above this condemnation of this and that and actually tell both of them off and bring them to the negotiation table” – see RNZ’s US-Iran tensions: NZ should ‘tell both of them off’ – academic.

Similarly, in the article, National’s defence spokesperson Mark Mitchell says “I don’t think we should be picking sides”. He is reported saying “New Zealand should encourage a peaceful solution to the conflict and not take advice from Iran or the US.”

Should NZ’s troops be immediately recalled from Iraq?

New Zealand currently has about 50 troops in Iraq – 5 in Baghdad, and another 45 stationed at Camp Taji on the outskirts of the city. In November the New Zealand Government announced the troops would stay there until June of this year.

The recent escalation of conflict has raised the question of whether they should be recalled immediately. A number of voices are now calling for this. This even includes the New Zealand Herald, which says in an editorial that “New Zealand soldiers should be withdrawn without delay” – see: Pullout of NZ troops in Iraq imperative. The newspaper says: “US policy in the Middle East has become muddled, provocative and dangerous.”

Iranian-New Zealander Donna Miles-Mojab says the troops must get out right now, and she warns against New Zealand being dragged into another “endless war” in the Middle East – see: NZ should withdraw troops from Iraq immediately.

Miles-Mojab says: “Whatever the cost of Soleimani’s killing turns out to be, it should not be paid by New Zealand troops stationed in Iraq. It’s time for the troops to come home. The Iraqi Parliament has voted for all foreign troops to leave. New Zealand should respect their decision. This is not our war.”

Will the Labour-led Government listen? Former general secretary of the Labour Party, Mike Smith, has blogged, to say Get out now. He says: “remaining troops should bring forward their scheduled departure and leave immediately. This is the least that New Zealand can do to distance us from the appalling cretinism shown by the US and its NATO allies. This is not because they are threatened but because the actions of the US violate all the norms of common justice and international law and are to be condemned.”

Former National Party Defence Minister Wayne Mapp also says such a withdrawal is now inevitable – see Boris Jancic’s NZ withdrawal from Iraq now ‘inevitable’: former Defence Minister.

Mapp says the original reason for sending the troops – to help defeat Isis – is now complete. From this point, he says “It’s going to start to feel altogether too risky relative to the gains”.

However, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark, a withdrawal is not even being considered by the Government – see RNZ’s Defence Minister Ron Mark not considering withdrawing troops. This is despite, according to this article, other Western countries – Germany, Slovakia, Croatia, and Canada – shifting their troops from Iraq to Kuwait.

What happens now?

If the Government chooses to keep its troops in Iraq, then the National opposition will support this – see Lana Andelane’s Iran missile attacks: National wants to keep New Zealand troops in Iraq. According to this article, “The National Party says New Zealand troops stationed in Iraq should not ‘cut and run’, advising the Government to keep troops on the ground.” National says New Zealand “should emulate our friends Britain and Australia”.

National might be tempted to push a populist and nationalist line on the Middle East issue according to defence analyst Paul Buchanan, who argues the deployment question is “going to become a political football” – see John Weekes’ Middle East: ‘Mission creep’ warning for NZ as election year dawns.

This article reports: “Buchanan said the National Party might run a populist foreign policy election platform, equating any withdrawal of Kiwi troops from Iraq with abandonment of New Zealand’s regional allies and friends.” And “New Zealand First might argue for an extended deployment.” And this possibility is backed up by Winston Peters saying that the Western allies have largely defeated Isis, and “It is important that these gains are preserved and consolidated, not undermined.”

Of course, New Zealand might have little choice in the matter. The Iraqi Parliament has now passed a resolution to expel all foreign troops from their country. And the Iraqi Prime Minister has followed this up with a call for a timetable on the withdrawal of such countries.

Hence, blogger No Right Turn says: We are no longer welcome in Iraq. With the Iraqi elected representatives making this decision, he says New Zealand and the allies “are now invaders and occupiers.”

Interestingly, Ron Mark rejects the notion that New Zealand and its allies are no longer welcome in Iraq, saying “The Iraqi government has not asked us to withdraw” and “We have a mandate for a mission” – see John Weekes’ Defence minister ‘concerned’ about Iraq situation amid claims of more missiles. According to this, “Mark said he had faith in the ability of New Zealand’s coalition partners to assess the situation on the ground and it was not for him to interfere in operational matters.”

National is arguing that New Zealand’s allies will be unhappy with our troops being pulled out early. Mark Mitchell says: “We do not want to cut and run unduly, leaving others to shoulder our responsibilities”.

This position is backed up by law professor Al Gillespie of Waikato University, who says if the Government pulls the troops out of Iraq, then “it’s not going to look good for our relationship with America… In an ideal world you don’t cut and run because you’ve got the integrity of your country, you’ve made a deal with a Iraq and America” – see Sam Hurley and Boris Jancic’s ‘If you want a war, we’ll give you a war’ – NZ faces tough decisions as Iran calls Trump’s bluff, expert says.

In contrast, Paul Buchanan says it wouldn’t be cutting and running to withdraw, especially since Germany is doing just that. He doesn’t think a withdrawal would harm New Zealand’s relations with the US: “It’s not as if [New Zealand is] cutting and running. A bigger country, a middle power has already said ‘this is not worth it’… If they’ve suspended the training what’s the point of being there?… Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s going to impact our relationship with the United States one iota whether they stay or pull out” – see Boris Jancic’s NZ base not hit in Iraq attack, no withdrawal announcement.

Finally, on 25 January there will be a march down Queen St in Auckland to call for New Zealand to immediately take its troops out of the Middle East. For details of this, see Global Peace and Justice Auckland’s Protest against war with Iran January 25! NZ troops out of Iraq Now!