The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has appealed to ACT MP Nicole McKee to condemn Israel’s deliberate bulldozing of New Zealand war graves in the besieged Palestinian Gaza enclave.

PSNA co-chair John Minto has asked for the MP to take this action after McKee had posted on Facebook yesterday a message of strong support for looking after NZ soldiers’ graves wherever they are.

Minto said in a statement on Anzac Day: “Israel’s destruction of New Zealand war graves was not an accident of war. It was the deliberate bulldozing of the graves by the Israeli military”

“They have bulldozed dozens of Palestinian cemeteries as standard practice to erase Palestine from Gaza,” he said.

“They didn’t think twice about bulldozing our war graves, knowing there would be no reaction from our government and they were right.”

In her Facebook post McKee wrote:

“We talk a lot about honouring our fallen — but real respect is shown in what we do, not just what we say.

“Across New Zealand, volunteers from the NZ Remembrance Army have quietly restored hundreds of thousands of service graves, preserving the stories and dignity of those who served. They do it efficiently, carefully, and with genuine respect.

“What’s been holding them back is layers of inconsistent rules and bureaucracy.

“ACT is committing to cut through that, back these volunteers with funding, and make sure this work can continue at scale.

“Because if someone was prepared to give everything for this country, the least we can do is ensure they are remembered properly.”

Call for ‘real respect’
Minto responded in the PSNA statement today by saying: “We agree with McKee when she says ‘real respect is shown in what we do, not just what we say’.

“Let’s see some respect for our soldiers who died in Gaza [in 1919] with a rousing government condemnation of the deliberate destruction of these war graves.

“We won’t hold our breath. The government can’t even condemn Israel for the mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza — a campaign of physical and cultural destruction which continues today.”

PSNA has long called on the government to condemn Israel’s deliberate destruction of war graves in Gaza. In a statement on February 9, it said: “PSNA is calling on the government to condemn Israel’s desecration of New Zealand war graves in Gaza.

“Israeli bulldozing of the graves was confirmed last week but the New Zealand government has not responded with any comment.”

Palestinian Essam Jaradah, who had tended the New Zealand graves for 45 years, confirmed their destruction in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

“Common decency demands we condemn Israel for this abuse of our war dead,” Minto said in he February statement. “If it happened anywhere else in the world the government would register shock and be appalled.

Australian responded, not NZ
“Australia has spoken out but nothing from New Zealand. No protest expressed, no demand Israel apologise, no request for access to inspect the damage. Nothing.”

“Neither has there been any response from the New Zealand Returned Services Association.”

Minto said Israel relied on what he called “huge and sympathetic media attention” for more than two years, demanding the return of the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza.

“It seems the only human remains which matter are Israeli ones. Over a period, Israel has systematically destroyed Palestinian cemeteries and now the war graves of our soldiers.”

There were 23 graves of New Zealand First World War soldiers in the Commonwealth War Cemetery, plus another two from the 280-strong Rarotongan Company from the Cook Islands, which also fought for Britain to capture Palestine from the Turkish Ottomans.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

For the first time in history, the Goldman Environmental Prize — often dubbed the “Green Nobel” — has been awarded entirely to women.

Since 1990, the prize has recognised ordinary people taking on extraordinary environmental battles.

The six winners this year are Theonila Roka Matbob (Bougainville), Yuvelis Morales Blanco (Colombia), Borim Kim (South Korea), Alannah Acaq Hurley (United States). Sarah Finch (England), and Iroro Tanshi (Nigeria).

This year’s theme for the awards was “Change Starts Where You Stand — we are all agents of change, every one of us”.

Their work spans environmental justice, mining and drilling, climate and energy, and wildlife protection, focusing on the breadth of challenges — and leadership — at the frontlines of the climate crisis.

At the awards ceremony, held on April 20 in San Francisco, the winners’ speeches addressed a multitude of issues plaguing the planet today.

“This award honours all of us. Those who stood against all odds, those who never wavered in speaking up against greed and destruction, who have shown up year after year, writing letters, testifying at hearings, protests, and raising their kids to value people over profit,” said Alannah Acaq Hurley, whose work has confronted the threat of mining across indigenous lands.

Borim Kim, another winner, noted: “Disasters are treated as individual tragedies to be endured, alone.”

Also among the winners is Pacific representative, Theonila Matbob, an Indigenous Nasioi woman from Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea.

Matbob said it was inspiring to be one of six women honoured, and that around the world, women were increasingly taking a leading role in land guardianship.

“It is becoming more prevalent that in land guardianship, and finding sustainable economic avenues to make a living and find an identity, that women are paying a lot of attention to issues that are impacting the human connection to land, and the responsibility of guardianship,” Matbob said.

An ‘extraordinary feat’
“It is no small feat to bring Bouganville to global attention… in a way, that is extraordinary.”

At just 35, Theonila Matbob’s advocacy has driven significant change, confronting the traumatic legacy of the Panguna Mine.

It has had a fraught history of violence, displacement and severe environmental damage during its operation between 1972 and 1989, sparking a decade-long civil war that killed 10,000 to 15,000 people and left around one billion tonnes of waste on the island.

According to Bougainville Copper Limited, in the 17 years prior to its closure in 1989 the Panguna Mine produced concentrate containing three million tonnes of copper, 306 tonnes of gold and 784 tonnes of silver. The production had a value of 5.2 billion PNG kina which represented approximately 44 percent of Papua New Guinea’s exports over that period.

Matbob herself grew up in the shadow of the mine, and the civil war it ignited.

As a child, she witnessed her father being dragged away by rebels as it unfolded.

He was later killed.

Refugee camp
Her mother took Matbob and her siblings to nearby Arawa, where she spent years of her childhood detained and displaced in a refugee camp, which was tightly controlled by the PNG Defence Force.

Matbob’s experiences shaped an instinctive and undeniable urge to address the environmental and social harms that this caused, resulting in years of advocacy work.

In 2013, she co-founded the John Roka Counselling and Learning Centre with her husband, an NGO supporting communities affected by the civil war through education and trauma counselling.

By 2014, Matbob wanted answers and reconciliation to address the impacts of the war, and the mine’s enduring harms.

She later worked with the Human Rights Law Centre to collect villagers’ testimonies on ongoing environmental damage. These testimonies informed the 2020 report After After the Mine: Living with Rio Tinto’s Deadly Legacy, which advanced efforts for recognition.

She is the lead complainant and campaigner for the Basikang clan in Bougainville, working through the government’s Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment to seek further accountability for the abandoned mine.

“When you have a lived experience, and you have all these episodic childhood memories… you find the right words to craft your story of accountability, and that’s sort of a win, in a way for my advocacy work,” Matbob said.

‘Tailoring your advocacy’
“You really tailor your advocacy to an intention that is focused. Sometimes you may come up with campaigns, but if you don’t have the lived experience to craft something… you can’t invest real passion. You find what your purpose is, in life as a guardian of the land and tribal child who belongs to a clan, a family,” she added.

In November 2024, mining giant Rio Tinto signed a landmark memorandum, addressing the environmental and social damage caused by the long-dormant mine.

Speaking to RNZ Pacific, Matbob said the award carries significant weight given the calibre of nominees for the Goldman Award.

“It is the highest environmental recognition in the world, but I believe my response would be — I am grateful for the personal growth and alignment in serving our real purpose. It’s a great networking platform, and a way to have more connectivity to other indigenous cultures.”

“But at the regional level, Bougainville is the big inspiration… Bougainville is, in no way, in the zones of being well-secured. We are not guaranteed a resource market, and so it is no small feat to bring Bougainville to global attention in a way like this that is extraordinary,” she said.

Translating into action
Matbob added that this recognition must now translate into action.

“Putting spotlight onto accountability. To use this platform to rise and demand commitment, because we can’t afford to wait any longer… or patiently wait for a solution, in a deal and a mess that was not part of our agreement.”

Looking forward, Matbob has advice for others.

“Defending the environment as a land guardian is a challenge. It’s intimidating. It comes with a lot of pressure, but that is your fight… be the person you are. You are equally powerful, and only when you dip your feet into the cold, that is where you will grow.

“Take no fear, have your mind right, listen to your guts and you will be able to be your authentic self as a land warrior. You owe it to your past generations, and you owe it to your future generations,” she said.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil has been killed in what appeared to be a targeted attack by the Israeli military in the town of Tyre in southern Lebanon.

Her employer, Al-Akhbar, confirmed the death of their correspondent on Wednesday evening.

Khalil and Zeinab Faraj, a freelance photojournalist, were both on assignment in southern Lebanon, reporting on recent attacks on the southern village of Bint Jbeil.

According to Al-Akhbar, which published a timeline of the events, the car they were driving behind was targeted by an Israeli drone at 2:45 pm, killing two men inside.

Khalil and Faraj took shelter in a nearby house.

At 2:50 pm, Khalil contacted her editors and family, according to Lebanon-based journalist Courtney Bonneau.

News of the incident quickly spread, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to put out a statement calling on the Red Cross to rescue the two journalists in coordination with the Lebanese Army and the United Nations.

Israel strike Lebanese journalist in double-tap attack      Video: The Star      

Refuge house bombed
At 4:27 pm, the house where the two journalists were taking refuge was bombed by the Israeli military and contact with the journalists was lost, according to Al-Akhbar.

Israel did not respond to requests for access, obstructing any rescue operation, according to a Lebanese military official speaking to Al Jazeera. The Red Cross was eventually granted limited access to the site, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which remained under active fire.

They were able to evacuate Faraj, who reportedly sustained critical head injuries, and to recover the bodies of two other civilians who were killed.

But they were forced to withdraw before finding Khalil because of continued shelling and the direct firing on rescue crews and vehicles. The Red Cross vehicle that transported journalist Faraj to Tubnin Governmental Hospital was hit by Israeli gunfire, with bullet marks visible on the vehicle, according to the state-run National News Agency.

The Red Cross was eventually able to return to the area after which Khalil was pronounced dead.

“The repeated strikes on the same location, the targeting of an area where journalists were sheltering, and the obstruction of medical and humanitarian access constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in a statement.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Referred to by Al-Akhbar as their “correspondent of the south,” Khalil grew up in Baysariyyeh, a coastal town in Saida district about a 45-minute drive from the Israeli border.

Covering wars, occupation
She spent more than a decade and a half covering the cyclical wars and occupations of southern Lebanon by the Israeli military.

Founded in 2006, Al-Akhbar’s editorial line is widely seen as supportive of Hezbollah and the Shiite resistance, and it identifies itself as a secular, independent progressive outlet.

Khalil had previously received explicit death threats on her phone in September 2024 from Gideon Gal Ben Avraham, a media commentator who runs a Middle East analysis channel on YouTube, appears on Israeli television, and describes himself as a retired military officer who continues to “help” Israeli intelligence.

The messages told her to leave the country “if you want to keep your head on your shoulders” and asked whether her house was “still standing.”

When contacted by Drop Site on Wednesday before news of Khalil’s death emerged, Ben Avraham confirmed he had sent the threats in 2024.

“Send greetings to all journalists affiliated with Hezbollah, for anyone who works for the organisation should know that they are destined for death,” he wrote, later clarifying that he considered Al-Akhbar “Hezbollah-affiliated” and that “only Hezbollah related should be afraid,” while Maronites and Sunnis should face no such threats.

It is not clear what — if any — formal relationship he has to the Israeli military.

‘We don’t share intel’
When pressed about Khalil’s predicament being trapped under the rubble of a house that was targeted by the Israeli military, he responded: “We don’t share our intel with journalists.”

When asked directly whether he was a soldier when he sent the original threats to Khalil in 2024, Ben Avraham replied: “No comment.”

Last month, the Israeli military openly admitted to assassinating prominent Lebanese journalist Ali Shoeib, a correspondent for Al-Manar TV who had covered southern Lebanon for nearly three decades.

The Israeli military falsely claimed that Shoeib was a Hezbollah intelligence operative. Also killed in the March 28 strike in the Jezzine district in southern Lebanon were Al-Mayadeen TV reporter Fatima Ftouni and her brother Mohammed, a video journalist.

Their car, which was clearly carrying press equipment, was struck multiple times, with Ftouni initially surviving and attempting to flee, before she was targeted and killed in a strike by Israel.

Israel has killed at least 14 journalists, including Khalil, in Lebanon since October 2023, according to CPJ.

In Gaza, the Israeli military has killed over 260 Palestinian journalists since October 2023, making it the deadliest war for journalists ever recorded.

Republished from Drop Site News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon

While University of Sydney antisemitism adviser Dr Michael Abrahams-Sprod works in vice-chancellor Mark Scott’s office as its “resident expert” delivering training courses to stamp out what he sees as antisemitism, his close colleagues in the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism are embroiled in legal action against the university in the Federal Court.

They have accused the university of being liable for alleged racial vilification by its employees, Professor John Keane and linguist and vice-president of the USyd National Tertiary Education Union, Dr Nick Riemer, both of whom are pro-Palestinian.

The case will have significant implications for freedom of speech

and whether the law equates rejection of Israel’s genocide and anti-Zionism to antisemitism.

Conflicts of interest and the 5A
Although Abrahams-Sprod is not a party to the case, he was a driving force behind complaints that led to the case, and letters that he signed are being used as evidence against the university.

Alongside its academics, the university is defending the action. So far its case depends on an interpretation of antisemitism that is in direct conflict with the views of 5A and Abrahams-Sprod, who is already teaching his courses for frontline administrative staff, some of whom deal with complaints against students and staff.

Three of five applicants in the court case are members of 5A. One is emeritus professor Suzanne Rutland, a longtime close colleague of Abrahams-Sprod. Rutland is on the board of Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A) of which Abrahams-Sprod was campus coordinator between November 2023 and February 26 2025, and remains a member.

She is also on the board of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Another complainant belongs to the pro-Israel Australian Jewish Association of Students, which Abrahams-Sprod assisted in making complaints.

According to 5A, anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

Its extreme views are revealed in parliamentary submissions, including one for the inquiry into measures to prohibit slogans that incite hatred, which was co-authored by Rutland.

Conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism
5A’s submission recommends prohibiting a wide range of slogans that are regularly used at pro-Palestinian protests. For example, it lists “Settlers, settlers go back home! Palestine is our home!” as a call for genocide of Israelis, and

accusations that Israel is causing ‘starvation’ in Gaza as a genocidal libel.

It supports a dangerous notion of “cumulative harm” that would see police trained to understand that protests or slogans that individually might appear lawful if repeated can become unlawful intimidation.

It recommends a new agency to operate a “centralised, anonymous complaints system to capture antisemitic incidents, chants, symbols, and patterns of conduct, including behaviour that may not individually meet prosecution thresholds.”

Its clear goal is to silence opposition to Israel’s genocide, apartheid and other war crimes.

In contrast to 5A’s views, USyd’s lawyers, led by Robert Dick SC have argued in the Federal Court that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. In fact, they have even relied on a letter to Overland journal signed by more than 50 Jewish academics and current  students, repudiating “the attempt by those making the complaint to conflate Zionism, a political ideology with Jewish and non-Jewish adherents, with Jewish identity.”

Campaign to silence critics of Israel
The complaints against Riemer and Keane were part of “concerted and coordinated efforts to silence critics of Israel across Australia’s university campuses and public squares, trammelling fundamental democratic rights of assembly, protest, expression, and dissent”, they wrote.

At the time when USyd’s submissions were filed last year, unbeknownst to staff, the university was already covering part of Abrahams-Sprod’s salary to work with Special Envoy Jillian Segal on a project developing antisemitism training.

Abraham-Sprod took up his new two-year position in the vice-chancellor’s office in January, although it was not approved by the Senate’s People, Culture and Safety Committee until late March.

Michael West Media asked the university:

“Did the Senate Committee discuss the issue of whether there could be a conflict of interest in appointing Abrahams-Sprod to work with the vice-chancellor on anti-semitism training?

“Does the university agree that there is a perceived conflict of interest? And if so, why did the university proceed with the appointment?”

In response to questions from MWM, a university spokesperson (we requested a name but were not given one) declined to disclose confidential committee discussions and stated:

“Dr Abrahams-Sprod will provide advice and perspectives rather than being involved in decision-making on issues relating to antisemitism, and so we don’t consider there to be a conflict of interest.

“His work will complement other university initiatives aimed at maintaining a civic environment that supports academic freedom and freedom of speech, while ensuring a safe and inclusive campus for all.”  

It would seem from this response that the university understands that there is a potential conflict but avoids it by separating “influence” from “decision making”.

Like all jobs, Abrahams-Sprod’s position will involve decision-making as well as influencing others’ decisions. The response undercuts the university’s description of Abrahams-Sprod as possessing “unique qualities” and being the “resident expert”.

Israel lobby’s long-term funding of Uni
Few, if any, Australian humanities departments have been so generously funded by private interests as USyd’s field of Hebrew, Biblical & Jewish Studies.

In part one yesterday, we reported that Abrahams-Sprod’s lectureship is funded by Roth family foundations, which include John, who is married to the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, and Charmaine and Stanley Roth, a leading Zionist fundraiser who died in January this year.

Further investigation reveals an astonishing integration of Hebrew, Biblical & Jewish Studies with the pro-Israel Zionist establishment of Sydney.

The department always partnered with the Jewish Higher Education Fund (JHEF), which is a registered charity. Stanley Roth was a trustee of JHEF since it was established in 1981.

The ACNC website lists the address of the charity as the Department at Sydney University, but its email contact is pwertheim@ecaj.com.au. Peter Wertheim is the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

He has chaired the fund since 1997, along with many other duties, including chair of the Jewish Board of Deputies (1996-2000). and co-CEO of ECAJ (2009 -2026). The JHEF is one of the organisations that are supported by the Jewish Communal Appeal, of which Jillian Segal was recently elected a director.

In 2018/19, the department and JHEF produced a report in which it acknowledged that “it’s only due to [the fund’s] generosity that we can plan for the future growth and development …”. The report stressed the importance of the Department’s work in combatting “polemical attacks against Israel’s legitimacy as a nation state” and “falsification of Jewish history, including calls for the BDS” to maintain “integrity of discourse about Israel and the Jewish people.”

The report celebrated the department’s achievements in stitching Australia into the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and its definition of antisemitism.

The money flow
The funds flow as needed with JHEF making annual contributions of between $450,000 and $700,000 covering lectureships, casual teaching staff and administration costs, and links with Israeli universities.

The department thanked their donors “without which the department would have no future,” including the Pratt Foundation, the Roth Family and the Isaac and Susan Wakil family foundation. The Wakil Foundation is among the most generous donors in the history of USyd, providing more than $66 million for health buildings and scholarships, apart from smaller amounts contributed to Abraham-Sprod’s department.

MWM is not suggesting that there is anything wrong with private philanthropy, which is highly valued in the context of diminishing public funds.

Michael Abrahams-Sprod has a strong teaching record.

But is a person whose academic career has depended on some of Australia’s most powerful Zionists an appropriate choice for a “resident expert” tasked with embedding interpretations of antisemitism that the university itself argues threaten academic freedom?

Academic freedom at stake
NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Tim Roberts says, “Abrahams-Sprod’s appointment is another example of employment procedures being used across our community to silence political communication.

“By employing an advisor with such a ‘partisan perspective’, the university undermines community confidence that any conduct proceedings will be undertaken in good faith and without an apprehension of bias. This should be intolerable for any academic institution,” he said.

No one can deny that there is racism on campus, including Islamophobia, First Nations racism and antisemitism. Pro-Israeli students and staff are undeniably upset by pro-Palestinian activity. But 5A’s intentions are to silence pro-Palestinian activism.

In fact, some argue that nationalistic Zionism is itself a form of racism.

What about Arabic background staff and students who feel upset by USyd’s privileging the views of 5A academics about antisemitism before any anti-racism framework has been developed?

Abrahams-Sprod is training staff to exercise administrative power, which can have big consequences, although it is often hidden and very hard to challenge.

According to USyd, Abrahams-Sprod will “consult with all relevant communities and stakeholders in his work as special advisor”. But what does this mean when the courses are already underway without two big stakeholders — the Student Representative Council or the NTEU — even being consulted?

The SRC opposes the appointment. SRC vice-president and co-convenor of Students for Palestine, Shovan Bhattarai, says it will “entrench a trend towards more authoritarianism” against hundreds of students who are “supporting campaigns against the university’s complicity in genocide.”

Protests are still permitted but the university must be notified as soon as they are announced. Posters and banners are banned except in designated spaces. Anything less than full compliance can lead to disciplinary action, which students are forbidden to speak about publicly.

Censoring links to MWM and Overland stories
At an online staff “townhall” on March 2, there was more support for discussion about antisemitism training than any other topic. Afterwards, Honi Soit reported that Dr Riemer and historian Dr David Brophy, both members of University of Sydney Staff for Palestine, posted very brief comments and links on the staff internal platform.

Neither were informed when their posts were quickly removed. Riemer expressed his concern that the training could stigmatise Palestinian staff and students, and linked his post to this MWM story. Brophy published a link to an article he wrote for Overland journal.

They were found to have posted material “reasonably perceived as inflammatory or having the potential to incite others, including other users” — a finding which they vehemently reject as interfering with their academic freedom. Riemer’s complaint against this treatment was dismissed.

The university refused to identify the decision-makers.

A disturbing exercise of hidden power, but an undoubted win for the 5A approach and the Zionist funders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Jone Vakarisi was heard screaming and begging before he was “brutalised to death” in Fiji military custody last week, according to his sister.

Melehola Tagaga told RNZ Pacific Waves that the well-known drug pusher was asked if he was planning a coup, before the military arrested him at home and took him to the Queen Elizabeth Barracks for questioning last Thursday.

The Fiji Police Force classified the 37-year-old’s death as murder following a high-level meeting in Suva involving the Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and security and military chiefs on Monday.

“An investigation is underway with the support of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Commander, as earlier stated, so it will be thoroughly conducted,” police spokesperson Ana Naisoro said.

Vakarasi had become somewhat notorious in the capital, linked to turf wars and engaging in violence with law enforcement in recent years.

Local media outlets have described him as a local “drug lord” who was “involved in criminal networks”.

Fiji’s top military and police brass were on Bau Island farewelling the late President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau when news broke of his death last Friday.

His death certificate, dated April 18, lists asphyxia, aspiration of gastric contents, severe traumatic head injuries and blunt force trauma to both the head and chest as the causes of his death.

The Republic of Fiji Military (RFMF) commander Ro Jone Kalouniwai initially attributed the victim’s death to a “sudden and severe medical emergency” and “the presence of a pre-existing condition”.

However, he issued a second statement on Monday to correct the record, saying “the earlier description did not fully reflect the medical findings now available”.

Victim begged for his life
Melehola Tagaga claimed that people living close to the military barracks in Nabua, near Suva, told the family they heard Vakarisi “yelling and screaming” for hours before he died.

“My brother was saying “oi lei, au via bula”, meaning, “hey, I want to be alive,” and that is all they heard, all through the night,” she said.

Tagaga, 50, an entrepreneur in Sacramento, California, said his home was raided first by the police, then later by the military.

Both were looking for weapons and drugs, but nothing was found, then “disappointed” they questioned him about a possible coup.

“A family member that was there heard the term coup … they asked if he heard or had a plan or knew of someone that was plotting another coup. And he said he had nothing to do with it and he didn’t know anything about it,” Tagaga said.

She described the father of four as an “entrepreneur”, a “family man” but admitted he had previous “gang-related” convictions involving violence.

“What do you expect from the kind of society that we live in in Fiji … people were becoming more territorial, so if you felt threatened, wouldn’t you do something to make sure your family and friends are safe? [from rival territories and authorities].”

She said the family were demanding justice and an independent, fully transparent investigation into the death, claiming the military and the police were “in cahoots” with each other.

“With the the wrongdoing, we want accountability, regardless of what the allegations are (against Vakarisi). We still don’t have a clear explanation of what happened to him,” she said.

“His life probably didn’t matter to them [the military] but it mattered to us … he had a past with the law but that didn’t give them the right to kill him. A person’s life in custody should be protected.”

Lawyer says death ‘extrajudicial’
Rajendra Chaudhry, a lawyer and the son of former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, told Pacific Waves the death was an extrajudicial killing.

“I find it highly alarming that there was an attempt to cover it up, which is clearly unacceptable … the commander ought to have known about that. So the [initial] statement that was released under his name was misleading to say the least,” Chaudhry said.

He said it was not a simple communication oversight, it was a serious coverup that was exposed only after the death certificate was made public.

“I am quite disgusted to see comments on social media supporting the military because Vakarisi was a drug peddler, the military must respect the rule of law. He should have been handed over to the police for questioning and processing,” Chaudhry said.

“They [the police] should take charge of the investigation and deal with it independently, they should not act in collaboration with the military because the military is being investigated, it doesn’t make sense.”

While he had confidence in Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu, he said the military “leans on” section 131 of the Constitution, which states that that the military is responsible for the overall security of the country.

“That provision is a licence to act extra-constitutionally and must be read together with emergency provisions, where the military is required to act in safeguarding Fiji in the national interest, it should not have a say in domestic or governance matters, which is the role of the police and the government of the day.”

A Fiji military spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr Eroni Duaibe, said it would be inappropriate to comment while a police investigation was underway.

NGOCHR chair Shamima Ali called for a transparent, independent investigation into the human rights abuses involved in the murder

Aman Ravindra-Singh, a Fiji human rights lawyer who is in exile in Australia, equated asphyxia with strangulation.

Ravindra-Singh fled from Fiji in 2022 to avoid jail for contempt of court following a series of Facebook posts critical of the then prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and the former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

“In my personal view, based on other similar deaths in custody matters that I have looked at in the past, these injuries are consistent with torture, where a person is brutally beaten repeatedly to the head and chest, resulting in death,” he said.

In an exclusive interview with Mai TV’s The Brunch talkshow, Vakarisi’s ex-wife Kuini Osbourne rejected claims that he was involved in illegal drug and gun-related activities, as widely reported in local media.

She said following Vakarisi’s post-mortem, the pathologist explained to her his cause of death.

“He choked on his [own] blood and fluid that came up and [the doctor] explained that it was like strangulation.”

The pathologist said due to the severe trauma to Vakarisi’s head and chest he had internal bleeding from broken ribs, “he choked when the blood and fluids came up. He couldn’t vomit it or spit it out,” she said.

Meanwhile, Fiji police declined to say what Vakarisi’s previous convictions were.

“We will respond on policing issues, matters arising out of jurisdictional matters, such as convictions, is not for us to comment on,” Naisoro said

“We will not be commenting on anything other than the investigation, so as not to jeopardise the process,” she said.

Vakarisi’s older sister Tagaga said both their father and uncles had served in the military.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

REVIEW: By Lee Duffield

The journalist, professor and peace activist Dr David Robie, was one of a media party on the ill-fated voyage of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in 1985, before its sinking by French security operatives in Auckland Harbour.

He wrote a definitive book about the lead-up in the region to the fatal sinking of the ship with limpet mines; unmasking of the plot made in Paris; attempts to obtain justice and a long aftermath with demands for empowerment by former “colonial” people to prevent such outrages in their island homelands.

The book is Eyes of Fire, first published in 1986, then successively updated as the story unfolded, with new facts and consequences of the outrage coming to light.

It ran to three revised editions, the latest out now to commemorate 40 years since the attack took place. It therefore marked 40 years since the death of the Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese-born Dutch national, aged 35, father of two children, Marelle and Paul, drowned on board after the second of two blasts that hit the ship.

Eyes of Fire is a highly professional work of journalism, built out of investigation and documentation of facts, then fashioned into an accessible read; illustrated also with easy-to-comprehend maps and diagrams, showing where the ship travelled and where the bombs were planted against its hull, plus photographs from a copious accumulation built up as the Greenpeace movement generated publicity for its actions worldwide.

Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior
One section describes the Rainbow Warrior, appreciatively and affectionately: a former fisheries research vessel, a trawler type, 50-metres in length, with some difficulty converted for sail as well as power, made into a “proud campaign ship”, painted a strong green with a long rainbow-emblem along the sides.

‘The wheelhouse was rather lumpy and unattractive but the rest of the ship was appealing. She had a high North Sea prow, graceful sheerline and round-the-corner stern.’

For the record…
The Rainbow Warrior sailed from Hawai’i on the Pacific Voyage — taking on board seven journalists and some leading figures from the Pacific communities, to the Marshall Islands — where it evacuated the inhabitants of a nuclear afflicted island, Rongelap, to an uninhabited island Mejatto on Kwajalein Atoll.

Pacific distances are great. They transported 350 people — with house lumber and belongings — in four trips, 250 km there and back.

The islanders were suffering from contamination by the infamous upwind explosion of the experimental thermonuclear weapon, Castle Bravo, in 1954 — causing thyroid disorders, cancers and constant miscarriages and birthing disorders.

Dissatisfied that health officials sent by the United States administration were more interested in research than care, they decided to leave. The key instigator was the late Marshall Islands legislator Senator Jeton Anjain. He was one of two Pacific Islands leaders with prominent roles in Robie’s narrative.

The other was Oscar Temaru, a nuclear-free town mayor in Tahiti, also elected as the territory’s President on five occasions.

Temaru, now 81, spoke for many when he said:

“The sad truth is that the only ones who tried to help us are the Greenpeace ecologists…”

According to folklore among Greenpeace founders, a native American woman named “Eyes of Fire” told of a legend that where there was dispossession and despoilation of the land and culture, in time mythical warriors — deliverers — would come, who would mend and restore both. So the peaceship offering aid would be a “Rainbow Warrior”.

The author, Robie, in his news despatches for Radio New Zealand and other media (for which he was awarded the 1985 NZ Media Peace Prize, judged the evacuation project a change for Greenpeace towards humanitarian work connected with environmental destruction:

“This isn’t a game or the sort of action publicity stunt that Greenpeace would do so successfully.”

But the next part of the journey was another dramatic action, in Marshall Islands, at the US missile testing base on Kwajalein Atoll. A party from the ship went ashore, got through perimeter wires and hoisted a banner inscribed “Stop Star Wars” onto a space tracking dome, escaping before the arrival of security guards.

The banner was a reference to the American Strategic Defence Initiative, “Star Wars”, testing for which had increased the heavy traffic of missiles of different levels at the Kwajalein range (dubbed by the empire as the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site).

The scene was then being set for the tragedy as the vessel made its way 5000 km to Auckland through friendly territory, calling in at Kiribati, the country hosting the former Christmas Island base for British nuclear tests (1957-58), and Vanuatu, where the leader of the then five year-old Republic, Father Walter Lini, a champion for a nuclear free Pacific, organised a big public welcome.

The strike
Celebration fitted the mood of the “Warrior” crew a lot of the time, in this account; a group of 11 skilled and idealistic younger people, sharing a mission they considered important to the world, and enjoying it as an adventure. They wanted to protect nature and promote peace, never violent, but charismatic, given to direct action, often enough dangerous.

They had others on board — in the case of David Robie, for an extended time, 11 days, time enough to get to know the characters and introduce them to readers in his book.

A further leg of the voyage was intended, to take them to Moruroa Atoll — where France was continuing with underground nuclear testing — as flagship for a flotilla of protest boats. In the event, the flotilla sailed, led by another Greepeace ship, Greenpeace III. One boat was arrested penetrating the 12-kilometre territorial limit around the atoll, where a series of tests was about to begin.

The planned disruption of activities on Moruroa may have been the death warrant for Rainbow Warrior — a solution to the riddle of what purposes its destruction was supposed to serve.

As the ship made its way towards Auckland, two French infiltrators got to work in that City, penetrating the Greenpeace operation. A group of military divers from a training base in Corsica was en route to New Zealand on a charter boat and two officers of France’s security service, DGSE, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, flew in under cover as a honeymoon couple.

Rainbow Warrior came in on Sunday, 7 July 1985, surrounded by an escort of small boats and was sunk at the dock in shallow water just before midnight on 10 July.

Divers using an inflatable boat set off the two explosions. Prieur and Mafart were spotted picking up one of the divers on a beach by men doing night watch at their boat club, who got the number of their vehicle, enabling the police to apprehend them, and begin a tortured process to try and secure justice.

Aftermath
Updating of the book takes in the negotiations over holding Prieur and Mafart, their eventual transfer to France and subsequent early release; the fate of other conspirators spirited home, promoted, decorated, “looked after” in early retirement; intensive and large scale work by the New Zealand police to find out about the charter boat carrying some of the divers, said to have transferred them onto a submarine, the Rubis; and investigative work by the French press to sheet home responsibility for the attack.

Very soon after Rainbow Warrior was sunk, the Defence Minister, Charles Hernu, was sacked and the head of the DGSE Admiral Pierre Lacoste resigned. The book has a positive impression of the replacement Minister, Paul Quiles and the Prime Minister, Laurent Fabius, who admitted the obvious — that it had been done by French agents and was apologetic.

Subsequent negotiations between New Zealand and France, under United Nations auspices were made very difficult; a formal apology was avoided for some time; eventually both New Zealand and Greenpeace received financial packages in compensation and exemplary damages.

After the 1996 death of François Mitterrand, French President at the time, an investigation by Le Monde turned up circumstantial evidence that he knew of the attack in advance and a statement by Lacoste that he had approved it. Fabius evidently had not known.

Mitterrand’s motive was said to have been realpolitik — to support nuclear deterrence against the Soviet Union in tandem with the US, which supplied France with highly strategic computer technology.

Reviewer intercession…
Mitterrand, as a highly equivocal and manipulative politician, walked a tightrope, always watching his soft electoral margins — in this case knowing there was 60 percent support for nuclear testing in France.

In office for four years in 1985, it may have been a new government still failing to face down entrenched security identities, undisciplined, considering themselves to be “deep state”, attached to violent solutions, with potential to go rogue.

Most of Robie’s work here is a narrative, a strong true story, but it has space for analysis, and in particular registers the correlation between devastation brought by the nuclear testing, and colonial management and manipulation of islands affairs.

The post-war wave of independence had come to the Pacific, though not to French Polynesia nor New Caledonia. In addition, the United States still held its Micronesian dependencies in trust or, for Sovereign states, via signed compacts of free association, accompanied by substantial aid payments.

France’s position against independence is incentivised by maintaining colonies of more than 200,000 settlers; and in New Caledonia, the nickel deposits, around 15 percent of world resources, as well as the 200 kilometre territorial zone off the long coast of Grande Terre island, opening onto as yet unsurveyed undersea resources.

For the Americans, the priority has been both weapons testing and maintaining a strategic barrier against Russia, then China.

Old problems, future challenges
These considerations help to address the always unanswered question of what the plotters thought they had to gain. The book suggests a clumsy and excessive attempt to stop the ship leading a flotilla to Moruroa Atoll as most likely.

It goes on to identify same-old patterns of resistance in latter-day moves, successful, to get better recognition of the impacts of nuclear contamination and in the moves through international forums — such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, South Pacific Forum, United Nations agencies, the international courts — to get recognition and action on the impacts of climate change.

Pacific communities mindful of the rising seas, and other problems like impacts on sea-life, have struggled to get a hearing, finding, again, that “great powers” outside the region which hold resources that can help hold off the crisis, hold back their response.

Nuclear testing in the atmosphere was made to stop in 1974; tests underground on the atolls continued to 1996, leaving a very brief interregnum before global warming reared its head.

The current edition of Eyes of Fire has a prologue by Helen Clark, New Zealand Prime Minister from 1999-2008, a staunch keeper of the faith in a nuclear-free Pacific. Saying, “storm clouds are gathering”, she warns against renewed militarisation especially with Australia and perhaps other Pacific states acquiring nuclear submarines under the 2021 AUKUS agreement.

It is time for “de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific”, writes Clark in her contribution to the new edition. With its peace policy, New Zealand wanted to be “a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering”.

Clark warns withdrawal of funding from the United Nations, led by the US, is a new threat: “Its humanitarian, development, health, human rights, political and peacekeeping, scientific and cultural arms all face fiscal crises.”

David Robie reports on the 40th anniversary commemoration of the 1985 events by Greenpeace, sending the new purpose-built ship, the new Rainbow Warrior, sometimes known as Rainbow Warrior III, to carry out independent radiation research. He follows up the lives and careers of the crew members and the islanders they worked with, several of whom have passed away.

While the writer’s own message, as in much good journalism, emerges from true handling of the facts, Robie does privilege a quotation from the executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa, Russel Norman, on the crew of Rainbow Warrior, to close the story:

“They faced down a nuclear threat to the habitability of the Pacific. Do we have the courage and wits to face down the biodiversity and climate crises facing humanity, crises that threaten the habitability of planet Earth?”

Dr Lee Duffield reported on Australia’s dispute with France over atmospheric testing for ABC News in Sydney and then from Paris as the ABC European Correspondent. His work entailed monitoring police actions against Kanak activists in New Caledonia, including the killings on Ouvéa Island; confrontations with French Ministers over the test programme; and negotiations between France and New Zealand, in Paris, on Rainbow Warrior, especially the jailing then early release of Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart. He later taught Journalism at QUT in Brisbane and was a contributor to Pacific Journalism Review. Dr Duffield is also one of the co-owners of Independent Australia, and the chair of its editorial board. This review is republished from the Independent Australia with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Wendy Bacon and Cathy Peters in Sydney

The person chosen for the role of Sydney University’s antisemitism chief is Michael Abrahams-Sprod, chair of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies. His role is to help roll out a training programme for “front-line” staff on issues facing the Jewish community, including antisemitism in “contemporary settings”.

University staff only learned about the appointment through a staff intranet notice earlier this month. A university spokesperson told Michael West Media that Abrahams-Sprod’s new position began on January 1, 2026 and continues until December 2027.

Asked to specify the date the position was approved and from whom the vice-chancellor sought advice, the spokesperson said it was approved on the recommendation of the USyd Senate People, Culture and Safety Committee on March 6, 2026.

This was two months after Abrahams-Sprod started his special advisor job. He was previously campus coordinator of Sydney University’s branch of the pro-Israel Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism and works alongside the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal.

This MWM investigation can also reveal that even before his new appointment, Abrahams-Sprod was funded to work on anti-semitism issues by the University.

In 2025, he worked on a collaboration with the Special Antisemitism Envoy, Jillian Segal, and the Sydney Jewish Museum, developing an antisemitism awareness training programme funded by the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne.

Antisemitism training programme
In his new role, Abrahams-Sprod will co-deliver 12 sessions with the Sydney Jewish Museum to 120 USyd staff in key areas including Human Resources, Protective and Risk Services, the Student Affairs Unit and the Office of the Vice-Chancellor.

These key front-line staff administer policies, communicate with staff and students  staff and respond to complaints.

After completing the training of administrative staff, Abrahams-Sprod will advise on training for all staff within an “overarching anti-racism framework … to align with the expectations of the Australian Human Rights Commission”.

In response to MWM questions, a spokesperson said that Abrahams-Sprod’s appointment recognised “his unique skills and experience, ongoing work supporting our Jewish and broader community and his existing role as an academic leader at the University.”

He will “consult with relevant communities … on how to tackle antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and build a campus that’s safe and welcoming to all”.

Abrahams-Sprod’s appointment is a win for the pro-Israeli lobby.

Equally, it aims to silence other staff and students and deter protests in support of Palestine.

Claims of exceptionalism
Last week, USyd Staff for Palestine called on Mark Scott to reverse the Special Advisor appointment and abolish the role.

They accused the university of “exceptionalism” and drew attention to a recent Australian Human Rights Commission finding of high rates of racism experienced by students and staff from First Nations, African, Asian, Jewish, Māori, Middle Eastern, Muslim, Palestinian and Pasifika backgrounds.

In an open letter, they stated that “in creating a unique special advisor role for antisemitism, the university has signalled that racism against Jewish people is being uniquely prioritised above other forms of discrimination”.

Abrahams-Sprod will work across the university sector to fulfill requirements of Segal-appointed former conservative Australian Catholic University VC Greg Craven, who has been tasked to oversee her punitive universities Report Card initiative.

As reported in The Guardian, Craven accused universities of being a ”major factor in making antisemitism respectful” and referred to campus protesters as “mutant radical groups”. Government funding could be withheld from universities found to “facilitate, enable or fail to act against antisemitism.”

Jillian Segal’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism makes sweeping claims about antisemitism in Australian universities, which have been strongly critiqued by the Australian Human Rights Institute.

The assessment will be based on the contentious IHRA definition of antisemitism. This definition is rejected by many Australian university staff and students, including Jews and students from Middle East backgrounds whose families deal with the daily horror of Israel’s genocide, violent occupation, bombings, denial of humanitarian aid and other war crimes.

Bowing to Zionist pressure
Abrahams-Sprod’s appointment can be seen as a response to continuous pressure from October 2023 onwards from Abrahams-Sprod and fellow Zionist staff members on senior university managers to discipline staff and students for pro-Palestinian advocacy. Zionist leaders described ($) Scott as

“arrogant and dismissive” at a meeting in April 2024.

Their anger against anti-Israel sentiment grew after a student encampment began that month.

Scott’s initial reaction was to maintain neutrality regarding the protest, assuring the university community that he understood the right of protesters to peacefully assemble and the right of free speech.

However, by July 2024, after the two-month Gaza encampment had disbanded, USyd launched into defensive action, introducing its new Campus Access Policy, which clamped down heavily on future student or staff protests and political speech.

This policy was strongly criticised, including by the university’s Law School, which published this open letter.

Bowing further to orchestrated pressure on Scott and the university, it then commissioned an external review by Bruce Hodgkinson AM SC about the university’s handling of claims of campus antisemitism in relation to the encampment. The External Review Report made 15 recommendations, including strengthening the restrictions on protests and the imposition of a New Civility Rule with strong penalties for breaching it.

In September 2024, a contrite Mark Scott apologised to Jewish students and staff at a Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry for “failing them” in his handling of the encampment.

But key lobbyists, including Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Liebler, said Scott had lost credibility and continued to call for his resignation. Scott publicly promised ($) to fix the situation.

One of the ways to “fix” the situation appears to have been to

turn the coordinator of the Zionist complaints into a leader in his own office.

Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A)
When announcing Abrahams-Sprod’s appointment to all university staff earlier this month, Scott praised the “wealth of knowledge, experience and critical expertise” that Abrahams-Sprod brings to the new role. He did not mention his activities as the coordinator of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A).

5A is a network of academics working to counter antisemitism in universities and medical institutions that was formed in November 2023. It claimed in its opening statement to the NSW Inquiry into Antisemitism that, “they [Jews] are hated because of their nation state, Israel. Anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism disguised as wine but truly an old poison, rebottled, labelled with new academic terminologies that misrepresent and deceive.”

5A’s linking of Jewish identity with the state of Israel, its misrepresentation of anti-Zionism and the BDS movement are antisemitic strategies that the Israeli government has generated over many years to deflect and misconstrue focus on Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It claims that campuses post October 7, 2023, became “epicentres of antisemitic activism” and that this was rooted in “protests, university encampments and cancel culture.”

This puts it on a collision course with thousands of pro-Palestinian and human rights focussed staff and students.

In his role as coordinator, Abrahams-Sprod collated at least 100 complaints against fellow staff and students, many of whom he assisted. This puts him at the centre of the campaign to pressure Scott. According to 5A, the number of complaints emanating from USyd far exceeded the minuscule number submitted from the other four large universities in Sydney.

5A labelled campus protests as antisemitic because they “delegitimise the state of Israel”. Similarly, stating that Israel is an apartheid state or that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is also considered antisemitic, even though these are widely accepted findings of UN inquiries and international lawyers.

The Roth/Segal connection
Abrahams-Sprod is also connected to Jillian Segal through the funding of his own senior lectureship. Segal is married to property developer John Roth and was the sister-in-law of Stanley Roth, who died in January this year.

For more than 20 years, charitable foundations associated with the Roth family, along with several other philanthropists, have helped fund the discipline of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies.

In November 2024, the Roth family established the Roth Senior Lectureship in Jewish Civilisation, Education and Israel Studies to which Abrahams-Sprod was appointed. The university spokesperson said that the funders played no role in his selection.

In addition, the Roth family has provided funding to Youth Mental Health at the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre.

After his death, Stanley Roth was celebrated as one of Australia’s strongest supporters and most generous funders of Israel. The brothers also received widespread publicity as directors of Henroth Investments, which donated $50,000 to the far-right group Advance Australia in 2023/4.

Given Abrahams-Sprod’s highly partisan role, his appointment will only stoke division rather than build a safe and civil environment on campus. Staff for Palestine has accused the university management of being “hijacked by supporters of Israel”.

But VC Scott’s appointment has done more than signal his capitulation to the pro-Israel pressure and disdain for the pro-Palestinian supporters.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A coalition of political parties opposing the Solomon Islands prime minister has accused government lobbyists of trying to woo its MPs with “huge money” bribes to “buy political allegiance”.

It comes amid an ongoing court wrangle over parliamentary moves to oust Jeremiah Manele.

The opposition grouping, which claims to have 28 of the country’s 50 MPs, says it has recorded voice and text messages from lobbyists promising millions of dollars to any five MPs willing to cross the floor to the government.

“We have text messages and recorded voice messages from government lobbyists offering huge money. The price tag has increased from thousands to millions to any 5 MPs to move across. The latest attempt involved an offer in millions over the weekend,” the group said in a statement.

RNZ Pacific has viewed screenshots of text messages purportedly sent by Manele’s staff to certain MPs in the opposition coalition, offering up to S$300,000 (about NZ$63,000) to jump ship.

The Solomon Islands Prime Minister’s Office has told RNZ Pacific he will not respond to the allegations.

Manele will find out today from the Court of Appeal if he would be forced to call Parliament to face a motion of no confidence.

The opposition group says it is collecting evidence of the alleged cash inducements which it will provide to lawful authorities for investigation.

Manele, who previously served as the country’s foreign minister, was elected prime minister on 2 May 2024.

He survived a motion of no confidence in April 2025 after six ministers and five government backbenchers walked away.

On March 15, mass resignations from People First Party MPs — one of the key parties in Manele’s Government of National Unity and Transformation (GNUT) — rocked the Melanesian nation.

Since then, there has been a series of back-and-forths from both sides, with Manele maintaining he has the right to continue governing while the opposition group challenges his claim, arguing that his decision to hold on to power is unconstitutional.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I don’t blame Iran for going cold on another sham negotiation session with the US.

After all, why would they take the US or Israel seriously? Or even remotely trust either of them when:

• They both bombed Iran right in the middle of two sets of previous “negotiations”; and
• Trump lied about Lebanon being included in the recent ceasefire agreement.

That inclusion was acknowledged by the mediators, Pakistan.

As a result, Israel continued to bomb Lebanon; in fact they stepped up their attacks and killed 300+ people in one day.

In the very latest agreement, Iran opened up the Strait of Hormuz as agreed, but the US (incredulously) continued with its blockade.

Yesterday the US escalated things by attacking and confiscating an Iranian merchant ship.

750+ Palestinians have been murdered by the IDF during Trump’s fake ceasefire in October 2025. They are slaughtering women and kids in Gaza and the West Bank every day.

Thousands of Israeli violations
Israel broke their ceasefire agreement signed in November 2014 with Lebanon thousands of times (according to UN peacekeepers in Lebanon).

Both Trump and Netanyahu have made numerous threats to obliterate Iran, to commit genocide and even holocaust.

They have bombed thousands of Iranian civilian targets in contravention of international law — residential buildings, government buildings, historic sites, bridges, police stations, schools, universities, pharmacy companies, factories, public transport, ambulances, medical centres and hospitals.

So WHY the hell would Iran have any confidence that anything that these devious and untrustworthy US and Israeli war criminals agree will ever be adhered to?

Both of these warmongering nations have displayed a total lack of integrity and credibility through their disingenuous words and actions over many decades.

I don’t see any other alternative than for Iran to play hard ball.

Time is Trump’s enemy, not Iran’s.

And now Trump has extended the ceasefire at the last moment.

Tim O’Shea is a New Zealand social, environmental political activist and commentator.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights says it is investigating deaths of a dozen West Papuans in a military operation.

The commission, known as Komnas HAM, says the incident took place last Tuesday in Kembru District in Puncak regency of Central Papua

Komnas HAM said 12 civilians, including women and children, died as the result of gunshot wounds sustained in an Indonesian military operation.

It said any operation that results in civilian casualties “cannot be justified on any grounds”.

Komnas HAM said that dozens of other civilians suffered serious injuries.

Indonesia’s military told local media its forces killed four Papuan pro-independence militants in an armed exchange in Kembru.

However, the West Papua National Liberation Army has denied that there was any exchange with the Indonesian military in Kembru.

Restraint urged
Urging the head of Indonesia’s military to investigate the incident, Komnas HAM has urged restraint from all parties.

It also urged both Indonesia’s national government and the Papua regional government to ensure measures are taken to protect civilians, treat those injured and recover bodies of those killed.

The human rights body also noted the risk of mass displacement of villagers impacted by the military operation.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, I’m Amy Goodman.

As we continue to look at the US and Israeli war on Iran, we’re joined now by Dr Maryam Jamshidi. She is an Iranian American associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School and a nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute. She has written a new piece for The Nation magazine headlined “Only One Side Has Clearly Broken the Law In the Strait of Hormuz: And it isn’t Iran.”

Professor Jamshidi, explain.

MARYAM JAMSHIDI: Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me.

So, you know, what I was trying to get at in that piece is that, you know, there’s been a lot of international outcry about what Iran has done in the strait, specifically its efforts to regulate passage of ships through the strait and to charge certain ships a fee for going through the strait.

The international rhetoric has been that what Iran is doing is completely and clearly illegal. And from my perspective, that’s not entirely true. This is not a black-and-white issue. Iran does have a reasonable legal argument to regulating the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to charging fees.

By contrast, the criticism of what the United States and Israel has done to Iran, which is an aggressive and illegal war, has been more muted, in particular from Western states, as well as from some of the regional Arab states. And I think this contrast between these two reactions is very telling — on the one hand, total condemnation of Iran on legal issues that are far from clear, and very more muted criticism, more limited criticism of the United States and Israel when it comes to actions they’ve taken that are very clearly unlawful under international law.

I think this says a lot about the ways in which international law is being deployed in this moment as a way of restraining and regulating Iranian behavior, while effectively allowing the United States and Israel a free hand to do what they want against the Iranian government.

Who is breaking international law in the Strait of Hormuz?   Video: Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think this unprovoked war that Israel and the US — this war of choice, as it’s called — have engaged in with Iran has done to international law and people’s perspective view of it around the world, and the consequences when people want to apply international law?

MARYAM JAMSHIDI: Yeah, I mean, it’s a great question. I mean, you know, over the last few years, we’ve seen the ways in which Israel, in particular, with support from the United States, as well as with support from much of the rest of the West, Western governments, has eroded and violated and scoffed at international law, in its actions towards the Palestinians, its actions in Lebanon, its actions in Syria, its actions in Yemen, its other actions in Iran.

And I think that, you know, these actions that Israel has taken has understandably led many to question the utility and importance of international law, whether or not it still exists or not. And, you know, now with this war against Iran, that, those concerns, those fears that international law is really meaningless, have only increased.

In this moment, though, I think what’s also important to understand is that states like Iran are also at the same time saying, “No, international law matters very much, and we expect to be treated as equals under international law.”

Iran, in this moment, is framing a lot of what it’s doing in international law terms, because it understands that if international law is truly going to be thrown into the dustbin, then it’s going to be far more vulnerable on the international stage.

So, we basically see a battle. We see a battle between, on the one side, states like Israel and the United States, states that are, by and large, Western, you know, basically saying, “International law doesn’t apply to us. We can do what we want,” and then other states, like Iran, states of the Global South, saying, “No, we want international law. We value international law. International law is necessary to ensuring that we are sovereign and equal to other states on the international scale. And so, we are not going to let international law just be taken away from us.”

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more about the UN Security Council? You’ve noted multiple resolutions have been introduced to condemn Iran’s regulatory actions in the strait. Who is behind these resolutions? Meanwhile, the Iranian Parliament is reportedly considering legislation that would formalise its regulatory system, including the fee system, as part of its domestic law.

MARYAM JAMSHIDI: Right. So, there were — there have been multiple resolutions brought before the Security Council since the war started. They have mostly been focused on Iran and Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz. The states that have been the real force behind these resolutions appear to be the Arab Gulf states, in particular Bahrain and the UAE, who have also been the subject of the most attacks by Iran.

What’s, again, very interesting and, I think, important to understand about these resolutions is that they very clearly and absolutely condemned Iran for its regulatory actions within the Strait of Hormuz. As I mentioned, even though those actions do have a legal basis, those resolutions presented them as being fully unlawful.

And one of those resolutions, which, thankfully, was vetoed by China and Russia, would have effectively authorised all UN member states — that’s over 190 states — to go to war with Iran in order to open the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, that is a very radical proposition, to basically validate and allow states to engage in armed conflict against another state simply for the purpose of opening a waterway.

So, you know — and again, there were no resolutions that were brought to the Security Council to explicitly condemn the US and Israel for their actions against Iran.

In terms of the domestic legislation inside Iran, you know, that the Iranian Parliament appears to be contemplating, as you mentioned, this legislation would basically make the regulatory scheme within Hormuz, in the Strait of Hormuz, a part of Iranian law.

It’s not entirely clear what the terms of that law are, you know, what the basis for it is, what kind of regulation it will in fact implement. But it does seem to have a fee system as a part of it. So, the Iranians are trying to take this ad hoc fee system that they have developed over the course of the last few weeks and actually institutionalise it within domestic law.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end by asking you about [US President Donald] Trump’s comments. On Saturday, he told a reporter at Fox News, “If Iran doesn’t sign this deal, the whole country is getting blown up.” That followed two weeks before, when he warned, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Professor Jamshidi?

MARYAM JAMSHIDI: These comments are absolutely unacceptable. I mean, they are borderline genocidal in their intent and in their implications. To say to the world that you’re going to obliterate an entire civilisation is, in fact, to make very clear that you desire to destroy an entire people.

You know, I don’t know if he thinks that this is an effective negotiating tool, but certainly from a legal perspective, from a moral perspective, it’s beyond the pale.

This article is republished from Democracy Now! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Fiji Police Force has launched a murder investigation following the death of wellknown drug pusher Jone Vakarisi, who died in military custody on Thursday.

Police spokesperson Ana Naisoro told RNZ Pacific that “investigators are gathering intelligence to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the victim’s death”.

“The heads of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) and the police are reconfirming their commitment towards conducting a thorough investigation, appealing once again to members of the public to allow the investigative process to run its course,” Naisoro said.

Meanwhile, the Suva High Court has closed criminal proceedings against Vakarisi, after the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) made an application to stop proceedings.

Fijivillage.com reports that public prosecutors were appealing Vakarisi’s suspended sentence for having marijuana within the confines of a court in January 2023.

He was reportedly found with 15.2 grams of marijuana and sentenced to three months in jail, suspended for two years by the Suva Magistrates Court.

The appeal hearing was meant to be held on Monday.

Application granted
Chief Justice Salesi Temo granted the ODPP’s application after reviewing medical evidence.

The court requested a copy of the death certificate, which was released by the police’s Director of Criminal Investigations.

Conflicting reports emerged over the weekend regarding the death of Vakarisi, who was reportedly linked to major criminal networks.

News of his death broke on Friday, while top military and police brass were gathered on Bau Island, farewelling the late President and Speaker of the House, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.

The RFMF said in a statement on Saturday that the death was due to “a sudden and severe emergency” during questioning at the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Nabua, approximately 10 minutes’ drive from Suva City.

RFMF commander Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai said the victim, in his late 30s, had “voluntarily presented” himself with three others to the RFMF headquarters “to assist with investigations.”

Kalouniwai attributed Vakarisi’s death to “a pre-existing condition”. However, Vakarisi’s family has disputed the military’s account, telling local media that he was “not a sickly person at all”.

Later statement
However, a later statement by General Kalouniwai corrected aspects of the initial military communication concerning the death of Vakarisi, saying that the RFMF acknowledged that the earlier description of the incident as a “medical emergency” did not fully reflect the medical findings now available, reports Fijivillage.com.

This followed the receipt of the post mortem report for Vakarisi.

The commander said the RFMF recognised the seriousness of these findings.

Queenie Osbourne, the mother of Vakarisi’s children, told The Fiji Times, that Vakarisi and others were taken from their home to the army barracks on Thursday night without any formal explanations.

A leaked death certificate, which first appeared on Fijian social media on Saturday, has now been verified by Fiji Police commissioner Rusiate Tudravu to be an official police document.

According to the document, the causes of Vakarisi’s death were listed as asphyxia, aspiration of gastric contents, severe traumatic head injuries, and blunt force trauma to both the head and chest.

“No one informed us of his death from the night he died. We found out when he was in the morgue,” Osbourne was quoted as saying by The Fiji Times.

Vakarisi’s family is calling for justice.

A high-level meeting took place in Suva involving the Prime Minister, security chiefs and military leaders before the police decided to issue a statement classifying Vakarisi’s death as murder.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s Ambassador to Israel, Jesoni Vitusagavulu, has defended his country’s voting record at the United Nations, saying it is guided by principle, not pressure.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Vitusagavulu said Fiji carefully assessed each resolution on its merits rather than aligning with majority positions.

“Fiji votes at the United Nations on principle. We’ve consistently been one of the few nations to stand up against one-sided, anti-Israel resolutions,” he said.

“We don’t just follow the crowd; we evaluate every measure on its merits. For us, it’s about fairness and sovereign equality.”

He said Fiji’s approach reflected a broader commitment to balanced diplomacy.

“We believe that isolating Israel through lopsided resolutions is counterproductive to peace, and we choose instead to be a consistent voice for balanced dialogue,” Vitusagavulu said.

The ambassador stressed that Fiji maintained an “inclusive” foreign policy stance.

“We are ‘friends to all.’ Fiji is transparent about its values, so our partners know exactly where we stand.”

He added that supporting Israel did not equate to opposing other nations.

“Supporting Israel doesn’t mean we’re ‘against’ anyone else… It’s not a blanket endorsement of another country’s policies,” he said, referencing remarks by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

Vitusagavulu said Fiji aimed to play a constructive role on the global stage.

“We believe that by keeping our doors open to everyone, Fiji can act as a moderate, honest voice for engagement in a very polarised world.”

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

• Asia Pacific Report: The UN General Assembly continues to pass resolutions critical of Israel, including a March 2026 resolution demanding an end to occupation and a December 2025 vote (123-7) directing withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights. Recent resolutions consistently emphasise the illegality of settlements, demand humanitarian access in Gaza, and act on International Court of Justice findings regarding the occupied territories.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Fiji military has found itself at the centre of a national firestorm following the death of a wellknown drug peddler, Jone Vakarisi, in army custody last Thursday.

Conflicting reports have emerged over the weekend regarding the death of Vakarisi, who was reportedly linked to major criminal networks.

News of his death broke while top military and police brass were gathered on Bau Islands, paying their final respects to the late President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.

The Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) said in a statement on Saturday that Vakarisi’s death was due to “a sudden and severe emergency” during questioning at the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Nabua, approximately 10 minutes’ drive from Suva City.

RFMF commander Ro Jone Kalouniwai said Vakarisi, in his late 30s, had “voluntarily presented” himself alongside three others to the RFMF headquarters “to assist with investigations”.

Kalouniwai pinned Vakarisi’s death to “a pre-existing condition”. However, Vakarisi’s family has disputed the military’s account, telling local media that he was “not a sickly person at all”.

Queenie Osbourne, the mother of Vakarisi’s children, told The Fiji Times, that Vakarisi and others were taken from their home to the army barracks on Thursday night without any formal explanations.

Leaked death certificate
A leaked death certificate, which first appeared on Fiji social media on Saturday, has now been verified by Fiji Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu to be an official police document.

According to the document, the causes of Vakarisi’s death are listed as asphyxia, aspiration of gastric contents, severe traumatic head injuries, and blunt force trauma to both the head and chest.

“No one informed us of his death from the night he died. We found out when he was in the morgue,” Osbourne was quoted as saying by The Fiji Times.

Vakarisi’s family is calling for justice.

Commisioner Tudravu said heads of the RFMF and Fiji Folice Force “are both in consensus of letting the law take its course, through the conduct of the investigation which is currently underway”.

According to the RFMF statement, at least one military officer has already been placed in military custody for internal disciplinary investigations.

Fiji’s Human Rights Commission said it was “concerned” about the death in military custody and has called for “a prompt [and] independent investigation”.

Aman Ravindra-Singh, a Fiji human rights lawyer who is in exile in Australia, said that based on other similar deaths in custody matters that he has looked at in the past, the injuries listed in Vakarisi’s death certificate “are consistent with torture, where a person is brutally beaten repeatedly to the head and chest resulting in death”.

‘A matter of grave concern’ – minister
Fiji Defence Minister Pio Tikoduadua has described Vakarisi’s death as “a serious matter”.

Tikoduadua said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the circumstances of the case while police inquiries were ongoing.

“The proper process must be allowed to take its course, and all relevant facts must be established independently and professionally. Any loss of life in such circumstances is a matter of grave concern,” he said in a statement.

“I expect the full cooperation of all relevant authorities with the police investigation. Accountability, adherence to the rule of law, and respect for due process must remain paramount.

He also urged the public to allow the investigation to proceed without speculation or the spread of misinformation.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The planning and policy committee of New Zealand’s largest city today voted decisively to review its procurement policies to ensure it is in step with the UN Human Rights Council which has listed companies complicit with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestine Territory.

Auckland Council is the local body governing a “super city” with a population of more than 1.8 million people — almost a third of the country’s total population.

The council’s policy, planning and development committee voted 14 to 2 with 4 abstentions to call for a review report by July about sanctioning UN-listed companies over illegal Israeli settlements.

“Israel has been stealing Palestinian land and moving Israeli settlers onto the land in defiance of international law,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair Maher Nazzal.

“The local Palestinian community and our supporters sincerely thank the Auckland councillors who today have voted for steps to refuse to procure goods or services from any of the companies involved in building and maintaining these settlements,” he said in a statement.

“Auckland ratepayers deserve to know their rates are not being used to support Israeli war crimes, as designated by the UN General Assembly, Security Council, international conventions and the International Court of Justice.

Councillor Julie Fairey moved the resolution calling for the report “on the alignment of Auckland Council policies and practices with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334”.

She rejected the arguments of councillors who opposed it by arguing that the council should “stick to its knitting”.  She responded that decisions should be made so that “the needles and the wool don’t have blood on them”.

Six local bodies have acted
The resolution was seconded by councillor Sarah Peterson-Hamlin.

Councillor Maurice Williamson voted against the resolution.

However, as a cabinet minister of the Key/English National government at the time, he stated he had supported New Zealand co-sponsorship of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 in 2016, calling Israeli settlements “a flagrant breach of international law”.

Williamson then went on to attack the UN Human Rights Council, falsely claiming it was chaired by Iran, when in fact its current president is Indonesian Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro.

PSNA’s Kathy Ross presented a submission in support of the motion.

“Already six different local bodies have taken this step — it’s good to see Auckland following along the same path,” Nazzal said.

New Zealand’s third-largest city, Christchurch, voted to sanction Israel in October 2024.

A strong contingent of supporters for the Auckland resolution were present for the debate and delighted with the result.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz