The Micronesian Islands Forum cranks up with officials meetings this week in Majuro, with the official opening for top leadership from the islands tomorrow morning.

Marshall Islands leaders are being joined at this summit by their counterparts from Kiribati, Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau.

“At this year’s Leaders Forum, I hope we can make meaningful progress on resolving airline connectivity issues — particularly in Micronesia — so our region remains connected and one step ahead,” President Hilda Heine said on the eve of this subregional summit.

• READ MORE: Other Micronesian reports

The Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia have been negotiating with Nauru Airlines over the past two years to extend the current island hopper service with a link to Honolulu.

“Equally important,” said President Heine, “the Forum offers a vital platform to strengthen regional solidarity and build common ground on key issues such as climate, ocean health, security, trade, and other pressing challenges.

“Ultimately, our shared purpose must be to work together in support of the communities we represent.”

Monday and Tuesday featured official-level meetings at the International Conference Center in Majuro. Tomorrow will be the official opening of the Forum and will feature statements from each of the islands represented.

Handing over chair
Outgoing Micronesian Island Forum chair Guam Governor Lourdes Leon Guerrero is expected to hand over the chair post to President Heine tomorrow morning.

Other top island leaders expected to attend the summit: FSM President Wesley Simina, Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, Nauru Deputy Speaker Isabela Dageago, Palau Minister Steven Victor, Chuuk Governor Alexander Narruhn, Pohnpei Governor Stevenson Joseph, Kosrae Governor Tulensa Palik, Yap Acting Governor Francis Itimai, and CNMI Lieutenant-Governor David Apatang.

Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa is also expected to participate.

Pretty much every subject of interest to the Pacific Islands will be on the table for discussions, including presentations on education, health and transportation. The latter will include a presentation by the Marshall Islands Aviation Task Force that has been meeting extensively with Nauru Airlines.

In addition, Pacific Ocean Commissioner Dr Filimon Manoni will deliver a presentation, gender equality will be on the table, as will updates on the SPC and Secretariat of the Pacific Region Environment Programme North Pacific offices, and the United Nations multi-country office.

The Micronesia Challenge environmental programme will get focus during a luncheon for the leaders hosted by the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority on Thursday at its new headquarters annex.

Bank presentations
Pacific Island Development Bank and the Bank of Guam will make presentations, as will the recently established Pacific Center for Island Security.

A special night market at the Marshall Islands Resort parking lot will be featured Wednesday evening.

Friday will feature a leaders retreat on Bokanbotin, a small resort island on Majuro Atoll’s north shore. While the leaders gather, other Forum participants will join a picnic or fishing tournament.

Friday evening is to feature the closing event to include the launching of the Marshall Islands’ Green Growth Initiative and the signing of the Micronesian Island Forum communique.

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

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Three journalists told CPJ that investigative reporting on major economic events, a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s financial transparency, has nearly disappeared amid government pressure and the departure of major outlets. 

The sharp decline in press freedom, the journalists said, is a direct result of the National Security Law. This law, enacted on June 30, 2020, was imposed directly by Beijing, bypassing Hong Kong’s local legislature, and included offenses for secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign forces, with penalties ranging from a three years to life imprisonment.  

In the five years since it was enacted, authorities have shut down media outlets and arrested several journalists, including Jimmy Lai, the founder of one of Hong Kong’s largest newspapers, the pro-democracy Apple Daily. Several major international news organizations have either relocated or downsized their operations in Hong Kong, leading to a decline in reporting on the city and its financial hub.

“Hong Kong’s economic boom happened because journalists could work without interference,” said a veteran reporter with 11 years’ experience in television, newspapers, and digital platforms in Hong Kong, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

While markets still function, at least three media professionals told CPJ that the erosion of press freedom — often overlooked — is a key factor behind Hong Kong’s fading financial appeal to market participants. One reporter described the media as “paralyzed.” 

Another hastily passed security law enacted in March 2024 in Hong Kong further deepened fears that it would be used to suppress press freedom and prosecute journalists.

“There has never been an international financial center in history that operates with restrictions on information,” Simon Lee, an economic commentator and former assistant CEO of Next Digital Group, the parent company of Apple Daily, told CPJ.

Hong Kong long served as a base for reporting on China’s economy and power structures, said a former financial journalist on the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns.

“Most Hong Kong-listed companies come from the mainland [China]. Foreign media used Hong Kong to observe China’s economic operations or wealth transfers,” the former financial journalist told CPJ. “Now the risks feel similar to reporting from inside China.”

Crackdowns, shutdowns, and an exodus of major media

Since the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020, at least eight media outlets have shut. These included Apple Daily, news and lifestyle magazine Next Magazine, both published by Lai’s Next Digital group, and the online outlet Stand News, after they were raided by authorities.

At least four other media organizations — Post852, DB channel, Citizen News, and FactWire — ceased operations voluntarily, citing concerns over the deteriorating political environment.

Reporting was also criminalized in several cases, with journalists prosecuted for “inciting subversion” or “colluding with foreign forces.”  

China had the world’s highest number of imprisoned journalists in CPJ’s latest prison census — 50 in total, including eight in Hong Kong.

The New York Times moved part of its newsroom to Seoul in 2020. In March 2024, Radio Free Asia closed its Hong Kong office, and in May, The Wall Street Journal relocated its Asia headquarters to Singapore.

 “With fewer foreign correspondents based in the city, there’s simply less reporting on Hong Kong,” the former financial journalist told CPJ. “As a result, the city’s economy may receive less objective attention on the global stage.”

The former financial journalist said that one of the biggest losses after the security law was the disappearance of Apple Daily. Unlike most local media, which focused on routine market updates, Apple Daily connected business to politics and mapped interest networks — an increasingly rare practice.

Next Digital, through Apple Daily, built a reputation for investigative financial reporting. A former staff member told the BBC that the company once spent over 100,000 yuan (US$14,000) tracing dozens of property owners to uncover a developer’s hidden ties with a bank.

“From a financial news perspective, one of our biggest problems is losing Apple Daily,” the former financial journalist told CPJ.

Local business reporting also fades away

As Hong Kong’s financial hub reputation comes under question, stories on high unemployment rates, struggling small businesses, and store closures are increasingly out of sight.

“One direct effect is feeling increasingly unable to grasp what’s happening in the city; important information no longer seems easy to access,” Lee said. “Previously, competition among professional outlets encouraged source sharing and helped maintain a power balance. Now, one-way government-controlled information faces little resistance.”

Lee told CPJ that changes in Hong Kong’s media landscape are particularly evident in major financial events, pointing to the coverage of the 2024 sale of Li Ka-shing’s port assets, in which local outlets failed to question the deal’s structure, rationale, or political implications.

“Beijing called it a national security matter, and the other side of the story disappeared,” Lee told CPJ. “Many focus on the judicial system when discussing fairness, but true fairness also depends on the free flow of information … Without information freedom, public oversight fades, and the market’s system of checks and balances collapses.”

Lee also cited the case of Alvin Chau, a casino tycoon in Macao who was sentenced in 2023 to 18 years for illegal gambling. While foreign media uncovered his alleged links to oil smuggling operations to North Korea, local media offered little follow-up.

“These investigations and reports simply no longer exist,” Lee said.

Sources can’t speak freely

Two journalists told CPJ they have noticed increasing reluctance from interviewees. 

During previous years of the Annual Budget Speech, Hong Kong’s yearly announcement of its public spending and economic plans, the media would host analysis shows with economists debating government spending and policies. 

“We would ask about the fiscal surplus, support for the poor, and whether measures were targeted,” the veteran reporter told CPJ, adding that now, “only one professor is willing to speak openly.”

Lee told CPJ that the atmosphere of “not being allowed to criticize” the broader structure or government policy has also extended to the reporting on how financial markets operate.

Market participants should be free to take either optimistic or pessimistic views of the economic outlook, Lee told CPJ, adding that today in Hong Kong, it is discouraged to express pessimism, and even silently shifting toward defensive investment strategies or risk-averse behavior may be interpreted as making a political statement.

“It’s hard for any place with such high information costs to remain a global financial hub,” Lee said. “Because even pulling back on investment can send a signal. If investors are accused of intentionally dragging down the market just because they try to hedge or take a cautious view, they may decide it’s safer to avoid the market altogether.”

In response to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred CPJ to a statement that said the security law has enabled the city to “make a major transition from chaos to order” and “the business environment has continuously improved,” while press freedom is protected under the law.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ's Asia-Pacific program staff.

US President Donald Trump and his team is pursuing a white man’s racist agenda that is corrupt at its core. Trump’s advisor Elon Musk, who often seems to be the actual president, is handing his companies multiple contracts as his team takes over or takes down multiple government departments and agencies.

Trump wants to be the “king” of America and is already floating the idea of a third term, an action that would be an obvious violation of the US Constitution he swore to uphold but is doing his best to violate and destroy.

Every time we hear the Trump team spouting a “return to America’s golden age,” they are talking about 60-80 years ago, when white people ruled and schools, hospitals, restrooms and entire neighborhoods were segregated and African Americans and other minority groups had little opportunity.

• READ MORE: Obama praises Harvard for ‘setting example’ to universities resisting Trump
• Other Giff Johnson articles

Every photo of leaders from that time features large numbers of white American men. Trump’s cabinet, in contrast to recent cabinets of Democratic presidents, is mainly white and male.

This is where the US going. And lest any white women feel they are included in the Trump train, think again. Anything to do with women’s empowerment — including whites — is being scrubbed off the agenda by Trump minions in multiple government departments and agencies.

“Women” along with things like “climate change,” “diversity,” “equality,” “gender equity,” “justice,” etc are being removed from US government websites, policies and grant funding.

The white racist campaign against people of colour has seen iconic Americans removed from government websites. For example, a photo and story about Jackie Robinson, a military veteran, was recently removed from the Defense Department website as part of the Trump team’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Broke whites-only colour barrier
Robinson was not only a military veteran, he was the first African American to break the whites-only colour barrier in Major League Baseball and went on to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for his stellar performance with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

How about the removal of reference to the Army’s 442nd infantry regiment from World War II that is the most decorated unit in US military history? The 442nd was a fighting unit comprised of nearly all second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who more than proved their courage and loyalty to the United States during World War II.

The Defense Department removing references to these iconic Americans is an outrage. But showing the moronic level of the Trump team, they also deleted a photo of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II because the pilot named it after his mother, “Enola Gay.”

Despite the significance of the Enola Gay airplane in American military history, that latter word couldn’t get past the Pentagon’s scrubbing team, who were determined to wash away anything that hinted at, well, anything other than white, heterosexual male. And there is plenty more that was wiped off the history record of the Defense Department.

Meanwhile, Trump, his team and the Republican Party in general while claiming to be focused on eliminating corruption is authorising it on a grand scale.

Elon Musk’s redirection of contracts to Starlink, SpaceX and other companies he owns is one example among many. What is happening in the American government today is like a bank robbery in broad daylight.

The Trump team fired a score of inspectors general — the very officials who actively work to prevent fraud and theft in the US government. They are eliminating or effectively neutering every enforcement agency, from EPA (which ensures clean air and other anti-pollution programmes) and consumer protection to the National Labor Relations Board, where the mega companies like Musk’s, Facebook, Google and others have pending complaints from employees seeking a fair review of their work issues.

Huge cuts to social security
Trump with the aid of the Republican-controlled Congress is going to make huge cuts to Medicaid and Social Security — which will affect Marshallese living in America as much as Americans — all in order to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans and big corporations.

Then there is Trump’s targeting of judges who rule against his illegal and unconstitutional initiatives — Trump criticism that is parroted by Fox News and other Trump minions, and is leading to things like efforts in the Congress to possibly impeach judges or restrict their legal jurisdiction.

These are all anti-democracy, anti-US constitution actions that are already undermining the rule of law in the US. And we haven’t yet mentioned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its sweeping deportations without due process that is having calamitous collateral damage for people swept up in these deportation raids.

ICE is deporting people legally in the US studying at US universities for writing articles or speaking about justice for Palestinians. Whether we like what the writer or speaker says, a fundamental principle of democracy in the US is that freedom of expression is protected by the US constitution under the First Amendment.

That is no longer the case for Trump and his Republican team, which is happily abandoning the rule of law, due process and everything else that makes America what it is.

The irony is that multiple countries, normally American allies, have in recent weeks issued travel advisories to their citizens about traveling to the United States in the present environment where anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t fit into a male or female designation is subject to potential detention and deportation.

The immigration chill from the US will no doubt reduce visitor flow resulting in big losses in revenue, possibly in the billions of dollars, for tourism-related businesses.

Marshallese must pay attention
Marshallese need to pay attention to what’s happening and have valid passports at the ready. Sadly, if Marshallese have any sort of conviction no matter how ancient or minor it is likely they will be targets for deportation.

Further, even the visa-free access privilege for Marshallese and other Micronesians is apparently now under scrutiny by US authorities based on a statement by US Ambassador Laura Stone published recently by the Journal

It is a difficult time being one of the closest allies of the US because the RMI must engage at many levels with a US government that is presently in turmoil.

Giff Johnson is the editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and one of the Pacific’s leading journalists and authors. He is the author of several books, including Don’t Ever Whisper, Idyllic No More, and Nuclear Past, Unclear Future. This editorial was first published on 11 April 2025 and is reprinted with permission of the Marshall Islands Journal. marshallislandsjournal.com

Freedom of speech at the Marshall Islands High School

The above is one section of the outer wall at Marshall Islands High School. Surely, if this was a public school in America today, these messages would already have been whitewashed away by the Trump team censors who don’t like any reference to “inclusiveness,” “women,” and especially “gender equality.”

However, these messages painted by MIHS students are very much in keeping with Marshallese society and customary practices of welcoming visitors, inclusiveness and good treatment of women in this matriarchal society.

But don’t let President Trump know Marshallese think like this. — Giff Johnson

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Marshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson says US President Donald Trump’s decision on aid “is an opening for anybody else who wants to fill the gap” in the Pacific.

Trump froze all USAID for 90 days on his first day in office and is now looking to significantly reduce the size of the multi-billion dollar agency.

The Pacific is the world’s most aid dependent region, and Terence Wood from the Australian National University Development Policy Centre told RNZ Pacific this move would hit hard.

• READ MORE: Trump’s foreign aid freeze throws independent journalism into chaos
• ‘Journalism has become a blood sport. It is harder and harder to tell the truth’
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

“The US is the Pacific’s largest aid donor and what is happening there is completely unprecedented . . .  there’s also a cruel irony that Elon Musk is the world’s wealthiest man and right now he seems to be calling the shots with decisions that are literally going to be life or death for the world’s poorest people . . .  it’s hard to wrap one’s head around,” he said.

Marshall Islands Journal owner and editor Giff Johnson on the USAID crisis. Video: RNZ Pacific

Wood was concerned about how the dismantling of USAID would impact the Pacific.

“It’s not a good time to be in the world’s most aid dependent region . . .  indeed Sāmoa PM Fiame Naomi Mata’afa has already expressed concern about what might happen to funding for organisations like the World Health Organisation . . .  so everyone is watching this with considerable alarm”.

‘It’s hard to believe that Trump has changed his sense’
Editor Johnson said said in an interview with RNZ Pacific last week that Trump’s shutdown of USAID was at odds with the increased engagement in the Pacific.

He said the move did not line up with the President’s rhetoric on China, and the fact the new US compact agreements were instigated by his administration the last time he was in power.

“So it’s hard to believe that Trump has changed his sense and I mean, he’s putting tariffs in on China, right? . . .  So that’s still very much in play,” Johnson said.

“It’s just like amazing to me that that they’re willing to undermine relationships in the Pacific that they claim to be a very important region for them.

“And you know, this is, I mean, certainly it’s an opening for anybody else who wants to fill the gap, I suppose, until Washington decides what it is doing.”

USAID shutdown bug thing for Pacific
Meanwhile, in the Cook Islands, the vice-chairperson of the Pacific energy regulators Alliance said Trump’s shutdown of USAID was a big deal for the region.

Dean Yarrall said his organisation was planning a multi-day training course on best practices in electricity regulation, funded by the US, which had now been called off.

He said the cancelling of the training course caught his organisation off guard.

“We’re seeing a lot of competition between parties, the Chinese are looking to increase the influence Australia as well and the US through USAID are big supporters of the Pacific so seeing USA sort of drop away, I think that will be a big thing,” Yarrall said.

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

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Selina Cheng, who says she was let go as part of “restructuring” in July after being warned against seeking election as chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, is filing a case with the tribunal after her request for reinstatement was unsuccessful.

“I was fired by the Wall Street Journal because of my position as chairman of the Journalists Association,” Cheng told reporters, accompanied by her lawyer, on Tuesday. “I have tried to communicate with and seek mediation with the company’s U.S. representatives via my lawyer but this was ineffective.”

“The other party continues to insist that my dismissal was part of layoffs, and reject my request for reinstatement,” she said.

Cheng won the election to replace Ronson Chan, who stepped down from the union leadership citing threats and pressure from pro-China sources.

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Officials in China and Hong Kong have repeatedly claimed that journalists are safe to carry out “legitimate” reporting activities under both the 2020 National Security Law and the Article 23 Safeguarding National Security Law, which was passed on March 23.

But pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai is currently on trial for “collusion with foreign forces” for printing articles in his now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper.

Ready to testify

Cheng said she had already filed some evidence for her claim to the Labor Department, and would be filing a formal complaint on Tuesday, under Section 21b of the city‘s Employment Ordinance, which protects employees’ right to join a labor union.

“Any employer, or any person acting on behalf of an employer, who prevents or deters ... an employee from exercising that right shall be guilty of an offense,” and could be fined up to HK$100,000 (US$12,855), according to the law.

“I have told the staff at the Labor Department that I am very willing to testify in court, and provide all the necessary information,” she said. “Since there is more than enough evidence to show they are in violation of the law, I think the government should actively prosecute them.”

Cheng, a Hong Kong correspondent for the Journal who had survived earlier rounds of layoffs, was approached by senior editors in June after they heard she was running in elections for the chair of the union, warned off running for the top job and told to leave the board, despite approving her position at the union when she was hired in 2021.

Cheng has quoted her editor as saying that Journal employees shouldn’t be seen as advocates for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong, although there was no problem with similar behaviors in Western countries where press freedom is greater. She has said she was fired in person by U.K.-based Foreign Editor Gordon Fairclough, who was on a visit to Hong Kong, with “restructuring” given as the reason for her sacking.

She said none of her colleagues believed that this was the real reason for her dismissal.

“I learned from former colleagues at Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal that they were all very disappointed, mainly because of the claim I was laid off,” Cheng said. “Everyone knows that this wasn’t the the truth, but the company continues to insist that this was the reason they fired me.”

Cheng said the incident had damaged her professional reputation, but that she was still open to discussions about her reinstatement.

State of press freedom

Journalists and media watchdog groups say press freedom has gone sharply downhill in Hong Kong in recent years, as Beijing ramps up its mission to protect “national security” with a constant expansion of forbidden topics and “red lines” in recent years.

Foreign journalists have also been targeted, with the city refusing to renew a work visa for the Financial Times' Victor Mallet in 2018 after he hosted pro-independence politician Andy Chan as a speaker at the Foreign Correspondents' Club where he was an official at the time.

The Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, a union run by and for the employees of Dow Jones, has previously said that if Cheng was fired as what she claimed, the behavior was “unconscionable,” the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, adding that the association has called on the publication to restore her job and provide a full explanation of their decision to dismiss her.

Hong Kong ranked 135th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index, down from 80 in 2021.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.

You probably know about the last moments of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

But what do you know about the environmental campaign ship’s last voyage before it was bombed by French secret agents in New Zealand on 10 July 1985?

Where had it come from, why was it there and what was it doing?

• LISTEN: The podcast series at RNZ

Find out in The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior, a six part podcast series produced by an ABC Radio Australia and RNZ partnership.

The series was written and hosted by James Nokise of the ABC with writers and producers Justin Gregory (RNZ) and Sophie Townsend.

The series was assisted by Pacific journalist David Robie, author of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior; and editor Giff Johnson, Eve Burns and Hilary Hosia of the Marshall Islands Journal; along with many Marshall Islanders who spoke to the podcast crew or helped with this project.

• Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior (Little Island Press, 2015)

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

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

INTERVIEW: John Menadue talks with Michael Lester

Michael Lester: Hello again listeners to Community Radio Northern Beaches Community Voices and also the Pearls and Irritations podcast. I’m Michael Lester.

Our guest today is the publisher and founder of the Pearls and Irritations Public Policy online journal, the celebrated John Menadue, with whom we’ll be so pleased to have a discussion today. John has a long and high profile experience in both the public service, for which he’s been awarded the Order of Australia and also in business.

As a public servant, he was secretary of a number of departments over the years, prime minister and cabinet under a couple of different prime ministers, immigration and ethnic affairs, special minister of state and the Department of Trade and also Ambassador to Japan.

• READ MORE: Other Pearls and Irritations articles

And in his private sector career, he was a general manager at News Corp and the chief executive of Qantas. These are just among many of his considerable activities.

These days, as I say, he’s a publisher, public commentator, writer, and we’re absolutely delighted to welcome you here to Radio Northern Beaches and the P&I podcast, John.

John Menadue: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for the welcome and for what you’ve had to say about Pearls and Irritations. My wife says that she’s the Pearl and I’m the Irritation.

ML: You launched, I think, P&I, what, 2013 or 2011; anyway, you’ve been going a long while. And I noticed the other day you observed that you’d published some 20,000 items on Pearls and Irritations to do with public policy. That’s an amazing achievement itself as an independent media outlet in Australia, isn’t it?

JM: I’m quite pleased with it and so is Susie, my wife. We started 13 years ago and we did everything. I used to write all the stories and Susie handled the technical, admin, financial matters, but it’s grown dramatically since then. We now contract some of the work to people that can help us in editorial, in production and IT. It’s achieving quite a lot of influence among ministers, politicians, journalists and other opinion leaders in the community.

We’re looking now at what the future holds. I’m 89 and Susie, my wife, is not in good health. So we’re looking at new governance arrangements, a public company with outside directors so that we can continue Pearls and Irritations well into the future.

This is one of your themes and motivations with Pearls and Irritations as a public policy journal, isn’t it? That our mainstream media perhaps don’t do the job they might do in covering significant issues of public policy?

JM: That’s our hope and intention, but I’m afraid some of them are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.

It’s quite a shame what mainstream media is serving up today, propaganda for the United States, so focused on America.Occasionally we get nonsense about the British royal family or some irrelevant feature like that.

But we’re very badly served. Our media shows very little interest in our own region. It is ignorant and prejudiced against China. It is not concerned about our relations with Indonesia, with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam.

It’s all focused on the United States.We’re seeing it on an enormous scale now with the US elections. Even the ABC has a Planet America programme.

It’s so much focused on America as if we’re an island parked off New York. We are being Americanised in so many areas and particularly in our media.

ML: What has led to this state of affairs in the way that mainstream media treats major public policy issues these days? It hasn’t always been like that or has it?

JM: We’ve been a country that’s been frightened of our region, the countries where we have to make our future. And we’ve turned first to the United Kingdom as a protector. That ended in tears in Singapore.

And now we turn to the United States to look after us in this dangerous world, rather than making our own way as an independent country in our own region. That fear of our region, racism, white Australia, yellow peril all feature in Australia and in our media.

But when we had good, strong leaders, for example, Malcolm Fraser on refugees, he gave leadership and our role in the region.

Gough Whitlam did it also. If we have strong leadership, we can break from our focus on the United States at the expense of our own region. In the end, we’ve got to decide that as we live in this region, we’ve got to prosper in this region.

Security in our region, not from our region. We can do it, but I’m afraid that we’ve been retreating from Asia dreadfully over the last two or three decades. I thought when we had a Labor government, things would be different, but they’re not.

We are still frightened of our own region and embracing at every opportunity, the United States.

ML: Another theme of the many years of publishing Pearls and Irritations is that you are concerned to rebuild some degree of public confidence and trust that has been lost in the political system and that you seek to provide a platform for good policy discussion with the emphasis being on public policy. How has the public policy process been undermined or become so narrow minded if that’s one way of describing it?

JM: Contracting out work to private contractors, the big four accounting firms, getting advice, and not trusting the public service has meant that the quality of our public service has declined considerably. That has to be rebuilt so we get better policy development.

Ministers have been responsible, particularly Scott Morrison, for downgrading the public service and believing somehow or other that better advice can be obtained in the private sector.

Another factor has been the enormous growth in the power of lobbyists for corporate Australia and for foreign companies as well. Ministers have become beholden to pressure from powerful lobby groups.

One particular example, with which I’m quite familiar is in the health field. We are never likely to have real improvements in Medicare, for example, unless the government is prepared to take on the power of lobbyists — the providers, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies in Australia.

But it’s not just in health where lobbyists are causing so much damage. The power of lobbyists has discredited the role of governments that are seduced by powerful interests rather than serving the community.

The media have just entrenched this problem. Governments are criticised at every opportunity. Australia can be served by the media taking a more positive view about the importance of good policy development and not getting sidetracked all the time about some trivial personal political issue.

The media publish the handouts of the lobbyists, whether it’s the health industry or whether it’s in the fossil fuel industries. These are the main factors that have contributed to the lack of confidence and the lack of trust in good government in Australia.

ML: A particular editorial focus that’s evident in Pearls and Irritations is promoting, I think in your words, a peaceful dialogue and engagement with China. Why is this required and why do you put it forward as a particularly important part of what you see as the mission of your Pearls and Irritations public policy journal?

JM; China, is our largest market and will continue to be so. There is a very jaundiced view, particularly from the United States, which we then copy, that China is a great threat. It’s not a threat to Australia and it’s not a threat to the United States homeland.

But it is to a degree a threat, a competitive threat to the United States in economy and trade. America didn’t worry about China when it was poor, but now that it’s strong militarily, economically and in technology, America is very concerned and feels that its future, its own leadership, its hegemony in the world is being contested.

Unfortunately, Australia has allowed itself to be drawn into the American contest with China.  It’s one provocation after another. If it’s not within China itself, it’s on Taiwan, human rights in Hong Kong. Every opportunity is found by the United States to provoke China, if possible, and lead it into war.

I think, frankly, China will be more careful than that.

China’s problem is that it’s successful. And that’s what America cannot accept. By comparison, China does not make the military threat to other countries that the United States presents.

America is the most violent, aggressive country in the world. The greatest threat to peace in the world is the United States and we’re seeing that particularly now expressed in Israel and in Gaza.

But there’s a history. America’s almost always at war and has been since its independence in 1776. By contrast, China doesn’t have that sort of record and history. It is certainly concerned about security on its borders, and it has borders with 14 countries.

But it doesn’t project its power like the US. It doesn’t bomb other countries like the United States. It doesn’t have military bases surrounding the United States.

The United States has about 800 bases around the world. It’s not surprising that China feels threatened by what the United States is doing. And until the United States comes to a sensible, realistic view about China and deals with it politically, I think they’re going to make continual problems for us.

We have this dichotomy that China is our major trading partner but it’s seen by many as a strategic threat. I think that is a mistake.

ML: But what about your views about the public policy process underlying Australia’s policy in reaching the positions that we’re taking vis-a-vis China?

JM: There are several reasons for it, but I think the major one is that Australian governments, the previous government and now this one, takes the advice of intelligence agencies rather than the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Our intelligence agencies are part of Five Eyes. Of the international intelligence which comes to Australian agencies, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we’ve had the colonisation of our intelligence agencies and they’re the ones that the Australian government listens to.

Very senior people in those agencies have direct access to the Prime Minister. He listens to them rather than to Penny Wong or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. On most public issues involving China, the Department of Foreign Affairs has become a wallflower.

It’s a great tragedy because so much of our future in the region depends on good diplomacy with China, with the ASEAN, with the countries of our region.

Those intelligence agencies in Australia, together with American funded, military funded organisations such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have the ear of governments. They’ve also got the ear of the media.

Stories are leaked to the media all the time from those agencies in order to heighten our fear of the region. The Americanisation of Australia is widespread. But our intelligence agencies have been Americanised as well, and they’re leading us down a very dangerous path.

ML: I’m speaking with our guest today on Reno Northern Beaches Community Voices and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast with the publisher of Pearls and Irritations Public Policy Journal, John Menadue, distinguished Australian public servant and businessman.

John, again, it’s one thing to talk about that, but governments, when they change, and we’ve had a change of government recently, very often, as I’m sure you know from personal experience, have the opportunity and do indeed change their advisors and adopt different policies, and one might have expected this to happen.

Why didn’t we see a change of the guard like we saw a change of government?

JM: I think this government is timid on almost everything. It was timid from day one on administrative arrangements, departmental arrangements, heads of departments.

For example, there was no change made to dismantle the Department of Home Affairs with Michael Pezzullo. That should have happened on day one, but it didn’t happen.

Concerns we’ve had in migration, the role of foreign affairs and intelligence with all those intelligence agencies gathered together in one department has been very bad for Australia.

Very few changes were made in the leadership of our intelligence agencies, the Office of National Assessments, in ASIO. The same advice has been continued. In almost every area you can look at, the government has been timid, unprepared to take on vested interests, lobbyists, and change departments to make them more attuned to what the government wants to do.

But the government doesn’t want to upset anyone. And as a result, we’re having a continuation of badly informed ministers and departments that have really not been effectively changed to meet the requirements and needs of, what I thought was a reforming government.

ML: In that context, AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal might be perhaps a case in point of the broader issues and points you’re making. How would you characterise the nature of the public policy process and decision behind AUKUS? How were the decisions made and in what manner?

JM: By political appointees and confidants of Morrison. There’s been no public discussion. There’s been no public statement by Morrison or by Albanese about AUKUS — its history, why we’re doing it.

It’s been left to briefings of journalists and others. I think it’s disgraceful what’s happened in that area. It’s time the Australian government spelled out to us what it all means, but it’s not going to do it. Because I believe the case is so threadbare that it’s not game to put it to the public test.

And so we’re continuing in this ludicrous arrangement, this fiscal calamity, which Morrison inflicted on the Albanese government which it hasn’t been game to contest.

My own view is that frankly, AUKUS will never happen. It is so absurd — the delay, the cost, the failure of submarine construction or the delays in the United States, the problems of the submarine construction and maintenance in the United Kingdom.

For all those sorts of reasons, I don’t think it’ll really happen. Unfortunately, we’re going to waste a lot of money and a lot of time. I don’t think the Department of Defence could run any major project, certainly not a project like this.

Defence has been unsuccessful in the frigate and numerous other programmes. Our Department of Defence really is not up to the job and that among other reasons gives me reason to believe, and hope frankly, that AUKUS will collapse under its own stupidity.

But what I think is of more concern is the real estate, which we are freely leasing to the Americans. We had it first with the Marines in Darwin. We have it also coming now with US B-52 aircraft based out of Tindal in the Northern Territory and the submarine base in Perth, Western Australia.

These bases are being made available to the United States with very little control by Australia. The government carries on with nonsense about how our sovereignty will be protected.

In fact, it won’t be protected. If there’s any difficulties, for example, over a war with China over Taiwan, and the Americans are involved, there is no way Americans will consult with us about whether they can use nuclear armed vessels out of Tindal, for example.

The Americans will insist that Pine Gap continues to operate. So we are locked in through ceding so much of our real estate and the sovereignty that goes with it.

Penny Wong has been asked about American aircraft out of Tindal, carrying nuclear weapons and she says to us, sorry but the Americans won’t confirm or deny what they do.

Good heavens, this is our territory. This is our sovereignty. And we won’t even ask the Americans operating out of Tindal, whether they’re carrying nuclear weapons.

Back in the days of Malcolm Fraser, he made a statement to the Parliament insisting that no vessels or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian government.

And now Penny Wong says, we won’t ask. You can do what you like. We know the US won’t confirm or deny.

When it came to the Solomon Islands, a treaty that the Solomons negotiated with China on strategic and defence matters, Penny Wong was very upset about this secret agreement. There should be transparency, she warned.

But that’s small fry, compared with the fact that the Australian government will allow United States aircraft to operate out of Tindal without the Australian government knowing whether they are carrying nuclear weapons. I think that’s outrageous.

ML: Notwithstanding many of the very technical and economic and other discussions around the nuclear submarine’s acquisition, it does seem that politically, at least, and not least from the media presentation of our policy position that we’re very clearly signing up with our US allies against contingency attacks on Taiwan that we would be committed to take a part in and we’re also moving very closely, to well the phrase is interoperability, with the US forces and equipment but also personnel too.

You mentioned earlier, intelligence personnel and I believe there’s a lot of US personnel in the Department of Defence too?

JM: That’s right. It’s just another example of Americanisation which is reflected in our intelligence agencies, Department of Defence, interchangeability of our military forces, the fusion of our military or particularly our Navy with the United States. It’s all becoming one fused enterprise with the United States.

And in any difficulties, we would not be able, as far as I can see, to disengage from what the United States is doing. And we would be particularly vulnerable because of the AUKUS submarines. That’s if they ever come to anything. Because the AUKUS submarines, we are told, would operate off the Chinese coast to attack Chinese submarines or somehow provide intelligence for the Americans and for us.

These submarines will not be nuclear armed, which means that in the event of a conflict, we would have no bargaining or no counter to China. We’d be the weak link in the alliance with the United States.

China will not be prepared to strike the mainland United States for fear of massive retaliation. We are the weak link with Pine Gap and other real estate that I mentioned. We would be making ourselves much more vulnerable by this association with the United States.

Those AUKUS submarines will provide no deterrence for us, but make us more vulnerable if a conflict arises in which we are effectively part of the US military operation.

ML: How would you characterise the mainstream media’s presentation and treatment of these issues?

JM: The mainstream media is very largely a mouthpiece for Washington propaganda. And that American propaganda is pushed out through the legacy media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the news agencies, Fox News which in turn are influenced by the military/ business complex which Eisenhower warned us about years ago.

The power of those groups with the CIA and the influence that they have, means that they overwhelm our media. That’s reflected particularly in The Australian and News Corporation publications.

I don’t know how some of those journalists can hold their heads. They’ve been on the drip feed of America for so long. They cannot see a world that is not dominated and led by the United States.

I’m hoping that over time, Pearls and Irritations and other independent media will grow and provide a more balanced view about Australia’s role in our region and in our own development.

We need to keep good relations with the United States. They’re an important player, but I think that we are unnecessarily risking our future by throwing our lot almost entirely in with the United States.

Minister for Defence, Richard Marles is leading the Americanisation of our military. I think Penny Wong is to some extent trying to pull him back. But unfortunately so much of the leadership of Australia in defence, in the media, is part and parcel of the mistaken United States view of the world.

ML: What sort of voices are we not hearing in the media or in Australia on this question?

JM: It’s not going to change, Michael. I can’t see it changing with Lachlan Murdoch in charge. I think it’s getting worse, if possible, within News Corporation. It’s a very, very difficult and desperate situation where we’re being served so poorly.

ML: Is there a strong independent media and potential for voices through independent media in Australia?

JM: No, we haven’t got one. The best hope at the side, of course, is the ABC and SBS public broadcasters, but they’ve been seduced as well by all things American.

We’ve seen that particularly in recent months over the conflict in Gaza. The ABC and SBS heavily favour Israel. It is shameful.

They’re still the best hope of the side, but they need more money. They’re getting a little bit more from the government, but I think they are sadly lacking in leadership and proper understanding of what the role of a public broadcaster should be.

I don’t think there’s a quick answer to any of this. And I hope that we can extricate ourselves without too much damage in the future. Our media has a great responsibility and must be held responsible for the damage that it is causing in Australia.

ML: Well, look, thank you very much, John Menadue, for joining us on Radio Northern Beaches and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast. John Menadue, publisher, founder, editor-in-chief of, for the last 13 years, the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations. We’ve been discussing the role of the mainstream media, independent media, in the public policy processes too in Australia, and particularly in the context of international relations and in this case our relationships with the US and China.

Thank you so much John for taking the time and for sharing your thoughts with us here today. Thanks for joining us John.

JM: Thank you. Let’s hope for better days.

John Menadue, founder and publisher of  Pearls and Irritations public policy journal has had a senior professional career in the media, public service and airlines. In 1985, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for public service. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide in recognition of his significant and lifelong contribution to Australian society. This transcript of the Pearls and Irritations podcast on 10 August 2024 is republished with permission. 

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“There is no journalism without press freedom,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Hong Kong journalists must be allowed to defend their right to report independently without the fear of reprisal or losing their livelihood. If Hong Kong is serious about reviving its slowing economy, then it must improve the media climate swiftly to shake off a reputation as a place with ever-increasing repression.” 

In recent months, officials and pro-Beijing news outlets have heaped pressure on the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), the city’s largest trade union for journalists.

In June, Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang accused the HKJA of lacking legitimacy and siding with demonstrators in 2019, while China’s state-backed Global Times in a July report described the group as “disingenuous and dangerous.”

In July, HKJA’s chair Selina Cheng said she was fired from her role at The Wall Street Journal after she was elected to lead the journalists’ union. She had been the sole candidate for the position amid a growing climate of self-censorship in Hong Kong, once a beacon of press freedom in Asia.

Asked for comment, a WSJ spokesperson told CPJ in an email that the outlet made “personnel changes” but could not comment on specific individuals. The spokesperson added that the WSJ advocates for press freedom in Hong Kong, the city which had been WSJ’s Asia headquarters before they were moved to Singapore in May. 

Another foreign correspondent and a local nonprofit adviser resigned immediately after they were elected to the HKJA’s executive committee in the group’s election following Tang’s criticism of the union.

Between May 2023 and March this year, Tang wrote eight letters to various international news outlets over their editorials or opinion articles about Hong Kong, some of which he labeled “extremely misleading,” “scaremongering,” and “lies.” Four of the eight letters were sent to WSJ.

A Hong Kong government spokesman said the city’s media landscape was “as vibrant as ever” with over 200 media organizations registered with local authorities, and that press freedom and the right to join trade unions were both protected under the law.

“As always, the media can exercise their freedom of the press in accordance with the law. Their freedom of commenting on and criticizing government policies remains uninhibited as long as this is not in violation of the law,” the spokesman told CPJ in an email.

Lengthy trials

The HKJA is the main journalists’ union in Hong Kong and has been advocating for press freedom since it was founded in 1968, but has been battling dwindling membership and funds after Beijing imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020 that saw journalists arrested, jailed, and threatened. 

Among them, the then-HKJA chair Ronson Chan was sentenced to five days in jail in 2023 for obstructing a police officer while reporting.

Hong Kong passed its own homegrown national security law in March, and the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia shut its Hong Kong bureau days later over safety concerns for its reporters – joining an exodus of media and journalists who left the city since the 2020 crackdown began.

Journalists who remain point to a rising culture of self-censorship in local newsrooms and an increasing hesitation to criticize the government as Hong Kong loses its shine as a leading global financial hub. The city, once the world’s largest IPO market by value for years, saw proceeds raised from new share listings in the first half of 2024 plunge to a two-decade low.

Journalists also face lengthy delays and repeated postponements in their trials.

This includes the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily’s founder Jimmy Lai, whose trial on national security charges was adjourned again last month to late November. A representative for advocacy group Reporters Without Borders who went to Hong Kong to monitor Lai’s trial was detained and deported upon arrival.

The 76-year-old has been behind bars since 2020. On August 12, Lai lost an appeal against his conviction for taking part in unauthorized anti-government protests.

Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen, former editors of the now-defunct independent news outlet Stand News are expected to hear the verdict in their sedition trial in late August, after a court in April postponed the long-awaited decision. The duo were granted bail in late 2022 after being remanded in custody for nearly a year.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Evan and Alsu have been apart from their families for far too long,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “They were detained and sentenced on spurious charges intended to punish them for their journalism and stifle independent reporting. Their reported release is welcome – but it does not change the fact that Russia continues to suppress a free press. Moscow needs to release all jailed journalists and end its campaign of using in absentia arrest warrants and sentences against exiled Russian journalists.”

Gershkovich and Kurmasheva were sentenced on July 19 to 16 years and 6½ years in prison respectively. Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, spent 16 months in detention before being convicted on charges of espionage; Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, was held for more than nine months before she was convicted on charges of spreading “fake” news about the Russian army.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

“Russia’s decision to jail Evan Gershkovich for 16 years on sham charges is outrageous,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Journalists are not pawns in geopolitical games. It’s time to stop hostage diplomacy and free him immediately.”

Gershkovich’s closed-door trial started on June 26 in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. A second hearing took place on July 18, when the court announced that it had completed its judicial investigation. The next day, the court heard arguments from both sides, and a judge handed down an 16-year prison term against the journalist.

Gershkovich, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, has been jailed in Russia since the country’s Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested him on espionage charges on March 29, 2023, while he was on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg. A June 2024 indictment accused Gershkovich of collecting “secret information” for the CIA on a Russian tank factory in the Sverdlovsk region. The journalist, his outlet, and the U.S. government have all denied the accusations and the U.S. State Department has designated him “wrongfully detained.”   

“He did nothing wrong. Russian authorities have failed to present evidence of a crime or justify Evan’s continued detention,” the U.S. Embassy in Russia said in statement on Thursday.

“This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,” said Almar Latour, CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and Emma Tucker, editor in chief of the publication, in a statement on Friday.

Russia was the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 behind bars, including Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1, 2023.

(Editor’s note: This report has been updated since its initial publication.)

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

“U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich goes on trial today after nearly 15 months of unjust detention. Given the spurious and unsubstantiated charges brought against him, this trial is nothing more than a masquerade,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must put an end to this travesty of justice, release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and stop prosecuting members of the press for their work.”

Gershkovich’s trial started Wednesday, June 26, in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, reports said. It is not known how long the trial will last.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Gershkovich, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, of collecting “secret information” for the CIA on a Russian tank factory in the Sverdlovsk region and arrested him on espionage charges on March 29, 2023.

Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison and is the first American journalist to face such accusations by Russia since the end of the Cold War. The journalist, his outlet, and the U.S. government have all denied the espionage allegations.

“No evidence has been unveiled. And we already know the conclusion: This bogus accusation of espionage will inevitably lead to a bogus conviction for an innocent man who would then face up to 20 years in prison for simply doing his job,” said Emma Tucker, editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, in a Tuesday statement.

On June 13, the Russian prosecutor general’s office announced that Gershkovich’s indictment had been finalized.

“I think we were all hopeful that we were able to broker a deal with the Russians before this happened, but it doesn’t stop or slow us down,” Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the U.S. Department of State, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee the same day.

On April 11, 2023, the U.S. State Department designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” unlocking a broad government effort to free him.

Russia was the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 behind bars, including Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

“The start of Gershkovich’s trial comes after he has already spent more than 14 months behind bars for no other reason than his work as a journalist,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must immediately release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and stop prosecuting members of the press for their work.”

The investigation department of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Gershkovich, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, of acting on assignment for the CIA and collecting “secret information” on a Russian tank factory in the Sverdlovsk region, where he was arrested on espionage charges on March 29, 2023, according to a press release by the Sverdlovsk Regional Court, where Gershkovich’s trial will start behind closed doors on June 26.

It is not known how long Gershkovich’s trial will last, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Gershkovich, whose detention has been extended five times since his arrest, faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the Russian criminal code. He is the first American journalist to face such accusations by Russia since the end of the Cold War. Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have all denied the espionage allegations.

On June 13, the Russian prosecutor general’s office announced that Gershkovich’s indictment had been finalized and that the case against him was sent to court.

“Evan Gershkovich is facing a false and baseless charge. Russia’s latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous,” said Almar Latour, CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and Emma Tucker, editor in chief of the publication, in a statement on June 13.

On April 11, 2023, the U.S. State Department designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” which unlocked a broad government effort to free him.

Russia was the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 behind bars, including Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census on December 1, 2023.

CPJ emailed the Sverdlovsk Regional Court and the Russian prosecutor general’s office but did not immediately receive any response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Majuro Mayor Ladie Jack is raising the alarm about criminal behaviour involving Marshallese deported from the United States, saying the “impact of these deportees on our local community has been nothing short of devastating”.

Marshallese deported from the United States have been convicted over the past three years of a murder, a knife assault, and rape, while two additional assaults that occurred last month are under investigation.

In a letter to President Hilda Heine dated April 1 and obtained last Friday, the mayor is seeking significantly stepped-up action by the Marshall Islands national government on the issue of deportations.

• READ MORE: Other Marshall Islands reports

“I urge you to explore viable solutions that prioritise the protection of our community while also addressing the underlying issues that contribute to the cycle of criminal behavior,” Mayor Jack said in his letter.

He called on the national government to “take proactive steps to address this pressing issue promptly and decisively”.

Mayor Jack included with his letter a local government police report on four individuals that the mayor said were deported from the US, all of whom committed violent assaults — three of which were committed in the rural Laura village area on Majuro, including two last month.

In the police report, two men aged 28 and 40, both listed as “deportees” are alleged to have assaulted different people in the rural Laura village area of Majuro in mid-March.

Five years for rape
Another deportee is currently serving five years for a rape in the Laura area in 2021.

A fourth deportee was noted as having been found guilty of aggravated assault for a knife attack on another Marshallese deported from the US in the downtown area of Majuro.

Another deportee was convicted last year and sentenced to 14 years in jail for the shooting murder of another deportee.

The national government’s cabinet recently established a Task Force on Deportations that is chaired by MP Marie Davis Milne.

She told the weekly Marshall Islands Journal last week that she anticipates the first meeting of the new task force this week.

The Marshall Islands is seeing an average close to 30 deportations each year of Marshallese from the US.

Mayor Jack called the “influx of deportees” from the US an issue of “utmost concern.” The mayor said “a significant number of them [are] engaging in serious criminal activities.”

With the Marshall Islands border closed for two-and-a-half-years due to covid in the 2020-2022, no deportations were accomplished by US law enforcement.

‘Moral turpitude’
But once the border opened in August 2022, US Homeland Security went back to its system of deporting Marshallese who are convicted of so-called crimes of “moral turpitude,” which can run the gamut of missing a court hearing for a traffic ticket and being the subject of an arrest warrant to murder and rape.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that in fiscal year 2023 — October 2022 to September 2023 — 28 Marshallese were deported. This number mirrors the average 27 per year deported from the US in the seven years pre-covid, 2013-2019.

Including the post-covid deportations, from 2013 to 2023, 236 Marshallese were deported from the US to Majuro. That 11-year period includes the two no-deportation years during covid.

In 2016 and 2018, deportations hit a record of 35 per year. In contrast, neighboring Federated States of Micronesia, which also has a Compact of Free Association with the US allowing visa-free entry, has seen deportations over 90 per year both pre-covid, and in FY2023, when 91 Micronesian citizens were removed from the US.

The Marshall Islands has never had any system in place for receiving people deported from the US — for mental health counseling, job training and placement, and other types of services that are routinely available in developed nations.

Task force first step
The appointment of a task force on deportations is the first government initiative to formally consider the deportation situation, which in light of steady out-migration to America can only be expected to escalate as a greater percentage of the Marshallese population takes up residence in the US.

“The behavior exhibited by these deportees has resulted in a wave of havoc across our community leading to a palpable sense of fear and unease among our citizens,” Mayor Jack said.

“Incidents of violent crimes, sexual assault and other illicit activities have increased exponentially, creating a pressing need for immediate intervention to address this critical issue.”

He called on the national government for a “comprehensive review of policies and procedures governing the admission and monitoring of deportees.”

Without action, the safety of local residents is jeopardised and the social fabric of the community is undermined, he added.

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

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“CPJ strongly condemns the three-month extension of Evan Gershkovich’s detention, just days before the one-year anniversary of his arrest on fabricated charges. Today’s ruling is yet another cynical affront to press freedom by the Russian authorities,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must immediately release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and stop prosecuting reporters for their work.”

The Moscow court’s decision to approve the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) request marks the fifth extension of The Wall Street Journal reporter’s detention since his arrest on March 29, 2023, on espionage charges. Tuesday’s session was closed to the media.

Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the Russian criminal code, and is the first American journalist to face such accusations by Russia since the end of the Cold War. Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have all denied the espionage allegations.

“It’s a ruling that ensures Evan will sit in a Russian prison well past one year. It was also Evan’s 12th court appearance, baseless proceedings that falsely portray him as something other than what he is—a journalist who was doing his job,” The Wall Street Journal said in a statement.

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, called the ruling “particularly painful,” as Friday will mark the journalist’s one-year detention.

“As we cross the one-year mark, the Russian government has yet to present any evidence to substantiate its accusations, no justification for Evan’s continued detention, and no explanation as to why Evan doing his job as a journalist constituted a crime,” Tracy said.

On April 11, 2023, the U.S. State Department designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” which unlocked a broad government effort to free him. 

Russia was the world’s fourth worst jailer of journalists with at least 22, including Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist, behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census on December 1, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Steve O’Keefe, editor & publisher

Patrick Michael, staff

Rosemary Fury, staff

Bob Black

Karl Hess

Kerry Wendell Thornley

Gerry Reith

Terry Epton

Tom Croft

Judy Kroll

G. Michael O’Hara

Hakim Bey (Letter to the Editor)

I moved to Port Townsend, Washington, in early 1983, with no money and no place to live. Months earlier, when I was executive director of the Libertarian Party of Michigan, I had been offered a job by Bill Bradford, a precious metals dealer and the editor of Liberty magazine who had moved to Port Townsend from Lansing, Michigan. When I arrived, the job offer had vanished, but he let me stay at his mansion until I got my bearings.

I went to work as a typesetter for Loompanics Unlimited, publishers and sellers of controversial and unusual books. The owner, Mike Hoy, used to work for Bill Bradford at a coin shop in Lansing, Michigan, before he started Loompanics. I knew Mike from Libertarian events in Michigan. Bradford lured both of us to Port Townsend, and he was not wrong: The town was a paradise of drop outs and slackers and I loved living there!

I had spent the previous four years working for the Libertarian Party while putting myself through college at Michigan State University. In 1979, I helped the Libertarians win ballot access in several states. In 1980, I worked for the Ed Clark for President campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada. When Clark got a sickening 1% of the vote, I went back to Michigan and became executive director of the state party.

In school I was studying Karl Marx and Albert Camus and for work I was reading Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek and my brain just about exploded. I became very enamored of the early American anarchists: Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, and Emma Goldman. In the 1982 midterm elections, the Libertarian Party of Michigan fielded over 50 candidates and I was “campaign manager” for 49 of them.

When the Libertarians were crushed in the 1982 election, I had enough of conventional, electoral politics. I sold everything I owned, bought a backpack and a rain suit, and spent the next month in the Grand Canyon. I followed that with two weeks camping in Death Valley, then I hitchhiked up the coast from San Diego to Seattle and took a bus to Port Townsend.

A Journal of Contemporary Anarchist Thought

The Spark was my answer to the electoral disaster of the Libertarian Party. I felt that even if they were successful, they would become “Republicans Lite,” and that’s what has become of the Libertarian Party. I felt there were almost no voices representing the right wing of anarchism, the free-markets free-minds wing. I tried to steer The Spark into that space between Lysander Spooner anarchism and Kropotkin anarchism.

The first issue had a long revisionist piece on the Declaration of Independence. It was a shot across the bow to Libertarians that the “Founding Fathers” nonsense is pure bullshit. The white, male aristocrats in the colonies wanted freedom to govern America themselves. They never believed in freedom and equality for all, and their Constitution was never put to a public vote: it was imposed upon the people.

The second issue of The Spark was on anarchy and violence. The Vancouver 5 had been arrested in January for bombing a power substation on Vancouver Island, bombing a plant in Toronto that produced guidance systems for cruise missiles, and firebombing three Red Hot Video outlets in Vancouver, British Columbia. The issue had writers defending the 5, against the 5, against violence, and pro violence.

By issue three, on inequality, we had our first letters to the editor. The issue included writing from a free-market feminist, an African-American black supremacist, and a gay rights piece addressing AIDS hysteria. Issue number four saw the birth of Bob Black’s seminal piece, “Feminism as Facism,” which really got people unglued.

Things changed rapidly for me after that. I fell in love with a woman named Storme and we made plans to move to Seattle together. I put out one long, last issue of The Spark which I had been working on for months. Called, “Redefining Anarchy,” I secured pieces from the Village Voice writer, Karl Hess; Kerry Wendell Thornley, the father, with Robert Anton Wilson, of the Principia Discordia; and Gerry Reith, the phenomenal founder of Minitrue and the author of Neutron Gun.

When Thornley delivered his hand-written submission, I mailed back a typewriter. I paid some of the writers and sent books to others. Loompanics gave me multiple copies of several books as part of my compensation for editing. When I left Port Townsend for Seattle, I donated my massive library on anarchism – perhaps 50 titles– to Mike Hoy because he had an even bigger library. He ended up with hundreds of books on anarchism and I had rights to use his library.

Seattle wore me out and I returned to Port Townsend four years later to take the job of editorial director at Loompanics. We put out about 20 new titles a year with one editor, one typesetter, and one marketing person: me. Summing up the influence of The Spark, I believe it heralded a shift away from political anarchism and toward lifestyle anarchism: making yourself free rather than making society free.

I left Loompanics in 1994 to start Internet Publicity Services for book publishers and authors. I’ve written several books since then. My latest is Set the Page On Fire: Secrets of Successful Writers (New World Library, 2019) based on hundreds of interviews. I’m still a cranky anarchist writer.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by STEVE O’KEEFE.

“This umpteenth extension of Evan Gershkovich’s detention will bring to one year the time he will have spent behind bars simply for doing his job as a journalist,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must immediately release Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, another U.S. journalist the Kremlin has also held as a hostage of its repressive policies against critical voices, and stop prosecuting the press for their work.”

On Friday, January 26, a Moscow court held a closed-door hearing and granted the Russian Federal Security Service’s request to extend Gershkovich‘s detention until March 30, according to media reports. The ruling, which means that the journalist will spend at least a year behind bars, marks the fourth time that Russian authorities have extended Gershkovich’s pretrial detention since his arrest on March 29, 2023, those reports said.

Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow-based reporter, was arrested on espionage charges while on a reporting trip in the central city of Yekaterinburg. He faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the Russian criminal code, and is the first American journalist to face such accusations by Russia since the end of the Cold War.

The Wall Street Journal has strongly denied the espionage allegations.

“It is chilling and outrageous that Evan Gershkovich has now spent 10 months of his life in prison, simply for doing his job,” The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones, said in a Friday statement. “While these are clearly sham proceedings about patently false charges, we intend to appeal today’s ruling, as we have in the past. Journalism is not a crime, and we continue to demand Evan’s immediate release.”

Friday’s ruling was attended by officials from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, which called the grounds for Gershkovich’s detention “baseless.” On January 18, Gershkovich met with Lynne Tracy, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, in the seventh such visit since his detention.

On April 10, 2023, the U.S. government designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia, a status that unlocked a broad U.S. government effort to free him, and has called for his immediate release.

Gershkovich has now spent more than 300 days in detention, while another U.S. journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva, has been held for more than 100 days.

Russian authorities detained Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist with the Tatar-Bashkir service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), on October 18 on charges of failing to register herself as a foreign agent, which carries a prison sentence of up to five years. A new charge of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army was later brought against her, which could carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Russia held at least 22 journalists, including Gershkovich and Kurmasheva, in prison on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“While the latest extension of the detention of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich—who has been wrongly detained in Russia for the past eight months—was expected, it is no less outrageous,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must immediately release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and stop prosecuting the press for their work.”

On Tuesday, November 28, a Moscow court extended Gershkovich’s detention by two months, according to the joint press service of the Moscow courts. The court’s ruling, which was attended by officials from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, marks the third time that Russian authorities have extended Gershkovich’s pretrial detention since his arrest on March 29.

The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow-based reporter was arrested on espionage charges while on a reporting trip in the central city of Yekaterinburg. He faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the Russian criminal code, and is the first American journalist to face such accusations by Russia since the end of the Cold War.

The Wall Street Journal has strongly denied the allegations that Gershkovich is a spy for the U.S. government. “Evan has now been unjustly imprisoned for nearly 250 days, and every day is a day too long,” the Wall Street Journal said in a Tuesday statement.

On April 10, the U.S. government designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia, a status that unlocks a broad U.S. government effort to free him, and called for his immediate release.

On October 17, Gershkovich met with Lynne Tracy, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, in the fifth such visit since his detention. On November 15, chargé d’affaires from the U.S. Embassy in Russia, Stephanie Holmes, visited the journalist.

On October 18, Russian authorities detained Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist with the Tatar-Bashkir service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on charges of failing to register herself as a foreign agent, making her the second U.S. journalist to be held in Russian jails after Gershkovich. If found guilty, Kurmasheva faces up to five years in prison, according to Russia’s criminal code.

Russia held at least 19 journalists in prison on December 1, 2022, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

At around 2:30 p.m. on November 9, around 20 men, allegedly members of the ruling Awami League party’s student wing Chhatra League, beat Alim, a reporter for the online news portal Rajshahi Post, and Rony, a correspondent for the online newspaper Bangladesh Journal, on the Rajshahi College campus in western Bangladesh, according to privately owned news website New Age, the local press freedom group Bangladeshi Journalists in International Media, and Alim, who spoke with CPJ.

“Bangladeshi authorities and the Rajshahi College administration must immediately hold accountable those who attacked student journalists Abdul Alim and Abu Sayed Rony while reporting on the university campus,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, from Washington, D.C. “The government must take action against the deeply disturbing trend of the Chhatra League’s violence against student journalists on their campuses.”

The journalists were filming an argument between the university vice-principal along with professors and the men, who were led by undergraduate mathematics student Masud Rana, a Chhatra League member who was not permitted to take an examination after repeatedly missing class, according to those sources.

The men recognized Rony, an undergraduate mathematics student, as a journalist, but not Alim, an undergraduate history student, Alim told CPJ.

The men then beat and slapped the journalists, grabbed their collars, and repeatedly pushed them into a wall before they fell unconscious and woke up in the teachers’ lounge. The journalists were taken to the hospital, where Alim was treated for a blood clot in his back and significant bruising throughout his body, and Rony for a severe head inquiry, Alim said.

Following the attack, the journalists learned the perpetrators took their phones, which were returned to them broken, Alim said. Rony did not immediately respond to CPJ’s messages.

The Chhatra League leadership on campus subsequently suspended eight members for their alleged involvement in the attack. University officials have also appointed a committee to investigate the incident, Alim said.

Rony filed a complaint about the attack at the Boalia Police Station, but it was unclear whether a formal investigation had been opened, Alim said, adding that no suspects had been apprehended by the university or police as of November 13.

Rana and the officer-in-charge of the Boalia Police Station did not immediately respond to CPJ’s messages.

On September 24, around 15 to 20 alleged members of the Chhatra League beat student journalist Mosharrof Shah on the University of Chittagong campus.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Quill is the magazine of the oldest press organization in the United States, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), which describes itself as having “roughly 6,000 members” and being “the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization.” It features a five-page story  in its current issue (Summer/23) headlined “Refreshing the Pool: Right-Leaning Organizations Keep the Conservative Press Pipeline Flowing.”

Quill (7/11/23) presents at face value the rationalization offered by right-wing billionaire-funded projects as to why journalism needs to be pushed farther to the right.

The piece, touted on Quill‘s cover, is a largely uncritical and superficial look at efforts to push journalism further to the right.

It begins with Corey Walker, who “didn’t major in journalism” and only “took one journalism class” at the University of Michigan, but “got more journalism experience and training through Campus Reform and the College Fix, organizations that help students prepare for careers in conservative media.”

“Walker graduated in 2021 and is now a reporter at the Daily Caller, a conservative digital publication co-founded by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson,” the piece went on:

Although he considers himself a conservative, Walker says he has always kept his political leaning out of his stories, a practice he says was reinforced during all of his journalism training and at the Caller. Besides, he said, so many issues pushed by liberals are so wacky, they don’t need an editorial comment for news consumers to see how outlandish they are.

The piece says: “Campus Reform and the College Fix are among several organizations that help connect a pool of fresh, young journalists with right-leaning views—such as Walker—to jobs in conservative media.”

The story unquestioningly echoes the right-wing critique of corporate media:

Administrators at the organizations say the news ecosystem is too entrenched with liberal journalists working for news outlets that promote liberal ideology while underplaying, ignoring or misrepresenting conservative perspectives on stories those on the right care about.

There’s no skeptical perspective included to point out that corporate media routinely report major news topics like crime, the economy and military intervention through conservative frameworks.

Don’t follow the money

Inside Higher Ed (2/6/17) noted that College Fix touted Betsy DeVos’s nomination to be education secretary without noting that her son is on the board of the site’s parent organization.

There is also no following the money that finances Campus Reform and the College Fix, and the other organizations involved in right-wing media training.

For example, in 2017, Inside Higher Ed (2/6/17), a website that provides “news, analysis and solutions for the entire higher education community” and has “more than 2 million monthly readers,” investigated the involvement of the family of Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration education secretary, in College Fix. It reported:

Her son sits on the board of directors of the Student Free Press Association, a non-profit group that runs the [College Fix] site…. Federal tax forms for the Student Free Press Association list five directors for 2015…. One of them is Rick DeVos, one of Betsy DeVos’s sons…. Tax documents show the DeVos family has donated money to a conservative fund that in turn has donated large sums of money to the Student Free Press Association.

This is the Donors Capital Fund, which, Inside Higher Ed continued,

gave $265,600 to the student Free Press Association in 2014. That was more than half of the $482,729 in total revenue the group disclosed that year…. “Donors Capital Fund only supports a class of public charities firmly committed to liberty,” the fund says on its website. “These charities all help strengthen American civil society by promoting private initiatives rather than government programs as the solution to the most pressing issues of the day.”

Illuminating information could have been found if Quill had looked into sources of funding for right-wing media training. But the piece by Rod Hicks, director of ethics and diversity at SPJ, instead quotes those who are in it, often making dubious assertions:

The organizations want to make sure the next generation of right-leaning journalists is prepared to enter the job market ready to compete for positions at both conservative and mainstream outlets. The training they provide stresses the basic tenets of journalism, such as accuracy, fairness and balance. Some strongly discourage students from writing commentary, at least for now.

‘Mainstream media failures’

Emily Jashinsky (Quill, Summer/23): “The failure of the mainstream media is a failure of liberal ideology.” (CC photo: Gage Skidmore)

What about Fox News, a leader among conservative media in dispensing misinformation? “Critics have long complained that Fox News airs false and misleading content,” the article acknowledged:

Fox declined to comment to Quill on those characterizations, but Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath that some network hosts gave viewers false information alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

There is no elaboration on the multi-million dollar-lawsuit against Fox for serial lying.

Instead, there is a line: “It is not perplexing to Emily Jashinsky why conservatives trust Fox more than they do the mainstream press.” (Jashinsky is director of one of the conservative media training grounds, the National Journalism Center. There are internships four days a week, and “Friday is training day.”) She says:

What we study is mainstream media failures, and the bulk of those tend to be from the left, not from the right. We come from a belief that, fundamentally, the failure of the mainstream media is a failure of liberal ideology.

Quill has occasionally published critical pieces on right-wing media, such as one in 2018 headlined “Sinclair’s Mandates Threaten Independent, Local Journalism” (4/3/18) or an interview (9/15/20) with Brian Stelter on his 2020 book Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. But the current issue of Quill offers, at best, a softball from an organization, SPJ, which says: “We build public trust in the media and greater accountability in the profession…”

The post Projects to Shift Media Further Rightward Get Kid Glove Treatment From Centrist Press Journal appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Karl Grossman.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Around midday on Friday, June 16, ProPublica reporters Justin Elliott and Josh Kaplan sent an email to Patricia McCabe, the Supreme Court’s spokesperson, with questions for Justice Samuel Alito about a forthcoming story on his fishing trip to Alaska with a hedge fund billionaire.

We set a deadline of the following Tuesday at noon for a response.

Fifteen minutes later, McCabe called the reporters. It was an unusual moment in our dealings with the high court’s press office, the first time any of its public information officers had spoken directly with the ProPublica journalists in the many months we have spent looking into the justices’ ethics and conduct. When we sent detailed questions to the court for our stories on Justice Clarence Thomas, McCabe responded with an email that said they had been passed on to the justice. There was no further word from her before those stories appeared, not even a statement that Thomas would have no comment.

The conversation about Alito was brisk and professional. McCabe said she had noticed a formatting issue with an email, and the reporters agreed to resend the 18 questions in a Word document. Kaplan and Elliott told McCabe they understood that this was a busy time at the court and that they were willing to extend the deadline if Alito needed more time.

Monday was a federal holiday, Juneteenth. On Tuesday, McCabe called the reporters to tell them Alito would not respond to our requests for comment but said we should not write that he declined to comment. (In the story, we wrote that she told us he “would not be commenting.”)

She asked when the story was likely to be published. Certainly not today, the reporters replied. Perhaps as soon as Wednesday.

Six hours later, The Wall Street Journal editorial page posted an essay by Alito in which he used our questions to guess at the points in our unpublished story and rebut them in advance. His piece, headlined “Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica Misleads Readers,” was hard to follow for anyone outside ProPublica since it shot down allegations (notably the purported consumption of expensive wine) that had not yet been made.

In the hours after Alito’s response appeared, editors and reporters worked quickly to complete work on our investigative story. We did additional reporting to put Alito’s claims in context. The justice wrote in the Journal, “My recollection is that I have spoken to Mr. Singer on no more than a handful of occasions,” and that none of those conversations involved “any case or issue before the Court.” He said he did not know of Singer’s involvement in a case about a long-standing dispute involving Argentina because the fund that was a party to the suit was called NML Capital and the billionaire’s name did not appear in Supreme Court briefs.

Alex Mierjeski, another reporter on the team, quickly pulled together a long list of prominent stories from the Journal, The New York Times and The Financial Times that identified Singer as the head of the hedge fund seeking to earn handsome profits by suing Argentina in U.S. courts. (The Supreme Court, with Alito joining the 7-1 majority, backed Singer’s arguments on a key legal issue, and Argentina ultimately paid the hedge fund $2.4 billion to settle the dispute.)

It does not appear that the editors at the Journal made much of an effort to fact-check Alito’s assertions.

If Alito had sent his response to us, we’d have asked some more questions. For example, Alito wrote that Supreme Court justices “commonly interpreted” the requirement to disclose gifts as not applying to “accommodations and transportation for social events.” We would have asked whether he meant to say it was common practice for justices to accept free vacations and private jet flights without disclosing them.

We also would have asked Alito more about his interpretation of the Watergate-era disclosure law that requires justices and many other federal officials to publicly report most gifts. The statute has a narrow “personal hospitality” exemption that allows federal officials to avoid disclosing “food, lodging, or entertainment” provided by a host on his own property. Seven ethics law experts, including former government ethics lawyers from both Republican and Democratic administrations, have told ProPublica that the exemption does not apply to private jet flights — and never has. Such flights, they said, are clearly not forms of food, lodging or entertainment. We had already combed through judicial disclosures, so we knew that several federal judges have disclosed gifts of private jet flights.

We might also have sent Alito some of the contemporaneous stories about Singer’s dispute with Argentina that were readily available online. Given Alito’s previous ties to the Journal’s editorial page — he granted it an exclusive interview this year complaining about negative coverage of the court — it’s probable that the stories we sent him would have included the page’s 2013 piece titled “Deadbeats Down South” that approvingly noted that “a subsidiary of Paul Singer’s Elliott Management” was holding out for a better deal from Argentina. We would have asked how his office checks for conflicts and whether he is concerned it didn’t catch Singer’s widely publicized connection to the case.

The Journal’s editorial page is entirely separate from its newsroom. Journalists were nonetheless sharply critical of the decision to help the subject of another news organization’s investigation “pre-but” the findings.

“This is a terrible look for ⁦@WSJ,” tweeted John Carreyrou, a former investigative reporter at the Journal whose award-winning articles on Theranos lead to the indictment and criminal conviction of its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. “Let’s see how it feels when another news organization front runs a sensitive story it’s working on with a preemptive comment from the story subject.”

Bill Grueskin, a former senior editor at the Journal and a professor of journalism at Columbia, told the Times that “Justice Alito could have issued this as a statement on the SCOTUS website. But the fact that he chose The Journal — and that the editorial page was willing to serve as his loyal factotum — says a great deal about the relationship between the two parties.”

Even Fox News got in the game. “Alito must be congratulating himself on his preemptive strike, but given that the nonprofit news agency sent him questions last week, was that really fair? And should the Journal, which has criticized ProPublica as a left-wing outfit, have played along with this? The paper included an editor’s note that ProPublica had sent the justice the questions, but did not mention that its story had not yet run,” the cable news outfit’s media watcher Howard Kurtz wrote.

There are lessons for ProPublica in this experience. Our reporters are likely to be a bit more skeptical when a spokesperson asks about the timing of a story’s publication.

But one thing is not changing. Regardless of the consequences, we will continue to give everyone mentioned in our stories a chance to respond before publication to what we’re planning to say about them.

Our practice, known internally as “no surprises,” is a matter of both accuracy and fairness. As editors, we have seen numerous instances over the years in which responses to our detailed questions have changed stories. Some have been substantially rewritten and rethought in light of the new information provided by subjects of stories. On rare occasions, we’ve killed stories after learning new facts.

We leave it to the PR professionals to assess whether pre-buttals are an effective strategy. Alito’s assertion that the private flight to Alaska was of no value because the seat was empty anyway became the subject of considerable online amusement.

And the readership of our story has been robust: 2 million page views and counting. It’s possible that Alito has won the argument with the audience he cares the most about. But it seems equally plausible that he drew even more attention to the very story he was trying to knock down.

Alito’s behavior underscores that the “no surprises” approach involves taking a risk, allowing subjects to “spit in our soup,” as Paul Steiger, the former Journal editor who founded ProPublica, liked to say.

Nevertheless, following our practice, we asked the Journal editorial page, Alito and McCabe for comment before this column appeared. We did not immediately hear back from them.

Watch video of senior editor Jesse Eisinger and reporter Justin Elliott in conversation about the investigation.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Jesse Eisinger and Stephen Engelberg.

A new edition of the Okinawan Journal of Island Studies features social justice island activism, including a case study of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre, in what the editors say brings a sense of “urgency” in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scholarship.

In the editorial, the co-editors — Tiara R. Na’puti, Marina Karides, Ayano Ginoza, Evangelia Papoutsaki — describe this special issue of the journal as being guided by feminist methods of collaboration.

They say their call for research on social justice island activism has brought forth an issue that centres on the perspectives of Indigenous islanders and women.

• READ MORE: Other Okinawan Journal of Island Studies articles

“Our collection contains disciplinary and interdisciplinary research papers, a range of contributions in our forum section (essays, curated conversations, reflection pieces, and photo essays), and book reviews centred on island activist events and activities organised locally, nationally, or globally,” the editorial says.

“We are particularly pleased with our forum section; its development offers alternative forms of scholarship that combine elements of research, activism, and reflection.

“Our editorial objective has been to make visible diverse approaches for conceptualising island activisms as a category of analysis.

‘Complexity and nuance’
“The selections of writing here offer complexity and nuance as to how activism shapes and is shaped by island eco-cultures and islanders’ lives.”

The co-editors argue that “activisms encompass multiple ways that people engage in social change, including art, poetry, photographs, spoken word, language revitalisation, education, farming, building, cultural events, protests, and other activities locally and through larger networks or movements”.

Thus this edition of OJIS brings together island activisms that “inform, negotiate, and resist geopolitical designations” often applied to them.

Geographically, the islands featured in papers include Papua New Guinea, Prince Edward Island, and the island groups of Kanaky, Okinawa, and Fiji.

Among the articles, Meghan Forsyth’s ‘La langue vient de la musique’: Acadian song, language transmission, and cultural sustainability on Prince Edward Island engagingly examines the “sonic activism” of the Francophone community in Canada’s Prince Edward Island.

“Also focused on visibility and access, David Robie’s article ‘Voice of the Voiceless’: The Pacific Media Centre as a case study of academic and research advocacy and activism substantiates the need for bringing forward journalistic attention to the Pacific,” says the editorial.

Dr Robie emphasises the need for critical and social justice perspectives in addressing the socio-political struggles in Fiji and environmental justice in the Pacific broadly, say the co-editors.

In the article My words have power: The role of Yuri women in addressing sorcery violence in Simbu province of Papua New Guinea, Dick Witne Bomai shares the progress of the Yuri Alaiku Kuikane Association (YAKA) in advocacy and peacebuilding.

In ‘La Pause Décoloniale’: Women decolonising Kanaky one episode at a time, Anaïs Duong-Pedica, “provides a discussion of French settler colonialism and the challenges around formal decolonisation processes in Kanaky”.

Inclusive feminist thinking
The article engages with “women’s political activism and collaborative practice” of the podcast and radio show La Pause Décoloniale.

The co-editors say the edition’s forum section is a result of “inclusive feminist thinking to make space for a range of approaches combining scholarship and activism”.

They comment that the “abundance of submissions to this section demonstrates the desire for academic outlets that stray from traditional models of scholarship”.

“Feminist and Indigenous scholar-activists seem especially inclined towards alternative avenues for expressing and sharing their research,” the coeditors add.

Eight books are reviewed, including New Zealand’s Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse.

• The full OJIS edition

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“CPJ strongly condemns the extension of the detention of Evan Gershkovich, who has already been held in a Russian prison for nearly two months for simply doing his job as a journalist,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Russian authorities should immediately release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and stop prosecuting members of the press for their work.”

On Tuesday, May 23, a Moscow court held a closed-door hearing and granted the Russian Federal Security Service’s request to extend Gershkovich’s detention until August 30. The hearing was not announced in advance and lasted less than an hour. 

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow tweeted that it was “deeply concerned” by the decision, adding that the Russian Foreign Ministry had recently rejected two requests for consular visits to the journalist. 

Gershkovich, a Moscow-based reporter with The Wall Street Journal, was detained on March 29 while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg. On March 30, a Moscow court ordered him to be held in pretrial detention until May 29 on charges of spying for the U.S. government. If convicted, Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison.

The Wall Street Journal has strongly denied the espionage allegations. On April 10, the U.S. government designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia.

At least 19 journalists were behind bars in Russia on December 1, 2022, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Thursday, March 30, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) stated that it had detained Gershkovich, a Moscow-based reporter with The Wall Street Journal, in the city of Yekaterinburg, according to multiple news reports. Later that day, a Moscow court ordered Gershkovich to be placed under arrest until May 29 on charges of spying for the U.S. government, according to a statement by the joint press service of the Moscow courts.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the authorities have imposed harsh restrictions on the independent press.

The Wall Street Journal said that Gershkovich was detained on Wednesday on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg. The Journal said it “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter.” The Journal did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

“By detaining the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, Russia has crossed the Rubicon and sent a clear message to foreign correspondents that they will not be spared from the ongoing purge of the independent media in the country,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and let the media work freely and without fear of reprisal.”

CPJ emailed the FSB, the Russian Foreign Ministry, and the press office of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for comment, but did not immediately receive any reply.

The FSB said it “intercepted the illegal activities” of Gershkovich, accused the journalist of collecting information “constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex,” and stated he was detained “while attempting to obtain classified information.” If convicted, Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in jail, according to Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code.

Gershkovich has lived in Moscow for six years, was accredited with the Russian Foreign Ministry, and was covering Russia as part of The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged that Gershkovich’s actions in Yekaterinburg had “nothing to do with journalism,” adding that it was “not the first time that a well-known Westerner has been ‘grabbed by the hand.’” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that Gershkovich was “caught red-handed.”

“Evan is a thoroughly professional journalist who has been arrested by the FSB on obviously bogus espionage charges. Journalism is not a crime. Evan should be released immediately,” Pjotr Sauer, a reporter for The Guardian newspaper, and a friend and former colleague of Gershkovich, told CPJ via messaging app.

At least 19 journalists, were behind bars in Russia on December 1, 2022, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jennifer Dunham.

Chen Zhiming, a former editor at the People's Daily Press who moved to Hong Kong to set up the Exclusive Characters political magazine specializing in in-depth interviews with influential people, stopped updating his social media accounts from around Sept. 21, 2022, Germany-based poet Yang Lian said.

“Shocked to learn that Chen Zhiming, editor-in-chief of Hong Kong's [Exclusive Characters] magazine has been arrested after he went incommunicado in mainland China," Yang said via his Twitter account on Jan. 21.

The news of the charges against Chen comes amid an ongoing crackdown on "hostile foreign forces," which China has blamed for the wave of anti-lockdown, anti-government "white paper" protests that swept the country in late November, as well as an ongoing crackdown on public dissent under a national security law imposed on Hong Kong from July 2020.

Tackling controversy

Yang said in a later interview with Radio Free Asia that Chen's arrest was likely linked to his magazine's recent focus on the woman found chained in an outhouse in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, which sparked a public outcry.

"Given the current [political] climate in mainland China, where people seen as representing the white paper movement have been detained by police, Exclusive Characters was the only magazine still able to send out any kind of ideological signal," Yang said.

"[Dissidents like Chen] are also connected with opposition to Hong Kong's national security law, which made the magazine stand out," he said. "The magazine is the main reason they are pinning a crime on Chen."

Yang said Chen's magazine had also been critical of China's handling of the pandemic, and had interviewed a number of overseas dissidents.

“It’s all pro-China and red media now”

Taiwan-based bookstore owner Lee Wing Kei, who was himself detained in China for publishing "banned" political books in Hong Kong, said the charge of "running an illegal business" was entirely trumped-up.

"They've just pinned this charge of illegal business on him," Lee said. "If you look at what has happened in the past, you will see that there has been no freedom of the press [in Hong Kong] since Xi Jinping came to power."

"The Apple Daily, Stand and Citizen News are all gone," he said, in a reference to pro-democracy media organizations that have folded amid national security investigations in recent years. "It's all pro-China and red media now, and Hong Kong will be no different from the mainland in future."

"I used to mail out so-called banned books from Hong Kong to mainland China, but now I'll be mailing out banned books from Taiwan to Hong Kong," Lee said.

On Jan. 12, authorities in Hong Kong delisted jailed pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai's Next Digital from the local stock exchange in a move analysts said was linked to political developments in Hong Kong, where the ruling Chinese Communist Party has taken direct control of the city's daily life, citing the "chaos" of the 2019 protest movement that called for fully democratic elections.

The ruling Communist Party last week appointed hardline Hong Kong national security chief Zheng Yanxiong, who presided over the crackdown on dissent, to head its Central Liaison Office in the city.

Lam was among five booksellers from the now-shuttered Causeway Bay Books store detained by Chinese police, some while they were outside of mainland China's borders, in 2015 on charges of "running an illegal business."

In 2014, a court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen handed a 10-year jail term to Hong Kong publisher Yiu Man-tin, who was 79 at the time, after edited a book highly critical of Xi Jinping. The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court found Yiu guilty of "smuggling."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Xiaoshan Huang and Chingman for RFA Cantonese.

On November 23, a police officer detained and handcuffed Rabouin while he was interviewing people on a sidewalk near a bank, according to a January 5 report by the local broadcaster ABC15.

Rabouin told the outlet that he identified himself as a member of the press when the officer approached. The officer threatened to arrest Rabouin for trespassing, blocked him from leaving the scene, and then handcuffed him and placed him in a police vehicle, according to that ABC15 report, quoting Rabouin and a letter by Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray.

The officer held Rabouin for about eight minutes before other officers arrived; about two minutes after reinforcements came to the scene, he was released without charge, that report said.

“We are deeply concerned by the Phoenix Police Department’s treatment of Wall Street Journal reporter Dion Rabouin. Detaining and handcuffing a journalist—who was gathering news in a public place—is a flagrant violation of his First Amendment rights,” said CPJ U.S. and Canada Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “The police department should conduct a thorough investigation into Rabouin’s treatment, and undertake reforms to make sure this kind of incident is not repeated.”

The Phoenix Police Department is under federal investigation to evaluate its practices, including whether it engages in discriminatory policing.

The officer wrote in a police report that he believed he had probable cause that Rabouin was trespassing. The ABC15 report states that a Phoenix official reviewed the incident report and found nothing wrong with the officer’s treatment of Rabouin, who is Black.

Rabouin recounted to ABC15 that the police officer told him, “This could get bad for you if you don’t comply and don’t do what I say,” before he grabbed Rabouin’s arms and handcuffed him.

Murray filed a letter to the police in response to the incident, and Rabouin filed a complaint, ABC15 reported.

The Phoenix Police Department did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment submitted through their online contact portal. CPJ also emailed the U.S. Department of Justice group that is investigating the police department, but did not receive any immediate response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Three months after their extradition from Thailand to face bribery and money laundering charges in the United States, two naturalised Marshallese citizens pleaded guilty on Friday in a New York court to conspiring to violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with a multi-year scheme to bribe government officials in the Marshall Islands to pass legislation to establish a special investment zone in this western Pacific nation.

Cary Yan and Gina Zhou had been charged with three counts each of violating the FCPA and two counts of money laundering.

They pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the FCPA and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York dismissed the other four charges. They are naturalised Marshall Islands citizens originally from the People’s Republic of China.

• READ MORE: Two defendants plead guilty to conspiring to bribe high-level officials of the Republic of the Marshall Islands

“As they have now admitted, the defendants sought to undermine the democratic processes of the Republic of the Marshall Islands through bribery in order to advance their own financial interests,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

“I commend the career prosecutors of this Office and our law enforcement partners for bringing this corruption to light and ensuring that justice is done.”

Yan, 51, and Zhou, 35, are awaiting sentencing. They have been held without bail pending final disposition of the case.

Yan faces a maximum five-year term in prison and a fine of up to US$200,000, while Zhou faces a maximum prison term of three years and 10 months and a fine of up to US$150,000, according to the plea agreement between their defence attorneys and the SDNY prosecutors.

“Beginning at least in 2016, Yan and Zhou began communicating and meeting with Marshall Islands officials in both New York City and the Marshall Islands concerning the development of a semi-autonomous region within a part of the Marshall Islands known as the Rongelap Atoll,” said the US indictment that was unsealed on September 2 on Yan and Zhou’s arrival in New York following extradition from Thailand.

‘Attracting investors’
“The creation of the proposed semi-autonomous region was intended by Yan, Zhou, and those associated with them to obtain business by, among other things, allowing Yan and Zhou to attract investors to participate in economic and social development projects that Yan, Zhou, and others promised would occur in the semi-autonomous region.”

Their aim was to establish the Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR). But because it ran afoul of the Marshall Islands constitution and required exemption from multiple Marshall Islands legal oversight and enforcement provisions, President Hilda Heine’s administration refused to introduce the proposed RASAR legislation to Nitijela (parliament) for consideration in 2018.

Yan and leading Marshall Islands officials had officially launched the RASAR plan in Hong Kong in April 2018, but never met legal requirements to move the plan forward in the Marshall Islands.

Starting in early 2018 and “continuing until at least on or about November 1, 2018, Yan and Zhou offered and provided a series of cash bribes and other incentives to obtain the support of Marshall Islands legislators for the RASAR bill,” said the US indictment.

Heine’s administration held off the attempt to push RASAR legislation into parliament in late 2018 and survived an attempt to unseat Heine through a vote of no confidence in November.

After the national election a year later, when Nitijela reconvened in January 2020, Heine lost the presidency to David Kabua.

Shortly after the new government took office in 2020, “Yan and Zhou began emailing and meeting with certain Marshall Islands officials to continue their plan to create the RASAR,” said US prosecutors.

Law consideration
“In or about late February 2020, the Marshall Islands legislature began considering a resolution that would endorse the concept of the RASAR, a preliminary step that would allow the legislature to enact the more detailed RASAR Bill at a later date.”

US prosecutors said that in early March, “Yan and Zhou met with a close relative of a member of the Marshall Islands legislature in the Marshall Islands.

During the meeting, Yan and Zhou gave the relative $7000 in cash to pass on to the official, specifying that this money would be used to induce and influence other Marshall Islands legislators to support the RASAR Resolution.

“Yan and Zhou further stated, in sum, that they knew that the official needed more than $7000 for this purpose and that (they) would soon obtain additional cash for the official.”

US prosecutors said that at this meeting in early March 2020, Yan and Zhou “also discussed having previously brought larger sums of cash into the Marshall Islands through the United States and that they planned to do so again in the future”.

By the third week of March 2020, the Nitijela passed the RASAR Resolution “with the support of legislators to whom Zhou and Yan had provided bribes and other incentives,” said the prosecutors.

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

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania seeking to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner released a new report Monday whose findings rely partially on a widely criticized study written by a former Republican district attorney. The interim report, which reads as a bill of particulars against Krasner, was handed down without a widely expected official recommendation to impeach the progressive district attorney.

The study in question, which was peer-reviewed and published in August by the journal Criminology & Public Policy, claimed that Krasner’s policy of “de-prosecution” was associated with a statistically significant increase in murders in Philadelphia, compared to the rates recorded under his predecessors. The study, by Thomas Hogan, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute who served two terms as a tough-on-crime prosecutor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, engendered harsh criticisms among social scientists who said the quantitative methodology of the study was undermined by its flaws.

“People who are serious about solving and preventing crime should look at serious and accurate research.”

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

On Monday, August 29, DRC national police officers arrested Jibikilayi, a reporter with the privately owned Journal de la Ville news agency, while he covered a protest in Kinshasa, the capital, the journalist told CPJ by phone and messaging app. Jibikilayi was released unconditionally later that day after his lawyer intervened.

Separately, national officers arrested reporter Tujibikila and camera operator Milantesa, both with the privately owned Pas de Complexe news agency, as they covered the same protest, the journalists told CPJ by phone and messaging app. Tujibikila and Milantesa said they spent a night in detention but were released unconditionally on August 30, after Kinshasa provincial police commissioner General Sylvano Kasongo ordered their release.

All three journalists told CPJ that they were physically abused while in police custody.

CPJ’s calls to Kasongo rang unanswered.

“DRC authorities should investigate the arrest and abuse of journalists Jojo Jibikilayi, Emmanuel Tujibikila, and Achède Milantesa, and ensure those responsible are held accountable,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, from Nairobi. “DRC media should be permitted to cover matters of public interest, like demonstrations and protests, freely and without fear of violence or intimidation.”

The protests were led by supporters of the Alliance for Change (A-Ch) opposition political party, according to the journalists, who added that demonstrators demanded the release of their leader, Jean-Marc Kabund, who was arrested on August 9 and remained in detention in Kinshasa’s central prison, according to news reports.

Officers arrested Jibikilayi on the orders of a police colonel at the protest and took him to the police station in the commune of Matete in a taxi paid for by the police, the journalist told CPJ.

Jibikilayi said that police accused him of covering an opposition demonstration that was not authorized by Kinshasa Governor Gentiny Ngobila Mbaka and of being an activist member of the A-Ch opposition party, adding that he denied the allegations and showed his press card to the police.

At the station, Jibikilayi said police confiscated his camera and punched him before he gave a statement. The journalist said the beating left him with a swollen right eye, for which he went to a nearby hospital for medical attention, and his camera was returned to him upon his release.  

Separately, Tujibikila and Milantesa told CPJ that police arrested them, forced them into a taxi bus hired by the officers, and punched them on their way to the Matete police station. The journalists told CPJ that they did not sustain any serious injuries.

At the station, police questioned the journalists and locked them in a cell, the journalists said. The police also accused them of being A-Ch opposition party members, the journalists told CPJ, adding that they showed officers their press cards and were wearing t-shirts with the names of their media outlet.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

A new Science editorial calls on scientists to get up from "the sidelines" of the national gun control debate and debunks arguments frequently used by right-wing politicians and media personalities to reject tightening limits on firearm access.

"A nation of children threatened by gun violence does not have a future," it states.

Authored by Science editor-in-chief Holden Thorp, the editorial was published online Thursday in the wake of a string of mass shootings—on May 14 at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on May 15 at a church in Laguna Woods, California, and May 24 in Uvalde, Texas—and as the NRA is set to begin its annual meeting in Houston.

"The common thread in all of the country's revolting mass shootings is the absurdly easy access to guns," Thorp wrote. "The science is clear: Restrictions work, and it's likely that even more limitations would save thousands of lives."

Failure to impose tightened restrictions on that access, he wrote, ensures "living with more and more senseless carnage, courtesy of the National Rifle Association and their well-funded political lackeys."

Thorp refuted the suggestion that mass shootings in the U.S. can be blamed upon national rates of mental illness, noting that the levels "are similar to those in other countries where mass shootings rarely occur" and that previous research found that "less than a third of the people who commit mass shootings have a diagnosable mental disorder."

Assertions that gun restrictions are useless because a potential assailant could simply work around them also don't hold water, he wrote. Citing 2017 research, Thorp noted that "extending criminal sentences for gun use in violent crime, prohibiting gun ownership by individuals convicted of domestic violence, and restricting the concealed carry of firearms lead to demonstrable reductions in gun violence."

The Second Amendment, Thorp continued, is also a flawed justification for not imposing stricter gun control laws. He pointed to "many times when the American people have concluded that rights granted at the nation's founding could not be reconciled with modern conditions and knowledge," citing slavery and women's suffrage.

As happened with those issues, he wrote that it must now "be decided that unfettered gun ownership by American citizens is not consistent with a flourishing country where people can worship, shop, and be educated without fear."

Thorp concluded with a direct appeal to fellow scientists, who can show "that gun restrictions make societies safer" and "that racism is measurable and leads to violence."

"Make protest signs. Start marching. Push lawmakers to finally break the partisan gridlock that has made moments of silence a regular observance," he wrote.

The NRA "and its minions," he added, "must be defeated."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Andrea Germanos.

A new Science editorial calls on scientists to get up from "the sidelines" of the national gun control debate and debunks arguments frequently used by right-wing politicians and media personalities to reject tightening limits on firearm access.

"A nation of children threatened by gun violence does not have a future," it states.

Authored by Science editor-in-chief Holden Thorp, the editorial was published online Thursday in the wake of a string of mass shootings—on May 14 at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on May 15 at a church in Laguna Woods, California, and May 24 in Uvalde, Texas—and as the NRA is set to begin its annual meeting in Houston.

"The common thread in all of the country's revolting mass shootings is the absurdly easy access to guns," Thorp wrote. "The science is clear: Restrictions work, and it's likely that even more limitations would save thousands of lives."

Failure to impose tightened restrictions on that access, he wrote, ensures "living with more and more senseless carnage, courtesy of the National Rifle Association and their well-funded political lackeys."

Thorp refuted the suggestion that mass shootings in the U.S. can be blamed upon national rates of mental illness, noting that the levels "are similar to those in other countries where mass shootings rarely occur" and that previous research found that "less than a third of the people who commit mass shootings have a diagnosable mental disorder."

Assertions that gun restrictions are useless because a potential assailant could simply work around them also don't hold water, he wrote. Citing 2017 research, Thorp noted that "extending criminal sentences for gun use in violent crime, prohibiting gun ownership by individuals convicted of domestic violence, and restricting the concealed carry of firearms lead to demonstrable reductions in gun violence."

The Second Amendment, Thorp continued, is also a flawed justification for not imposing stricter gun control laws. He pointed to "many times when the American people have concluded that rights granted at the nation's founding could not be reconciled with modern conditions and knowledge," citing slavery and women's suffrage.

As happened with those issues, he wrote that it must now "be decided that unfettered gun ownership by American citizens is not consistent with a flourishing country where people can worship, shop, and be educated without fear."

Thorp concluded with a direct appeal to fellow scientists, who can show "that gun restrictions make societies safer" and "that racism is measurable and leads to violence."

"Make protest signs. Start marching. Push lawmakers to finally break the partisan gridlock that has made moments of silence a regular observance," he wrote.

The NRA "and its minions," he added, "must be defeated."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Andrea Germanos.

Covid-19 testing of Marshall Islanders in managed quarantine has seen the largest number test positive for covid-19 since managed repatriation started nearly two years ago.

Seven out of a repatriation group of 72 people tested positive for the coronavirus last Friday, according to a government announcement issued late Friday night.

All are in quarantine at the US Army base at Kwajalein Atoll. This repatriation group is the first to spend only three days in quarantine in Honolulu prior to departure to the Marshall Islands on Tuesday this week.

• READ MORE: Other Marshall Islands public health reports

When the Marshall Islands first began allowing controlled entry to the country in June 2020, the government required two weeks quarantine in Honolulu followed by two weeks quarantine in the Marshall Islands — one of the strictest covid-19 prevention entry protocols in the world.

These strict quarantine requirements have kept the Marshall Islands covid-19 free.

“The seven positive tests represent new infections and these individuals do not pose an infectious threat to the community as they remain in secure and monitored quarantine on Kwajalein,” said Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal in statement released Friday night.

“All individuals remain asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and in addition to the protection provided by being vaccinated will also receive oral antiviral medication to prevent progression to severe forms of covid-19.”

Covid-19 prevention protocols
Marshall Islands covid-19 prevention protocols require that all people entering the country through its monthly controlled quarantine programme must be fully vaccinated and boosted. A 14-day quarantine is required.

However, due to the positive cases identified Friday, the 14-day period has been extended from Friday instead of from the group’s arrive on April 12.

“We’ve decided that every time someone tests positive in this group, the clock starts over at 14 days — so 14 days from now,” said Health Secretary Niedenthal.

“They get another test on day seven. If someone tests positive on day seven the clock starts again for 14 days.”

The seven positive cases identified Friday at Kwajalein brings to 14 the number of covid-19 positive cases in managed quarantine since mid-2020.

There has been no community transmission yet in the Marshall Islands, making it one of only a handful of countries globally to remain covid-19 free throughout the pandemic.

After more than a year of requiring two weeks of quarantine in Hawaii, with multiple covid-19 tests prior to departing to the Marshall Islands, government authorities reduced the Hawaii quarantine late last year to one week.

Hawai’i quarantine time reduced
With this group that went into quarantine last Friday in Honolulu, the Marshall Islands reduced its Hawai’i quarantine time to three days.

Two of the 74 people in quarantine in Hawai’i tested positive on their day-three tests and were not allowed to travel to the Marshall Islands.

These are the first border cases involving Marshall Islanders since November 2020. Three Americans in a separately managed Army repatriation group in January also tested positive for covid-19 in quarantine.

In January, as infections around the Pacific escalated due to spread of the omicron variant, Niedenthal warned that if the Marshall Islands got cases in quarantine, “we can’t afford any mistake. If people test positive in quarantine here, we have to be perfect (to prevent the spread)”.

Niedenthal noted that lapses in protocols governing quarantine operations in other Pacific islands led to border cases triggering community transmission.

Since it started managed quarantine operations in October 2020, the Ministry of Health and Human Services has required that all of the doctors, nurses and security personnel involved in the quarantine process live in the quarantine facility with each repatriation group as a way to prevent possible community spread in case a person tests positive during the quarantine.

That policy remains in effect with the current group in quarantine at Kwajalein.

No travel restrictions
“As these are border quarantine cases of covid-19, there are no restrictions of travel between Majuro and Kwajalein, and there are no travel restrictions between Kwajalein and neighbouring islands and between Ebeye and Kwajalein,” said the Health Secretary’s statement.

He also urged “all individuals aged five years and above (to get) fully vaccinated, which includes being boosted if eligible”.

The Ministry of Health and Human Services has provided booster shots as well as vaccinating people in the five to 11 age group since late last year.

Public health teams have been flying to remote outer islands to continue covid-19 vaccination services initially begun mid-last year to provide booster shots to adults, as well as vaccinate children.

Giff Johnson is editor of the Marshall Islands Journal. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Micronitor News and Printing Company founder Joe Murphy moved the goal posts of freedom of press and freedom of expression in the Marshall Islands, a country that had virtually no tradition of either, by establishing an independent newspaper that today is the longest running weekly in the Micronesia region.

Murphy’s sharp intellect, fierce independence, vision for creating a community newspaper, bilingual language ability, and resilience in the face of adversity saw him navigate hurdles — including high tide waves that in 1979 washed printing presses out of the Micronitor building and into the street — to successfully establish a printing company and newspaper in the challenging business environment of 1970s Majuro.

Murphy, who died at age 79 in the United States last week, was the original sceptic, who revelled in the politically incorrect.

• READ MORE: The Marshall Islands Journal

At 25, he arrived in the Marshall Islands capital Majuro in the mid-1960s and was dispatched by the Peace Corps to Ujelang, the atoll of the nuclear exiles from Enewetak bomb tests that was a textbook definition of the term “in the back of beyond.” A ship once a year, and no radio, TV, telephones or mail.

Still, Joe thrived as an elementary teacher, survived food shortages and hordes of rats, endearing him to a generation of Ujelang people as an honorary member of the exiled community.

After Ujelang, he wrapped up his two-year Peace Corps stint by taking over teaching an unruly urban centre public school class after the previous teacher walked out. He rewrote what he deemed boring curriculum and taught in military style, replete with chants in English.

These experiences in pre-1970s Marshall Islands fuelled his desire to return. After his Peace Corps tour, some time to travel the world, and a brief return to the US, Murphy headed back to Majuro.

No money, but a vision
He had no money to speak of, but he had a vision and he set out to make it happen.

“He was determined to start a newspaper written in both the English and Marshallese languages,” recalls fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Mike Malone, the co-founder with Murphy of what was initially known as Micronitor.

In late 1969, they began constructing a small newspaper building, mixing concrete and laying the foundation block-by-block with the help of a few friends.

Before the building was completed, however, they launched the Micronitor in 1970, printing from Malone’s house.

The Micronitor would be renamed later to the Micronesian Independent for a bit before finding its identity as the Marshall Islands Journal.

Writing in the Journal in 1999, Murphy commented: “The 30th anniversary of this publication is an event most of us who remember the humble beginnings of the Journal are surprised to see.

“February 13, 1970 was a Friday, an unlucky day to begin an enterprise by most reckonings, and the two guys who were spearheading the operation were Irish-extract alcohol aficionados with very little or no newspaper experience.

A worthy undertaking
“They also, between the two of them, had practically no money, and of course should never, had they any commonsense, even attempted such a worthy undertaking.

“But circumstances and time were on their side, and with all potential serious investors steering clear of such a dubious exercise they had the opportunity to make a great number of mistakes without an eager competitor ready and willing to capitalise on them.”

With Murphy at the helm, it wasn’t long before the Journal earned a reputation far beyond the shores of the tiny Pacific outpost of Majuro. Murphy encouraged local writers, and spiced the newspaper with pithy comment and attacks on US Trust Territory authorities and the Congress of Micronesia.

In the late 1980s and 1990s Murphy built two bars and restaurants, local-style places that appealed to Majuro residents as well as visitors. He also built the Backpacker Hotel, a modest cost accommodation that turned into a popular outpost for fisheries observers awaiting their next assignment at sea, low-budget journalists, environmentalists and assorted consultants.

“The first thing that people think about when it comes to my father is that he is a very successful businessman here in the Marshall Islands,” said his eldest daughter Rose Murphy, who manages the company today.

“But we need to remember him as someone who wanted to give the Republic of the Marshall Islands a voice.”

“To say Joe was a unique person is a large understatement,” said Health Secretary and former Peace Corps Volunteer Jack Niedenthal.

An icon with impact
“He was an icon and had a profound impact on our country because he fostered free speech and demanded that those in our government always be held publicly accountable for their actions.”

A plaque in his office defined his independent personality and his appreciation of the power of the press. It quoted the famous American journalist AJ Liebling: “Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.” This was followed by a three-word comment: “I own one.” – Joe Murphy.

“He fought for freedom of speech and fought against discrimination,” said Rose Murphy. “Regardless of race, religion, and even status, he befriended people from all parts of the world and from all walks of life.”

In the mid-1990s, Joe Murphy created what became the justly famous motto of the Journal, the “world’s worst newspaper.” It was a reaction to the more politically correct mottos of other newspapers.

Those three words led to wide international media exposure. In 1994, the Boston Globe conducted a survey of the world’s worst newspapers, reviewing a batch of Journals Murphy mailed.

When the Globe reporter concluded that despite its claim, the Journal not only didn’t rank as the world’s worst newspaper it was “a first-class newspaper,” Murphy’s reaction was to say, “We must have sent you the wrong issues.”

Murphy knew the key to successful newspaper publishing was not how nicely or otherwise the newspaper was packaged, or if a photograph was in colour. The most important ingredient in any successful local newspaper is original content, intelligently and interestingly written.

‘Livened up’ the Journal
He did more than his fair share to liven up the Journal, from the time of its launch until poor health after 2019 prevented his engagement in the newspaper.

“My father experienced extreme hardships on Ujelang along with his adopted Marshallese family, the exiled people of Enewetak Atoll, who were moved to Ujelang to make way for US nuclear tests in the late 1940s,” said daughter Rose.

“He shared these hardships with his children to give them the perspective of being grateful for any little thing we had. If we had a broken shoe or little food, he shared with us this story.

“Our father, to us, is a symbol of resilience and gratitude. Be resilient in tough situations.”

From growing up among eight children of Irish immigrant parents in the United States to the austerity of Ujelang Atoll to the early days of establishing what would become the longest publishing weekly newspaper in the Micronesia region, Murphy was indeed a symbol of resilience and independence, able to navigate tough situations with alacrity.

“Democracy was able to establish a toehold, and then a firm grip, in the Western Pacific in part because of a handful of journalism pioneers who believed in the power of truth, particularly Joe Murphy on Majuro,” said veteran Pacific island journalist Floyd K Takeuchi.

“He had the courage to challenge the powers that be, including those of the chiefly kind, to be better, and to do better.

“People forget that for many years, the long-term future of the Marshall Islands Journal wasn’t a sure thing. With every issue of the weekly newspaper, Joe’s legacy is made firmer in the islands he so loved.”

Murphy is survived by his wife Thelma, by children Rose, Catherine “Katty,” John, Suzanne, Margaret “Peggy,” Molly, Fintan, Sam, Charles “Kainoa,” Colleen “Naki,” Patrick “Jojo”, Sean, Sylvia Zedkaia and Deardre Korean, and by 32 grandchildren.

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

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.